Quote Originally Posted by drmcboy
Quote Originally Posted by LawDude
Judging by his play after this hand, I think he was deliberately slow playing. He was not a bad player by any means and probably figured that as long as the calling stations were building the pot for him, he was making a positive expected value play.

But yes, he should have raised me the hell out of there!
slow playing two pair on that board vs 3 opps is never good.

I guess it depends on your definition of bad player, because if you can handle a beat or two it's going to be hard to be a winning player.

he should raise and hope you call, not raise and hope you fold.
Here's what I mean when I say he was a decent player.

Your average player in the L.A. casinos is either loose aggressive (a maniac) or loose passive (a calling station). Furthermore, he almost never has any idea that he is beat, doesn't process information you give him about your hand (seriously, I have seen people call with 2 pair on the river after being TOLD "don't call, I hit my straight!"), plays lots of hands pre-flop, and just wants to get his money into the pot and hit the lottery. And he wouldn't know the concept of a read if you wrote down the probable ranges of his opponents in the hand and handed it to him.

This guy was not that. He was tight-passive. He shouldn't have been slow-playing, but he was clearly doing reads and put his opponents on draws. He had been betting the 2 hands he was sucked out on properly. He thought he had me beat all along (and his read was correct in that respect).

While he wasn't playing the way he should have been, that tight-passive style can actually be profitable in many L.A. casinos, simply because you avoid playing a lot of hands where you are going to lose money and you let the donks build up the pot when you have a good hand. It's not my style, but I've seen people do fine with it because of the mix of players we have.

So yes, of course I would be raising that two pair and making people on straight and flush draws pay a price if they wanted to stay in the hand. But the truly "bad" players in our casinos are not the tight passives who wait for the opportunity and then collect a bunch of chips from the maniacs and the fish. The truly bad players are the maniacs and the fish.

(Oh, and by the way, he might hope I call with A4, but if he raises, I fold. And just to underscore my statements about L.A. casino players, I'd say 75 percent of them would call a bet from a tight-passive player with a pair of aces and no kicker on a wet board.)