A little background...... The two players in the pot know eachother from a poker forum, but this is their first encounter.

For hours now, literally both players have been playing 75% of the hands for a 5x BB raise. There is a large bluff shown about every 10-15 minutes. Both players are very LAG. 58o is a raising hand in this game. Preflop re-raises of others to 70 have been made by J3o and called by 108o who was non committed in the SB.

The key note of the hand IMO is the turn bet. That player almost always bets the pot, regardless of the hand, and has been caught doing so with the nuts a few times recently. A few hours earlier, whenever that player would make a bet that size he would almost automatically fold for a re-raise.

Names are edited out on purpose, I am one of the two players, as is another BTP'er.

#Game No : 1677301409
***** Hand History for Game 1677301409 *****
$600 NL Hold'em - Thursday, March 03, 03:20:48 EDT 2005
Table Table 37174 (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: davidliu ( $2017.9 )
Seat 4: Dufresne ( $330.49 )
Seat 5: paulyman23 ( $208 )
Seat 8: Player 1 ( $1492 )
Seat 10: Player 2 ( $3747.34 )
Seat 7: kimmell ( $591 )
Seat 2: RU2Easy2 ( $567 )
Seat 3: whitelime ( $601.5 )
Seat 9: madphly ( $515 )
Seat 6: El_Chigre ( $294 )
El_Chigre posts small blind [$3].
kimmell posts big blind [$6].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Player 2 [ Qh Qd ]
Player 1 calls [$6].
madphly folds.
Player 2 raises [$25].
davidliu folds.
RU2Easy2 calls [$25].
whitelime folds.
Dufresne folds.
paulyman23 folds.
El_Chigre folds.
kimmell folds.
Player 1 calls [$19].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qc, 7h, 2s ]
Player 1 checks.
Player 2 bets [$80].
RU2Easy2 folds.
Player 1 calls [$80].
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]
Player 1 checks.
Player 2 bets [$170].
Player 1 calls [$170].
** Dealing River ** [ 5h ]
Player 1 bets [$350].
Player 2 raises [$1000].
Player 1 calls [$650].
Player 2 shows [ Qh, Qd ] a full house, Queens full of twos.
Player 1 shows [ Ad, Jh ] a pair of twos.
Player 2 wins $2581 from the main pot with a full house, Queens full of twos.


What were both players thinking on every street? Many more interesting hands to follow.......

Who on BTP can afford to do THAT?

I would say it wasm monk but he doesn't even play 600 PLO, let alone HE....

Based on the way the action went the entire session, I think the losing player didn't make a mistake here. Discuss =)

I don't know of many laggy Party highrollers on BTP. I would think that you were playing the AJ but I can't see the logic behind the turn call. I think check-calling is the absolute last thing I would do on the turn. If Player 2 thinks his hand unimproved is good and will take it to a showdown I think a better move would be to checkraise the turn. Checkfolding the turn is good too. Leading out the turn could work against certain players but if Player 1 is a known-maniac I would be scared of getting raised. I'll be interested from hearing both BTPers opinions on this hand.

No, it wasn't me. I play the $400s very occasionally but I am also a tightwad in NL

Is this the same EaglesFan that used to post on UPF? If so I've played with him before at stars. I don't remember him being such a maniac though. I can see how he made the call - I don't necessarily agree with it, but I don't think it's as bad as everyone else thinks it is.

He wasn't being a maniac, and yes it was the EaglesFan on UPF.

It was basically monkey poker at its finest between me and him for about 5 hours. Fortunately for me I had position on him the entire time. Position is so important in maniac battles that I'd safely say that Instead of a $4.4k winner at the table I could have been a loser. (Think about the ramifications of that hand alone if I was first to act, he would have made his move much sooner and the hand would have never seen a river) I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to beat a maniac calling station to act after you while being LAG at the same time, and it's fairly hard to come up with a good plan.

At the time that he called with AJ I thought it was the worst call I'd ever seen.... then I looked at the hand history and thought about the hand, and realized just how good of a call it was. That's why I posted the hand, that and to gloat and needle him.

But disregarding all decisions until the river, his call on the river was a call 99% of poker players wouldn't dream making, myself included, however upon reflection I realized it was correct, and by a fairly significant +EV margin. As soon as most everyone sees someone calling a huge river bet with A high, people say "I'd never risk that much with A high" and disregard it as an idiodic play. It's almost as automatic as 2 + 2'ers telling you you're not being aggressive enough. What I feel is so interesting about the hand is that on the river, he actually made what I feel is a correct play. Simply shutting yourself down and saying "that's dumb" won't help your development as a poker player. The top pros are always inquisitive and analyze things fully, while the Vegas rocks are playing one hand in 20 at NL $2/5 at the mirage. I found myself originally thinking this was absurd, and then analyzing it and seeing it in a different light. That's why I found it particularly interesting.

So, I've made an arguement that his river play is fine here. Whether that is correct or not, I'm not sure.

But another arguement can be made for his play on the flop and the turn. The board was Q 7 2. It's a perfect bluffing flop. Absolutely perfect. But since he knows I'm a LAG, I'm aware of this as well, and he knows I know this. So he can't make your standard check-raise on the flop or turn bluff, since it likely won't work. He decided to wait until all draws were gone, and put me to a decision to either call with garbage (which I can't do) or risk about $1k to bluff him (which I might not have the guts to do, regardless of my feeling) on the river. There's definately a justification for his play. The flop was perfect for it and the logic makes some sense. Some may think "well man he's risking alot just to try a bluff" Well, If it's a great bluffing flop and I think I can take my opponnent off the hand, I want him to be betting alot on the flop and the turn, since that's money I'm making off of him. The money you make by calling people's raises and then bluffing them off the hand is the same money you make by getting someone to call you with a worse hand when you have the nuts. He just happenned to run into that time that I had the hand.

I think you'd have to either see the session in it's entirety or comprehend just how maniacal I can play at times to fully grasp how calling $650 with A high can be +EV, but I feel that it was. After analyzing my own play, I realize that I'd make that bluff about 50% of the time in that situation (someone calling down and then weak leading at the river, I'll bluff that fairly often if I have rags), meaning his call could have around a +$600 EV. The ramifications that fact has on my own play I'm unsure of at the moment.