The Cardinal Rule
People say that it's not good to have unbreakable rules in poker. For the most part they're right. I can only think of one stone cold unbreakable rule that I follow. I just broke it and lost a big pot, so I'm going to blog about it. The rule is this:
In limit poker, if you bet the river for value and get raised, never fold for one more bet.
I don't realy want to write a long post on why I have this rule, but suffice it to say I think it's a very good one. Here's the hand I just played:
- 80/160 triple draw, three of us go four bets before the draw. One guy draws two, I draw one to 8432, and the other guy draws one. I make 85432 on the first draw, I bet, the other one card draw raises, the third guy in calls, I three-bet, they both call, and they both draw one. After the second draw they both check, call my bet, and draw one again. On the end, the guy who started with the two card draw checks, I bet, the other player in calls, and now the third guy check-raises both of us. I break the cardinal rule and fold, the other guy calls and wins with a 96, while the check-raiser had a J7.
After the hand, the guy who check-raised the river types in "accidental raise. almost worked." Now, who knows if this guy is full of shit or not, but I'm inclined to believe it really was an accidental raise. I've played with the guy a lot lately, he plays high limits online, he knows what's going on, and he's a pretty good player. There is not supposed to be a chance in hell that he's bluffing here, and my hand can't be any good if he's check-raising for value. And yet my hand was way good and I threw away a $3k pot for one more bet on the river. It's good to be reminded why I have this rule every once in a while.
In limit poker, if you bet the river for value and get raised, never fold for one more bet.
I don't realy want to write a long post on why I have this rule, but suffice it to say I think it's a very good one. Here's the hand I just played:
- 80/160 triple draw, three of us go four bets before the draw. One guy draws two, I draw one to 8432, and the other guy draws one. I make 85432 on the first draw, I bet, the other one card draw raises, the third guy in calls, I three-bet, they both call, and they both draw one. After the second draw they both check, call my bet, and draw one again. On the end, the guy who started with the two card draw checks, I bet, the other player in calls, and now the third guy check-raises both of us. I break the cardinal rule and fold, the other guy calls and wins with a 96, while the check-raiser had a J7.
After the hand, the guy who check-raised the river types in "accidental raise. almost worked." Now, who knows if this guy is full of shit or not, but I'm inclined to believe it really was an accidental raise. I've played with the guy a lot lately, he plays high limits online, he knows what's going on, and he's a pretty good player. There is not supposed to be a chance in hell that he's bluffing here, and my hand can't be any good if he's check-raising for value. And yet my hand was way good and I threw away a $3k pot for one more bet on the river. It's good to be reminded why I have this rule every once in a while.
posted by Chris Fargis at 8:12 PM
7 Comments:
Chris,
Does this hold true in small pots and/or lower limit poker?
I have a rule too, and that is "never fold to a river checkraise in triple draw." It's a real hand maybe one time in 100, because by and large people are smart enough to realize how many rivers get checked through, or stupid enough to have all sorts of crap. It's a rare intersection to get someone who isn't in one of those groups.
There is one situation where check-raising is a good idea, but it doesn't apply to this hand.
So just to be clear.. you went to Atlantic City to play triple draw online? :)
Chris, the rule holds true at all limits. The size of the pot should help in determining whether you should bet or not, but if you decide to bet and get raised, I would still not fold in a small pot.
Other1, I've played some live action and tournaments here and also some online.
Of course, one thing I think is worth noting is that folding is often a function of how often you're good, it doesn't mean you're NEVER good.
As anyone who's read Sklansky knows, If you're getting 9 to 1 on your call, you have to be good only 10% of the time to break even. If you're good only 5% of the time you'll lose money. But the flip side is that you will be good 5% of the time and if you let those rare instances you would have been good overpower the vast majority of those times you aren't good, you'll still lose money in those situations in the long run.
Of course, if someone's worst mistake is not folding a large pot on the river for one bet enough I'm sure they're doing quite well as it is regardless.
Many thanks to both of you...
I dug up an old post from Izmet's site that applies here as well:
http://www.fekali.com/izmet/page25/page4/page15/page15.html
If I lost a $3k pot to save $160 on the River, I think I'd yack.
I pretty much never fold the River for one bet in limit unless I'm holding total crap or the pot is tiny (which it never seems to be in TD).
Really nice blog, BTW
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