blonde poker forum

$5 + $0.50 Sit & Go (9376291), Table 1 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em
Seat 1: Muahahahaha(1,995)
Seat 3: Roseate (2,290)
Seat 4: sidon (1,160)
Seat 5: vjohnson19 (1,190)
Seat 6: stillapfg (2,835)
Seat 7: badbadmike (1,060)
Seat 8: rn4heads (1,560)
Seat 9: Capn Aubrey (1,410)
Roseate posts the small blind of 20
sidon posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Muahahahaha 8h Td
vjohnson19 folds
stillapfg calls 40
badbadmike folds
rn4heads calls 40
Capn Aubrey folds
Muahhahaha calls 40
Roseate folds
sidon checks
*** FLOP ***  Jh 9c Ts
sidon checks
stillapfg checks
rn4heads bets 120
Muahahahaha calls 120
sidon folds
stillapfg raises to 640
rn4heads has 15 seconds left to act
rn4heads folds
Muahahaha calls 520
*** TURN ***  Tc
stillapfg bets 2,155, and is all in
Muahahaha calls 1,315, and is all in
stillapfg shows [Qc 8c]
Muahahaha shows [8h Td]
Uncalled bet of 840 returned to stillapfg
*** RIVER *** [Jh 9c Ts Tc] [2c]
stillapfg shows a flush, Queen high
Muahahahaha shows three of a kind, Tens
stillapfg wins the pot (4,210) with a flush, Queen high

I've had a terrible time this morning.  1st two games I've had KK badly outdrawn, when I've managed to get all my chips in, well in front.  These things happen, but there're still blmmin' annoying.  So this game, I'm trying to concentrate on making decent odds decisions, just to make sure I'm not tilting ( too badly ).

The relevant points ;

1)  I'm on the button, with 2 limpers before me, so I think , if I can see a cheap flop, lovely.  Pot = 180

2)  I get middle pair & an up & down.  I'm happy calling the 120.  Now the check raise to 640. I've got to put 520 into 1060.  So I'm getting over 2/1 odds, and I'll be left over 1300 chips if I have to fold after the turn.
My mistake here was not thinking enough of what his hand could be.  I assumed, without any major reason,  that 2 pair was most likely, because of the preflop check.  I ignored AQ, KQ, & trips.  All very possible in hindsight.

3)   After the turn & I'm put all in, I still don't think about trips sudenly becoming a full house, but I do think he's either got the 2 pair, or is drawing to his straight, and he might have a flush draw now as well.  Because I've got trips already I think I have a decent chance of being in front, but if I'm not , & I need to improve, I tried to work out how many outs to give myself.

I calculated that the T wins, any 8,9,orJ give me the full house.  The Q gives me the straight, as does the 7, but is a lower straight worth counting ?

So I ended up giving myself 1+3+3+3+4 outs.  14 outs + maybe 4 more.  So with 1 card to come if I'm anywhere near 2 /1 odds, I should call. To stick 1300 chips into 2800 is better than 2/1, so I do it.

Now I know the whole premise of this thought process was flawed from the very beginning, & there are so many mistakes, it must be difficult to know where to start, but if there is anyone out there that can suggest a way for me to begin to learn a better procedure, I'll ( eventually ) be very grateful.

Thanks

You don't have this problem if you pass. 10,8 is a horrible hand to play at this stage of an STT regardless of position.

Well yes.  There's always that viewpoint ( The correct one  :)).  But after my 2 x KK debacles I am feeling a little tilty, so purely going by odds, for the sake of 40 chips at 3/1 it's ( mathematically ) reasonable , isn't it ?

That flop is nasty - even with the 'outs' you might have against some hands, you could already be well behind and drawing pretty much dead against some likely holdings.

It's time to bail out then (if you're in the hand at all).

I think you should have folded the flop. This isn't the kind of flop you were looking for. You have middle pair and the low end of the straight draw. You're going to be in bad shape against a lot of hands and not miles ahead of anything.

It's not a bad hand to play on the button in an unraised pot in many poker situations, but early in an STT playing drawing hands costs you money.

Unless you flop a monster hand, which will happen very rarely, then the best you can hope for is flop a draw, perhaps with a pair. Even when you you get the odds to draw to your hand your still putting chips into a pot that you probably won't win. If you play your draw aggressively it often means risking your whole stack. Doubling up early is always nice but it does not guarantee a payout and the chips you lose in these situations are worth far more than the chips you win.

40 chips at 3/1 turned into your stack somehow.

This will happen more often, cheap=expensive, fold your mince pre-flop at this stage of STTs.

You can't play strongly post flop early on in a STT, as you need to conserve your chips. This is what stops me playing marginal hands (or pretty much any hand) early on.

If I did, I'd be getting into too many situations where my opponents, less concerned with chip preservation and high % poker, will be able to run rings round me. Bollox to that, I want to be the pwner, not the pwned, so I pass.

Forget the odds, forget the number of outs you may have, just stop drawing to anything in STTs.

If you win all the chips on the table, you can't cash em in. The biggest prize you can win is 50% of the prize pool. For this reason, keeping chips is more important than winning chips.

Preflop, limping on the button was the worst of your options. On the flop you should have folded for 120 but to call the raise is just about as fishy as it gets. :)

 ;flushy;  ;flushy;  ;flushy;

ditto

I'm not trying to defend my play, I know it was terrible.  But I knew, emotionally, I couldn't play my normal game.

I'm forever reading that to improve we have to understand pot odds & how to play them.

What I was trying to do in this game, was take the emotional play out & rely on numbers. Obviously I got it wrong ( big time ), so the question is how should we play the odds, and how does a dumbster like me start to learn & understand them.

I realise, logically, that my preflop limp was wrong, but mathematically it looks right.

When I used to play golf, one of the things that stuck, was when Big Jack said that winning wasn't being able to play your 'A' game, it was making your 'B' game efficient enough that you didn't lose because of it.

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to do here.  Does that make sense ?  

Muahaha,

I think your question is impossible to answer because you limped preflop so you can't make any assumptions about your oppo's hand ranges. If i were to play this hand, i would raise preflop to try and take the pot then. If they call, i would then have some info that i could use to narrow their hand range allowing me to use my position more effectively.

No, If you know your not playing at your best wouldn't make more sense to simplify your play rather than complicate it? Not playing at all might be an even better option.

If you give yourself 40 outs after every flop you wont go far wrong on a 9 handed table :)up

How best to avoid tilt, we can worry about all that later.

Let's get down to fundamentals, sort out your approach to STTs.


I want you to ask yourself a question that may help you....

Yesterday, with the AA hand, why did you want to have only one opponent call?

Don't worry, there is no wrong answer here. I ain't going to mock you if you say something that appears silly.

AA pre flop is the best hand against any number of opponents.  But it performs best against one opponent.  The more hands you are up against, the greater chance of one of them hitting something that beats you.  So you might beat 3 or 4 hands, but the 5th or 6th is more likely to get lucky.

BTW I don't mind about looking stupid.  If I did, do you think I'd post this stupid bloody question.  But I want to improve, & I don't understand odds, so who better to ask than you lot.  I wanted to be honest about the way I think at the moment about odds, so hopefully you can nudge me in the right direction ( maybe a slap 'round the head with a crowbar might be required  ;) )

No comment to make now and i know it wasnt aimed at me - but quoting it for future to re-use at suitable time ;)

Ok, so look at your flop and how many outs you have to on the flop?

your straight outs are compromised out of 8 outs you have to deduct 2 outs if your drawing to the idiot end str8, substract 1 out if you won't get nuts, substract another 1 if only 1 card is being used to make your str8, so out of 8 outs you have only really 4 outs for your str8.

now for your low pair you have further 5 outs but they are compromised as well as 3 of those (8's) will make someone's str8.
so on the flop realistically you have around 6-7 outs which will make you a winner 14-15% of the time.  6.7/1 against


When you decide to call 520 you have 2/1 odds to call.  It is not very profitable situation to be in IMO.

Also there is some other way of modifying odds accordingly to the number of opponents you are against.  But i haven't got that far in my education.

disclaimer: If i made any mistake in my calculations feel free to correct it.  I am just learning the odds thing .

I think a crowbar might be just the thing we need, and I have some time to kill before I have to get ready to go out. Don't want to play any poker before I do so here we go......

Why do you think is AA best against only one opponent? ie, what do you mean when you say "performs best"

Say you gamble 1000 chips, against your opponents 1000 chips. Say they have a range of hands that includes any two 10 or above, or any pair.

You will be just over 84% for a net win of 1000 chips in the pot.


Say you gamble 1000 chips again, but against 2 opponents with the same range of cards. You will be less likely to win the pot (just over 72%) but will have a net win of twice as much.

So would you prefer 1000 chips 84% of the time, or 2000 chips 72% of the time. (No helping folks, again no right/wrong answers)

depends whether i can get the same odds of 84% to double up with 2000 chips later in the tourney................;)

Any chance of 1000 chips and a battered sausage 78% of the time.

Oi, Monkey

(http://talks.php.net/presentations/slides/debugging/evil.jpg)

Is your name Muahahahaha? I said no helping, whatever happened to the chimp on the left?  ;)


Disruptive pupil, go count the rulers and bring me the largest when you're done.  ;djinn;

Right.

So I was saying that an up & down straight flush needs 2/1 odds & by having a pair as well, I assumed that with chances for 2 pair/ trips, which might also win,  the extra outs would reduce my calling requirements.

You're saying that my outs are immediately compromised.  I can see the reduction for the 1 card straight & the non nut straight. But to ALWAYS reduce an up & down to 6 outs is a new one on me.

For simplicity's sake, if I start thinking about an up & down straight as being similar to pairs improving to trips, I'll be nearer the mark.  Unless it's a minimum ( ish ) bet, I'm better off getting rid ?

So now the initial call of 120 with someone still to play IS mathematically crap, let alone all the dross afterwards. 

So where I started in prime position, by having the initial guy check, now puts me in a poor relative position, with poor odds to call.

Am I getting there ?

( Cheers btw )

Given that with the AA situation I felt I was ( relatively ) on top of my game, I want to win as much as possible, as safely as possible.  So although the 2000 chips 72 % of the time gives me more chips when it wins,  I almost bust out when I lose.  Now the greater chance of getting knocked out is less attractive.

So I go with 1000 @ 84% in this case.  I already had a decent stack, so no desperate steps are needed, go for the safer way to win.

Your outs modification should also depend on what your opponents are holding.  In this scenario I  would have thought that one of them had a Qx/Kx/Jx.  Hence you had no reason to stay in the hand after the flop.

If you are drawing to straight and you are pretty sure no-one is on the flush draw then no reason to compromise your outs, but if you suspect they are trying to get their flush, your outs will be compromised.

Ok, that's great. The % of time you win the pot is much more important in STTs than how many chips are on offer.*

What you need to do is use that same rationale when it comes to deciding whether to draw or not.

When it looks like you might have the odds, you actually don't. *

This is why working out odds and outs is not as important in STTs. There's no point, to begin with, getting your odds down tight, as they will only mislead you as to the correct move.



*Relative chip values in STTs is something worth asking about. I can't go into it now, have to go.
Someone else may help.

Thanks for all this stuff.

I gotta go now too. I'll reread it & ask more stupid questions soon

cheers

 ;hide; I'm sorry sir, i won't do it again, promise.




What about an MTT? I would generally want to be heads up because really it is only me vs the blinds (a point that Cloutier makes that i tend to agree with, thinking this way helps me play better poker) however, i can see a case for taking slightly more risk in the early-middle stages of the tournament if it would me go deeper. In the late stages of the tourney, i wouldn't want to take anymore risk than i have to. Am i right to think in this way?

Best advice you will ever read.

(There might be equal best but still only equal)

You should post more on this board Tank

In the late stages, I guess this would be very structure and prizepool dependant.

With a slow structure/flat payout, you would lean towards high % STT poker.

With a crapshoot structure/top heavy payout, you'd take gambles for a stack. Oftentimes twenty, 5th-9th place finishes arn't worth one 1st.

Right, another day, another dollar.

Thanks everyone for your help & advice.

I've read Wardonkey's Way.  ( Thanks for the pointer's to it BTW ).

No play today.  After a day like yesterday I need to take a step back to make sure the tilt is long gone before I 'invest' again.

Then we'll try again tomorrow & I'll let you know how much of this stuff has stuck.

 ;flushy; ;flushy; ;flushy; ;flushy; ;flushy;

I'll see if I can rduce it to only four fishy play

 :)up

If you're feeling tilty, go and sit down at the cheapest HU sng you can find, and then hammer the raise button constantly. You'll lose everytime but it will make you feel better.

Only saw this late yesterday, but immediately went to the 10c sng s & rapidly lost  :'(

Then went to a 10c 9 seater & lasted, ooh, a few minutes.

Got my mood back up, then uped my game all the way to a 25c 6 seater.

Reamed the b*ggers   rotflmfao

Great fun - great advice.

Today went back onto the 'proper' tables.  Lost the first.  Cashed in the second, but didn't play particularly well (although I did chuck away a couple of 4 card draws  8) ).

Then thought, what the heck, & popped all the way up to a $10 table.  i've only ever played about 4 or 5 , & only hit the cash once.  So I tend to stay well clear, unless I'm on a good run.  But I wanted to put all this good advice into action.

So I tightened the botty muscles.  Played proper cards in proper position, bet & raised with tp, bet & folded with mp.  Eventually they got fed up with me, so shorty raised me all in after I'd bet out after yet another flop.  The thing is, this time I'd hit 2 pair, so I called, & he showed an A high flush draw.  I'm happy here, until the turn makes his flush.  It took me a couple of seconds to noticed it made my full house though.

 :o  just checking  .... ;gobsmacked;


That made me CL, carried on betting small & often, & eventually won it.  My first ever $10 sng victory.   ;D ;D

A tiny step for most blondites.  A bloody great leap for me.   ;yippee;

I feel I'm worthy of losing a couple of fishes for that one.

 ;flushy; ;flushy; ;flushy;

Thanks for all the advice.  I'll keep going 'till all those fishes disapear.

 ;mexicanwave;

Good result!!

 :)up