Talking Poker, Making Money and Drinking Beer While Watching Sports on T.V : Passive Lines against Drunks at the table.

Recently I wrote a discussion post on a social media site describing a hand that I had recently been involved in. If your not familiar with the hand click here to view the discussion. The gist of the story is that after 3betting a reckless loose aggressive player, He 4bet shipped for my stack. The question I asked was what would you do differently in this spot. Several players that responded felt as if the best line against this opponent was to just flat instead of 3betting him pre-flop. While I respect their opinions let me make sure my position is clear. If I am ever lucky enough to rule the world people who just flat this type of opponent in this spot will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison. That is how criminal of a decision I believe that calling in that spot is. Before you begin to call me an unfair dictator at least listen to my reasoning.

1. Your putting yourself in a tricky spot after the flop:
By just flatting here your putting yourself in a guessing position after the flop. Let's say the flop comes 10 high, what are you going to do, check fold? Check Call? You could bet fold, but if you were going to do that you should probably just 3bet pre anyway to make your hand look stronger. Also what happens if the flop comes weird like 2-3-4 of spades and your holding two red 99’s? You should understand that if you do just call your opponent is going to continuation bet every single flop so essentially from what I heard your only playing back if you happen to flop a set. IMO taking these kind of passive lines, makes it very hard to win at NL Hold’ em consistently. Your opponent is hyper aggressive and it has been folded to him on the button. What did you think he was going to do? You should be expecting him to raise and a hand like 99’s is to strong to take passive lines with in this spot.

2. Missing out on Value:
One of the things that surprised me is that when I asked people in this discussion what kind of hand you thought he had? Most put him on two big cards. What if this guy has a hand like 44? He certainly will be raising with that hand from that spot. By just calling here you might miss out on a golden opportunity to extract value from your opponent. Remember just because you flop a set doesn’t mean your going to get paid off. This is where I believe that the inexperience of some players comes in to play. Instead of simply extracting value from this opponent where you can. They believe that they have to play every hand for stacks. A hand like 99 is probably going to be crushing this opponents button opening range, plus it is a very good chance that he is going to be playing every other pocket pair below nines in exactly the same fashion. Let’s say you do decide to flat and the board comes 8 - 2 -2 high and you decide to lead because you believe that is a good flop for your hand. Your opponent then tanks and decides to fold a hand like 33 or 44. You just missed out on extra value you could have made by putting in the 3bet Pre.

3. No Commitments :
"Your pot committed" I keep hearing that by 3betting in this spot I have made myself pot committed to calling. Um..... Let's think about this I started the hand with $200 My 3bet only made it $55. If I really think that my opponent has a better hand I can easily fold my hand. I have always hated the term "Pot Committed" anyway because it makes it sound like it's correct to call just because of the size of the pot. This is an easy fold if I believe my opponent, think about it would you take a $100 bet at 1000/1 that Mitt Romney will win the 2012 election? Probably not.

4. Play to win the game:
The main reason that I hate calling here is that I know that I have the best hand. Isn’t it ironic that you hear this statement all the time at the table and someone usually responds “Why didn’t you raise then”? Well I did. Sometimes to be a winner you have to throw the stats out the window. I recognize that it is very unlikely that this opponent has a “real hand” Let alone one that is better than a top 7 hand. How do I know this? His double fisting of Jack and Cokes, was a dead giveaway, and oh yea he has raised every single time it has been folded to him. So I think if you want to get it in with 99’s this just might be the spot. I agree that there are different sizes you could make your 3bet, but for this specific opponent I decided to error on the size of a larger bet, knowing that his button range will be wide I want to make a bet that will at least get him to think about folding a marginal hand like any two big cards, but not so big that he will fold a smaller pair.
In the end he did neither he shipped it with Q- 8 and missed. Making one thing not debatable, the winner of the pot. Me.