Jlall

Sure, if partner was always passing the double unless he had 5 spades, I would agree with you. But that is not what is happening (as evidenced by this thread!) In reality opposite everyone else who posted in this thread you will go down probably 200, maybe 100, maybe 500, instead of plus 50/100/150. Those are large swings.

Yeah obv but there are already a million people in the pot for 2 bets, and they won't fold. If you think about certain hands and what you'd do with them in this spot, I think you'd realize you would want to call pretty much every single one if you decided to play because you can't thin the field very much at this point (you can get rid of the blinds, maybe). You would need a really premium hand to want to juice the pot some more, like you had. In that case, you are telegraphing your hand if you raise at this point. You could try to balance by raising some other hands in that spot also like 87s or 66, but then you're basically burning money with those hands. You could also try to balance by never reraising in this spot. Or you could simply always call with your 87s and 66 hands, and always raise with your AA/KK/QQ hands, and hope they don't notice. Obviously the latter is correct against these morons, for the sole reason that they don't notice what you do. It's unlikely they remember by the river that you were the one who made it 3. So I totally agree with that, but just follow through on that by remembering that THEY DO NOT KNOW YOU HAVE AA, even though you have made it really obvious.

There are: 2 combos of A6 6 combos of 76 3 combos of 77 6 combos of 64 1 combo of 66 17 boat combos 1 quad combo. Not to mention that there are really random trip combos in his range also. With a 4 bet cap you are betting that he plays 1/17th of his boat combos this way, and all of his quad combos this way, and no random trip combos this way, just to break even! Think about how wrong you were, he actually had 86 and played this way, and as such you burned almost an entire bet in equity trying to make the most heroic play of all time. You have to be beyond damn sure of your read when youre doing something like this, and your only read was "obv he knows I have AA here" I know it's an experience thing, but you are playing against the worst players ever, and they will cap a boat every single time no matter what has happened. edit: oh and I forgot 44, add another 3 combos. You get my point. You need to think of combinations, not just of possible hands, because basically quads never happens compared to the boats, and it's easily to assign it a higher probability than it is if you are not thinking in terms of combinations. It's kind of like thinking of a specific 6-0 break as being as likely as a specific 3-3 break,

umm a 4 bet cap makes your play infinitely worse than if there was a 5 bet cap. With a 5 bet cap if he is going to only 5 bet you with the nuts, and otherwise call your 4 bet (and you will obviously have to call the 5 bet), you need him to not have the nuts 2/3rds of the time (win 1 bet 2/3rds, lose 2 bets 1/3rd). Without the ability to get 5 bet, you simply need him to not have the nuts here 50 %. It is moot since he probably has 66 here <5 % of the time.

If the opponents are thinking on such a high level, you should not reraise AA preflop, because it turns your hand completely face up to them post flop. If you in general want to have no reraise range at all except for your very best hands, you should not reraise them at all. For this reason in tough high stakes online games, you will pretty much never see a good player reraise his BB vs say an UTG raise. He will want to call pretty wide, and almost never reraise, so rather than turn his hand face up in the name of getting an extra BB in, he will widen his calling range and simply have no reraise range. This is obviously a better system even though in a vacuum you would rather get more money into the pot with AA/KK. For a while there was a fad to basically never 3 bet even in HU from the BB, because standard practice is to bet every flop, so you get the same amount of money in by 3 betting and betting the flop compared to calling and check/raising the flop, and your call check/raise range is now wider and stronger. Of course people should adjust to this strategy by checking behind flops with hands like bottom pair etc. Anyways, the fact that you reraised pre seems to imply that you do NOT think these people are thinking players who will later put you on AA. In live microstakes this is absolutely correct, you should play an exploitable/exploitive style where you reraise in this spot for value 100 %, and never have a bluff range. Of course your range should be super strong in this spot, but the point is they will never pick up on this. So when you later just call this river bet because you don't think he would put in a mere THIRD bet on the river because you KNOW he KNOWS you have AA, you are being inconsistent. Your whole edge is that they cannot read your hand, and that they are basically playing the strength of their own hand (and poorly at that). Any donk is going to go nuts here with 77/A6/76 here and make it a million bets if they can, because their relative hand strength is so good. That is your edge. Your play was incredibly horrible, sorry.

What is the cap in live poker? Even if it was hypothetically uncapped and you raised and he reraised, you should reraise it again with AA. You burned so many bets in this pot it hurts.

lol you didn't really call did you?

If partner has 6 spades he will compete to 3S himself. The fact that we have not specifically shown extra values does not preclude partner from deducing we have them when he has 6 spades and a yarb and the opps play 3D. I do not buy the "bidding 18 the same as you would bid with 12" argument, we would routinely pass with a balanced 18 on the auction 1D 1H p 2H ? for instance if we didn't have a doubleton heart, because partner has already shown a weak hand, and could have 0 pretty easily, especially with the opps showing some strength. At the end of the day if we are balanced without much shape, and we clearly have no game, it doesn't really matter that we have extra values, we should just defend quietly. The only time I care about showing that I have 18 instead of 12 is if I'm trying to get to a game. Risking forcing partner to bid and going for a number or just going minus instead of plus when partner has shown weakness, and we've already shown support for the other suits, just seems like a really losing proposition. I think partner's 2nd double when we have shown nothing should not only be very strong, but should also be made with enough offense/shape to think that bidding on opposite our possible yarborough instead of defending 3D is correct. I would never think that with something like AKx AKxxx xx Axx.

With 4513 partner would just raise spades...or did you mean 3514? I agree that 3514 is by far the most likely shape, and 3613 is the 2nd most likely (some 3613s would just bid 3H over 3D). 3523 I would consider impossible, partner should just pass 3D with that imo.

those spades are a mirage

Wish I knew what minor RHO had lol. I would bid 5S, it just seems like a disaster to pass if RHO has diamonds.

Remember the phrase "took a position." Always sounds better than "I suck." You can blame your call on some unprovable aspect like an errant table feel. If your partner seems about to not buy the "errant table feel" argument, you preempt him with outrage at the obvious coffee housing. yeah I guess you could say the same thing when you are grabbing the edge of a mile high cliff with your fingertips...."I took a position" . Hmmm sounds okay to me, opp :lol: uhh lol Partner had A Kxx 9xxx JT9xx and did not reopen. LHO had Jx of spades and KJT8x of diamonds so a low diamond lead beats 3N, else it makes.

r/w imps: Q9x Q98x QTx Axx P P 3S P P X P ? hand 2: r/w imps Q986 xx Txx xxxx 1H 2D p p X p 2S 3D X p ? Feel free to comment on 2S vs 2H, but 2S is what you did.

we need to know how many trumps partner has

1D

4S obv

Definitely agree with this point. lol if only someone had said this before this futile excersize began... oh wait I did :angry:

I dont see why people are acting like 4S is a ridiculous bid no matter what RHO has. It is quite common to have like a 3S opener and be forced to pass 2H and then come back in with 4S. I also have no idea why people would expect to set 4S withour hand...we have 2 tricks and partner preempted. If RHO does have a weak hand with long spades, it's unlikely he has either minor suit king. Do you really expect to beat them 2 in 4S ever opposite a weak 2 in hearts?

+1 that if you take a finesse and it wins then you claim it is implied you are taking the finesse again

ah i understand now, sorry

I don't think it was actually Einstein who first said it, but he is commonly attributed with it. They love to say it in AA though :P

Not in a probabilistic game where you can routinely make an action that is 55 % to work and have it not work 5 times in a row, especially when even if you play a lot your sample size is quite limited. Would you recommend a poker player to stop making +EV bluffs because he has ran into the top of his opponents range 10 times in a row? Would you stop finessing the queen through the long hand if you lost to Qx 4 times in a row? That being said, it is irrational to not question whether you are doing the right thing if it keeps failing and you cannot prove to yourself that one action is better than another, hence my post. Calling it insane to continue to do what you think is right in a game like bridge is...insane though. But it's a fun quote to misuse at least!

My dad who literally never bets on anything/hates gambling gave me 10:1 preseason on the colts winning the superbowl. LOLFISH

I am consistently lost on hands like these so maybe the forums can help me. I always do the same thing but it never seems to work. Ax Kxx QTxxx xxx w/w imps. 2S X 3S ?

Yeah as I said my only problem with X then 3N is I think we get to 3N when 5C is better too often. I think with your example hand of partner having 6 good clubs for instance that he will sit for 3N since he has a source of tricks, despite his stiff heart. If we had no way to say "lets play 5C if you have 3 spades, and 4S if you have 4" then I like X then 3N best I guess.