The Weak Lead and the Hare (Or why it pays to probe)

Earlier today I was playing a 90 man $24 KO Tournament on Full Tilt.

I ran into an interesting spot about halfway through. I lost the Hand History, but I can give you the gist of it.

The blinds were 60/120 and I had about 5000 chips. I picked up AdKd in middle position, and opened to 360. I was called by the cutoff and everyone else folded. I hadn't played any hands with the cutoff as I was fairly new to this table, but I did know, from his sharkscope stats that he was a winning player, probably a regular multitabler.

The flop was gin. Qd9d7d. Terrific flop, but how to get paid?

Obviously, check-raising is a possibility, but its awful strong. Even if he's strong enough to call on the flop, you've lost him after that, and what can he have on the flop strong enough to continue? The three biggest diamonds are out, so he'd need exactly the Kd for a flush draw. Certainly the cutoff could have a set, and in that case, you might even get fourbet. Except the cutoff's a good player, which means he can read your checkraise for what it is: a strong made hand or at worst a big diamond. Either way he is better off calling. A strong made hand is a flush or maybe a higher set. A big diamond might get in, but a fourth diamond on the turn might save you some money if he wouldn't have folded anyway.

The other problem with check-raising is that checking looks awful suspicious, particularly on this type of flop. It's possible you just wiffed, but not once you check raise. Check-calling actually might look stronger, depending on the opponent.

So what about just leading out?

Any normal size cbet will be pretty strong. You will only get action from the rare hands, a set and a big diamond, that could be out -- and we know that the Ad, Kd, and Qd are accounted for, so there's not nearly that many big diamond hands he can have. Any other hands, straight draws, combo draws, random two pairs, unimproved pocket pairs - will fold (remember, the cutoff is a winning player).

So what do you do?

I tried leading, but leading weak. I bet the minimum. I believe it was about 120 into a pot of around 900. It goes like this: "I whiffed this flop, but I feel obliged to c-bet, but since I am sure I'm beat, I'll just bet a little bit so I can get away cheaply..." (not a good strategy, but one some people use at these stakes, certainly).

My opponent raised big - - about 4x my bet size. Cha-ching. I pretended to think for about 20 seconds and then called. Lead-raising here could also set off alarms. Instead I chose to continue to act weak.

The turn was a blank. I checked and he fired off another pot sized pot. Tank. Call. The pot is now about the size of the remaining effective stack (mine).

River - 2d. Terrible card. I can't expect to get any value from sets now. Even if he has the Jd, he's not likely to pay off big. Would you? I grit my teeth and check and hope he takes one more stab. The cutoff pushes in. I snap call.

The cutoff has pocket 2s and rivered the set. He read me as weak all the way from the flop, and my story was consistent. Therefore he thought trips were good on a four flush board.

Weak lead ("obliged to cbet") + ("tank-call") + ("check/tank-call") + (river check) = weak hand, not the nuts, right?

Except I have the nuts.

I drag a huge pot.

Why did this work so well?

I think it's because many people at these stakes are deep in "fancy play syndrome." They are always trying to out-play you, out-think you, and they believe they are playing the player not the cards. To a certain extent, they are right, but its an oversimplification that suffers from the fallacy of the familiar. What I mean is that they assume that other players think the way they do, and because they bluff a lot, they think you do and, consequently - don't believe you even when they really should.

So all I had to do was throw them some "weak" rope and they immediately saw a chance to take down a pot, one they were so determined to get that they never slowed down. This player isn't playing to win money, he's playing to gratify his own ego. It's exploitable, so give it a shot.

PS:
Good players at lower stakes do pay attention to betting patterns. You can use this fact to your advantage using the weak lead. Next time you raise, get called and decide to check fold a bad flop rather than waste a cbet, try leading super weak instead (assuming your stack is deep enough). This way, if he raises you, you fold, and it establishes that this play is weak. Later you can use it when you're strong - or, alternatively, use a normal cbet size which now looks stronger - in comparison. By the way, he might also be suspicious and fold. That's not a bad result either.


but if he has that, the money's going in anyway.

On the banality of greeting cards and the corporatization of sentiment

Big title huh?

Simple concept. I want to someone a greeting card. My wife's birthday, our anniversary, blah blah blah. I go to Rite Aid, or CVS or whatever and start looking through cards.

Who the hell buys these things? Almost every one I look at is insanely utterly lame. The serious ones are like two page love poems with every trite cliche you can imagine, including my favorite, "I love you more than words can say" (even though you just spent four paragraphs trying to do just that... but there is no recognition of irony in a greeting card, sadly). Do people read this and think, "My wife/girlfriend/mother/father/whatever will love this because they know that I am thinking of them"? I mean its not like YOU wrote the poem. How can the poem possibly apply to the person you're giving it to? I mean make no mistake, I'm not suggesting you have to write poetry to give a card, but for chrissakes, sentiment printed on a card is not real sentiment!

And then you have your 'humor' cards. This is where I spend most of my time since the 'serious' cards sicken the shit out of me. Even these are at least 75% complete junk. Love "humor" seems to consist of teddy bears and bad love poems combined in four way pullout cards, for the most part. To get anything simple and straightforward you either have to make your own, or hunt hunt hunt.

Because I have no artistic talent to speak of, I hunt. I sometimes spend 30 minutes or more looking for a good card, because, it matters to me. I never want to halfass it and give some lameass card. That shows so little thought and consideration, what's the point? I mean a greeting card isn't a gift - the idea behind it is that you're giving someone thought and expressing it, so shouldn't the thought be at least your own or at least thought about?

I know this is too much to ask for in a society that thinks high fructose corn syrup is a "natural flavor" where everyone sleepwalks through their days. Still, if you can't take five or ten minutes to find a card that captures you and/or the other person for real, at least just a little bit, why go to the effort at all?

/rant