blonde poker forum

HAND ONE:

Villain is Dave Callaghan. Irish pro that beats the biggest Omaha games online for ridiculous amounts of money. Has a solid NLHE tournament record and is well overdue a big, big result in one.

So far Dave has been owning my soul pretty hard. He has called a lot of my opens and has taken me off a couple of three way pots when he check raised me OOP either on the flop or turn and showed me badugi (I didn’t have it on any occasion of course because I never have it).

The hand before this one I 3 bet an UTG open in mp from 450 -> 1300 and took the pot down after going heads up to the flop against the open raiser and getting an 1800 c – bet through on a 8 - 8 – 5 flop with two hearts. I didn’t show.


Anyway, very next hand it folds to me in mp and I make it 450 to play with 66 (every open I will make during the 75 – 150 level will be 450 irrespective of hand strength or position). Dave calls in the small blind and the big blind mutters something about value and also calls. I have 15.5k and Dave covers.

Flop: (1350) 10 – 8 – 5 rainbow. Check, check, I check??

Turn: (1350) a 4 bringing diamonds. Dave leads 1100. Big blind thinks and mucks. I quickly call.

River: (3550). 3 of hearts. Dave bets 2k and I call.

Am I ever good here??



HAND TWO:

Blinds 300 / 600 / 50 and I have about 55k.

We are five minutes from the end of the first level of day two (90 min levels). I started the day with 14.5k and have got back into things after getting a double up two hands into the resumption of play with a flopped flushdraw + gutshot in a multiway limped pot (I raised a flop lead and shoved the remainder of my stack in on the turn getting action from top pair but I got there on the river ftw).

Since that hand I have only played one big pot where I made a button raise when folded to me and triple barrelled the loose laggy chipleader calling station in the big blind on a JcJx10c 5d 5s board for the pot on the flop and turn – and shove of the remaining on the river. She check, called the first two streets and gave up on the end after a Hollywood. I didn’t show, and have done little else of note. I’m opening about twice an orbit but showing some decent starting hands about 60% of the time if uncalled. I have got my c – bets through when necessary and been uncalled when I have 3 bet (3 times). My image should be ok – I’m active and following through but haven’t really been caught out of line whatsoever.

Villain in this hand has played with me quite a bit. He is a regular club player in Dublin. His preflop range is generally tightish and he will adjust it as necessary depending on players per table; table conditions, etc. He will rarely if ever show up on a stone cold bluff post flop but he is capable of taking a stab if he senses weakness. Has above average hand reading abilities.

We are now seven handed.

Villain opens to 2200 second to act with about 45k behind. Folds to me and I 3 bet AKo to 7000. Villain thinks and calls kind of reluctantly after confirming with the dealer that it was another 4800.

Flop: (14650) AsQs10x.

Yuck. I check, he checks after a short pause.

Turn: (14650) 9x.

I check. He thinks and bets 7k. I quickly call.

River: (28650) 7s.

I check. Effective stacks behind now ~ 34k.


How much, if anything, should we call on this river? People like my line? My hand is face up right?


HAND THREE:

Final table, 7 left. Blinds 2k / 4k / 500. Level just got going. I have ~ 300k and Villain in the hand (Roy Brindley) about 240k or so.

I only played with Roy for the first time ever from the start of the final table. We have played 3 levels so far (4.5 hrs). I started with a decent chip lead and Roy second in chips. I have been quite surprised that he hasn’t gone after me more than he has. He has not concentrated on stealing my blind and shown some premium hands about half the time he has when I folded. The last level he raised it twice and I 3 bet him the second time to which he folded.

I was talking to a couple of guys who logged some table time with him during the first day of the tournament. It was mentioned to me that he defends too much oop and likes to go on the odd stone colder every once in a while. Thus far he hasn't been seen to be horribly out of line at the FT. There was one hand where he raised Qd10d in early position and c - bet against Peter Heslin on a ten high board with a flushdraw - then checkraised a board pairing turn card before checking the river and being good. He has folded to 3 bets preflop.

I defended by 3 betting other players the first two times at the FT I was attacked. I have also opened frequently when folded to me in late position. And I have shown a willingness to call quite light on the turn and river in raised headsup pots. Final point is that I have c – bet flops with a lower than normal frequency when called preflop and have instead opted to take a check, call line with marginal hands thus far.


Anyway, folds to Roy in mid position and he open limps (he has done this much more than I would have expected so far). Folds to me in the big blind and I decline to raise Ajo.

Flop: (12800) AsQs8x

I check. He bets 8k, I quickly call.

Turn: (28800) 8x

I check. He bets 16k and I call.

River: (60800) 7s

I check, he bets 25k. I think and call.

Ok?

Hand 1: Why would you call the turn and not call the river when an undercard comes? The decision is really on the turn call, the river calls itself... (BTW, I think your probably beat before the river card comes, and should either raise/fold the turn)

Hand 2: I think you should fold to any bet, I would lead out on the turn and fold to a raise, once youve checked twice he's bound to fire at it...

Hand 3: You need to call 25k to win 85k, but agin I think your beat and he has AQ, but with the value he's giving you I think this is the toughest call of the 3...

1, i've called off to many chips in these spots to think it's profitable overall, so generally you are not good. I also limp 66 here in early levels and mp and you have to c bet it on the flop in a 3 way pot and give up to action or check it down if called usually (i might fire the 2nd bullet sometimes depending on opponent).

2,i don't like your flop line in 2, i bet it solidly on the flop, it's a drawy board so you will almost definately force a set to expose himself and 2 pairs will prob re pop and save you money overall if your behind. your hand is face up so he can value bet perfectly with ease, i think your probably oblidged to call 15k. Again it's one pair and i wan't to kill it immediately either way in a raised pot.

didn't read 3

Btw, I didn't bet the flop in hand two because I would have had to stab myself in the eye if he calls or raises.

Interesting..you're saying the guy has been completey outplaying you and I think that has a big impact on the way you played this hand. On the Flop you are too scared o the checkraise and tat's why you don't stick in a continuation bet I think. I bet out on this flop in position against the blinds most of the times.

As for your question, are you ever good?..you shouldn't be really..and the call is a pretty dire one I think


yeah you're pretty much saying "I've got AK here" ..you're also saying "and I am a weak calling station..call me with any 2 pre-flop and odds are you'll get me off the hand as I sure as hell won't bet any flop" The flop is once again a MUST bet. On a draw heavy flop you do not give out any more free cards...You've told people pre-flop you have a hand..sure you might be behind on this flop but you sure as hell had better find out on the flop...so bet on the flop and then see what he does.



this again is where my "weak calling station" comment comes in. 2 people in the pot and pre-flop you don't raise AJ? Then when you hit the flop you check call? you could lead out here or check raise here..check calling through hands is just a bad way to play. All three hands you've posted here you've played too weak for my liking. You only bet preflop and after that you turn into a calling station. OK you might not have the best hand every time but odds are that in 2 of the 3 cases on the flop you're ahead...you have never tried to find that out and could be in a world of trouble every time.

btw..I'm not calling you a weak calling station..I am saying though that if I was at your table watching you play 3 hands like this I'd make a note on you saying something like that.

i know what your saying but you have to bet it, you are so unlikely to get bluffed on that flopped in a re raised pot pre flop thats it's an auto raise, i think anything else is just massively over complicating the situation.

Boldie - there is no doubt that I'm a weak calling station. Do we not want to create the possibillity that people bluff us or bet hands we beat in the thoughts that they are ahead?

I think hands 1 and 3 are fine. Hand 2 is tough, I think I C-Bet it even though you are turning TPTK into a bluff?

Boldie this doesn't make sense mate :)

Well yeah - this is my question with regards to hand two. If I bet that flop I am bluffing because I can't call a raise, right? And if he calls I will be put in a tough spot on pretty much every turn card and have to check, fold lots and lots.

So, is there more value in just bluffing on the flop here or checking and making a street by street decision on how much we call off depending on the developing board texture?

yeah I know it doesn't make sense chief......should have read "I'm crap" but that would have been way too harsh as it might pay off and there are things like pot-control to consider when OOP...My reply was more of a rant than a reply..I just think all three hands show a massive degree of weakness and it bothers me rotten when pre-flop raisers don't have the balls to atleast stick another bet in.

more and more difficult decisions for us and easy decisions for our opponent, we give him the entire range of options and if hes any good at all he will make the right decision because he knows your hand.

his bet on the turn is quite weak so i have to call there and we don't know what he bets on the river but i know i'm going to end up calling mostly because of the pot size in realtion to my stack.

I hate check calling this spot, you may as well put up a sign that says smack me about a bit, i haven't got a clue if i'm good here.

can you explain why you think hand 1 is fine?

Poker isn't about "balls" or appearing "strong" - yada, yada, yada. I'm not going to just lump out a continuation bet because I flopped TPTK. The board texture means that I have flopped good showdown value; but could not possibly continue the hand if he raises a flop bet from me. Same holds for the turn.

Given that he raise, called on a seven handed table, a reasonable range includes plenty of pocket pairs; a lot of aces; KQsuited sometimes maybe; MAYBE some suited connector type hands.

Therefore, he misses this flop a lot and will just fold if we continuation bet when he has like 2 - 5 outs. This is bad for us.

Or he has hit this flop pretty hard and can own us in position given stacksizes. Or he has whiffed completely nut may take a stab at it.

I don't really care if I appear "weak" or "crap" in your or anyone elses eyes. I believed at the time that the EV of checking this flop is much better than betting it.

against a good player i believe that your decision is -EV all day long.

If he's hit it you can get out cheaper on the flop than you can by calling bet after bet.
You decide to give out free cards on all flops and than you decide to call everything down that he does. It really isn't a wonder that oppo has been owning you at the table for three hours as all you've been doing is let him decide whether he takes down a big pot or lets you win a small one. You have no control in any single one of those three hands you've shown..that can not be the wise thing to do in all cases.


The winning player in a tourney has never been the man who called his opponents bets all day long...really it hasn't.

he has a point there. If you were at my table i would be actively looking to play pots against you specifically given the info you provide on yourself.

Ok, so you think that bet folding the flop is best in two then? Why is that better than checking if we think our opponent is a thinking player? Is there value in that? Can he call us with worse?

Really?

- I'm not going to overplay any medium hands against you;
- I'm not going to give up easily in a pot against you;
- You willl have to go to showdown a lot and have the best hand in order to win the pot;

Also, these are three hands. You can read the rest of the background info again. I'm not taking weak passive lines with all of my hands.

lol:

- You would like me to bet for information and find out "where I'm at" eh?
- You would like me to play bluff catching and showdown value strength hands strongly so that "I take control of the pot";
- You believe that you can never call - just fold or raise, right?
- Ultimately, you would like me to play my hands ultra transparently so that I "define" what I have and allow my opponents to play perfect poker against me, yeah?
- Playing "strong" and "having balls" is much better than injecting some element of deception and taking lines that widen ranges huh?


By the way, I posted these hands because I am slightly unsure as to whether I could have played them better. But, you need to convince me of a better line. I don't find you terribly persuasive so far FWIW. 

I suppose the theory is that he would check/call the river with a hand with showdown value therefore he either has a big hand or a bluff. I think this is called having a polorised range or something.

There was an interesting thread I think in MSNL on 2p2 a while ago where someone came up with a hypothisis that if you either had to C-Bet every flop or check every flop you are better off checking. For every arguement that people came up with why you would be better off C-betting there was like an equal and opposite arguement for checking, eg bet so you don't give a free card with which he might outdraw you - check and give ourselves a free card so we might outdraw him. Bet as a bluff so we get better hands to fold - check so that he can't raise us on a bluff and get us off the better hand. etc etc etc. The thread is good for understanding when to C-bet and when to check and this is something that I have had some trouble with and I still C-bet too much probably.

Also it seems clear to me that the more you raise pre-flop the less you can C-bet. If someone only raises AA and KK they can C-bet every flop but if someone raises 50% of their hands clearly they can't hit the flop every time. LL seems to be playing pretty LAG here and obv he has to mix it up but in general C-bet for value and as a bluff but not with marginal hands with showdown value which is pretty much what all these hands are.

Yes if i get raised it absolutely is.
it's better because as you say yourself you have basically turned your cards over, if it was the other way round can you see anyway you are losing the hand with any cards against this play. He might have AJ and check it down but he's a mug if he does.
The value is winning a reasonable pot now or not losing a bigger one to a better hand or allowing the best hand to get pushed out. I don't see a single thing going for your play, please convince me otherwise?

there is a time and place for trying to get value out of 1 pair and this ain't it.



1,  loose passive calling station
2,  loose passive calling station
3,  loose passive calling station

i'm looking to value bet the ... out of you because of these 3 points and maybe take away some pots if you tell me what your hands are.

them's my thoughts on these hands as well.

i understand. I too continuation bet too much but do it a helluva lot less than i use to.

i just have an aversion to these spots and tend to be losing most the time when i call.

Huh? So you guys are going to "actively get involved in pots against me" because I'm a station and value bet the bejaysus out of me? That statement doesn't really make sense.

If you are going to actively get involved me and go after me a bit it implies that you are going to do it with a wider range than usual. But if I'm taking lines with these medium strength hands and we're going to showdown a lot your wider range is going to have to flop good a lot for this to be profitable. And my lines are designed to get you to bluff a lot so I can just check, call.

It would be better to go after me if I was playing absurdly tight and folding a lot postflop; or playing absurdly tight and just blindly betting postflop because you would have great bluff equity or implied odds - meaning you could target me with a wider range - particularly given how deep the structure is.

In any case, I refer you once again to the detailed background information provided for each of the three hands. I'm not playing ALL my hands weak passive and, who kows, I may have the abillity to adjust against specific opponents somewhat.

I completey understand you don't play all your hands this way (or you would have been out of the tourney a lot earlier) but yes If I widen my range here and hit the flop hard (2 pair + will do it) against you I can start betting knowing that if you have top pair..decent kicker you are bound to pay me off.

These three hands might not be a good example as to your style of play..however they do have one thing in common and that is that you play them very passively. You might have a good reason, you feel, to do so but it's not the way I'd play them and all me, and Ace, are saying is that; if we are at the table seeing you play these hands like that the picture we'd build up off you is very likely to be of the sort of person who will pay us off heavily if we flop the nuts.

and if I open up my range here and you pay off potsize bets on the turn and river (or just below that) you are giving me odds to be in justabout every pot with you..even if you raise it to three times the BB preflop.

These spots are tougher because we don't simply bet out with the intention of folding to raises. But, well, the objective is not to make hands easier to play. It is to maximise your EV.

Oh and btw, most tournament players (myself included) misuse the continuation bet horribly. It's something that needs to be used in ever greater moderation these days IMO. It doesn't get the auto respect it used to and when used too much it is kinda like throwing chips down the drain.

However, that being said, it is of course important to balance your range and mix things up. At the very least, it should be much more of a decision in most hands. Always doing it irrespective of your holding or flop texture cannot be correct.

A common theme in most of the bets I have called in these three hands is that they aren't close to full pot bets (aside from the turn bet in hand one). Might be something to think about?  ::)

First time I've read a thread on Blonde in a little while and would like to add my thoughts to the discussion. It's funny when you read a debate through from the start to the finish because you are smacked in the face by the testosterone that dominates the thought process of players.

Anyway I agree with Lloyd when he says "poker isn't about balls or appearing strong". Many players fall into this trap and loose a lot of chips. So what is poker about?....It is about INFORMATION.

As such I think a pre-flop strategy of e.g....
...is a good one because it denies your opponents ANY information regarding the strength of your hand. I employ this strategy religiously.

Any information that your opponents gather about you during a hand is rendered useless unless you show a hand. They can speculate about what your actions MIGHT mean...but they wont KNOW. They wont KNOW unless they have a hand to connect it all together. This is the problem I have with the term "showdown value". What does this really mean in the scheme of things? If we call and showdown every hand here we give ALL our opponents a shed load of information about us and the way we play. I think this much overlooked point deserves a lot of consideration.

I will rarely show a hand if I take a pot uncontested. On the occasions I do show, it is solely to garner some sort of future reaction from other players by manufacturing an image. What other reason could there be to provide this free information?

If the only reason to check-call (especially the river) in all three examples is because you think you may just have the best hand then the decision seems a bit isolated to that specific hand and not the overall tournament objective. The showdown "value" to you if you loose with the 6's in Hand 1 is check-calling all the way with top set next time.

But here we have the point for me. You are lucky to see top set once in a tournament. Most tournament situations are quite marginal. So putting money into a pot by calling and showing down weakness gets you an image that is going to be difficult to exploit later on, especially considering the stack sizes in play. You can only win one way and that way furnishes the table with a lot of information. And poker is a game of information.

I raise pre-flop with the 6's in Hand 1, mainly because it is a fair hand and stands a reasonable chance of being ahead right now. That's why I put money into the pot. After assessing the texture of the flop and the check-check in front I would still hold that opinion....and put money into the pot. So in a way a continuation bet for me is about a continuation of attitude. But as per pre-flop strategy I would bet the same amount whether I had 6's or top set on that board...a "continuation" of strategy....that gives no information. Hopefully I showdown top set and not 6's because this will give a lot of c-bet credit. I don't really want to showdown the 6's, I probably wont be ahead and I can't exploit the image I create.

Your opponent might only fold worse hands here but I think that is a good thing. I don't want to see how the texture of the board develops with 6-6 because I'm pretty sure it's not going to develop in my favour. I want to push marginal hands based on an image of showing down strength. Giving players free cards when your hand is quite marginal but incredibly vulnerable doesn't make sense to me. Your first priority is survival and getting worse hands to fold is ok as things stand. As it goes there are a couple of draws on the board that may get involved.

At some point you need to decide if you have the best hand and what hand your opponent has...imo you loose the information you need if you are just check-calling all the way. Playing the hand this way denies you information but gives your opponents lots of information just because you think you might have the best hand...but if you think you have the best hand then why not c-bet the flop? If worse hands go away then good, you are not holding a set. But quite often people DO call with the worst hand...the call on the end with 6's in this hand for example.

hand 1 im not too sure about, if hes a top omaha player he can definately valuebet thin, but given the way you played the hand, what hands does he think will call him down that he beats if he has say 89 or other hands like that, i think if he has a marginal hand given the way you played it, hes more likely to want to snap off a bluff if hes not particularly strong, and i think theres a chance you can have missed draws here fairly often, so I'd call and feel ok about it.

hand 2 no idea, probably check/fold if he is a thinking player that rarely makes stone cold bluffs and can read our hand well, can he expect us to play AK this defensively and still fold the river? I donno.


hand 3 looks standard

I like hand 1.

I dont like hand 2 as much. I think playing abc some of the time esp if ur a tricky player isnt the worst option. After all baby needs to be paid.

I like hand 3 the best.

i like hand 3 also.
bit concerned that he is still betting at the river although it makes me more inclined to believe he may well be bluffing if he thinks his hand has no showdown value, what can he think you have? he can only be beating a Q and its tough to value bet the river with just an A there.
Regardless of any worry i'm still calling and happy with how i played it.

Yeah, well I thought this was the most clearcut of all the hands. My thinking was that:

- We have been told before start of play that he likes the occassional stone colder;
- He has been limping more than expected and hasn't shown down anything big when he has;
- We have underrepped our hand significantly and it is impossible for him to think we have AQ // AJ;
- His bet on the end is sized like a value bet. This is slightly troublesome but it does give us a sick price and we don't need to be good here too often;
- At the most basic level, live tournament players struggle to value bet thin. This is the nuts or nothing a lot;

I think all of the above makes the river a call.

I'll wrap this up. Thanks to all that replied. Appreciate the time.

1) I was shown As10s
2) Opponent checked the river. My AK was good
3) After I called Roy held up his cards off the table and looked at them as if to surrender. I just showed my hand quickly after seeing that and allowed him to muck

Thanks for posting them ..we disagree on how they should be played but they were good hands to post.