At my regular home game tonight I found myself in a close situation where I may have given up the best hand if the same situation were to be played out online.
We were playing $1-$3 spread limit hold'em. I was doing pretty well so I decided to take a flop in an unraised pot with Jc4c from the button. Five players took the flop 5c6hJd. I had floppped top pair with a backdoor flush draw. In such a shorthanded game I figured the odds were pretty good against another player holding a jack. Still, my hand was vulnerable to anyone holding an overcard. UTG lead out and bet $3. UTG+1 called. This made me a bit nervous. Everyone else folded to me. I called. Something told me I probably had the best hand.
I have a history with these guys, and I have been in close situations with the guy betting now, so I know more or less how he plays. I know that he is a bluffer and will often try to buy pots.
The turn is the 2h. He leads out and bets $3 again. The other guy folds. I contemplate my action here. I see my opponent looking at me, trying to get a read on me. Well, I'm on to him, and I can tell the fact that I'm still in the pot is making him uneasy. I smooth call his bet. After all, I'm not in bad shape. I still have top pair with one card to come and a gutshot straight draw-giving me 8 outs to improve in case I don't have the best hand-but I was now pretty sure I did judging from how my opponent was acting.
The river was the million dollar moment. A king fell, and he immediately looked right at me. I just gave a little smile. I know he was looking at me to see how I reacted to the king. I knew what he was up to. I could also see that the king was a scare card to him, especially since he had to act before me.
Now he started to play with his money. I knew he was in a tough situation. If he checked, there is no doubt in my mind that I was going to bet it. The fact that the king was a scare card to him told me that his hand couldn't beat a pair of kings. At best he had made jacks with me and had a better kicker. If that was the case, good for him, I'm going to pay him off, and there's little I can do about it. But like I said before, I really doubt he's holding a jack, with only five players in the game, odds are I'm holding the only jack.
After a few moments of thought he leads off with another $3 bet. I decide to mull it over one last time. Double checking the board just to make sure I hadn't missed anything and replaying the hand over in my mind to make sure my story added up. I was pretty sure he had a piece of the board. I don't think he would try and bluff on every round with stone cold nothing, especially on the end. I decided he had a pair of sixes.Before I called his bet I announced "You have a pair of sixes". I threw in my money and he turned over A6. I was right. I turned over the Jc and dragged a nice little pot.
If I were playing online this could have turned out to be a real trouble hand. I limped on the button with pretty weak cards, even for shorthanded play. My real trouble would have been on the river. Without being able to pick up on my opponents tells, I would have no way of knowing if I were up against a pair of kings.
CT....I am with you 100%. But it is a 5 hour drive from my house to a legal live game with my kind of stakes....and it is 14 steps from the kitchen to the computer!!! And besides, the guys who run the live casino game won't let you play in your underwear....or I don't think they will!!!
Good stuff, I can't wait until I turn 19 (1.5 months), and play Hold Em in the local casino.
I agree, i can play higher stakes with more confidence b&m. Being online does force you to pick up betting patterns but i lose one of my best tools for playing poker when i play online, my ability to read players. definately prefer live play.
Online play sucks. Poker without the human interaction is a crippled game. I still play online of course, but I'm trying to find enough live games so that I will rarely have to do it in the future. I'm almost there
I like live games, but I think the avg. 50 hands per hour online versus 30 if you are lucky live makes up for the other factors.
