Posted by Jessica Vecchione on Saturday, 4 April 1998, at 3:49 p.m.
I had an interesting situation two mornings ago in a $10-$20 HE game at the Mirage. I was to the right of an out of town player who I had played with the day before. He was a straight-forward tight player who played OK. Three times, the day before, we had been involved in hands where he always had a pair one notch higher than mine. That's the background, here's the hand. Everyone folded to the button, a solid Mirage regular raised on the button. I three bet with a pair of Jacks in the small blind. My friend made it four bets in the big blind. The original raiser folded, and my friend told me he had a very big pair. I was sure this meant AA or KK. He then asked me if I wanted to just check it out. I said yes, turned a set, and won the pot.
Would it be correct to check down AK (or AK suited?), if I thought his possible hands were AA, KK, and QQ?
Jim Geary on Monday, 6 April 1998, at 1:01 p.m.:
1) JJ is just about the hardest hand to play in limit poker heads up. I'm not sure if "knowing" you're dominated is any consolation. I think I'd prefer to still hold out hope I'm only up against AK, tho of course against the player you described, I'd doubt it.
2) This diverges from the Ultimate Problem in that there the worse hand had position. Here you have the worse hand and are out of position. Also, the odds of improving are significantly different.
3) The real reason to accept the offer to check it down which Jessica briefly touched on is that there is A LOT OF EQUITY having the person on your left "be your friend." This can easily be worth $100 a session in a red chip game. So if they want to be friendly, you should be friendly. In fact, I bet this very situation is probably a result of Jessica unconsciously sowing the seeds of goodwill already.
Glad you brought this topic up.
Last Modified 2/9/00