This first hand is merely background information:
Poker Stars $3/$6 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
UTG+1: $600.00
Fish: $213.00
MP1: $706.20
MP2: $548.30
CompetentRegular: $1161.00
Hero (BTN): $642.30
SB: $679.00
BB: $600.00
UTG: $609.00
Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BTN with A
9
2 folds, Fish calls $6, 2 folds, CompetentRegular raises to $18, 3 folds, UTG+2 calls $12
Flop: ($45.00) 6
K
6
(2 players)Fish checks, CompetentRegular checks
Turn: ($45.00) 7
(2 players)Fish checks, CompetentRegular checks
River: ($45.00) 2
(2 players)Fish checks, CompetentRegular checks
Final Pot: $45.00
Fish shows 4
3 (a pair of Sixes)CompetentRegular shows 8
Q (a pair of Sixes - King+Queen kicker)CompetentRegular wins $42.75
(Rake: $2.25)
Notice a few things here: Fish open-limped with a very marginal hand, and CompetentRegular ("C.R.") made an isolation raise in position with a similarly marginal hand. Fish put up very little resistance throughout the hand, even after C.R. seemed to have given up on winning the pot. From this hand and other bits of information, we can glean that Fish is both loose and passive. This read is far from bulletproof, but in the world of online poker--where you'll see a player for 15 minutes, then never see him again--you have no choice but to extrapolate reads from tiny bits of information.
Now, on to the main hand (if it's not clear, "Fish" and "C.R." from Hand 1 are the same players as "Fish" and "C.R." in Hand 2)...
Poker Stars $3/$6 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
MP1: $600.00
Fish: $471.70
CO: $667.20
BTN: $716.30
CompetentRegular (C.R.): $1158.75
Hero (BB): $630.30
UTG: $541.85
UTG+1: $600.00
UTG+2: $621.00
Pre Flop: ($9.00) Hero is BB with J
J4 folds, Fish calls $6, 2 folds, C.R. raises to $18, Hero calls $12, Fish calls $12
This is unorthodox preflop play on Hero's part. With JJ, Hero is certainly beating the range of his two opponents' holdings, so you'd think that a preflop reraise would be in order. A re-raise will almost certainly take down the pot, so Hero would win Fish's $6 + C.R.'s $18 + Hero's own big blind of $6, for a total of $30...this is obviously not a horrendous result, but keep in mind that we want to maximize the amount of money we can win. (If you can't tell by now, "we" are in the role of Hero.) Merely winning the pot is not sufficient.
So, Hero instead decides to smooth-call C.R.'s raise. There's one overriding reason for merely calling--Hero wants to keep Fish in the hand.* Hero is not scared of C.R., because Hero has seen C.R. raise with a wide range of hands in spots like this one. Plus, C.R. is a winning regular but he won't get too cute in spots like this one. In other words, if C.R. flops a monster, Hero will pick up on that quickly and minimize the money he loses. If everything works out as planned, Hero will outflop C.R. and Fish and will be able to get more money out of his JJ than he would were he merely to reraise and take down the pot preflop.
Flop: ($54.00) 5
6 7 (3 players)C.R. checks, Hero bets $30, Fish calls $30, C.R. folds
Hero should like this flop, for a few reasons: most obviously, Hero still has an overpair to the board and is likely beating both of these players. Less obviously but no less importantly, it's quite likely that Fish (who has a history of playing raggedy cards) has caught a piece of this flop--either with something like middle pair or a straight draw. The only bad part about this flop is that it has possibly hit C.R., but if C.R. flopped a strong hand he'd probably bet out and Hero could then proceed with caution.
Once C.R. checks, Hero feels great about his hand. He knows that Fish is passive and likely won't bet a marginal hand like middle pair, so Hero takes the lead. This is somewhat risky because the general idea is that the first person to act after a bet in a multiway pot usually has to have a fairly strong hand to call (because this player has to worry about the people still to act behind him in addition to the bettor), but it's still the best play because we want to extract value from Fish and also get C.R. out of there as soon as we can.
Happily for us, this is just the result we get. We accomplished our two main goals: have Fish put more money into the pot and get C.R. out of the hand before he catches his Ace or his gutshot or whatever. Now that it's just us and a loose, passive opponent, it becomes a very easy situation for us to play.
Turn: ($114.00) 7
(2 players)Hero bets $42, Fish calls $42
At first glance, Hero probably dislikes this card because Fish can easily be holding a 7. Upon further consideration, however, there are lots of cards that we'll hate, for various reasons (lots of low cards hit Fish's potential draws, and lots of overcards either hit Fish, scare us, and/or freeze Fish from putting in any more money). Besides, the 7 counterfeits any small two pair that Fish could potentially hit AND from Fish's standpoint, he's thinking, "well, if I felt good enough about my hand to call on the flop, the turn changes nothing. I didn't have him on a 7 on the flop or I'd have folded, so why should I be scared of another 7?"**
River: ($198.00) 3
(2 players)Hero checks, Fish checks
I personally think Hero should be betting this river. Against a more aggressive fish, this is a great spot to check and then snap-call any bet, because we want to give the player a chance to bluff the river with his missed draw and we (very) generally don't like to bet when a raise will "make you throw up." This particular fish, however, will likely not bluff because he's a passive player, and the 3 is not a very scary card.
Final Pot: $198.00
Fish mucks J
5Hero shows J
J (two pair, Jacks and Sevens)Hero wins $195.00
(Rake: $3.00)
The Takeaway:
1. Even when you're multitabling, it's important to pay attention to the action on all the tables whenever possible, especially when the hand involves an unknown player. If Hero had not noticed the first hand, he would not realize that C.R. was raising so lightly. Thus, Hero would probably have re-raised with JJ and would have missed out on significant value as a result.
2. Poker is often about finessing the fish--you want to isolate him whenever possible, but this is not always easy to do. As we saw, Hero couldn't isolate Fish preflop because there was no amount that Hero could re-raise to that would result in both (1) Fish calling and (2) C.R. folding. So, Hero had to bide his time and wait for a better spot (here, on the flop) to isolate.
3. Playing correct poker means worrying about winning money (as opposed to worrying about taking down pots). Sometimes this means that you have to sacrifice a sure win for a shot at a bigger payday. Hero was 98% likely to take down the pot preflop if he had re-raised, but it was a pot barely worth winning, so he decided to take a, say, 70% chance at winning a healthy pot. That's the mathematically correct decision, but sometimes it's hard to do when you're, say, down a few buy-ins and just need to take down a pot to steady the ship.
3a. "Better to win a small pot than to lose a big one." This poker cliche, while obviously true in its smallest sense, is misleading and not proper strategy.
*Were this hand to take place in a casino, Hero (being a crafty veteran) would undoubtedly steal a glance at Fish before deciding how to proceed. If Fish has already uncapped his cards and is merely waiting to fold, Hero would choose to re-raise instead of smooth-call, because Hero would know that Fish is out either way and once Hero knows this the proper play is to put in the re-raise in position against the competent regular. Inversely, if Fish is in the process of counting out the chips to call the bet, Hero can smooth-call with confidence that Fish will be coming along for the ride. The quick, peripheral glance to your left when the action is on you is probably the most powerful tool you have for figuring out your opponents' likely actions.
**Maybe I'm giving Fish too much credit with his thought process here, but it's likely he's thinking something along these lines...though if you asked him to articulate his thought process, he probably would struggle.
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