blonde poker forum

I play at DT (http://www.dusktilldawnpoker.com/)D (http://www.dusktilldawnpoker.com/) in the 50p/£1 cash game most weekends.  I do OK, but I'd like to improve my play, and in turn my hourly return.

On Saturday night the table I was on was particularly active, with a standard pre-flop raise of 4xBB usually being called in at least 5 or 6 places. 

The max buy-in is £100, and around the table there were stacks ranging from £50 in two seats, around the £100 in most of the other seats, and up to £200 in a couple of seats.

I'm sitting there with about £130 in the BB.

Early position raise to £8 from a fairly loose player.  This is called by 3 other players, the SB folds, and the decision is on me.

What should I be trying to achieve and therefore what should I do with:

1. Tc Ts

2. Kd Kh

3. Ad Ks


When I raise, how much should I be raising, and should I be trying to keep people in the hand or should I be happy taking the pot down there and then?

3bet kk everytime make it about £35.

The other 2 are flow and dynamic based, how many calls are you likely to get, who is the initial raisor. The problem you get is you end up with a pot that equals the stack you have behind, if you get flatted and missing the flop is a nightmare.

So with that in mind the tt i flat more than i 3bet and the ak i mix it up about 50/50 between cold calling and 3 betting.

Live cash i jam TT and AK if i am that short, with the KK i probs make it about 35

Im Tez at cash, rly tez. BUT, ill try.....

with £25.50 already in the pot and the standard of gamble within most players who play 50p/£1 cash live;

Hand 1: Make it like £45 and call a shove
Hand 2: Make it like £35 and insta call a shove
Hand 3: Make it like £45 and insta call a shove

Hmm didn't consider jamming, given the advantages of it has of being ahead of their ranges and there being quite of dead money in the pot. I quite like shoving now.

Yeah me too!

I raised to £50 with both TT and KK in this situation (or very similar).  Both times everyone folded.  Does the raise to £50 not achieve the same as the shove, but is more likely to get someone to come along - or is the all-in (or even the smaller bet) a better play?

Amusingly, I did the same with 99 (only 3 of us in the hand that time), and a short-stack got it all-in.  I hit my set on the turn and then rivered a flush and he mucked his hand and swore at me ;D.

I would swear too, I bet you spoke to him in that headmaster demeanor of yours.

You mean I shouldn't have told him to go and stand in the corner?

I was referring to your offer to give him 6 of the belt....PERV!!

He wasn't my type.  However, there were two not-unattractive ladies playing at the table as well as the lovely Liz dealing...

Liz is the best, i wish i had told her that i love her!

Back to the hand.  I guess TT-AA are all played the same way, it's just a case of the percentage between calling and raising?

AA and KK = always raising?

TT-JJ and AK = mostly calling, sometimes raising?

QQ = ?

The bad news is that she's off to uni soon... :'(

Where?

I will ask for you.  I'm sure she said Brighton... (might be lying).

In a loose live cash game always shove TT and AK here for me, as there is 25% of your stack in the middle already.  There are tons of flops you won't like and you are miles ahead of their range.  Just take the cash and move on.  TBH, in some loose cash games I've played it might be even worth shoving the KK, as depending on previous hands you've played you get better disguise. 

all of this and its not close. But probs make it 40 for all of them. U deffo have the best hand here nearly all of the time and once you play aggro you win mulah. Simple as. You do want to give AQ/AJ/88 a chance to make a horrendous mistake though. Bet-sizing is a little too big imo. Making it 50 pretty much declares you pot-commited and normally ppl dont spew after that. You can still play flops if they call and be happy being waaaaaay better than the competition.

The problem here is that you're never deep enough to play much after the flop.

If you're getting 4 callers with an 8 x raise when you're only 100 deep then you've not got many options open to you on the flop. It's usually going to get won by the best hand rather than the best poker player.

Unfortunately once someone has built up a bit of a stack then you really struggle to catch up to them. You can either nit up and wait or go totally banzai and try to catch up by getting lucky.

If you could buy in for a bit more at least you'd have a chance of playing a bit. I'd like to see the max buy in at least being equal to the biggest stack on the table. That would make things interesting.

As far as the hands go just shove em all even the kings.

You were asking if the £50 raise achieves the same as the shove? Well it probably does so you might as well shove. If you raise to call a shove you might as well shove. It's not worth risking a call and overcards coming out and having a decision to make when you're this deep.

I think the amount of times you get called and lose will be less than the amount you win so this should be the +EV play here.

this logic is flawed Evilpie m8. You let donkeys play perfectly by shoving. DUCY?

Because they only call if they're winning?? Not 100% certain tbh.

So what's the plan? Do we just nit up and wait for a monster? Flat call and set mine (except for the kings obv). It's the calling in 4 positions that makes this tough to me. We've already got £32 in the pot. Why not shove and win it now knowing that we've got a nice hand if we get called.

We can't really play a flop unless it is very favourable in which case it's easy anyway.

Do we want to raise to £35, see overcards then represent with a £50 lead out? What if we get re raised? We're pot committed but we're probably behind.

I suppose we could play the flop and check/fold a bad one with the intention of reloading but I don't like that.

It seems to me that even with 1010 at some point the money's going in. The small raise doesn't seem to achieve much to me only problems?

 ;carlocitrone;

yup, you got it. They will only call with the top end of their range, you dont allow them the flexibility to bluff/resqueeze with worse/make a terrible call. You dont really need to worry about the flop, you can play it pretty strong nearly all of the time as you are effecitvely pot commited, just by not jamming you allow them to make mistakes pre and post, by jamming you dont.

So we're thinking raise to £30 - £40. Check the flop with the view to shoving a bet or bet the flop to call a shove?

Just thought that being sat on £130 with £32 in the pot we would probably get the bet through often enough for it to be +EV. It's the callers with raggy aces that bother me or even the JQ, JK, QK brigade.

They are all well within the range of the initial £8 raise but wouldn't call a shove. If they hit anything on the flop they can't go away because like us they're committed.

To me the 1010 hand is very difficult unles we hit or get undercards on the flop. Are we planning to fold to an unfavourable flop?

we plan to take a view in position as to whether or not we are ahead. More often than not we stack off postflop on all but the worst boards. Takes a little while but imo live  smaller stakes players bluff so rarely in 3b pots that with position you can pretty much see their hand here.