Overbetting the river

This was the final hand of a $13 6-max. The heads up portion lasted 69 hands. Sometimes the poker gods do smile on you!

Thoughts on Stop & Go? + bet sizes for punishing an UTG HBL/minraiser?

This is a 6/45 where I posted 3 hands from different stages + the last 5 at FT.



HH1 is a stop & go that worked (although he called). Asarpoj had minraised from button 3 orbits in a row to my BB. I was really getting annoyed as I knew he was stealing, but my hands had been the worst ever. The 4th orbit I decided to use the stop & go with ATC. Anyway, he used the timebutton all the way (interesting to observe what this move does to another player vs. how quick they sometimes call an AI).

HH2 is punishing the HBL Aaron. Any thoughts on this hand? There is a tight platinum star (mjh) still left to act + saitek who is a multitabler with nice stats.

HH3 is the famous suited gapper. I was so shortstacked and desperate + my TAG image got the folds.

HH4-8 I chickened out and decided to creep ITM, lol.

Step 4 Alternatives

As you know Step 4 tickets can be used to buy into any $200 +15 buyin touney. There are several options here. The first that comes to mind is the sexy Sunday Million. All the big boys are there, the potential payout is ridiculous, but the game starts at 10:30 PM. There is also the Sunday Warm-Up. It starts at 7 PM, has less players than the Million, but also less prize money. Finally there are several other smaller MTTs. I'm going to shy these because I expect the number of pros will far out way the number of donks. With the big Sunday tourneys, I can hopefully have enough weak players early on to play comfortably. I have no idea when I will play, but I get a freeroll ticket to another huge prize money tourney from Pokerstars if I get 300 fpps in December. The 75 from playing my step 4 would put me over that...

Any thoughts?

PS: I also have over 3000 FPPs now. I'm pretty sure they will be invested in a Million Dollar Turbo Takedown one of these months :)

Step 3...

Well I decided today was the day to use my ticket. I regged for the normal speed with 10 minute blinds, not turbo. I OPRed the guys at my table. One was a 99.8% OPR genius for the last 3 years with 150K profit for 2009. One other was profitable, all the others were horrible. I never got a playable hand all game and found myself very short stacked on the bubble. I was on the verge of being blinded out when a middle stack shoved with JJ. The bb woke up with QQ and won the hand letting me crawl into 5th for a new Step 3 ticket. I finally got a hand AKs, got two callers and lost to QJ.

At the same time I was also playing in the Daily 30K. Within the first 5 minutes I called a minraise holding J9s and flopped two pair. We ended up all in with him chasing a flush. I doubled. Two hands later I get AKs on the button. I called an utg minraise again and flopped AJ10. I check raised and got called. The next card was low and I moved all in. He called with KK. Yes, he caught his 1 outer on the river to reduce me to 1500 chips. I then proceeded to fold for an hour.

Finally, with an M of 6 and a Q of about 0.3 I made a 3x raise from early position. Another shorty who had me covered moved all in and one of the chip leaders with 30K stack called. I knew I was in trouble, but decided to call. Shorty had AQs and chipleader had QQ. I flopped a J for a set and was looking good. The turn was a 10 and, no surprize, the river was a K giving the AQ shorty a straight...

Anyway, I regged for the next Step 3 normal speed. Things went better this time... The guy to my right at the start also played in the first step3. I'll post my thoughts on the game tomorrow, but let me just say that having a smart aggressive chip leader to my left made play late in the game difficult.

Here is the game

Step 3 $75 +7 buyin

Roland's comments on the game

I obviously played this rather cautiously. I was forced to become even more passive due to my position. I was squeezed between two dagerous players. Dei overnuts to my right was in the previous Step3 game. He is very aggressive often raising oop pf, raising on the flop or turn and surprizingly often firing a second barrel on one of the final streets. Worse, the only times he had to show his cards he had a solid hand. I wanted to avoid confronting him. The later stage chip leader was to my left.

H31 utg min-raise with QQ. That was asking for trouble. Nice flop for me though :) Once I doubled I was playing to conserve chips.

H52 Happy to see Dei overnuts go.

H53 First sign of life from rjgrolsch. Keep an eye on him from now on. Bubble play starts.

H76 Any thoughts on this one?

H107 Bubble finally bursts, but I’m got one of the smallest stacks. rjgrolsch with a hammer lock on the table starts getting aggressive.

H115 Glad the limpers let me see the flop for free.

H129 Any thoughts? I didn’t want to play post flop with this hand and chose to play it safe (weak).

H138 Oh yeah, this nice flop helped secure my Step 4 ticket.

H140 Any thoughts? Normally this is an easy call (or all in to isolate the shorty). Playing the hand greatly increases the chance of knocking out the shorty. However, if he wins the hand I’m suddenly in bad shape.

All in all a pretty boring 140 hands to watch, but I am thrilled with the outcome!

AA busted!

3rd time today, time for a small break, lol................

My daughter plays a 3/45 turbo..............

18 left in the tourney and I had to step away.



We discussed the hands afterwards, and she told me helself which hands she should have played differently. Not too bad for a 10 year old!

$13 6-max (playing against a minraiser to your left)

This was a long one. The 3-handed bubble phase lasts from hands 77-123. The most interesting part is the first eight hands though. The player immediately to my left kept minraising me both pre-flop and post-flop. Very irritating. In keeping with the recent thread on minraising, any thoughts on alternate lines I could have taken or general strategies for dealing with minraisers immediately to your left would be most welcome.

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

Minraising Links

A couple of links to a video by Mike Leah and a short article by Negreanu about minraising. I think Klokkhammer must be Mike Leah in disguise! As Roland will probably recall, I went through a "small ball" phase when I was open raising to 2.5x the BB. I don't remember why I dropped it, maybe I'll give it a go at the 6-max tables.

Thoughts on MinRaising

We don’t talk about it too often, but one must always ask the question ”What am I trying to achieve by playing this hand?” If you are first to act, then the answer is typically one of the following:

• A. Gain equity with a strong hand
• B. See a flop cheaply with a potential hand
• C. Steal the blinds

Gaining equity with a strong hand

Let’s say you have AA. You will gladly get all your chips in the middle with this hand, but you don’t want to scare away all the action. AA vs 1 player with a random hand is 85% favorite. However, vs 2 players you drop to a 70% favorite and vs 3 other players you are down to close to 60%. In other words, you decrease your equity with each extra player. Limiting the number of players is an important way of ensuring that your premium hands hold up.

See a flop cheaply with a potential hand

Let’s say you have Axs, medium sc or a small pocket pair. In these situations you want as many players as possible seeing the flop. This pads the pot. More importantly, when you flop a monster, the extra players increase the likelyhood that someone will pay you off.

With premium hands you are ahead preflop but usually end up with top pair, top kicker. With potential hands, you are behind preflop or at least vulnerable, but are hoping to flop a set, straight or flush. These monster hands hold up better than TPTK in multiway pots.

Furthermore, you want a minimum investment since you are only flopping a set 1 in 8 hands. A small investment makes it easy to fold the hand the 7 times that you brick the flop. Small investment is also why these are profitable early in the game, but less so as the blinds increase.

If someone reraises preflop, you have an easy fold.

Stealing the Blinds

Now you have a decent hand in late position and an unopened pot. The blinds have become worth stealing. Min-raising makes calling with ATC mathmatically correct for the bb. A larger bet increases the likelyhood that they fold and makes it incorrect for the bb to call with a less than average hand. Remember, you are trying to steal, your cards only matter if have to play post flop.

It might seem like min-raising saves you chips if the bb reraises and you have to fold. However, agressive players will view your min-raise a sign of weakness and thus be more likely to reraise you then if you had made a lagrer bet in the first place. (I do this all the time.)

Min-raising from the btn or sb with a monster may often be smart if you expect the bb to reraise you.

Post Flop Play

Since you raised so little preflop in all the situations above, putting the other players on a range of hands is difficult. The may have small pocket pairs, suited connectors, Ax, or pretty much atc.

Reading the texture of the flop in a multiway hand is difficult. Most of the time you miss the flop. Someone might already have a set and someone else will often have a strong straight or flush draw. It is worth noting that these are the hands that would often be folded to a larger raise preflop.

Against one player, few flops will concern you with AA. However, with any other hand it becomes difficult to know where you stand. Is your AKs good vs 269 rainbow flop, or did the bb just flop bottom pair? This in turn makes Cbetting more difficult. A larger raise preflop would have helped you put the player on a range of hands, thus allowing you to better read the flop. Be agressive with the best hand preflop and make them pay to draw out on you.

This is obviously my opinion as a TAG player. Min-raising probably has its place, but be sure you know why you are doing it. Furthermore, why don’t one of you min-raisers keep track of all your min-raises to see if you are profitable over 100 min-raises for example. Even better, group them into the categories above and post your results. Convince me that min-raising is better than the fundamental principle of aggression :)

Roland

How to get to FT without a real hand!

This was a rollercoaster. I didn't have any hand until HH 36(1) where I decide to move with KQs with approx. 20+ players left. Next hand is HH 45(2), then HH 52(3), the guy in SB misclicked he told me. Finally HH 59-end(4-17) for my bubbleboy finish. A chicken fold with Arag in midpos that I didn't dare to play because of my new LAG image, hehe. I could probably have folded to 6th or 7th, but who cares when it was fun!

Good Read Gone Awry

I played the Daily 30K last night. Things started well. I was getting cards and connecting with the flops. Furthermore, I was at the same table the whole game which allowed for me to get some solid reads on the other players.

Hellmuth210 to my right was LAG. He often raised oop and he loved to raise and reraise post flop often scaring opponents into folding. I was purposefully trying to create situations where I played him heads up in hopes that I could double up through him. This strategy resulted in two very critical hands for me. Neither went as expected...

Roland's Daily 30K

Hand 122

Here the big stack limps utg and Hellmuth raises 3x. I know he is making this type of raise with a very wide range. I feel pretty confident that I'm ahead. Therefore, I move all in hoping to isolate him. I made the mistake of not considering the few players left to act, but I sure liked the flop! I would play this hand the same way if I had to do it again.

Final hand

1010 is the lower end of pocket pairs that I'll raise up utg. In this situation however, I had a solid stack and was hoping to isolate Hellmuth in the bb rather than getting a string of callers. Preflop action went as planned only the lag bb calling. I bet into the lag with top pair on a partially connected board. He made a solid reraise which set off a few warning bells in my head. However, I was playing to get a big stack that would offer me the chance of getting deep AND my general read on him indicated that my hand was probabaly good. As a result, I ignored what his reraise was telling me and moved all in.

Reads are important, but you have to look at the particulars of the hand too!

One of these days I'm going to ft a Daily 30K...

PS: I also lost a few 3/45s with my classic AK hand getting called by AQ and spiking the Q.

Roland

Playing medium connectors on the button

This was the second hand from a $13 6-max last night. Limping behind with medium connectors and one-gappers, suited or unsuited, on the button at Levels 1 and 2 has worked out pretty well for me lately. (I went on to donk off a bunch of chips and finished second.)

Small Pairs Late in the Game

MrSmith commented that I folded sveral small pocket pairs in the Game 1 win posted a few days ago. Here is a recap of my reasoning.

Situation: On the bubble with 8 players remaining in a 3/45. The blinds are 400/800 with 50 ante putting 1600 in the pot. I get four playable hands in a row, but fold them all.

Hand 67

CO: Roland GTX (11111 in chips) M6.9

BTN: sergeant999 (5054 in chips) M3.1

SB: nano88 (4440 in chips) M2.8

BB: zendude (19499 in chips) M12.2

The hand folds to me holding 44. What should I do? People call light in these turbos. The btn and sb are very short stacked. They might try to fold itm, but they might gamble too. Any hand that calls me will be at least two overcards making it a 52/48 cointoss. Normally, I will gladly take this cEV+ situation especially since I have the btn and sb sufficiently covered. The problem is the bb chipleader who has twice my stack. Any limp or standard raise I make, he can respond with an all in shove with atc assuming (correctly) that I won’t risk my nice stack on the bubble. On the other hand, my stack is a bit too big for me to make an all in steal attempt. The risk is not worth the gain, espcially on the bubble. if my stack were shorter I would have shoved, but in this situation playing it safe seemed ok with such a marginal hand as 44.

Hand 68
MP2 Roland GTX (11061 in chips) M 6.9
CO: sergeant999 (5004 in chips) M3.1
BTN: nano88 (3990 in chips) M2.5
SB: zendude (20249 in chips) M12.7
BB: cjs_one1 (8256 in chips) M5.2

It folds to me again, but this time Im holding 33. The situation is identical to the hand above with a few exeptions. My hand is slightly weaker and my position is slightly worse. More importantly, three players left to act are short stacked and need to make a move. Plus, the sb is still chipleader and can afford to gamble. Once again folding seemed safest even though it is a slightly cEV+ situation.

Hand 69
This time I pick up QJo. This hand looks nice, but it isn’t. Playing hands like this out of position is a sure way to spew chips. Anyone calling is going to be ahead of you holding Ax, Kx or a pair. I’m shoving if short stacked in this situation, but not with a healthy stack. Fold every time regardless of the bubble.

hand 70

Finally I get delt 55, one of my favorite hands. Once again Im way out of position and get an UTG all in in my face. A clear fold once again.

In other situations you see me shoving Q9o utg – LOL! One move seems crazy and the other seems tight passive. Relative stack sizes and position and the action preceeding me allow me to set a playable hand range. In other words, early in the game and out of postion A9o is garbage getting folded 100% of the time (if Im playing...). Whereas with an M of 3 I’m shoving A9o utg and thrilled to have picked up such a strong hand. Finally, heads up A9o is so strong that I might even consider slowplaying it against an agressive player. We can’t blindly look at our cards but have to consider the whole situation.

I hope this made some sense MrSmith

Roland

Reply to Bet Size Question

OK MrSmith here is my take :)

Short answer: A10s in this situation is a fist pumping insta-shove and hope your hand holds. You don’t even mind getting a caller. My standard line in this situation with an M of 3.75. I’m shoving a very wide range from the button. I’m shoving any two better than average cards. Above average being any two cards 8 or higher, any Ax, and any pocket pair. (Check the pushbot chart...)

Long answer: I did the math, but it isn’t too interesting. There are several other factors that are more important. Here is my way of looking at the situation.

1. You have 4320 chips with an M of 3.75. In other words you are short stacked and on the verge of being blinded out. You need to make a move before the blinds hit you again. you can’t reasonably expect a better hand and situation than this one.

Side note: I have noticed that Moshman’s level for blinding out is much lower than what you see in the 3/45 turbos. I have adjusted my minimum M to 3. Anything under that is getting called pretty much every time.

2. The action is folded to you AND you are on the button. The only one’s remaining are the blinds. If I’m facing the blinds, then I always proceed assuming they have a random hand.

3. You picked up A10s! This is a top 10% hand. I can’t think of any tournament situation in which you could fold A10s from the btn on an unopened pot. You MUST play this hand, folding is clearly not an option. So, now we know that we have to play this hand. What is the best line, limping, making a standard raise, or moving all in?

Bet Size
Both blinds, the only players remaining to act, are even shorter stacked than you are. The small blind has 3674 chips remaining with an M of 3.2. The big blind has 2885 remaining with an M of 2.5. In these situations, even if you were chip leader, you need to play as if you had a stack equal to the sb. However, in this case you actually do.

Limping
If you limp and get shoved on what are you planning on doing? If you intend on calling, then making a raise yourself is much better since it gives you the chance that they fold. If you manage to limp and miss the flop what do you do? Are you going to call a raise or fold? This becomes very difficult. You are so short stacked that I feel limping is just spewing chips and moving you even closer to being blinded out.

Raise
Just like above, what do you do if you make a small raise? Any raise will be pot committing the blinds if they decide to play. However, a non all in does give them the chance to run a stop and go on you. Furthermore, with your low M you cannot fold once you are in the hand. If you do you will be blinded out.

Shove
With an M of 5 or less, (or 10 bb or less in Moshman terms) the only raise is an all in raise. What happens if you shove?
1. You gain maximum fold equity
2. You remain the aggressor avoiding any reraise possibilities
3. You get your chips in the middle with a solid hand
4. The blinds are so short that you are miles ahead of their calling range

What happens when we shove?
I estimate the following:
both blinds fold 50%
If they both fold, great you pick up the much needed 1150 in the pot.

1 caller 30%
If you get 1 caller you are a 65% favorite vs a random hand, 48% vs a lower pair, about 30% vs 1010 – KK,AJ, AQ and AK. The only hand you are really afraid of is being a 13% dog vs AA.

2 callers 20%

If you get 2 callers you are 47% vs two random hands.

All in all, this is a clear cut cEV+ situation. You want to shove this 100% of the time in this situation. The trick is not to get hung up in the results of the particular hand. Over time cEV+ actions do win money. Unfortunately, you were unlucky vs a miracle flush.

GG MrSmith :)

Bet sizes?

This is a classic 50/50 hand in a turbo 3/45. Blinds are 300/600. 11 players left. My stack is just below medium among the last players. Any suggestions on correct bet sizes/fold equity, etc. Benko/Roland; you are the number guys! Several times I have gotten in trouble by "overbetting" in position (4x, 5x BB), thus forcing me into calling AI's at this stage. My read on the SB tells me he will fold unless he has a hand (My motivation for the 4x bet is that I'm looking for a HU vs the BB). If I 2,5x bet, is it realistic that I can get away from the hand if the SB calls/re-raises? Then again, what will the BB do who already has a lot of chips in, my notes tell me he is very tight.

Note; I hit the T in the flop, which enables me to C-bet if he only calls (but that is not realistic given my bet size). Does a 2,5x bet of approx 1500 give me any possibilty to fold? Many questions.........



I hate poker, lol! My typical hand just before FT or early FT is 44, 33 eiher in cutoff or cutoff+1. I noticed in Rolands 2x 3/45 wins that he folded 2 small pp's in decent position, where I usually would overbet.

Simultaneous 3/45 wins

Here are my last two games. Now we can see how many questionable plays I made. The games were played simultaneously on my laptop late at night with Discovery Channel going in the background LOL!

Game 1


Game 2


After reviewing both games, I have to admit that Im pretty nitty early on and pretty much push/fold once the blinds get up there. This is my standard game for the 45 man turbos, but I play rather differently in larger mtts like the Daily 30k. You have to be able to play post flop in those since stacks are so deep.

Feel free to be brutal :)

Roland

Lots of comments

Hi guys

I posted a bunch of long winded comments on all your games. Sorry for the lack of detail in yours MrSmith, but I havent seen too many from benko and klokkhammer and wanted to give them a better looking over.

I hope to post dates for the next Pstars tourney and the next home game tomorrow.

Ive been a bit busy :)

Roland

6,50/45 turbo

Klokkhammer Victory

The replay of Klokkhammer's victory is now posted in his original post.

Roland

$13 6-max

Interesting only because it's probably the loosest $13 6-max table I've ever played at. Should've bet the river on Hand 80 but fortunately all's well that ends well.... Still want to see Klokkhammer's replay!