blonde poker forum

Hi all first time posting here, so here goes, There are about 12/13 players left at this point in the tourney 8k+ ftw, I decide to flat call with this hand, as I have postion, and feel this player has been v.aggro using his stack well in the late stages of the tourney, so could perhaps win a big pot if he's bluffing or get value from my hand if he's got lower AX .... I flat the flop, as not to try to bluff later streets as such, but to see what devolps on the turn, the bet is pretty weak, in honesty maybe raising flop here, is more profitable?

When the turn comes, I obv call that bet and am hoping to get to showdown tbh, when he barrels the 3rd time, I really hate it, and am now regretting the fold, I feel this type of player, although aggro, but is actually playing good and using his chip stack well, would not be that spewy and 3 barrel a bluff here, don't feel I'm beating much either ? However I still sigh call it off on the river?

Thoughts please, appreciate all feedback, cheers.

Date:   2011/08/11 1:53:33 WET [2011/08/10 20:53:33 ET]
Type:   Tournament (433010533)
Game:   Hold'em NL
Table:   '433010533 53' 9-max
Blinds:    $6000/12000
Antes:   $1200
Table info:
Seat 1: Vitinho Leão ($343,681)
Dealer
Seat 2: dreeniee82 ($498,041)
Posts small blind $6000
Seat 3: rip32raptors ($150,242)
Posts big blind $12000
Seat 4: kung_ivo ($398,232)
Seat 5: oogb ($392,600)
Seat 7: rodders27 ($1,195,268)
Seat 9: PunterTHFC ($698,180)
Dealt to dreeniee82  Aspades Qs

Check odds
Preflop: (Pot: $26400)
FOLD oogb
RAISE rodders27, to $36,000
FOLD PunterTHFC
FOLD Vitinho Leão
CALL dreeniee82, $36,000
FOLD rip32raptors
FOLD kung_ivo
Check odds
Flop: (Pot: $98,400)

 6h  5c  Jc
BET rodders27, $36,000
CALL dreeniee82, $36,000
Check odds
Turn: (Pot: $170,400)

 Ac

BET rodders27, $84,000
CALL dreeniee82, $84,000
River: (Pot: $338,400)

 2s

BET rodders27, $144,000
CALL dreeniee82, $144,000
Showdown:
SHOWS rodders27  Ahrt   Ks

Mucks dreeniee82  Aspades  Qs

rodders27 wins the pot of $626,400 with a pair of Aces

I'd just fold flop tbh. Has he been 3x'n the whole time?

Struggling to think of a worse flop for flatting on.

Just fold flop.

Also dont raise this flop either.

Omg a 3xr! I 3b get it in pre. Great equity with this hand against a v aggro 3xr who is bloating a pot unness pre. Like pleno says has he been 3xng consistently? If not then his sizing cld be a tell pre altho i'm still 3betting.

Flop for me is a fold. Turn seems fine tho obv lots of rivers we are often folding, river is meh. Prob play turn and river same. I guess better players than me find a fold on the river due to villain not 3 brlng here enough.

Going bk 2 flop i mean we can raise as a bluff but i'm thinking that's prob quite bad with your stack. When we flat flop i think we are floating mostly and altho i don't hate that, i prefer with 40ish bbs a more aggro line pre.

Lol at 3 bet getting it in with 40+ bigs just because the guy's 3x'd.

I'm going to assume he hasn't got this far in this comp by 4 bet jamming AJ and worse a bunch of times.

Why is it that everyone assumes that because someone 3x's they're terrabad? I'm guessing it's because they've read lot's of other people saying it's shit so decided they should make that their opinion as well.

I like the call pre. Obviously not folding and we're nicely under repped with position. Why we'd want to just get it in pre when everything is to our advantage post I don't know but maybe I'm just stupid.

Unless he's got a ridic high c bet I just fold this flop.

If he likes c betting we're deep enough to make it 120k and fold to a shove. We need to be careful of our rep here though. We need to look like a cast iron nit post to get this through so I much prefer folding.

Are you serious mate? What on earth is wrong with 3betting getting it in with aqstd and 40bbs versus a serial raiser? Yeah lets just peel for approaching ten percent of our stack with a premium hand for this spot.

3xrs are so 2005. Why risk more and bloat more when we don't need to. Our advantage should be pre as well as post versus a donk 3xr who is clearly living in an antique state. You can raise the flop as a bluff but it's prob a bit of a leak with these stacks.

Also if we do raise the flop 120k is also unneeded, lets make it like 90k. Why risk extra chips when we don't need to, it achieves the same, as does a min raise pre rather than a 3x.

Technically speaking its been demonstrated over and over by several pretty clever people why maths/theoretically speaking opening to 3x is a less optimal play than a smaller raise, so it's not really a stylistic point it is actually worse to 3x than 2.5x from a game theory perspective. However having said this I reckon some more geniuses will come along in not too much time and find a reason why a different raise size is more optimal which will be mathematically backed up and we'll l be saying LOL 2.5x'ing how 2011. But for now this is where we're at and it's hard to argue this point imo, safe to assume this player is a weaker player from the opening size imo.


This is working on the assumption that he 4bet range is equally as wide as his opening range, I think how wide he is opening is far less relevant than his 4bet tendencies. If we have info he's 4bet jamming wide then its a 3b call ainec.
All i know is.

he has been 3x opening
its a $22 comp
his name is rodders27 (not a very reggy name) OPR has him loosing roughly 17k over 350 games with a $94 av buyinn the last 4 years, so not a regular player by any means.

Seems like a peel is the only play imo

Nice post lildave.

why thank you  :)up

Keys is right though, i should get a job

Nice post dave. But i do disagree that 3betting here is not optimal v this oppo. Our hand plays great pre flop and ok post.

Taking it down pre isn't terrible especially thanks to mr donks 3x. Agree that unless we assume his 4bet range is as wide as his opening range that 3b getting it in is a bit of a meh spot cos we are gonna be a dog to his 4b range if it's narrow.

What sort of stack do you believe we'd need to be 3bet getting it in with if not 40bbs? Surely peeling for anything like 10 percent of our stack pre is just plain bad unless we don't need to improve.

Implied odds and all that, i'd cert want no less than 10-1 in such a spot.

Not saying i'll never peel here, i just think so many cash players think in comps they are deeper than they actually are, and peel far too freely when equity wise 3b getting it in is often the best play, imo.

This is 100% true. Whenever I play comps and Jamie about this or that hand his response usually starts with "why the fuck are you peeling that pre, obviously get it in" or "omg your such a live nit just 3bet call pre" and so on lol

Meh IDK really just seems like we're likely crushing his opening range and doing kinda sigh vs his 4b range which in my cash head makes me never wanna 3bet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOWEVER after your response i looked into the equity of just jamming here and it seems even if we give him a joke tight calling calling range we still make a small profit on the play (roughly 3big blinds)

I cant figure out how to C&P the calc but it was basically

Villain opening 25% (44+, 78s+, A7o+, and so on) and a calling range of TT+, AK/AKs

Tighten his opens to 15% (66+, JTs+ etc) and we basically breakeven

Now widen his calling range to 88+, AQ+, AJs+ and he net nearly 4big blinds.

Tighten opening range to 15% with the new wider opening range and we make around 2.5bb's

Using the example of jamming>3b calling as it basically gives us the "worst case" as it wont include any spews are bluffs (which I think we can expect to happen sometimes)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SO pretty much no doubt that 3b getting it in is profitable I stand corrected

He had been 3X'ing it pre reguarly, so I didn't feel it was any different this time.

Looking back at the hand, the flop bet seems so weak, then the turn and river changes into more of a value bet imo, so yeah folding flop seems the right move here, If I was to raise the flop, with the intention of folding if he comes back over the top, is this always bad?

thxs for the comments so far.

When it comes to the turn and river, do u ever think he bets the river with worse here? I'E A10/A9 ss KJ/QJ maybe repping the Ace? - Earlier on in the comp (40ish) left, a guy had raised the cut off, and I flatted the btn with AQ off, flop came  Qs  3d  6d he c-bet I called, turn was a  2s chk chk, and the river fell a  Jh he bet half the pot, and I just flatted, he had  Qh Th, I flatted the river? do u think that's the wrong play?

3bing this spot is horrendous.

He's in position and easily has us covered, so he knows that if he just flats us he's going to be able to own us pretty hard post with the really awkward stack sizes. Obv if I know villain is defo coming back over the top then defo 3b/c.

I prefer flatting pre and raising flop than 3b pre.

But optimal for me is flat pre, fold flop.

Maybe post the hand history of your previous hand in another thread with the full hh so we can see stack sizes etc. Ta

OK, a few things.

1. I think I 3bet get it in 80% of the time if 3x is his standard open. 3betting off the button looks really bullshitty and we win so much when he folds and peels (since he'll peel loads of hands that we dominate i.e. Qx hands), and have decent equity when he spazzes it in. 40bbs is not as much as you think it is, it's a stack that needs to be improved before the blinds go up to maintain manoeuvrability and this is a really good spot to chip up.

2. I don't actually mind flatting pre as it's a nice low variance option and we have a hand that dominates a lot of his opening range (as stated above), but for those reasons I still only do this 20% of the time roughly, I just think 3betting is way more profitable especially given the fact that there's a bubble effect in play.

3. When he bets 36k into 98k or whatever it was, he pretty much never has a hand on 56Jcc, so I would always raise. You're just going to pick up the pot so many times and with this sizing he's pretty much never got a hand that he'll continue with. You're risking 100k to win 134k so you're getting a really good price on a bluff that is going to work a very high % in my opinion. If he does do anything however, be done with the hand unless we improve, and even then play cagily. I'm 100% convinced that if he had a fd, a J  or a pair between a 6 and a J he would almost certainly bet bigger here for all sorts of obvious reasons. He just never has a hand here; make it 100k and be done with it if he does anything.

4. Once we have flatted, he can't fold to this bet sizing. He's barreling less than half pot on each street and if we agree that he has air most of the time on the flop, then he NEVER has a flush, and can have picked up a worse Ax and just be betting because he has top pair (I am assuming he's not a high level thinker from his sizing pre and post). I honestly don't think you can fold when with this sizing he pretty much always has a weakish showdown hand, and the only thing that makes sense if we think he had air on the flop is Ax, most of which we beat. If he had Ax two pair he would be more confident with his holding and bet bigger, same if he randomly has a flush. We're getting too good a price and have the best hand a lot of the time after that weak flop bet.


P.S. EvilPie, because of how available knowledge is these days, especially on how much more profitable it is to open to <3bb late in tournaments with <50bb effective stacks, someone 3x'ing does suggest a bad player. You're ridiculously naive if you don't think that.

Can't argue with the maths tho  :)up It shows a profit and we get to realize all our hand's equity. I thought it would be a spewy 3bet originally, but after the maths + Dom and Jamies points it does seem the best line.


There is no way this can be optimal, because we loose 100% of the pot 100% of the time this way.

Wrong. Pointless uneducated comment.


Wrong. We're in position.


You haven't given any reasons why, moot post.


That sentence doesn't make any sense by definition. Something can't be optimal for one person and not for someone else, you clearly don't understand how to use the word.

What was the point in this post? It was clearly very rash and uneducated providing no positive contribution to the thread whatsoever. Just spend 5 minutes on it next time otherwise you're going to get a lot of replies like this.

When you raise flop obv it's as a pure bluff so yeah folding is fine in this case, you're not going to hero with ace high.The only problem is whether or not you are deep enough to be making such a move, tbh i think it's jjjjust about ok.

I don't think he bets worse for value on the river but he may turn some showdown hands into bluffs like random jacks and stuff, but tbh from the sound of this player he's either got bugger all or the effective nuts.

That other hand i'd bet the turn as not only are their some rivers we don't love, diamonds, 4's,5's, but mainly because we need to bet for value as we are ahead most of the time and need to extract value from worse. On the river as played i think a flat is fine. Sounds like you are taking many passive lines in these hands, not tempted to pull out the 3bet with position against liberal openers purely for value?





Obv i knew all these stats when i gave my opinion!

Wiii ty lil dave.


We have the position in this hand not villain. If villain has half a brain he'll never flat the 3bet, but then again spewer's gonna spew.-Edit actually i guess they can peel some holdings just about if we make it 7.5x, tho i'd def prefer a 4bet/fold if i'm in their spot with most of my range.
Seriously how is 3betting getting it in here with 40bbs and aqstd ever horrendous?


Wiii we agree on a hand! :) Brilliant analysis too, puts my feeble attempts to shame for sure.

ok I got the other hand a bit mixed up, I found the hand history for it :

What do u think about the line I take with this hand :

PokerStars Game #65834493007: Tournament #433010533, $20+$2 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXI (3500/7000) - 2011/08/11 1:15:15 WET [2011/08/10 20:15:15 ET]
Table '433010533 53' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: oogb (560271 in chips)
Seat 2: dreeniee82 (361553 in chips)
Seat 4: kung_ivo (238611 in chips)
Seat 6: 1Lacky7 (409731 in chips)
Seat 7: Traveller99 (150816 in chips)
Seat 8: Daisy2888 (522193 in chips)
Seat 9: PunterTHFC (307746 in chips)
oogb: posts the ante 700
dreeniee82: posts the ante 700
kung_ivo: posts the ante 700
1Lacky7: posts the ante 700
Traveller99: posts the ante 700
Daisy2888: posts the ante 700
PunterTHFC: posts the ante 700
1Lacky7: posts small blind 3500
Traveller99: posts big blind 7000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dreeniee82 [Qc Ac]
Daisy2888: folds
Daisy2888 is sitting out
PunterTHFC: folds
oogb: raises 7000 to 14000
dreeniee82: calls 14000
kung_ivo: folds
1Lacky7: folds
Traveller99: calls 7000
*** FLOP *** [Qd 2s 7h]
Traveller99: checks
oogb: checks
dreeniee82: bets 26442
Traveller99: folds
oogb: calls 26442
*** TURN *** [Qd 2s 7h] [3s]
oogb: checks
dreeniee82: checks
*** RIVER *** [Qd 2s 7h 3s] [Jd]
oogb: bets 54343
dreeniee82: calls 54343
*** SHOW DOWN ***
oogb: shows [Qh Th] (a pair of Queens)
dreeniee82: shows [Qc Ac] (a pair of Queens - Ace kicker)
dreeniee82 collected 211970 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 211970 | Rake 0
Board [Qd 2s 7h 3s Jd]
Seat 1: oogb showed [Qh Th] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 2: dreeniee82 showed [Qc Ac] and won (211970) with a pair of Queens
Seat 4: kung_ivo (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: 1Lacky7 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: Traveller99 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 8: Daisy2888 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: PunterTHFC folded before Flop (didn't bet)

bet turn/jam river and rep  v.little?

Also what would you do here? and Why please,? Not sure if I should of made another thread, but as it is the same tourney I felt it being in here was ok, I just feel that the few hands I posted are quite awkaward imo?

Thks in advance, and thxs 4 the comments so far, v.insightful.

PokerStars Game #65833773006: Tournament #433010533, $20+$2 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (3000/6000) - 2011/08/11 0:53:58 WET [2011/08/10 19:53:58 ET]
Table '433010533 53' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: zugzwang16 (181624 in chips)
Seat 2: dreeniee82 (250062 in chips)
Seat 3: deZZZed (51610 in chips)
Seat 4: kung_ivo (231057 in chips)
Seat 5: kostinio83 (171565 in chips)
Seat 6: 1Lacky7 (384609 in chips)
Seat 7: Traveller99 (204845 in chips)
zugzwang16: posts the ante 600
dreeniee82: posts the ante 600
deZZZed: posts the ante 600
kung_ivo: posts the ante 600
kostinio83: posts the ante 600
1Lacky7: posts the ante 600
Traveller99: posts the ante 600
deZZZed: posts small blind 3000
kung_ivo: posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dreeniee82 [Qd As]
kostinio83: folds
1Lacky7: folds
Traveller99: folds
zugzwang16: folds
dreeniee82: raises 7444 to 13444
deZZZed: raises 37566 to 51010 and is all-in
kung_ivo: raises 179447 to 230457 and is all-in
dreeniee82: folds
Uncalled bet (179447) returned to kung_ivo
*** FLOP *** [3s 5d Ah]
*** TURN *** [3s 5d Ah] [Ad]
*** RIVER *** [3s 5d Ah Ad] [Jc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
deZZZed: shows [Kd Kh] (two pair, Aces and Kings)
kung_ivo: shows [Th Ac] (three of a kind, Aces)
kung_ivo collected 119664 from pot
deZZZed finished the tournament in 30th place and received $165.83.
dreeniee82 said, "omfg"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 119664 | Rake 0
Board [3s 5d Ah Ad Jc]
Seat 1: zugzwang16 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: dreeniee82 (button) folded before Flop
Seat 3: deZZZed (small blind) showed [Kd Kh] and lost with two pair, Aces and Kings
Seat 4: kung_ivo (big blind) showed [Th Ac] and won (119664) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 5: kostinio83 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: 1Lacky7 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Traveller99 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

reads?

Owned.

My apologies to OP, I mistakenly misread the HH, read 'post small blind' as being OP. My bad.

Obviously changes my decisions.

3b/c pre it is then. Unlikely now obv as he's oop, but even if he does just flat we have position in an awkward spr pot with great equity.

My reasons for preferring raising the flop were the same reason as yours, a weak looking bet on a dry ish flop. Taking it down there and then is extremely likely. Apologies I'm posting off my phone so didn't get into too much detail, I just wanted to attempt to help OP.

I promise to refrain from posting in future if you keep offering your words of wisdom! Cheers

Sigh you've made me feel terrible now! I wasn't trying to be rude, just wanted to point out that it wasn't contributing anything. Sorry if I came across like a bit of a know-it-all, not my intention!

And always post, I was not suggesting that you shouldn't post, just that that last one was a bit rash :P Also, I know the perils of posting off my phone (see previous threads), it can be pretty tough!

Sorry again!

Ohw....hugs?!

I'm Welsh therefore I have extremely thick skin! Not that I needed it for your post, as every point you made was correct and I'd far people pick me up on things like this rather than say nothing because, well, I want to improve.

Just remember though. You might be better at poker than me at the moment, but I'll *always* be able to charm sheep better than you ever will. ;)

2x opening FTMFW, the 2.5x can GTFO.

As for everyone assuming someone that 3x's is terribad, some that do it may not be but either way it's clearly a pretty big leak.

As for the hand, as said can't see a much worse flop to float and although I think Jamie's line has a lot of merit I'd rather take that line as a bluff when we at least have some sort of equity.

3xing is the new 2.2x

2.2x is the old 3x

Fwiw I understand that opening to <3bb is good whereas >3bb is bad.

I agree it also means that our opponent is probably either bad or a little bit behind the times mathematically.

It still doesn't mean that I want to 3 bet get it in though.

This comp plays very deep for an online big field and snapping off a 4 bet with AQ based on the fact that the other guy's bad seems very spewey.

Just because he's bad doesn't mean that his hole cards are does it?

At some point this has to become true.

If everybody's 2.2x'ing then surely the only way to exploit it is to try something different?

2.5x was fashionable until someone decided to 2.2 ball then that became trendy.

Now it's the min raise that separates the men from the boys.

Not long ago a min raise was a 'ghey' raise but now apparently it's awesome.

1st hand 3b described villian, will be happy to get it in pre and he's going to flat a ton of hands oop.

Hand 2 i think is fine, worse Q's prolly fold the river to a 3 barrell and worse pairs will be more likely to call/bluff river with your line.

Hand 3 without info is a fold for sure


Cool kids 2-2.2x it.

Just fold AQ. It's a shit hand

PS: Did u win?

The guy who re shoved, had been pretty solid tbh, had not played too many pots, once before i had opened with 98 suited, he flatted with 88, called 1 flop bet with 88 on a Jack high board and chkd back turn and river.

do you think calling here is too  risky/spewy?

agree with that, weird how each hand I'm talking about I have AQ lolol - nah, came 8th, BVB KQ suited vs AK aipf, KQ10 flop, Jack on turn - gg

I would 3bet pre to simplify the hand with a stack that isn't all that deep. 6-handed and in a bubble type spot with decent pot in the middle villain with the chip adv is never giving up the lead easy. If he's using his stack well as you say then you're putting yourself in a tough spot post. Tempting to float all flops you miss as you will still feel ahead. But in this end game spot I don't like putting many chips in with no hand, chips you can use to exploit other smaller stacks. I think it's better to 3bet and put him in the tough spot. Agree we are in the tough spot if he 4bet but meh not that tough and anyway he doesn't 4bet often. Taking the aggro line is good for your image in this bubble dynamic imo and he can always call/jam worse.

Presume you are suggesting a 3b/call when he sticks it in our eye?

Generally i'd say the tougher the comp the smaller your sizing should be preflop and vice versa.

Maybe this guy just thought the field was soft :P

3bet/folding AQs vs aggro/bad villain in short-handed ft bubble clash can't be good

i mean first and foremost fold the flop 110% of the time

if 3x is his standard open, and he's shown tendancies of getting it in light or at least 3bet/4bet folding pre then 3bet call is fine and dandy. With stack sizes i dont mind peel pre not to induce a squeeze pre perse, but snap one off it it comes. once the flop is that bad, just fold

This

Im kinda shocked at people wanting to fold the flop.  With his sizing I wouldnt expect him to ever have anything he is happy going to the felt with.  Id float this almost 100% of the time and expect him to check most turns and be able to pick up the pot.  Lots of players are passive enough here to c/f turn with 77-99 and maybe TT and usually just check/give up with their Ax/random air hands.  I also like Sykes line of making it 100k on the flop.

Turn is a clear call imo, nothing else.  Im not fist-pumping when he bets the river also but for his sizing I cant see how we can fold and we can have the best hand a decent amount of the time anyway.

Not sure how people can see that 3bet/call isn't hugely profitable here.

From lildaves calcs we can show a 3bb profit by just jamming pre even if he's a massive nit. We get the same profit even if he only 4bets the nitty stuff (TT+, AK) but 3bet/call gives him the chance to spaz 4bet which gives us a bigger profit than jamming (which we know is ridic profitable anyway) as long as he spazzes >0% of the time.

It kinda sucks when he flats the 3bet which his opening size indicates that he might do a little bit, but the kind of guy that opens to 3x is peeling way wider than he should in this spot and their tendency is to play very straightforward in 3bet pots so unless he flops good you'll win the hand with a cbet anyway.

Peel isn't horrible if he's been really passive and you can just win the pot whenever he doesn't make a hand but vs an aggro guy trying to get him to spaz 4bet is going to be way more profitable than trying to make a hand and trap the guy.