blonde poker forum

I'm a relatively new cash game player. I came across this situation at the weekend and would appreciate any comments on it.

Hold'em NL (£0.25/£0.50) - 2008/11/29 - 18:11:22 (UK)
Table "Katlaug" Seat 2 is the button.
Seat 1: Platonic_ (£36.09 in chips)
Seat 2: Saltyace (£32.22 in chips)
Seat 3: Lindapooh (£35.67 in chips)
Seat 4: Hero (£50.35 in chips)
Seat 5: Chipfoose (£17.33 in chips)
Lindapooh: posts small blind £0.25
Hero: posts big blind £0.50
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to Hero [Ac Qs]
Chipfoose: folds
Platonic_: folds
Saltyace: raises to £1.50
Lindapooh: folds
Hero: raises to £4
Saltyace: calls £2.50
----- FLOP ----- [9d 8s Jh]
Hero: bets £5
Saltyace: raises to £28.22 and is all-in

Knowledge of opponent is he seems quite a good, loose aggressive player capable of making a move and who has been unlucky and recently lost a third of his stack and is down to about $£32.50

Pot is £41.47 and you need to put in £23.22 to call. Easy Fold or marginal call ?

I'd be interested to hear any opinions on how I have played the hand so far. I am mainly concerned with whether or not I can call here or not though.

I will post my analysis at the table later and the analysis I have done since away from the table. Then I'll post the decision and result at the end. I'd be very interested to hear players opinions on this as I am struggling to come to a definitive decision on this myself.

Its an easy fold here for me.

If he has a set, a ten-ball is your only out and he is much more likely to have something like 88-JJ which smacks that board straight in the face and leaves u in bad shape. We can pretty much rule out QQ-AA because players at these limits almost never ever flat pre with the top three hands.

Apart from K10 or A10, I cant see anything that we're beating or getting a good enough price to call for.

Edit: You should also be honoured to be playing on the same table as platonic, a crypto legend and man with the funniest hoax blog online.

My thinking at the time is that he has a weak J or is semi-bluffing in which case I'm ahead or have 10 outs. I don't believe QT or a set ever jams in this spot and AA-QQ & AK can be discounted because they almost always re-raise pre-flop. There is a lot of hands to consider here though and I'm finding the amount of time you have to make this kind of decision at the table nowhere near long enough which is why I've went away and thought about it since but I would like to know what others think.

I'll post the analysis I have done for comment later.

Instafold for me. 

The play's fine up to that point though. 

Why do you think he has a weak jack?  I also see a made set jamming here lots of times.

Agreed, easy fold here too.  Played well so far but you have to be passing here imo

Its a rainbow flop and I don't think a big made hand is likely to try and push me off my hand. If I have AK here - which I could have from opponents point of view - I have to fold. AA-QQ and AJ probably call but probably call smaller re-raise and get it all in on turn. Anyone with a big hand doesn't want to push JT, QJ, KJ etc out so I would expect a smaller re-raise or a call looking to get it all in later in the hand.

I do think a set pushes here some of the time I just don't think its all that likely. He could also have something like TT or KJ and looking to protect his hand. There is also the possibility he has air and has put me on AK and trying to take it away. QJ or JT also fit the betting with top pair and a straight draw looking to take the pot right now and get a lot of hands to fold. He may also have called with J7 and wants to end the hand now.

Pot odds are 1.8 to 1 so I only need about 36% winning chance in this spot to call. Question is whether or not I have that.

Standard bet out on the flop. In position I like to see a cheap turn and check behind. Being OOP in the hand sucks as I feel the need to bet out in these spots even though your opponent calls a lot on this board.

FWIW the preflop re-raise makes the call mandatory for opponent I make it 5.25-5.50 preflop as you are the BB. In position 4.5 - 5 is ok.

LOL, fold

flat pre

Good point,but oppo dependant sometimes i would look to re-pop it but defintly benefits to flatting then when you miss like you have here you don't feel the urge to try and bluff at a big pot instead of just losing a small one.This is also how i'd play AK mostly fwiw

As said this is 100% a fold

I am starting to get that I'm not re-raising enough here and inviting a lot of hands to call which is part of the problem. What should the re-raise be ? Is £5 raise enough ? The second problem I have is that if I miss the flop (which isl most of the time) and bet I am investing even more chips with just Ace High.

Flat calling and playing the hand smaller might be better but has the same problem in that my opponent can have lots of hands and a bigger problem in that I know even less post-flop than I do currently.

I don't like playing this hand OOP but I also don't like weakly giving up my BB with AQo to button raise so I'm finding this quite a tough spot.

I am starting to get that i'm not re-raising enough here and inviting a lot of hands to call which is part of the problem, what should the re-raise be?

£0

flat calling and playing the hand smaller might be better but has the same problem in that my opponent can have a lot of hands and a bigger problem in that i know even less post-flop than i do currently.

??????

so you're saying that flatting you have the same problem as you do if you re-raise and get a call? then DUCY flatting is optimum?

I dont like playing this hand OOP but i also dont like weakly giving up my giving up my BB with AQ off to button raise so am finding this quite a tough spot

how is flatting giving up your BB?

Nearly everything you've said about this hand is OP and subsequent posts looks like you're approaching this hand as though it was a tournement.

flat pre OOP, if it comes a 223...553 sort of flop c/calling a bet from oppo isnt the worst play and see what he does on the turn but barring that if you miss the flop c/fold and move onto the next hand.

I'm not saying there arnt spots in which you can re-pop and c-bet the flop but no one on the table bar you has over 70% of the buy in so i disagree if you do follow this line that the re-raise amount isnt enough,ask yourself for what is your reason you're re-raising here? to take down the pot right now?(for a £2 pot OOP doing this would be long term this is -EV, especially at this level) so you're prolly getting a caller(and want a caller IMO, lol trust me you're not just getting called by premiums here) at least keep the pot managable, + you crush he's range at this level when you hit and it's stackaroooney time son)!!!, once you've fired the flop after missing you just fold.

FWIW here is my analysis I have done afterwards :

I think the most likely holdings are the following hands :

60% I am behind to the following hands which fit the betting :

TT 8 outs
KJ 10 outs
QJ 3 outs (4 to split)
JT 6 outs
AJ - 7 outs
77 - 10 outs
9T - 6 outs (3 to split)
8T - 6 outs (3 to split)

10% I am beating the following :

AQ, 67, AT

20% of the time it is real hands pushing the flop leaving me with 4 outs :

AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 88, QT, Q9, Q8, J9, J8, 89

10% of the time opponent is bluffing.

I'm ahead here - 20% including total bluffs - going to be outdrawn mibbe 20% - 14%
I'm behind 60% with 25% chance of winning. 15%
20% of the time I have a 17% chance of winning - 3.5%

Total - 32.5% winning chance so must fold. I need about 36% chance to win.

Does anyone agree with this analysis ? How would you calculate the winning percentage here ?

total-32.5% winning chance so must fold. i need about 36% chance to win

just lol

FWIW you might as well just do what you like(i think you're going to anyway) ::)

how would you calculate the winning percantage here?

I wouldnt, i dont even know what the fuck that shit is you wrote, i wouldve folded ages ago and been surfing for porn by now!

Thanks bolt. This makes a lot of sense. Although, just seen your last post and your probably away looking at porn by now. I am trying to work out how I should be analysing my play and for some reason I thought this might be a good place to do it.

At the time I thought this was a marginal decision but I not so sure anymore. I'm coming round to the fact this is an easy fold. I just wondered if anyone would call and if I am analysing my play correctly.

I agree with the ASBOd one here.

You're approaching the hand very much in a tournament mindset for me.  Think of how you'd play AQ at the start of a deepstack tournament and that's probably fairly similar to how you'll look at it in cash.  You're out of position, you have no idea where you are (except that you have A-high on a dangerous board) and that the other player has some sort of hand.  Would you want to commit lots of chips early in a deepstack tournament in this situation?  

years ago wheni first started playing i remember reading supersystem and memorising all the odds in the back like "the chance of making a str8 with 65 is.........., or the odds of making a str8 with 68 is blah blah blah" then you realise it's got fuck all to do with anything

the only one that really stcuk with me was 7/1 about hittig a set with a pp which actually has applicability.

At the level at which you're playing through repetition you'll find that most of the hands play themselfs and that analysis like this is totally unessasary.

the mathmatical side of things for me really only becomes prominent when playing at a higher level(then only to a limited extent) you're thinking about things like fold equity and pot odds when you're playing a lot more aggressivly, rule of 4 and all that shit then which you'll just know off by heart.

gl gl :)up

Excellent point about playing like a tourney i think a lot of new cash players have this problem whereas it's totally different play.

Haven't had time to look at it properly but pretty sure u are using the maths totally wrong apologies in advance if i have read it wrong imo you're pretty much always behind here and possible by a far way.Give it up

I 3-bet here (PF) a fair amount, depending on opponent and game flow.

Always flatting with AQ to a button raise, IMO narrows your 3-bet range too much.
A fair amount of the time you are going to take the £2.25 already in the pot.
If oppo calls you are still likely to be in decent shape against his range.

I would 3-bet Pot sized, or just above (bc out of position) so £5.25 ish.

As played, fold.
Getting your money in first with 30% equity is often ok, but fiddling about trying to justify a call usually means it's a bad call.

You're mixing up calls and raises here aren't you?  I'd probably be calling more often than raising, but I guess you'll be raising more often than calling?

Reread my post and it makes sense to me ................... but that's probably not a good thing.

Yes, raise more than I call.

Sorry, my wording was bad.  I meant that you vary your play between calling and raising here.  I would probably be calling 75% of the time, raising the other 25%.  I'm guessing you'd be doing something similar but in reverse.

I've been wondering about that for ages - i had the privilege misfortune of being on his table at a lower level a while ago and have been viewing the blog with ever increasing incredulity since.

Just checked the blog out and not really sure what to think. The BNP stuff is a bit much no ?

overcomplicatedaments and from what I can figure not accurate.  how are you beating AQ? why have you ignored AK completely?

far too much effort put into the wrong things here imo. have you been reading harrington? this looks like his sort of analysis

I suspect your equity is actually a fair bit lower than 32%. Some of the individual hands that you list aren't right - you don't have 8 outs against TT for example, as a Q does you no good. Also a lot of his hands have redraws, which reduces your equity - versus TT, an A on the turn does you no good if a Q comes on the river. Likewise versus a set, you can't count four outs for yourself as if the board then pairs then you're done anyway.

Another complicating factor, if you really wanted to work out your precise equity against his range, would be that you'd need to weight each individual hand differently. So you could reasonably say that he'd always shove AA here, but he wouldn't always shove QT, so AA would have to have more weight in his range.

On the hand itself - I agree with everyone else that it's an automatic fold. Bear in mind that you look really strong here to the average player - by 3-betting preflop you're almost over-representing your hand (depends on the flow of the game of course - I don't know if this game is very aggressive pre, maybe there's loads of 3-betting or maybe hardly any..?). Villain's default thought is probably that you've got JJ+ or AK here, and he wants to get his stack in - so when you've actually got AQ, things look pretty bleak...

Whats marginal about this hand?

Pass

Surely this is a reasoning(is that even a word) for flat calling pre though we aren't looking to win a pot of £2.25 what good is that to anyone we want to stack him and by flatting we don't look as strong as AQ so if he has any ace and it hits the board we will stack him at this level.I would riase a fish with AQ as i know he will call and still stack off if he has an ace to but vs tight/nitty players i would flat it.

Hope you've found this thread useful and take some good pointers from it davie

As gatso said you have wasted a lot of time with your maths and all the hands he could have it doesn't work like that maths is a big importance in poker but you are getting it wrong mate  from what i've read nobodys been to harsh so u've done well lol

And to sum it up and i hope you take this on board as you still see unsure about it

Of course I want to stack him, but if you gave me 4.5 BB's every time I got AQo OOP I would take it.

3b pre is fine, cbet oop on that board is a leak v some oppos.

Yes I have. Thanks everyone. As I'm sure some of you suspect I did make the donkey call. I sometimes find the 30secs not long enough to think things through thus I want to be sure what to do next time I am in a similar situation. Figuring opponent was either on bluff, semi-bluff or had the weak jack I thought I may have 10 outs and pressed the call button just before timer ran out.

I am trying to stop these mistakes and have been trying to convince myself this was a fold since and I think I'm there now.

Daviebh0y: calls £23.22
----- TURN ----- [9d 8s Jh]

----- RIVER ----- [9d 8s Jh Td][8d] ----- SHOW DOWN ----- Saltyace: shows [Jd Ts] (Two Pairs, Jacks and Tens, Nine high) Daviebh0y: shows [Ac Qs] (A Straight, Queen high) Daviebh0y collected £61.69 from Main pot ----- SUMMARY ----- Total pot £64.69 Main pot £61.69 Rake £3 Board [9d 8s Jh Td 8d] Seat 1: Platonic_ folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 2: Saltyace (button) showed [Jd Ts] and lost with Two Pairs, Jacks and Tens, Nine high Seat 3: Lindapooh (small blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet) Seat 4: Daviebh0y (big blind) showed [Ac Qs] and won (£61.69) with A Straight, Queen high Seat 5: Chipfoose folded before Flop (didn't bet)

It's been mentioned previously, but you're spending your time working out the wrong things.  You have a gut-shot and possibly overcards to help you (but maybe not), and the other player has shown strength throughout the hand and yet you still think they are bluffing - so you call?