blonde poker forum

Live deepstack tourney last night. Lost half my stack early on after threebetting a maniac with A9, maniac came over the top and I had to give him credit for a hand for once (pocket kings, but i would have made aces full!!) Table is half live, half tight....I have adopted super tight with only the occasional move and by final table I am at half the average stack. First hand at final table I am UTG and the maniac from the other table is on the button. I have just over 10,000, blinds are 800/1600, avg stack 20,000, one guy appears to have most of the chips.

So, UTG I find  Ks Qs. I just can't throw this away as I have missed a lot of flops at last table by mucking KJ off in early position etc. cos i know the maniacs are calling any and every hand. A min raise would appear weak, and 3xBB is more than 1/3 my stack, so I don't want any flop play. Open shove for just over 10k. Table is a bit stunned but all fold out of respect. Gets to the maniac on the button, he thinks about it (I think he is just below average stack) and calls. Blinds get out the way.

Maniac shows  Qc Tc

Board comes down  9h 9s Ac  Th  3c

I know I was the favourite preflop by a country mile, but would anyone play this hand any other way. I don't think the maniac has the sense if I minraise to suspect I could be waiting for a call with a strong hand, and it might have got a call from the raggy aces. Should I have made the normal raise and tried shoving on the flop? Would anyone else make the call with QT? I dunno wtf this guy is on....

Totally standard shove, ul.

lol at just posting bad beats in PHA. Don't ever let yourself get down to 6bb's. Shove is very standard. Seems like these posts are based purely on results. If he doesn't call or misses you don't post this. Playing a stack this short is so straightforward there will almost never be anything to analyse.  

just one point, when you write




this is completely erroneous thinking, its a gambler's fallacy. Just because a coin falls heads 9 times in a row (or your KJ off would have connected 9 times ina row but you folded first) its not more likely that it falls heads the next time. In a poker context each hand is a discrete event, and I would think it would help enormously to get away from these types of thoughts.

I think your over-complicating a simple situation.

1.  Is a standard push from you, you have just over 6 BB's

2.  Its an awful call from him, he must give you some credit for a hand if you've been tight, he's behind to K2, what does he expect to be beating except J10.

3. You got unlucky, move on.

Mr. Lee perchance???

Yeah I know what you mean...it had just been a tough game where i had to throw a lot of hands I would normally raise with just because I couldn't stand a reraise...and every hand would improve ten fold...I guess it just wasn't meant to be....I just wonder if i am missing something in live play where I am inviting a call from Queen Ten? The same guy laid down middle pair on the flop to a bluff from another live player...is it worth the next few games just playing like an idiot against him to change my image as a nit? I'm sure he probably thought I had a low pair and he was determined to catch the overcard...

Still...if the roulette wheel has just spun 6 black numbers in a row....I am always going to throw some money at red ;)

The one and only!! ;)

Missing something by inviting the call from Q10 because he thinks you're a nit? This isn't making a lot of sense. The call is exactly what you want is it not? I think alot of the fundamental thinking seems to be a little off the mark here. Have you read many poker books? obv Harrington is a little dated but will get you the fundamentals,Winning Tournament Poker one hand at a time by Pearljammer et al is really good stuff. Obviously it is targetted at internet play but it teaches the right way to think about poker situations, once you have a sound basis which these books will give you, you shouldn't have too much difficulty applying it to both forms of the game. 

You also have to get away from this thinking...


You made the right fold, that's all you should be concerned about :)


...anywayz, this is a 100% must-shove with your stack.

I have the Harrington books but I haven't got through all three yet. Only book I have thoroughly read and digested a few times is TJ Cloutier's Championship Poker, which although more aimed at winning the WSOP teaches a lot of good fundamentals. (it didn't teach me threebetting the jackal with A9 off...although folding that hand with under half my starting stack behind is the sort of disciplined play I've adopted. The fact the hand would have made aces full is just sods law tho, more humerous than disappointing)

My biggest gripe is that, while I've only been playing poker 4 months (cue the flames), the way I played when I started was complete losing play and I lost a lot of money learning why  (books would have been cheaper but hey, I have something to play for now!)...but now i find I am constantly losing to people who played the same bad way I used to...I guess if everyone reckons I am making the rights moves then I'm happy that in the long term things can only get better...ok no more bad beat stories...

I'm really not having a go, just trying to help. This board is a great place to learn especially from the likes Lloyd (who we hardly see anymore) and Flushy.

In the hand where you have A9 if you have committed >50% of your stack pre, it isn't a fold. You're getting >3-1 and have 30% equity against even the top end of his range. You can't afford to ever find yourself in a spot in a tourney where you 3-bet fold with >half than your stack in the middle. Even without putting KQ/88/Crazy bluff in his range it's a call. 

No worries mate, I certainly didn't take it that way and only posted stuff here so i could hear some advice! I like what I'm seeing!

Interesting thoughts on the A9 hand....I guess this is where I will go wrong a lot of the time....later in the game I was reraised in a couple of hands and with so many callers I reckoned I was priced in and called, only to miss amazingly. In that book of TJ's I mentioned above, he advises very strongly about basing your action on pot odds alone when you know you're an underdog and I agree with this (and usually play this way!). If I have trash in the small blind I never complete,  regardless how many players have limped behind. I just couldn't justify the call with A9 because at the end of the day I was caught making a move (I know this guy would have called in a second but thats another story!) and sometimes I like the table to know i am capable of making that laydown and this encourages them to raise more pots against me (thats how I got my chips back up!)

Without creating another thread for this I am wondering if you can suggest what to do here.

blinds 100/200

UTG limps 200
folds to me on the button
 6d 8d
I raise to 600
SB folds
BB calls
UTG calls

Flop is  5h   Jd  7h

BB checks
UTG bets 2500 into 1900 pot

Backdoor flush and straight possibilities....no read on player and seen no hands yet but he has limped UTG and quickly called the raise. Easy fold or still time for some play with 7000 chips behind?

You can't ever lose 50% of your chips in the hope that we will create a certain image. Even worse our opponents knowing we can make big laydowns brings a whole raft of new problems. If we are going to capitalise on the image of being easy to push around then we need to find some big hands, ultimately we want to find a way to win poker tournaments irrelevant of whether or not we get good cards. 

Second hand is a pretty straightforward fold, he shouldn't fold to a 3-bet ai unless he's really bad (which he might be, this is live poker after all)