$200 NLHE Full Ring: Live game. Did I get bluffed?

$200 NL HE Full Ring: Live game. Did I get bluffed?

Note: I ramble a bit in the following hand history. It was in a live game and saying what cards hit doesn't seem to justify the situation, read between the lines if you must (details in bold to assist the speed-reading) or just ignore the thread altogether if it annoys you. Thanks.



There’s a hand from the other night that I just can’t figure out.

I play live 1/2NL Hold em which I’m very good at but the other night someone made a play that I just can’t figure out if I made a good fold or a bad one.

This guy has like $120 in front of him, I’ve got a mountain of chips in front of me. He’s only played for about five minutes so I don’t know anything about him yet. But over the next few hours I figured out he usually plays online (hence the reason I’m asking about his play online, hoping you guys have better insight than I do) and that he’s more than capable of making reckless plays, he likes to call a bluff and to pull off a bluff himself, he also overuses continuation bets. His face lights up with a million tells but the sheer quantity of them made him difficult to establish a baseline and to get much of a read on him in the first few hours.

I get dealt pocket queens and I’m in the BB, a guy two to my left fires off $10, villain calls, someone a couple of seats to his left calls and I re-raise to $35, it’s folded through to villain who calls and the guy behind him folds.

We take the flop heads up and it hits 357 with a heart draw out there but I’m not at all concerned about it and figure the absence of a scare card is enough for me and I’m quite happy to take the $90 pot right now and bet out another $40, at which point I’m surprised to see him raise all in.

It should be noted that I’m 100% certain that he didn’t have kings or aces.

I say “you hit your set?” convincing myself that surely he wouldn’t have made two pair with that flop, surely no one could have made two pair in this situation. At one point he says something to the effect of “fold, I’ve got you crushed” typically I don’t pay much attention to tells that a person has control over so I don’t think his comment means much, but I do have an inclination to believe him because with surprising accuracy people are honest about their hands because:
1)They don’t expect you to believe them.
2)They want to show it down and say I told you so.

I thought about it for a long time and mucked my hand.

He asks “You had an overpair?”

“Yep”

He leans to the guy next to him and says “I think I bluffed him”... but he mucked his cards without showing.

Logically, he had to be bluffing but I agree with some of Doyle Brunson’s advice from Super System, you’ve got to go with your first instinct because it’s almost always right... in addition to that, my reads have been spot on like 95% of the time and I swear every ounce of me thought he’d out-flopped me.

After seeing how he plays I think there’s a chance he hit two pair or a set but I know he’s capable of making that play with nothing, putting me on a continuation bet and bluffing... but he had to know I had a high pocket pair and I’m the only guy at that table who could get away from a high pocket pair on that flop (and he didn’t know I was capable of it, he’d only played for five minutes) so how could he bluff in that spot?...

I just can’t figure this one out, has anyone got any insight as to what may have been going on here?

I'm calling here, but I think it's close. A fd, 44,66,88-JJ (all of which may flat behind a raise and to a 3bet, QQ+ would generally 3bet), and sets are definitely in his range, kinda doubt two pair.

My guess is that when he says "I think i bluffed him", he likely had a hand you were ahead of.

Folding here is horrible imo.
You need to call 45 into 215 against a unknown live 200nl player.
88-JJ is in his range and so is probably a bunch of Ax hands,A7,Ahxh and 67 might be in there as well.

sindri_93 said:

Folding here is horrible imo.
You need to call 45 into 215 against a unknown live 200nl player.
88-JJ is in his range and so is probably a bunch of Ax hands,A7,Ahxh and 67 might be in there as well.

Click to expand...

Whoops, forgot villain's short stack size - sindri's right, can't fold here at all, it's not close.

I agree with the others. Folding is horrible here given the effective stack to pot ratio on the flop.

+1 here. I am never folding this against the player you described. If the stacks were much much deeper then we debate it a little further, but I hate folding.

You guys are right.

I mean... half right.

The pot odds thing is a good rule of thumb, but it's huge leak in your game to routinely pay people off accepting uncertainty.

In this circumstance, I folded because at the time I was certain he'd hit *something*, only afterwards did I start doubting it.

In this hand I'm now resigned to the fact that I was wrong, comparing the facts with his bodylanguage, I'm confident he did have pockets, eights through to jacks.

What made me read it wrong was that he thought he was ahead, he shouldn't have. Anyone else at that table would have known they were behind... he seemed comfortable with poker, like he did it all the time, just didn't immediately look like a fish and I assumed there was some logic to his play.
The reality is, he was behind all the way but he thought he was ahead. He should have known he was behind but he didn't which made him look like a man who'd flopped a monster. I'm really thinking 8's to 10's because he looked weak pre-flop and like he'd struck gold on the flop, pocket 8's aren't a monster pre-flop but when you see 357 on the flop, heads up, it starts looking a lot bigger.

There's no way it was intended as a bluff, you guys have said it yourselves, it's an instant-call with the pot size and the part that you haven't mentioned is that when there's a 5x BB raise, called in two spots and then re-raised 3.5x by someone out of position, you're up against a big pocket pair, on that flop you don't bluff into a big pocket pair. But it worked as a bluff.

Two more things worth noting.
When I said "you hit your set?" I missed the exact response (it wasn't the words I was paying attention to) but he he said something like "a set?" like it was that last thing in the world he'd thought of, keeping in mind this is a guy wearing a million tells on his face, that response was open an honest but I was so convinced he hit *something* that I overlooked it.

The other thing is that his pupils dilated, massively, when he raised all in. It's a very reliable tell, but it was misleading. It meant he thought he was ahead, I took as he's actually ahead.


All in all, it was a dumb fold. Lesson learned. When playing against an unknown player, don't assume they know what you've got (even if you've made it exceeding obvious).

reads and all, u shouldnt fold this in a million years unless he flips his hand up and shows u a set or a straight. pot odds, pot odds, pot odds.

thepokerkid123 said:

The pot odds thing is a good rule of thumb, but it's huge leak in your game to routinely pay people off accepting uncertainty.

Click to expand...

Not trying to be a jerk, but unless you're running a pure bluff or holding the absolute nuts, you're always dealing w uncertainty.

The decision point is whether the odds warrant a given decision.

slycbnew said:

Not trying to be a jerk, but unless you're running a pure bluff or holding the absolute nuts, you're always dealing w uncertainty.

The decision point is whether the odds warrant a given decision.

Click to expand...

+1.

You have to call, ESPECIALLY since he was shortstacking. I think you had him dominated... he probably had 8's-j's. or maybe even top pair.

I'm calling him here.. i really think he would have been on a heart draw... but maybe he could have been sitting with a A4 A6 heart draw or something that would give him straight opportunities also.. But if you are right that he is reckless and loves to bluff it should have been an easy call.. also since u had a ton of chips and it was really only 45 more to you to see his cards and you have already put in 55... and you believe you have the better hand..