Monday, December 14, 2009

Steps

Hi Guys

I won a ticket to the pokerlistings December tourney which ran yesterday. I finished 138th out of about 1400 players winning a step 2 ticket which I used late last night. I haven't played too many steps but got decent cards in this one. The guy to my right is a supernova and the agro guy to my left is a gold star. Now I have a Step 3 ticket burning a hole in my pocket. I would really like to turn this into a Step 4 since they can be used as a buyin for the Sunday Million...

Any advice on Step 3 tourneys would be welcome.

Here is the replay of my Step 2. Notice my post flop minraise ( half pot though) in hand 44 on the scary flop sb vs bb :) More importantly, notice what happens to the short stacked utg preflop min-raiser in hand 50! Great flop, but any other bet and I'm folding that trash...



Roland

5 comments:

  1. Good stuff Roland! Wp, and good patience not playing HH20. Also a nice call and hit on HH 34. HH 49 limp?, worked anyway. Lol at the minraiser in HH50, not even I can defend his actions there, goldstar donker? (I have OPR'd many and they tend to be cashplayers and have less experience on tourny play). As Roland knows, I played a bunch of steps last year. My very first 2 steps got me to step 4 and 5 respectively (this was before step 4 could be used as a 215,- buy-in). I think I replayed the same steps once in Step 2 and once in Step 3. Quality in the steps is much higher now than 18 months ago, so my best advice would be to play step 3 the same way as step 2. I found these to be very similar (qualitywise).

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  2. HH20 was a close call. I played fairly safe early on to make sure that I at least won some sort of ticket. A10s looks nice, but I was oop with several aggressive players yet to act. I asked myself "What am I going to do if I get reraised?". My answer was "fold" therefore I just stayed out of the hand. Lucky choice for me looking at the results of the hand.

    The shorty folded thus it was easy to make a raise on the flop knowing that the supernova would never call without having seriously connected. We were both avoiding confrontations with eachother. This is why I was able to confidently reraise the one hand where he made a 600 chip pf raise.

    Nice when things actually work out according to the plan:)

    HH34 Min-raise from the btn. This was an easy call preflop. I actually considered reraising but again I was playing cautiously. I flopped top pair with a vulnerable kicker. I assumed I was ahead but didn't want to give him a free card. His flop call left him with so few chips that I knew I would have to see this hand to the river. Therefore, I tossed out another bet on the turn hoping he would either call with Ax or fold which he did. He spewed half his stack with a high blind min-raise. Had he shoved preflop I would have folded my A7o.

    HH49 If this were a normal tourney I obviously would have raised. However, since top 2 spots tie for først my only thought was to get rid of the short stack while avoiding a confrontation with the big stack.

    By limping I was inviting the short stack to shove. If then the bb calls, I fold. If the bb folds, then I call. In this way I avoid the confrontation with the other big stack.

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  3. Sorry, paragraphs two and three should have been at the end of my comment above!

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  4. Nice going, Roland. I also played a bunch of steps last year when trying to qualify for San Remo. Some general advice (nothing new, I expect) follows a few comments on your Step 2 (as MrSmith said, good patience early BTW).

    HH 28 Not sure I understand limping with queens there.

    HH 34 << I flopped top pair with a vulnerable kicker. >> How vulnerable is an ace kicker, lol!

    HH 44 Unless there's something wrong with the replay, you led out with the minimum bet (not a minraise) on a TTT flop when queen high was probably the best hand.

    HH 49 Nice situational awareness/bubble play!

    HH 50 Unfortunately for me, I would probably have folded even to the minraise there with a hand like 62o given his short stack size.

    The biggest decision you'll have to make about the Step 3 is whether to play the turbo version or regular speed. My sense is the players are generally stronger in the regular Step 3s than the turbo Step 3s but as you know one has less time to play poker in the turbos and it's easy to have a run of bad cards. Since your first goal at Step 3 is to finish in the top 5 (and at least get your ticket back), my general recommendation to good players would be to play at the regular speed, nitty until the bubble bursts and then open up. Play gets really tight on the bubble. That may present some opportunities to steal as your M drops but my basic approach on the bubble was to let my M drop lower than usual (even below 3) if there was a shorter stack in danger of blinding out. Whether you go turbo or regular, I would watch a few at around the same time of day when you would expect to use your ticket to get a feel for them and if you go regular, I would play a few normal SNGs to reacclimate yourself to the non-turbo pace. GL!

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  5. Sorry for the poor writing in my post! It was a rush job at work.

    34 vulnerable top pair.
    44 Yes, minbet, not raised, the flop. Either my bluff wins the hand immediately or Im done putting money in.

    50 calling the minraise with 62o. The short stack is a weak player. The extra chips from calling have little impact on our stacks. More importantly, I view this as a "free" shot at knocking him out of the tourney. If a TAG had made that raise I would have assumed a monster and folded. Anyone else and I'm playing the odds and calling.

    28 This hand is interesting. Firstly, I am playing cautiously since this is a steps tourney. Secondly, I am last to act pf if I call. Thus I can see a flop cheaply without committing myself. Thirdly, my stack isnt too great. There is about 1000 in the pot if I call and I will have enough for a solid all in as first to act if the flop is favorable with my remaining 1200.

    If the flop has overcards I can check-call or check-fold depending on the action. If the flop is low cards I can shove with solid fold equity or force someone to make a mistake and pay to draw out on me.

    This isnt my standard QQ line, but it seemed like the best line in this particular situation.

    Thanks for your comments.

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