Paying off the Live One

“Good players are easier to read than bad ones” goes the old adage. It’s not a saying I entirely agree with, although it has some merit. While bad players generally have wider hand ranges, some poor players are terrible because they are very easy to read. And very good players effectively mix it up and are exceptionally difficult to accurately put on a hand.

That said, all players are analytical to some degree and have motives for doing what they do. Albeit, their logic and analysis may not be correct, but some level of thought process caused them to make the decision they made. Once you can decipher how they analyze poker, you can narrow down their hand ranges and make better decisions. With some players identifying their logic is quite a challenge, but something happened upstairs to cause them to do what they did. It’s up to you to figure out the conundrum.

I was playing $40-$80 limit hold’em at the Bellagio just prior to Christmas. It’s always a good time of year for poker in Vegas; lots of families utilize the town as a meeting place, and the New Year’s festivities always bring in the casinos highest rollers. A totally live tourist made up his blinds in the cutoff, and an aggressive pro open raised to the right of Mr. Live-Tourist. Mr. Aggressive-Pro’s hand range would be wide there, thinking that raising with an additional blind post is the correct play with a wider range than normal. Mr. Live-Tourist called the raise. Holding the 9 9 on the button, I happily three-bet, raising being a stronger play than standard due to the wider potential hand ranges of both of my opponents. The blinds folded, and the other two tossed in the additional $40.

The flop came with no overcards, the 6 4 3. Mr. Aggressive-Pro checked, and Mr. Live-Tourist fired into me. I raised, Mr. Aggressive-Pro called, and Mr. Live-Tourist three-bet. I called, unsure of where I was at, though I knew that Mr. Live-Tourist played fast and loose on the flop with any pair or any draw.

The turn card was hideous, the 6, pairing top pair. Mr. Aggressive-Pro checked, and Mr. Live-Tourist fired again. I read Mr. Aggressive-Pro for folding behind me. Pondering my decision, the way Mr. Live-Tourist played, his hand range was exceptionally wide. He would call with any two cards preflop having already put in the blind, and would raise with any pair or draw on the flop. He could have 7-5 or 5-2 and flopped a straight. He could have a set, two pair that filled, any pair on the flop or a five. The fact that he would have called with any two cards preflop made flopping one pair much more likely than any other holding. That said, top pair just tripped and I couldn’t beat three sixes. There was $860 in the pot and it might cost me $160 to check out his hand. At around 5.5-to-1, was calling worth it?

Calling in such circumstances is definitely non-standard. Against most opponents, the hand is a mucker. But Mr. Live-Tourist is a non-standard opponent, requiring non-standard responses. The thought that he might have a pair of fours or threes, or a five and hold an open-ender with the pot laying me such a large price made me call the turn bet and call again when the 10 came on the river. Mr. Live-Tourist showed me the 7 5 having flopped the nut straight.

I reassessed my thoughts and asked a friend whose play I have great respect for what he thought of my call. He politely informed me not much, and he would have mucked the turn. Did I make an error? Was his propensity to three-bet the flop with a five, four, or three high enough to make my call correct, incorporating the price the pot was laying me?

The hand speaks to the difficulties of playing against opponents who have illogical thoughts and are therefore more difficult to read. Not only did this opponent have a wide range of hands, but his thought process was wide ranging also. Against this texture of player, you have to be very careful when considering laying down a hand in a large pot.

That said, while some bad players are difficult to read because their hand ranges are so wide, they still have tendencies that you need to consider when playing them. Some players automatically pay off poor players, feeling that their wide hand ranges dictate calling being the right play. But by playing in that manner, they pay off bets in which folding was a better play had they considered the tendencies in the poor player’s thinking.

In this case, the fact that Mr. Live-Tourist dramatically overplayed any pair, gave no respect to others’ bets and raises, and reraised with draws made calling the correct play in spite of the fact he had me beat in the current situation. I judge the correctness of all my plays based on the available information at the point of my decision, not if I won or lost the pot or bet. This time Mr. Live-tourist just happened to hold a hand that was at the top of his range. In similar situations, when he happened to hold a hand towards the bottom of his range, I would have won the pot. And more importantly, the price the pot was laying me justified taking the risk that he might have been holding a portion of his range that my nines would beat.

When making your poker decisions, it’s important to think in those terms. Try to determine the ranges of your opponents, estimate the effective price to proceed by utilizing your best judgments, and determine if the play is positive expected value (EV). No player quantifies these problems accurately all the time. But understanding the concept and making the effort will make your judgments better.
And, if your judgment is better than your opponents’ judgment, over time you’ll be stacking their chips! ♠

Roy Cooke played poker professionally for 16 years prior to becoming a successful Las Vegas Real Estate Broker/Salesman in 1989. Should you wish to any information about Real Estate matters-including purchase, sale or mortgage his office number is 702-396-6575 or Roy’s e-mail is [email protected]. His website is www.roycooke.com. You can also find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @RealRoyCooke.