blonde poker forum

Right guys fire away criticism welcome but be gentle with me still feeling pretty delicate after this hand.

I Played a live tourny the night £30 freeze out.  Final table I have 31k and I am 2nd CL, this is first hand of the final and I am on the button.  I look down and find Tc Th the blinds are 500/1k it folds round to me and I make it 6k to go, the SB remarks "every time on my blinds you raise", dwells  for a few seconds and says "but you haven't done it with muck" then passes.

BB CL, 60k circa goes into the tank and then after about 3 minutes he calls.  Flop comes down 9s 3s Jd he checks to me and I fire in 9k, he once again dwells for about 4 minutes messing about with chips looks at his cards, gets ready to muck them puts them down picks them up messes around with chips again and asks "who is it to go" when told by the dealer it was he he announed "I'm all in" WTF!!??!!

I haven't played this guy before complete mateyboy, he hadn't been at my table at all until now.  I really don't know where I am, I think I play the hand quite strongly to this point, I have 16k back but if I make the call I stand the chance of winning a 60k pot double me up and creates a big dent in his stack. 

I am really undecided.  Call or fold?  Do you play the hand any differently?  What do you make of the dwell ups both pre and post flop, significant?

Opinions welcome.

Hi Glasgow. I call here. Pretty much always.

This is tricky but the key point is ur pot odds here. This board has hit a lot of hands, a lot of which you are beating. Bear in mind that people play flush draws (i have no idea why) by check-raising a huge amount of the time. With these odds and the relative strength of your hand you have to call.

The dwells are probably some fancy weak is strong giveaway, but frankly i dont really care when the pot is laying me this kind of price. You damage your chances of winning the comp if you pass here.


Personally, dont get into this situation because i prolly jam ur hand preflop v CL in the BB.

jamming is pretty poor preflop, loses too much value, its not like you have 22 or A3os



because people cbet too much



As for the hand, its obvious you lost, otherwise this post would never have been made, but I'd call anyways

does anyone think they could get away from the hand with a standard raise to 3k preflop then a pot raise on flop still leaving you 21bbs when you get check raised 16k to win 47k left you commited but with 21 back to win 42k then its much easier to fold and let him show off his J5o

yeah, my first thought on looking at the hand was why are we open raising to 6xBB? completely changes the dynamic of the hand from what we'd have with a standard 3xBB raise

I dont think its equitable to get 1010 on the button and to start thinking bout ways to "get off the hand" before its even started.

no its not but i make the same raise here with 76s TT or AA always 3xBB as you have 31bbs you still have options on the flop

if you had less chips in realation to the bb you can jam if you wish

but i dont see the point of raising to 6xbbs it basically commits you to the pot if you put another chip into the pot

wheras a standard raise gives you options

same goes for 67s or AA with the AA howeer you wouldnt be folding to the check raise

lolz i really should have read stack sizes eek.

I agree with Ironside.

Surely a standard raise to 2.6k or 2.9k pre flop would have sufficed.

Then make it 5.2ish on the flop and its much easier to get away from, if you choose too.

Make it 3k pre, then 5.5 on flop.

Then maybe he doesn't move all in on you on flop, into a lot smaller pot.

the 6 BB's pre-flop make it look too much like a steal..and the flop bet is a continuation of that. 3k pre and 5 or 6 on the flop for me..but as played I ain't folding as he could have any two here

Agree with all the comments about how we should raise and bet smaller. But why do you all think the guy has feck all?

- We have half our stack in the middle = bad time to bluff us!!
- That tanking and thinking before the all - in usually means STRENGTH!!
- It is perfectly reasonable that he just calls JJ - AA preflop because we made it so much to go!!

I'd put his range at JJ -AA; QJ; KJ; AJ; 99; 33; KsQs; AsXs;

Not that we can really fold though given that we're getting 3 / 1 on the rest of our money!!

"is it me" then a push, lol


Same as everyone else here, you fcked this hand up pre flop with 6BB bet. Make it 3 this never happens.

I normally would make it 3 x bb - sometimes I'd make it 4, but for the duration of the competition the opening raise was 5x and 6x BB. Pretty poor tbh, I though that if I changed the standard raise it would have set alarm bells going.  Maybe I put too much thought into that?  Perhaps its best to play ypur own game and not worry about what else is happening?

However, early doors I made a standard 3x BB raise when we where playing 150/300  when holding rockets and got 6 callers pre-flop. 

you always have to take into accountwhat has been happening  during a tourney..however you can not compare the fairly early stages of a tourney to hte middle/late stages when it comes to raises. You also have to take into account how many chips you have when you mke a raise..don't raise 6x the BB jst because it's the standard raise throughout a tourney. This is the start of the FT and the first hand at that..you can raise whatever you want.

Well I ended up passing this hand, which I think may have been a mistake. 
The CL then started to raise every hand after this not bothering about his position and no matter the action taken before him, when he won a pot he continued to show hand after hand all premium hands, this leads me to suspect that he raised me with some sort of weak holding.  Why not show?
An orbit later I am holding Ks 4s and there where 5 limpers blinds at 600/1200 I limp in from the C/O this time CL is in SB and makes up BB Checks flop comes Kd 4c Qs checks round to me I make a 5k bet this time leaving 10k behind - mistake?  I think I should maybe have pushed with Top and Bottom but I was looking to extract maximum value and get as many chips as possible only CL called this time and 7s comes on the turn he checks again and I push he insta calls with AJo and spiked his T d on the river!  - So fecking sick!

I have a few issues with this, I don't understand why someone who has been so aggressive and raising most pots elects to make up the SB  rather than raise - he has shown before that he doesn't understand the benefit of position by raising and re-raising when OOP.  He hits part of the flop so why not bet? I was really confused, I'm not sure If still had the previous hand on my mind!

In hindsight which is a wonderful thing I suppose i should just push the flop take down the 8k or so thats in the pot?  But does he pass given the way he plays subsequent streets.

I would pass K4 preflop, it is a bit of a sod to play postflop. Firstly as we are dominated so often when we hit the king and are so short that we end up stacking off. Rarely is the 4 going to be anything but bottom pair and we don't exactly gain much value from that very often.

As played i think the 5k is fine, as you say getting value from your hand here is not a bad idea. With the idea of calling any shove and putting the rest in on any turn (maybe apart from a queen).

His call with aj in the sb, i don't think is that bad its not a great hand to be raising oop, as postflop it can be awkward. Obviously postflop he mangles his hand and you get what you want, getting in your chips a massive favourite, job done. Unfortunately the 10 is a sickner but be happy you got it in a big fave.

I'd normally pass K 4 pre as well it was one of those err "value calls" hoping to hit err well 4 4 4.  :)

I think the guy in the 1st hand is strong and you make a good fold.

The CL isn't going to flat call a big bet oop without a big hand here. The sb even tells him you have shown strength before. So his big dwell pre-flop is because he loves his hand and is happily deciding how to play it. He does not think you are stealing.....because he would raise....and he's not calling to catch a flop. He's calling here with strength.

The "who is it to go" comment is good info for you. I mean, if the guy was "considering" pushing he would be looking at you to help him decide. The fact he says that means he always planned to check-raise all-in. As CL he wouldn't be hesitant and uncertain about that move if he had anything other than strength....he would use his big stack confidently if he was weak or on a draw.

He knows you probably have to call and is acting uncertain....this is a big tell.

After the hand. Why doesn't he show? If he bullied you off that pot with nothing he shows...it gets him kudos. If he shows A-A however...you get all the kudos for the fold. His play looks much more powerful is he doesn't show his powerful hand, so he doesn't. I think that fold kept you in the tournament. Didn't need to be so expensive though.

Happy days!

It was actually, I managed to treble up :) 
But I can't help but feel sick sometimes with so many callers its just asking to be outdrawn ;)

Funny i think of it as a chance to more than double....

wow Mantis...you don't know this tourney and (I am assuming it's the 30 freeze at Stanley, bandit?) make soo many assumptions in this one that it's frightening,
YIKES! This is a 30£ freezeout..do you really think CL thinks on this level when he keeps showing down premium hands later on? He keeps showing people they make good folds but against Bandit he didn't because that would give bandit some kudos????....I know the standard of play in Glasgow and Stanleys there quite well..I don't care who the BB/CL is here..he's not thinking this through this much


As much as you might be right for saying Bandit would be behind you are over thinking this wayyyyyyy too much.

It is true that his thought process could be as basic as....Got Aces. Me Strong. Me act weak. But his actions are there to be interpreted anyway. I would interpret his actions the way I described to find a fold. He doesn't need to be a genius to act like this with a big hand and this is why his natural inclination would be to not show. His actions are more that of a dummy anyway....the big I am weak before pushing act. So while some opinions are to call for value my opinion would be to fold because you are probably behind. How else do we interpret the Cl's actions?? If the answer is we can't because he's just shit then there seems little point in the thread.

I fold as well, but i don't give him credit for a big hand pre, in my experience players in a 30fo are far to stupid to even consider flatting pre with AA. Having said that i think you are nearly never good here, especially after his "is it on me"

It was the Cincinnati £30 freeze out mate.

ah..slightly better quality of player then but only slightly ;)

the difference in standards between the two clubs amazes me really......

just my tuppence worth


oh and Bandit

just a thought but the other nite i was in a tourney and raised it up preflop to a total of 2000...the blinds had just gone up to 300/600.....so a tad over 3 times the standard ( cant remember what i had )

but a few noobs at the table verbally stated ...'wow big raise there '

point is you can tone down the size of your preflop raises at higher blinds levels regardless of stack sizes,as i find noobs lay down to even min raise steals.

I couldn't care less what table average raise is. I have my standard raise and I stick to it. Much better to make it 3k or even less. 6 is way too excessive
On the flop, I'm not folding although I'm not liking it

Two Words:   Chip Leakage