Out thinking yourself...

I have a problem that reoccurs frequently in my game. Often when playing against one dimensional players, I find myself reading into situations more deeply than I should.
For example:
I'm playing in a home tourney last night. It gets down to final 2, and me and the other guy have roughly even stacks. It goes back and forth for a little while, and the other guy is kind of fishy, pretty much a calling station, but has been able to make standard lay downs too. A couple of times I've came over the top of him (both having and not having a hand) and gotten him to fold. Anyways on a particular hand I called the BB, and we checked all the way down to the river. The pot has like 8 chips in it (we were playing each chip worth 1) and then on the river I check, and he raises like 15. The board is uncoordinated and raggedy, and I don't think he has top pair (matching the only king on the board), because he had been raising with top pair frequently... so I go all in, and he calls with a weird ass straight that he rivered.

The reason I raised him on the end is because I thought to myself "Why would he bet so much into a small pot if he WANTED me to call (ie: he has a good hand)? " I figure raising that much he doesn't want to showdown so I put him all in. I lose. DOH!!!!

I find myself in this situation a lot, misreading people's big bets as bluffs, or small bets as traps. I guess it's a matter of figuring out what level people are thinking on... but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don;t know.

Any comments on this type of thing?

calling stations don't bluff.

also it sounds like you were bluffing with your re-raise. why bother?

don't bluff a calling station.

I've noticed that overbets, particularly on the river, are usually not bluffs.

I also agree that you should not try to bluff a calling station very often.

Originally Posted by RHCNNN

I have a problem that reoccurs frequently in my game. Often when playing against one dimensional players, I find myself reading into situations more deeply than I should.
For example:
I'm playing in a home tourney last night. It gets down to final 2, and me and the other guy have roughly even stacks. It goes back and forth for a little while, and the other guy is kind of fishy, pretty much a calling station, but has been able to make standard lay downs too. A couple of times I've came over the top of him (both having and not having a hand) and gotten him to fold. Anyways on a particular hand I called the BB, and we checked all the way down to the river. The pot has like 8 chips in it (we were playing each chip worth 1) and then on the river I check, and he raises like 15. The board is uncoordinated and raggedy, and I don't think he has top pair (matching the only king on the board), because he had been raising with top pair frequently... so I go all in, and he calls with a weird ass straight that he rivered.

The reason I raised him on the end is because I thought to myself "Why would he bet so much into a small pot if he WANTED me to call (ie: he has a good hand)? " I figure raising that much he doesn't want to showdown so I put him all in. I lose. DOH!!!!

I find myself in this situation a lot, misreading people's big bets as bluffs, or small bets as traps. I guess it's a matter of figuring out what level people are thinking on... but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I don;t know.

Any comments on this type of thing?

I have a similar problem to this. I think everyone is slowplaying me when they reluctantly call. 9 out of 10 times a weak player is just trying to figure out if they should go for their crappy draw. I lose chips by not betting enough against them and allowing them to draw for cheap. Against good players however, this saves me a lot of chips. But that's a different story.

As far as your hand in question however, I don't think the problem here was overthinking, I think it was about ego (no offense, I have the same problem). It seems like you felt you were definitely the better player (which I'm sure you were) and wanted to prove it. I guess this made you risk all your chips to win just 23 of them? That seems really strange to me unless you were super shortstacked. In which case, he's gonna call anyway because he has so many more than you.

your opponent doesn't seem very imaginative, so I would tend to believe his big raises.