spore said:
I don't know if I really like the call all the way with medium-strength hands theory. But, something to "stick in my pipe and smoke" as they say. lol
I don´t like it either. Calling down to the river is a bad move in my opinion. I just said that generally in the river you have to check with medium strength hands because if you bet you´ll only get called (or raised) by a better hand (unless you have seen your opponent calling with crap, but since this is the 1st hand, you don´t have that information).
I think that your river check was good. A single pair isn´t good enough to fight a big pot. You may tell me that you missed some money because of your river check, but i still think it was right because in my opinion your opponent´s check in the river could meant 2 different things: He was slowplaying or he gave up and decided that your resistance was a signal that you had him beat. In the first situation you obviously want to check, and in the second one if you bet he´s probably going to fold. Actually if he was or not going to fold is an information that you are going to know afterwards, but as i said before, since this is the 1st hand you don´t have that information so the check was the correct move.
As a conclusion one of the exceptions to that rule is when you know that your opponent will call with a worse hand than your medium strength hand. In that case you can take advantage from him esecially on earlier streets.
Now in relation to the flop and turn calls, i have to say that i don´t like them. I can understand the turn call since a raise would take the pot out of control and you don´t want to do that with just a pair and no information, but what i don´t understand is your flop call. I think that the correct move was to make a raise, maybe 2.5 o 3 times his bet. You need to clarify if his flop bet was a continuation bet or not and also your raise is going to give you the control of the hand, which is great combined with position.
Anyway if you´re having a consistent profit and a great
bankroll which is increasing more and more, it must mean that you´re doing the right moves, so don´t take so seriously my advices.