blonde poker forum

Please help me

blinds are 50-100 in a live MTT.. £50+£50 buy in.

average stacks 5,000 or so

you have 5,000

Matey limps UTG+1 for 100 playing 5k. Unknown player. Seems active, probably a touch of a calling station from first impressions

celtic raises to 300 in MP, playing 4k

Called in Cut Off

Called on Button, each with 6k

Pot 1,150

in the SB with Qs Qc I make it 1,800 to go

MB+1 cold calls the 1,800 with three players including original raiser behind

Assuming we are to proceed to a flop, what sort of hand do you put him on here? Is it even possible to put him on a meaningful range?

medium ace to small pair/medium for me.

Well he could have aa or kk but i reckon they are pretty small part of his range.

I reckon the rest is made up of aj-a8 ish and small pairs.

But hey this is such a bizarre thing to do and makes little sense. That i fear he probably couldn't explain his reasoning rationally nevermind you or anyone else working it out.

With 4,600 in the pot

and 3,200 behind with a further 4,000 chips available for a single rebuy

the flop comes  8h 6s Ks

With one over-card King to fade from the cold caller, do we push, c-bet or check?

Push, a c-bet is worthless here. Will you pass if he bets?

When he coldcalls the 1800 I would instantly decide to open shove EVERY flop. Infact, I would sometimes shove it dark if everyone else folds.

ty, I did push

In some ways I think pushing on the flop is just a spaz shove reaction to committing to the hand. It is true that you must decide if your Queens are good at this stage, but once you do, why push? Do better hands call if you shove?....Yes. Do worse hands fold if you shove?....Almost always. Do you deny worse hands the opportunity to buy the pot if you push?.....Absolutely. So I don't see the benefit of the bet....even though my own first reaction would be to push as well.

Once you delve a bit deeper and look at this instinctive reaction I don't think it makes much sense. A bet that is only called by better hands and forces worse hands to fold is not a good bet imo. Would we push if we had a set of kings here? It seems the only reason to push the Q's then is because we are scared of an A turn and that's a bit irrational actually.

How would you play it Mark, post flop?

what sort of hand are you putting the limp-cold caller of the re-reaise on?

To put him on a range is a bit of a fruitless task. You are going to need to know much more about this player and his tendancies to make a decision that is going to get you to actually fold this hand. If you decide he has A-A or the King you are going to check then fold. But the problem is that if you check, he prob bets anyway and you fold the best hand a lot. Therefore we feel that checking is to give up on the hand and so instinctively push in defiance of that feeling. But if we are not giving up the hand and decide that....then checking should be considered I think.

So if we assume that this unknown player doesn't have it and we are going to commit then why push? We push because if we get called by the King we are just unlucky he hit the King, but if we check-call we have then "made a bad call" and look a bit stupid.....even though the result was the same. So I think playing the Queens the same way you would play a set of Kings is the way to go. You are still loosing to A-A and the King anyway but you are now giving yourself every chance to be paid by worse....something that can't happen often if you push. With the relative stack sizes I don't think you can put in a convincing bet so I think checking to dangle the net is worthwhile and if he doesn't bite you can still push the turn anyway....and now the flop check and turn push looks suspiscious enough to trap worse as well.

I check that flop and call any bet.  As for a range could be anything but I don't see any point in shoving there, I'm not worried about being outdrawn and I'm certainly not passing so I'll pass him the rope.

This is always a difficult one.
I'm pretty sure he has a pocket pair, but how high?
A feeler bet of around 1200 here should let you find out. If he calls the i dont put any more chips after the turn unless i make my set.  If he raises, i fold and take the rebuy.

I'm thinking medium pocket, 77-99, or biggish ace. AK is possible.  I agree with what mantis has said, if you push on the flop, you are only getting called by a better hand 90% of the time.  That said if he is a bit of a calling station, a c-bet or smaller bet might give him the chance to hit his card on the turn.  Due to the size of the reraise preflop, pushing just over 3k into what's already in the pot is a good solid bet.  He can only call here with AK, AA, or KK when from what you have said, I doubt he is this strong.

I had a slightly similar hand the other day.  UTG has about 7k, I have about 4k.  UTG has limped for 100, and another limper.  I am in LP with 99, so make it 600 to play.  UTG then reraises another 500 (???) and the other limper flat calls the 1100!!!  I know UTG is a bit of a donk, but am worried about the other limper.  He has limped in preflop, after another caller.  What could he possibly have that he didnt want to raise with initially, but is happy to call a 5th of his stack to see the flop with...very confusing.  The flop came 8 high rainbow.  UTG bets 2k!!  Thankfully the other limper folded, and I was left with a decision to make.  I pushed all in for the remaining 1k on top of his bet.  Obviously he cannot pass, and calls with AK, and misses thankfully.  Weirdest hand of the week for me.  Never did find out what the other guy had.  It's very difficult to put people on hands in situations like this.

Its hard to assign a range of hands to a player we don't know or haven't played before.  I suspect thought that with his call/call action he has a small - medium PP.  I suspect most big aces AJ+ raise pre flop and any pp > 99 also raise.  I am putting him on something like 44 - 88, the problem I now habe is that 2 of these cards have hit the flop.

I hate been OOP now because if we bet and he has the set he only calls and traps hoping we fire another bullet on the turn.  If we check he may sense weakness and come out betting so now what? If we push we only get called by a better hand.

What would be sick is if he paid the extra 1700 with something like KQ!

That's my thinking. You're either thinking of folding, or you're thinking of getting all your chips in.  If you're not check-folding, any bet means you think you're more than likely ahead - and so you're not folding to any raise.  If he's going to fold a 'standard' sized bet, then there's going to be so much in there that you're both pot committed. 

If he's going to call a standard bet, he's calling a shove.

My thinking is that you want the other player to make a mistake, and you don't want to be making a mistake yourself.  Although I think folding is a small mistake, I think betting and folding to a raise is a big mistake. 

That makes sense to me anyway.  I think...

his hand?

 Kd Js


50p

I nearly replied last night with stick it in, but then thought about it. To be honest im not sure.

I don't im ever folding on the flop here but if we push aren't only getting looked by a range that has us massively beat. Whereas if check and let him bet at it surely this range is bigger than his calling range. Therefore we are opening up his range which our hand plays better against.

Obviously the trouble is if it goes check and a scare cards rolls off on the turn.

LOL@ push only gets called by hands that beat us. Guy is a moron, he proved that preflop.

Unless i had information to the contrary, i would assume he is a donktastic station and jam this flop everyday hoping he calls with whatever junk pair he has. He obv isnt aggressive and i dont see why giving him a free card is all that useful, as he wont be betting enough of the time to make that line stronger.

Checking the flop also gives you the chance to see how this guy looks/acts. You may be able to pick-up on something. You don't get the chance to pick-up on anything if you push.

Donking it all in gets you called by plenty of small pairs. Rag ace that pair. And AQ cos he knows ur bluffing. Playing it like a set of kings so u "get paid by weaker hands"? It's valid thinking against non-retards but this guy is not a non-retard :)

Before the hand he was an unknown so we didn't know his level of retardation.

but you have a fair idea by the time the flop is dealt, no?

I think it's a good way to play Aces if you will be tagged as a retard by opponents who don't know anything about you.

Who plays aces like this??
Straightforward push, the only hand i'd be wary of is AK and i he has it we suck out 0.00006% of the time anyway.

I said my reads where spot on in another thread :) 
I actually had this in my initial reply and then discounted it - main reason being I wouldn't expect someone in what is effectively a £100 comp to be playing this hand to a raise and then a re-raise.  What is he hoping to beat?

I think I will next time. It's going to be my new secret weapon...."the retard play".

What's the benefit of this sneaky play with AA though, raise pre and i'll stack it to you anyway :P.

Without strong live tells there are only two choices that make any sense here, and they are a) push all in and b) check hoping opponent will push all in. They are probably pretty close and which one I choose would depend on the opponent.


If UTG+1 has Aces then he has made a perfect play, not a retard play. He probably got very lucky to see so much action after he limped, but once it gets back round to him flat calling 1800 is much much better than pushing all in.

Not at all, it's obvious tighty likes his hand preflop so with aces you should exploit that, there are many hands that folks will put all their chips in preflop and considerably less will stay committed post flop with overcards.
Say an ace dropped here, would tighty still be pushing?
Horrible way to play aces if he had them of coursewhich he didn't making this moot.

UTG+1 limps for 100. A player in mp raises to 300. That raise is called in 2 places. The action reaches you and you look down to find Q-Q. You raise it up to 1,800...making it obvious you like your hand. It gets back to UTG+1 who now pushes all-in.

Who calls here? And what hand would you put UTG+1 on?

I think UTG+1's play would make Aces transparant. A lot of people have said they snap push the flop regardless. This shows that the most obvious slow play is still very effective in poker....because you are just tagged as a retard.

Since when does the buy-in relate to ability?  :)

I would just bet enough to find out if you are beaten.  He will put you on a range of hands including AK, AA and KK.  Most people would fold to another 1800 without a K or better.  If he doesn't have a K, his stack would still be reasonable if he folds but short if he calls and loses.  So I don't think he would call 1800 without a K or better.  There is no way he would bluff raise.  Say you had a great hand instead of QQ, how would you bet?  You would probably try to get his chips in slowly rather than push all in.  So the 1800 bet could look like a strong hand, although it could look like a continuation bet as well.   If he doesn't fold to 1800, you are probably beat and I would then fold to any bet or raise.  At least you would still be in the game, albeit with a short stack.

Welcome to blonde, i can't wait for Lloyd to find this, sigh.