Fish N Chips

talking showdowns

It's been a little while since last time. This will be a short post on a subject that might seem trivial, but is easy to ignore. The question is "how does showdowns influence the evaluation of your play?". This is easier explained by an example than by abstract questions, so here we go:

$2/$4 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players

Hero (BB): $400
UTG: $400
MP: $208
CO: $1076
BTN: $475.75
SB: $400.00

Your read before this hand is that villain is an aggressive reg who is capable of firing multiple barrels. He also has a tendency to get too tricky with his stronger hands.

Pre Flop: ($6.00) Hero is BB with 9 8
4 folds, SB raises to $16, Hero calls $12

Flop: ($32) 8 6 3 (3 players)
SB bets $22, Hero calls $22

Turn: ($76) J (2 players)
SB bets $58, Hero calls $58

River: ($192) K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

When the river hits you decide you will call a last barrel too, as you think your opponents range constitutes of more than enough bluffs. K is seemingly also a good card to bluff. To your surprise he checks. You check back and take down the pot with your pair of eights.

Final Pot: $192.00
BB shows Q T
Hero shows 9 8

Hero wins $192.00

This hand might seem trivial, but my question is: Do you pat yourself on the back because your "read" was correct (he didn't have anything...), or give yourself a smack because your opponent didn't act in the way you expected? The fact that he gave up with nothing probably means that his betting-range on the river must be more heavily weighted towards value. In turn your decision about calling his hypothetical river-bet probably was wrong. If you look at it this way your opponent actually won the leveling war, by not making an incorrect bluff. I think most people ignore this and just move on to the next hand without adjusting their read. It's of course not as black and white as this. Maybe your opponent would sometimes bluff and sometimes not, in this exact spot? At least I hope I have managed to give you something new to think about...

Relevant posts/articles:
decision making
value and polarized ranges
practical introduction to game theory

a new start

I will start this blog from scratch. I had a long break because of a lot of stuff happening in my personal life the last half year or so. As a part of getting some routine back in my life, I'm going to write at least an article a week in this blog. Will also put up some hand analyzes and other poker related ideas as they come along. This time I will try to keep everything stricktly poker related. For now I would like anyone who hasn't read Phil Galfond's (Jman/OMGClayAiken) article on "G Bucks" to take a look at it. It deals with an incredible important concept and a lot of my articles will take it for granted you have good understanding of it. It's not a bad idea to concider a membership at his training side "Bluefire Poker" either, as he's one of the few high stakes players I also concider a very good instructor. Niman Kenkre (Samoleus) is another great instructor on the same site. Both players highly successful and without doubt got a lot of original ideas. A review of different training sites is an idea for a later post, as "Blufire Poker" sure isn't the only one. I just thought it was fair to include it together with Galfond's article :).