blonde poker forum

I played an Online MTT the other day on Sky Poker, along with 200 players, 6 of whom were Sky Poker Analysts, the highlights of the Tourney are to be shown on TV, on Boxing Day, particularly featuring the plays the Analysts made.

I wanted to do well in this, obviously, & there's a "spotlight" on me

We all began with 2,000 chips, £20 Buy-In, 7 minute clock, 6 seater table. Bragging Rights are huge.

I don't play a hand for the first Level, but the guy to my immediate left was in every pot, & had doubled up already.

I have 1,850, BB has 4,000.

Blinds go 25-50, 2 limpers, & I find  Qs Qh in the SB.

Given I have "profile" on the Site, & I tend to get called by a very wide range of hands there, I decide to Over-Raise, & make it 450 to go, I want to build a decent Pot, as I won't be playing many hands early doors, so here's a chance to get a playable stack. I want & almost expect the BB to Call, given his performance so far, & the others to all Pass. I get it right, that's exactly what happened. So, just me & the very active BB now.

It comes...... 6s 7s 8s

Hmm.

I make my play almost on instinct now, particularly thinking forward to what might happen on streets 4 & 5.

If I check this wet flop, (of which I think he has none of) & he Bets, I'm calling or shoving.

If I check this Flop, & he shoves, I'm calling.

If I bet this flop & he flats, I'm shoving on the Turn unless a A falls. As I'm playing a shallow stack, I'd be pot-stuck by then, anyway.

So I shoved all-in. He quickly called with the nuts,  Aspades Ts

Oops.

I have to explain this in a phone-in to the Show yesterday, & I do just that. And the studio concensus was "We hate that flop Shove".

I just see it as a bit of a cold deck, disappointing, but shrug shoulders, & move on.

Were there any alternatives here, at any stage of the hand?

7-minute clock.  What hand are you waiting for if you aren't shoving with QQ here?

the telling line for me is when you say you dont think he has any of the flop....so why are you shoving then ?

It just "felt", instinctively, the right thing to do. If I pot it, that's 1,000, out of my 1,450, leaving me 450.

Do I have any other options, then?

What would you suggest?

Ignore your instincts. No need to thank me.

play deeper stacked tourneys...

seriously though, i bet maybe a little less than half. you can at least get away from it if he re-raises it.

its a scary flop, but you still need to bet it

It's a cooler imo, I'd have shoved the flop too.

Well, there you have it - barring an Ace, I' don't feel I CAN get away from it, & I don't want to. That's not to say I was right, but it seemed so, to me.

You right to want to get all the chips in here imo, however seeing how active/aggro he's been I would crai on the flop...you have the best hand nearly all the time here, and the times he's whiffed completely you letting him off by open shoving the flop

Bet 600 on flop, and snap his shove for your last 850.

Just a cooler, that your never ever getting away from this shallow.

why are t.v analyst's the most results orientated people on the planet.

plz no one ever fold this, this shallow

I quite like that line of thinking, & would be my default play if deeper-stacked. No good in this case, of course, as it turned out.

as per the hand, we arent getting away from it. my line would be to induce a bluff so i bet 350-450 and snap the shove.

yeah, i'd also do this.

And for that Post alone, I'm glad I Posted this hand, simply because.....

I DO tend to leave a lot of chips behind, & kill my action, in cases like this, normally. I'm talking Live Tourneys, deeper-stacked now. If I have the nuts, yes, if course I CR, but most often, I shove too early, & kill my action.

A huge weakness in my game - not optimising the value of my hands.

You'll get a lot of callers with worse hands in this even if you shove.

but it still narrows ur oppos range somewhat rather than if you just bet/call.

Yeah, it would it most comps.  7-minute levels on Sky though, and it is tikay - so spite calls as well.

im on life tilt with this thread. He's limp/calling 450 pre so he's probs passive donk, so b/c is best. V any competent oppo, you pretty much have a lock and i would be b/c or c/r flop pending image/dynamic. Im afraid shoving the flop is kinda forcing him to play perfectly. b/f if you hate money im afraid.

Shove.


Betting to induce this shallow is ridic imo, what is he going to shove the flop with that he won't call a shove with?

OMG. Flushy endorses a play of mine. My reputation is in tatters.

You played the hand perfectly imo.
LOL @ 9xBB though.

I would never fold Queens here with the starting stack you get. So the only question is how best to get the money in? You said pre-flop that you bet big because you were sure you would get action from this guy....so betting big now is pretty consistent with your early opinion of him. It "felt right" because this is the feeling you get when you take ownership of somebody. You know him. You know he will snap your hand off with lots of hands so you push instinctively like. Many times he shows the A of spades alone and very very seldomly it will have a little spade friend. On these occasions you will look stupid and have to explain. But like James said trying to outwit and outmove on an all spade board with no chips and no readz is hard.

lol @ the analysts saying they hate the shove on the flop.

how are the analysts chosen? Apart from the right honourable lord kendall I have seen some very suspect advice given.

lol its a £20 fo on sky poker.

I'll answer this later, (out of time right now) as best as I can, because I don't really know, but I DO know the criteria.

Michelle Orpe - I think that's obvious.

The rest - meh, who cares.

A question, and an implied, but entirely objective, criticism, there, and I'll deal with them seperately.

So Cos,, as you say, sparing my blushes I imagine, "suspect advice, the honourable Lord Kendall apart", I'll answer best I can, but exclude myself from the the content of the reply, as one can but wonder how I got the gig.

"suspect advice".

Well yes, possibly, & possibly not.

Consider first that the market Sky Poker serves is a little different to the poker world you inhabit. Many, the majority in fact, of Sky Poker players are quite new to the game, & advice given is tailored with that in mind.

And of course, we all see every situation different, even the Big Boomer Boys rarely agree on detail.

Take the question I Posted in this thread. Everyone pretty much agreed, all the Chips were going in, Passing was never an Option as it played out. We all agreed that I think. But the line we took differed substantially, with HotPots such as Flushy, Action Man, & Alex, all taking different slants as to how, & when, the money should go in. They cannot all be right - or can they? Ask anyone how to play, say, A-K, in a given situation, & I bet you get 20 different answers.

If you agreed with, say, Flushy on this thread, then by definition, you disagreed with, say, Rick, or Alex. Does that make the advice of any of them, suspect? No, of course not. It's just different routes to the same end, & it's all subjective.

So, if someone has a different view to, say, you, it does not necessarily mean that advice is suspect. It may, but not necessarily. That's why PHA Boards are such great reading - so many different views on identical subjects & seemingly simple questions.

TV Analysts are no different. They offer differing views, sometimes ABC, sometimes not, & it's all good fodder to mull over.

How are the Analysts chosen? See the next Post, please.

The criteria for choosing a Sky Poker Analyst? Again, exclude me from this. I just got lucky. ;)

Let's start at the wrong end here.

A recent survey of Sky Poker players was answered by over 2,000 Account Holders, & much was learned about how viewer & players perceive the Show, the Cardroom, the Presenters, & the Analysts.

The purpose of the Show is clear - to help drive traffic to the Cardroom, & raise the profile of the Site. Obviously.

That is achieved (stunningly successfully, as an aside), by employing Analysts who have some or all of these skills.

1) Ability to Entertain whilst Analysing & commentating. 3 hours of dull Hand Analysis is too much for even the geekiest of poker geeks. So it needs mixing up a bit, some humour, some heavy stuff, some serious advice, some colour.

2) A sound knowledge of basic poker skills. The difference between, say, Raising with poo & calling with poo is as obvious as night follows day to you, but to a lot of newbies, it is not. You don't have to have a good poker CV to do the job, but you do need to know the basics well. So we have guys like James Browning, with a huge Circuit Track Record, Ed Giddens & Mark Banin ditto, Tom Sambrook, Casper Berry, Tim Peters, & Matt being more cash game specialists. Jason Barrasford, well he knows his poker, too, but he is also a great entertainer, & the balance between poker skills & entertaiment skills varies. 

3) The ability to function normally & articulate well in a TV Studio, with 4 cameras in different places, 3 peeps shouting down your ear, "hurry up, slow down, mention this, don't mention that, da de da". Some folks who gabber 13 to the dozen in real-life freeze up in front of Cameras. It's also physicaly demanding, because including rehearsals, you have to pretty much stand still for 4 hours, & look & sound cheerful & upbeat throughout.

So, there you have it, all the Analysts fit those criteria pretty well, to a lesser or greater degree.  Remember, I excluded myself from the reply, but I get by, sort of middle-of-the roadish in all departments.

A point of confusion amongst many is the difference betwen Presenters, & Analysts. They are totally, 100%, different things. Analysts do exactly that, whereas Presenters "drive" The Show, & need not, necessarily, have any particular poker skills, though most do. The Presenters include Richard Orford, Norman Pace, Trevor Harris, Michelle Orpe, Paul Musselle, Helen Chamberlain, D P Fitzgerald. Every one of them has superbly professional TV Presentational skills, a must for the role. Most have, as a bonus, reasonably good poker skills, too.

Whiich is all I can say really. And fails, I guess, to answer the question you really wanted to ask, but did not dare, for fear of causing offence.

How on earth did Compo get the job? (He both Presents, & Analyses).

Baffled me, too.

Do keep up please Matt. Miss Orpe is a Presenter, not an Analyst.

Does Compo not do things for you?

Hi Tikay,

will post on this later as I'm still at the office (FML) and don't have time if I want to get home at all tonight.

Just quickly though, I hope my post didn't offend you at all - that wasn't my intention.

Cheers,

Cos

Offend me? Absoutely not! I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I LOVED the question, & I loved answeing it, as best as I could, anyway. Everything I do, I do full on, & I love my work at Sky Poiker, hence the gushingly long & undoubtedly boring reply.

It was just a full & honest answer to what I took as a straight question, with no hidden agenda.

Laterz.

only when trying to pronounce the name of french horses...made me all moist so it did....

rotflmfao

I would check fold. Its still early in the comp and if you check fold you have enough chips to carry on playing, i dont think we should be risking our tournament life with a one pair hand

$8.44*  plz grimmer

Too tight before the QQ? Thats the root cause...

Too tight - for the entire 6 minutes?

A7/A6ns, Js10/XXXXXXXXXX lots of combos imo.

yeah...loosen up your starting requirements :D

The only thing that I am surprised no-one has mentioned is your open to 450. Perhaps as a moron I am missing something, but I cannot remember the last time I read any strategy that agrees opening 9xbb is ever optimal. Or as you stated, you were confident he wouldn't pay any consideration to the size of the open and merely want to see a flop because his hand was pretty or some other tard reasoning.

I suppose what I am asking is was opening to 450 good/bad/necessary?