this hand i played earlier is another nice little lesson for me:

Stage #686670449: Holdem No Limit $100 - 2007-06-19 23:08:41 (ET)
Table: MARITZ LN (Play Money) Seat #6 is the dealer
Hand History Converter from Poker-Theory.org

Seat 6 - GIGANTES1966 ($18350 in chips)
Seat 9 - DANYMATTA ($23500 in chips)
Seat 3 - GERON01 ($32550 in chips)
DANYMATTA - Posts small blind $50
GERON01 - Posts big blind $100
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to GIGANTES1966

GIGANTES1966 - Calls $100
DANYMATTA - Raises $350 to $400
GERON01 - Folds
GIGANTES1966 - Raises $2900 to $3000
DANYMATTA - Calls $2600!

my conclusion? he prolly has medium-to-high pocket pair or else something like big slick/little slick.

*** FLOP ***

DANYMATTA - Checks
GIGANTES1966 - All-In $15350

junk hits the board and he checks, reinforcing my earlier conclusion. even if he's managed to hit one of the pairs on the board, my all-in should tell him that i have something like top-pair-top-kicker or pocket pair that beats any pair on the board, or that i've managed to hit a set.

so what does he do?

DANYMATTA - Calls $15350!

gaaaaaah!

*** TURN ***


*** RIVER ***

*** SHOW DOWN ***
GIGANTES1966 - Shows [Kc Qh] (ace high)
DANYMATTA - Shows [6c 9c] (One pair, nines!)
DANYMATTA Collects $36800 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($36800)

the lesson here?

i didn't spend enough time checking him out. IMO i played fairly solid poker if i was playing against an average good player, but not if i was playing against a goofball player. the over-betting against pot-odds are not unusual at absolute poker play money rooms- you either learn to do that or you wind up failing to isolate.

in my defense, no way does a decent player call 3000 chips pre-flop with that crappy hand, and no way does he call the all-in even with top pair on the flop, but my fundamental mistake is that i -assumed- he was an average decent player.

turns out he had characteristics of 1) over-valuing and 2) "call anything" which i could have learned if i had simply observed him a little longer, particularly if i had paid 500-1000 chips to see what his style was.

i did wind up getting most of my money back after this hand, but the damage had been done and he ran away early instead of sticking around, frustrating me.

the lesson for me: be careful about being super-aggressive against players you have little info on.

anything else i missed?

i take it you have little experience with online play money.

keep playing KQ offsuit like that UTG and you can expect similar results...

good point... although i do try to mix it up, sometimes checking there, sometimes betting one to five times the BB. i try to avoid creating patterns in which people can read me.

anyway, keeping in mind that play chips usually need to be overbet, how would you have played that?

I would say its a very bad play with KQ.
Pre flop you call first and then you raise a raiser that tells me you did not have any pair and that automatically triggers a call. And the raise is too high in my opinion.
Even after the flop I will put you on no pair but over cards and with the rags on board my top pair is good enough to beat your hand.
Your all in move tells me its a big time bluff as you dont want him in that hand. I would call it too in play money ofcourse.

Pre flop you call first and then you raise a raiser that tells me you did not have any pair and that automatically triggers a call.

with no history on me, how does he know that i'm not trying to trap him? and with only 69s how does he justify calling that kind of check-raise?


Even after the flop I will put you on no pair but over cards and with the rags on board my top pair is good enough to beat your hand.
Your all in move tells me its a big time bluff as you dont want him in that hand. I would call it too in play money ofcourse.

good point. thank you.