1. Personally I would smooth call here and hope one of them bets out again. Smooth call on teh turn and hope for a bet out on teh river. At which point you can probably raise one more unit which they will call as they feel pot committed.

Posted at 11:56AM on Nov 20th 2006 by viii_ball

2. Call. The Big Game is a blogger-fest, and they know you. A small raise will likely get called due to pot odds (unless Don is making a positional bet), but it will look suspicious and handicap you on the turn and river. A large raise will be taken seriously and will likely scare off a draw (unless it's maybe AKh), 2 pair (unless they've got overs perhaps), and anything else less than a full house. You're a 95% favourite here even if the straight flush and higher quad draws are being held.

With the call, you're giving minimum info, and can get more on the turn or river. Especially if you're facing two pair, a set, or best case - the flush or full house gets filled for someone. Then again, if they're both on small hands or draws, and they don't improve, this could be all you get. But what's poker without some gambling?

Posted at 12:02PM on Nov 20th 2006 by Astin

3. Definitely smooth call. Raising here will alert the other two players that you have at least one of the sixes and they'll get out of your way.

Posted at 12:14PM on Nov 20th 2006 by Pokerwolf

4. I'm going to disagree and say raise here. A smooth call after a raise and call sends up more red flags than a raise. Yes they will put you on a six so you may lose the player with a Q. The flush draw will stay and if it hits the turn a stacking opportunity arises. The amount needs to be enough to say you don't want a call, yet still get one. That's tricky but I'd bump it to 300 total.

Posted at 1:34PM on Nov 20th 2006 by lifesagrind

5. The last time I was in this situation, I got lucky, and the person I was heads up against had a slightly higher pair. I checked to him, and he pushed, trying to push me out of the pot.

I grimiced, shook my head, and said "I Call"... neither one of us wanted to roll the cards until the river came out, and the look of disgust on my face when he flipped his pocket 4s vs my pockets 5s (55Q flop) told him exactly how lame I thought his 'move' was..

Posted at 12:31PM on Nov 20th 2006 by Flores

6. Definitely smooth call. A check-raise here from the big blinds would be very worrisome to the other two players. Poor Waffles. This is right before I made a comment about you donking out, isn't it?

Posted at 1:15PM on Nov 20th 2006 by Mike Maloney

7. I like a min-raise (or just slightly more) here. You might lose Don if he's just making a positional play, but he'd likely shut down after getting two calls anyway. Min-raise prices no one out, and you might get re-raised by an aggressive player with top pair or top trips. You're pretty much guaranteed a caller, so you might as well get the chips now in case the turn is a scare card for your opponent. If the flush card or a queen comes on the turn, making your opponents hand, they're likely to try to check-raise you. You can then go into the tank for a while to indicate weakness before calling and letting them bet at you on the river.

Posted at 1:49PM on Nov 20th 2006 by wigginx

8. I think you have to smooth call here. So far, the other two players are willing to put money in the pot, and you have the ability to let them do all of your betting for you. A smooth call from the BB in this position shouldn't look suspicious at all, since by the time it's back around to you, you have great odds to call on almost any draw.

I think the check-raise here is a bad play. You're going to end up scaring out one, if not both of your opponents when you have the ability to ensure both of them see a turn card. A min-raise here is the absolute worst play you can make, as that lets the other players know that you WANT them to call, and in a blogger game, I wouldn't be surprised if both players folded (unless one had QQ, but why wouldn't they raise that pre-flop?).

Posted at 1:56PM on Nov 20th 2006 by kaellinn18

9. I disagree with your assessment of a small raise. Depending on how you tend to vary your play and on how well your opponents know you (which should be pretty well in this game) it could also look like paying for information, pot-building in case you hit your draw, making a cheap play for the pot to a scary board, etc. It can be a confusing play if you tend to do it occasionally in different situations. Also, in this situation, you're giving them great odds to call, re-opening the action, and letting them call off a small number of chips relative to their stack sizes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a min/small raise get both callers, which means that many more chips are in the pot in case one of them improves on the turn.

Posted at 2:22PM on Nov 20th 2006 by wigginx

10. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this point then. Assuming you are not playing the nuts or a very strong hand:

1) A min raise in no way gives you any extra information because, as you said, you're giving anyone great odds to draw. I can't see a situation where this could possibly be beneficial. If you actually need information, lead out on the flop; check min-raising is useless and is just throwing money away.

2) Pot building for a draw with a check-raise doesn't sound like a good idea to me (at least with a min raise), but I'm no pro. If you're drawing, you've already got excellent odds to call, and the pot has already been built. No one min-raises out of position with a drawing hand here, as that is just plain dangerous.

3) Making a play for the pot, again, doesn't make any sense, as the amount raised is not going to scare anyone off of anything.

Unless you make it a habit of min-raising with multiple opponents while holding awful hands (which I hope you do not), the min-raise is going to look nothing but suspicious because you are encouraging more action out of position, and most (good) players will fold at this point.

Posted at 4:26PM on Nov 20th 2006 by kaellinn18

11. I believe that perhaps I didn't express myself clearly. The point I was trying to make is that a small or min raise is a tool. If you're the type of player that varies your play enough such that you sometimes throw a small raise when most players would act in some other fashion, and you assume that your opponents know this, then a small raise does not necessarily indicate that you want a call. Making a small -EV play every so often to keep your betting patterns unpredictable can pay off against familiar opponents in situations like this. The three things you quoted back to me are some of the situations where, maybe 1 time in 10, you might consider making a very small raise just to keep people guessing.

The bigger question in this situation is "How will Hoy's opponents interpret his action?" If he smooth-calls, then he doesn't give away any information. Similarly, if his opponents are aware that he varies his play enough to make a min-raise on that board with a large set of hands, then he still isn't giving away much information at all, and is getting more chips in the pot.

By increasing the pot size when there are still two cards to come for his opponents, he makes it that much sweeter for them to bet at later in the hand. He's the table short-stack, so they're probably going to be looking to put him to a decision, but not when there aren't any chips in the pot. If it stays fairly tiny, then it's easier for everyone else to lay the hand down when they missed the draw with only one card to come.

The only major complicating factor here is that because he's a short stack, they might credit him with a good hand if he makes a small raise. However, they also might believe that he's making a play for a pot that's relatively large with respect to his stack, but doesn't want to risk a ton of chips to do it. It really depends on how his opponents view his play.

I think a small raise would look more suspicious with more players in the hand, but with just the blinds and the cutoff, I think he'll end up taking a larger pot at the end of the hand by making a small raise.

Posted at 5:07PM on Nov 20th 2006 by wigginx

12. Late position bets out about 80% of the pot, and the SB smooth calls. Me likey. Both of these guys must have something to be betting and calling like this. First guess is that the original flop bettor has some kind of Queen, and the caller probably has a lesser Queen or maybe a draw (two to the hearts flush is the only conceivable draw here). What do you do here?

I fold and show. You'll never have a better opportunity for deception.

Posted at 10:49AM on Nov 21st 2006 by MattW

13. The one thing that you can't do is min-raise it. A check/min-raise in a blogger tournament just screams monster.

With the situation as it is, that being that the bet came from last position, calling here is probably your only option. Let them see the turn card for cheap and hope that it is another heart to either fill a flush or a rag to pair their kicker (assuming one of them has the queen already).

With the nuts it is always your goal to extract the maximum amount of chips from your opponenets. In this instance you just aren't going to be able to get a lot of chips into the middle unless someone's hand improves significantly -both of your opponents in this hand are perfectly capable of laying down a good hand- You will need to check/call all the way to the river, and they will have to hit draws, for you to gain many chips from this one. Unless someone gets a high flush or a boat they aren't going to call a significant bet.

Posted at 9:19AM on Nov 21st 2006 by donnie

14. The key is to avoid others thinking that you have a single 6 let alone two of them. Encourage the chasing of the flush. Smooth call and hope a heart comes up.

Posted at 11:20AM on Nov 21st 2006 by Beldar

15. If you do not know how to play quads then you have a problem.. lol. Usually they play themselves. You just have to be patient enough to let the other guy catch up.
Not a situation that happens often enough to be interesting. You can do better.

Posted at 8:56PM on Nov 21st 2006 by sirfwalgman