blonde poker forum

While playing late 50/1 at DTD...
Hero finds  Kd Kc UTG+1 (starting stack 310)
Villain who's currently UTG makes it 5 (starting stack 350-400)
Hero raises to 16, Folds all the way round and UTG+1 flat calls.

Flop:  Js Qc 4h
(pot size 34)

Villain checks
Hero bets 25
Villain flats
(pot size 84)

turn:  8s

Villain checks
Hero bets 35
Villain re-raises to 105
...

While i've been grinding the 50/1 for a while, i had limited hand history against the villain. Showdown hands had consistently been wins consisting of a full house over full house where he'd had JJ in situations previously and not re-raised a 3 bet pre-flop. Hand ranges, potentially JJ, QQ (more likely to raise pre here though), 910 (including 9s10s).

My final decision was a sigh fold.
Thoughts please....

I probably fold here, QQ/JJ/T9s seems too likely and it doesn't seem like there are too many bluffs he can have

vstandard fold readless

i start turning everything into a bluff vs ur turn sizing.

yh +1.

J9 JT QT and Q9 would be getting stuck in your eye here.

However, you're not playing morons like me and Pleno so fold now defo - but bet bigger on the turn. You've kind of turned you hand face up as a good/strong hand, but not one that you wanna get raised holding (KK basically lol)

Agreed with the turn bet, should of bet around 60 in hindsight.
He showed Qc Tc.

You think he knew he was bluffing?

Probably showed it to prove he wasn't 'at it' and that you should respect his bets.

Sigh fold for sure, much better spots out there but turn bet is too small IMO and exploitable against good players although this guy clearly isn't one!

he could be. turning qx into a bluff here is quite nice, he reps sets, straights and 9T very nicely and has barely any airballs in his range. I wouldn't expect a 50/1 guy to turn a Q into a bluff so I'd be laying down KK here.

Having said that, the betsize leaves yourself wide open to this sort of move.

Out of interest what would people's 2nd barrel have been in this situation? i'd of said 60 in hindsight?

£55 upwards

Just from the comment in an earlier post where he said how the guy showed Q10 to prove he wasn't bluffing shows he isn't that good, I guess I wasn't in the game so can't comment 100% accurate!

My turn bet would be more £55-£65!

Infact someone else said that and not the guy would posted the hand so maybe this guy is a genius and the new phil Ivey! LOL

If 35 gets everyone in the world to spazz out with QT it seems fine as long as you call afterwards...

Its always going to be tough getting stacks in with a bet/bet/bet line so deep.


How do people feel about a c/shove or c/raise (depending on exact stack sizes)?

You have the prefect hand and situation (being in position) for the bet/bet/bet line (river dependant), if you start check raising/ check shoving turn and your opponent wants to get stacks in you'll be very lucky not to be drawing dead or too 2 outs!

Yeah i think i agree. Bet/bet/bet. With the turn being £58-70 and the river being £120-150 poss even a shove. Obv paid attention to the hand seeing we are in position.... not :)

I was said villian in this hand...



Firstly thanks Alex for being the only person so far who gives me a chance of any credit whatsoever, and not immediately stereotyping me as a terrible player and someone who couldn't possibly thinking at this level. (Not saying I am a good player and obviously that is to each persons own opinions, although I am now slighty interested in Derbylad's impression of me from the short time we played together?).

Also I do want to throw in that I think it is imaybe a little irresponsible to stereotype or quickly make assumptions about somemone who isn't a known or recognisable face just because they are playing 0.5/1 or because of small factors such as shown a hand once etc, especially if this is being done at the table when an unknown sits down everytime and not just whilst discussing a hand on here.

To the hand itself, Derbylad told me he was going to post it here and there was quite a bit of discussion between myself and him afterwards about it, with pretty much the conclusion of what has been said here already. I obviously knew I was bluffing and only showed the hand after Derbylad agreed to show his for the reason of I actually was quite interested on thoughts on the play. I wouldn't normally show unless I felt it was a really good situation to do so, and showed it for the sole factor of the reason mentioned because I had gathered Derbylad was a thinking player and this was pretty late on during the night, with me knowing that I am unlikely to be playing against Derbylad or any of the table anytime again soon.

Pre we are effectively 300bb+ deep, that being said I probably wouldn't quite a high percentage of the time flick in the call oop with the type of hand I have, and I was pretty sure someone cold called the 3 bet pre before it came back round to me, but looking back at flop bet sizing and Derbylads explaination of the hand I may now be mistaken. Anyway I thought the extra player was there and obivously because of how deep we are my calling range there does become alot wider than at 100bb.

Flop is fairly standard so I'll skip to the turn, when Derbylad bets the turn, from the little of what I've seen of his play, and from what I gather he probably thinks of me so far from my hands that have been shown, my hand is never good here. When he bets only 35 though, I felt it opens up everything for me, from the image I had I was pretty sure I am never expected to be bluffing here, or to have a hand I could be bluffing with. The small bet screams AA,KK, maybe AQ to me and it's making it really cheap for me to find out without having to commit myself. I think a turn raise here means the hands mentioned are never good with the image I have and I thought Derbylads impression of me was that there would be no bluffs in my range at this point.  Also I feel it's worth mentioning a big factor in the raise was a conversation we had a little while earlier, where Derbylad mentioned that he had finally got back to even after slowly girinding all evening, this was getting really late on at night and I didn't feel he'd want to stick it all in here with hands mentioned above where he is behind a decent amount of the time, I thought the small turn bet reflected this as well.

Hey Jrvs,

Nice post, hope you stick about on Blonde.

To be honest, I am a firm believer that stereotyping players as soon as they sit down is an extremely useful tool for live poker and the better you are at it, the more successful you will be.

Frankly, I would be guilty of the same assumptions as Derbylad. Most players who play 50/1 aren't profressional players, and although there are some good recreational players out there, most are not and are inexperienced - so that's always my starting point.

The stereotypes that go along with the old, asian, chinese, spanish, scandinavian etc are honestly remarkably accurate. Young players are the most unreliable though. We are a mixed bag. There are obviously some very smart young players out there, there are also some terrible ones. They can play tight (well and badly) and aggro (again, well and badly). So I wouldn't be able to make too many snap judgements on any young guy sitting at a 50/1 table other than the assumption that they're probably not very good (again, that's just playing the numbers game, there are many a 50/1 game at DTD that I think is tougher than a 1/2 or 2/5).

How much you buy in for is quite a key factor. Good players tend to sit with the max, no good players sit with 30bbs.

How you're dressed - Hoodie, headphones and a coffee - there for the grind perhaps. Shirt, tie and a pint? Probably not...

How you play you're first hand is massively important too. Did he post? Did he limp? How much did he open to? Does he look confident at this table? Does he play the hand well? Even if it doesn't go to showdown you can get lots of info from the first hand. Is his betsizing good? Did he make a bad cbet into 5 players on JT9dd and then snap give up when called?

Sample size is key here, there's a difference between somebody limping utg their first hand (which basically gives them the auto-fish stamp on their forehead) and somebody betting three streets in their first hand (DOESN'T automatically make them a maniac, what if they had Aces?) You shouldn't draw too many assumptions based on things like betting three streets, but you can draw a pretty reliable assumption when somebody limp/raises you or something!

I think you can learn 80% of what you need to know about an opponent before they finish playing their first hand. BUT! Be prepared to change your mind! Assumptions are great, but change them as soon as you have stronger evidence!

Yes, a very fine Post by JRVS. It's always good to hear the other side of these stories!

FWIW, I'm afraid "stereotyping" has become endemic amongst many. It's fine to stereotype up to a point, but you do see some really comical examples. Not all French, Spanish, German, American, Australian (I could go on...) players are "lolbad", not all old players are hopeless (except me, obv), there are plenty of decent "elders", and not all geese are swans.

Again, excellent, & balanced, Post.

Post more! 

Alex, the part I enboldened, that is NOT stereotyping, that is making a judgement based on how they go about their play. A different thing entirely, I would say.

You also say you can sterotype many types (by ethnic origin) but not young players? How so? How are youngsters any different to everyone else?

We, or I, may be confusing "stereotyping" with visual clues, reads, & judgements, perhaps we are into semantics here, & I'm sorry if so.

I agree absolutely & totally with your final para though. It's exactly the same in many things, golf springs to mind. Watch a guy tee off on the 1st tee, & you immediately know, within a few shots, his handicap. Not sure you can assess his handicap by his nationality, though.

Hi Tikay,

The whole post wasn't just about stereotyping. The bit you bolded was in response to him saying something along the lines of "you shouldn't make assumptions because of small factors such as shown a hand once etc" I was just saying that you can make excellent assumptions based on very little information.

Young players are different (to me) because they are more of a mixed bag. You get hilariously spewy young guys who just wanna be durrr. You get extremely talented young guys who ARE durrr! You get nits like Paul Jenkinson who are solid as a rock winning players :P and young guys who play so tight passive they're far too weak. There is too much 'spread' in the distribution to make too many assumptions.

Whilst there is the occasional 70 year old lagtard spew merchant (there's this guy we see at every single poker event around europe who is totally mental and hilarious!), most play very conservative and tight. That is a fair enough assumption I think, Tikay and I'm trying to be diplomatic and not offend, I know it's a touchy subject for lots.

I did stress that you must be willing to change your mind when given more information. But without any further information, that's a good place to start.

Fair comment as to the enboldened piece, Alex. And most of the rest, too. Being dipolomatic, & trying not to offend. ;)

May I ask, would you consider, say, Mr Giblin, or Ali Mallu, to be "young"? Or Fraser Bellamy, or Matt Russell...... 

Touchy subject? Not touchy, as such, but I do smile quietly & inwardly when I see, for example, "all French players are useless" type stuff. I mean, did you ever hear such irrational nonsense from the mouths of grown ups?

I think we disagree on this one Tikay.

There's no way anyone could consider Mr Giblin to be young.

Seriously though, you're always going to be able to pull out names that go against the stereotype, but for every "Giblin" that you throw at me, I'll have 10 to throw right back at you!

You should think every single player on a 100nl live game is absolutely terrible unless proven otherwise imo.

although the general standard at dtd in those games is far better than any 50/1 live game i've ever come across

Ok I will rephrase.

I generally think everybody over 30 in a 100nl game is a huge spot and anybody under 30 I view as being extremely exploitable and I watch them a lot and see where their major leak is.

Every action and event on a poker table is just an opportunity for you to make better decisions.

If you play a hand with someone in their first orbit, you're going to HAVE to go on the generic stereo-types Alex spoke of, they could be WAY out but they have more of a chance of being slightly right than slightly wrong and in the absence of any other info this is your only option, lots of guesswork.

If by the time you've played 50 hands with him and you're still working from the same default assumptions then you're not paying enough attention.

JVRS - great post, great logic behind the hand also, very WP an nice that it worked out! Welcome to blonde, keep posting :)

Often wonder how people judge me when they play me for the first time. Looks 60 but wears a hoodie

Apparently they judge you by the size of game you play. If you play Live 100nl, you are obviously terrible.....

I really struggle - big time - with Pleno's comment, though I don't plan to get into a major debate about it. I do think (please don't be offended) that it is stunningly arrogant though. As a rule in life, I would assume the absolute complete opposite to pleno - i.e., assume they are competent until shown otherwise. Disrespecting your opponents can rarely be a good thing.

100nl players MAY be terrible compared to him, & I'm quite sure they are, but they are awesomely good compared to 50nl players. And pretty tez compared to 200nl players. Surely everyone can see that it is all relative?

To someone who regularly sits in 100nl, I doubt if they are terrible compared to the rest of the table. That is the key stat, surely?

My reasoning for thinking that you were not bluffing was that you showed your hand. A decent player may turn this in to a bluff. He'd never show it though.

If you're showing a bluff you're showing the old deucey seven or similar.

The following line:


helps to explain why.

I'd guess there was some of the old 'if I fold will you show?' type thing going on?

Well played.

hm, nah I don't think so Tikay, nor am I offended, its actually a really interesting debate imo.

Take for example the local game at my casino. There are thousands of people in Gibraltar working in the Gaming industry. Most of them probably quite interested in poker or deal with it on a weekly if not daily basis. They have a drink or are bored and fancy a game of poker. They get paid decent and sit down at 100nl, they are generally super super exploitable, this is the younger crowd I am talking about.

There is then the older guys who like to gamble/play poker/uneducated (don;t read blonde) and are 95% of the time terrible.

Often in sessions if you believe somebody is capable you miss out on so much value (not wanting to 3b/fold a value hand etc)



Disrespecting your opponents can rarely be a good thing.

[/quote]

I don't disrespect them as humans, I just look for a weak spot to be able to make money from them.

One thing I hate is when a fish does something really bad and all the good players look at each other, its like the nut worst thing you should do. Being a fish is great, having everybody thinking you are a fish is probably the nut spot for you. Its like I decide to play 5knl on PokerStars and all the regs look at my sn on PTR and see I'm down 2k over 20k hands or something irrelevant and immediately take lines vs me that they shouldn't I can exploit them so so so much (jamming rivers with blockers when they expect me to be super passive etc)

If I am wrongly disrespecting you then you should be very very happy about it.


To someone who regularly sits in 100nl, I doubt if they are terrible compared to the rest of the table. That is the key stat, surely?
[/quote]

Well thats kinda the point of the argument, I think on a table of 10 players on a 100nl table, more than 50% of the time 8 players will be very exploitable and/or bad. Online at 100nl its a much much smaller %.

Also I know about 5 people (possibly more) who beat 200 and 500nl live but struggle to beat 10nl online (i.e breakeven over 100k hands)

Also fwiw Tikay, the post I made in your blog yesterday was in no way shape or form cheeky or disrespectful, I was genuinely interested.

Thanks for the responses. I will do my best to post more, it's defiantly something I want to do and get involved more around here. I have been around for a while usually just lurking though and not really feeling it was for me to get involved in certain conversations, which are swayed with the fact that most people know each other pretty well around here I guess.

It seems I may have started up something with my comments on stereotyping etc, and there is some good points made here I think. I was mainly attributing to the fact that some of the replies originally in response to the hand immediately assumed that I had to be a terrible player (if I am or not is totally irrelevant), and it seemed that this opinion was set in stone. I was just trying to get across that I thought this was totally wrong and if this was the mindset that you went in with to every player at 100nl then it is putting yourself at a big disadvantage.

That being said, I think the points that Alex made and SuuPRlim too are very valid and I totally agree with the sentance about how a large amount can be assumed rather quickly, aslong as you are willing to change your mind, and I think thats what I was trying to get across. It just felt like some of the respsonses here immediately were 100% certain of their opinion and were not for changing.

I think I also side with tikay slighty on pleno1's comment (and no disrespect to pleno). I don't think every 100nl player should be thrown in to a group like that. There could be a hundred reasons for them sitting at that level when they are more than capable of beating 1/2 2/5 even 5/10 etc. I know I certainly had my own reasons for sitting at 100nl this weekend and not higher. It's an interesting debate, because I think it's faily obvious the majority of players at 100nl you come across will be just as we all expect and be terrible, I just think that not giving yourself an open mind or allowing for the fact that someone may be decent no matter what their nationality, age, dress sense or any other factor may be is a huge mistake.

Eh? I never thought for a moment, or suggested or implied, it was! WhyEVER would you make a comment like trhat?

Thanks, yeah this is pretty much it. Obviously showing the hand there and showing the ability to turn a made hand into a bluff wouldn't be something I normally would want to do. The only reasons I did so was because of the above and what I mentioned about how it was late on in the session, pretty much a couple of hands left with me unlikely to be playing against Derbylad or the rest of the table again or atleast for some considerable time and I thought it was an interesting hand that could bring up some good discussion.

Pleno.

I'm not going to go beyond this final comment, you must think as you see fit, & me too. The matter is very simple, & one of us need to think a little wider.

It boils down to your final comment, which, personally, makes no sense to me.

You said.....

".....I think on a table of 10 players on a 100nl table, more than 50% of the time 8 players will be very exploitable and/or bad. Online at 100nl its a much much smaller %....."

I wholly disagree. As a general rule, 100nl is mostly populated by 100nl players. To them, the opposition is not terrible, it's pretty good, roughly level with their own ability. In most cases, if they were competent enough to play higher, or rolled for higher games, they would not sit in 100nl games. So when a 100nl player sits at a 100nl table, the opposition is NOT "terrible" at all.

When a 500nl player sitts as a 100nl table, yes, to him/her, 100nl players are "terrible".

When a 50nl player sits at a 100nl table, the players are awesomely & scarily good.

So, when we say "we can assume all players at a 100nl table are terrible", that is not true. It is a matter of "good" or "terrible" compared to what? To you? Yeah, because you are much better than them, if you wish. To 50nl players, no, not at all.

It is abundantly clear - to me, anyway - that "JRVS" is not "terrible" at all.  But I would be surprised & disappointed if he snap assumed all 100nl players were terrible. I think that wouyld be an extraordinary thing to assume.

And what if they ARE terrible - does that mean we can auto assume we can beat them? No, it does not. Who was, technically, far & away the best player on the Final Table of this months DTD Deepie, & where did he finish? Same question - 2 players this time - in last month's renewal?
 
Let's move on, we are not going to agree here. Ever. ;)

Next up, all French players are crap. 

I really don't agree with this. The difference between NL50 and NL100 live is absolutely miniscule, if anything NL50 has been more "reggy" with young guys practicing bankroll m, management :D, but yeh never ever has a NL100 live game been considerably tougher than an NL50 game.

The only reason NL200/500 is perhaps softer is because you can't make an assumption straight away that you can at NL50/100 and say that the players are bad.

Example,

First 10 hands, no reads. Random guy opens the hijac, we are on the buttonand decide to 3bet KQ for value, we pretty much would never 3bet KQ for direct value straight away in a game that we considered tough. We do this because 1) we expect him to peel us so wide including dominated Kings and Queens 2) we expect him to play very face up post flop and 3) we want to play against a supposed fish HU in position rather than a multiway pot 4) we only ever expect him to 4bet us pre-flop with a really good hand that we can fold meaning we can break the important rule that internet kids bang on about "don't 3bet for information/value and then fold" the reason we can do this is because of point 1.

If the guy was under 30, wearing a hoody or dr dre headphones then we would treat this a little differently and perhaps just call and wait to see other signs of him being a fish/exploitable before adjusting.


Was just scared that you might think I was being arrogant/clever, just wanted to confirm it wasn't the case and that I don't think EVERYBODY over 30 is a fish :) Alot what comes across on the internet is often wrong and unfortunately sometimes you have to spell out your intentions or people misinterpret them.

Only just got back to this "Jrvs" did agree to show after as he stated i am a thinking player, and as it was getting late. I did have in my mindset that i'd stated previously i'd just broke even hence why i'd done everything in the book to induce reads including the old count the all in. The purpose of the post was to see if the decision was correct based on hand history and unfair to undermine the player involved.

I find 25/50 in vegas way way softer than 5/10.

Another point is (and Pleno kind of said this tbf) diagnosing someone as terrible is near on useless. The whole point is to find out WHAT they do badly and then use your knowledge of the game to develop a strategy to exploit it. Saying "his guy's terrible so I'm going to X and crush him" is pretty arrogant, just basically saying that he doesn't have a chance because you're better but the sick thing about card games is that the worst player in the world has a punchers chance vs the best player on any given day.

You don't have to respect their game bet DEFO respect the fact they are capable of beating you.

@Derbylad - imo the fold is perfetly fine without being certain your oppo is capable of turning QT/J9 etc into a bluff here, with a play that is complex like that you will be way safer assuming any player at any stake ISNT capable until you find out that they are (purely because out of every player in the world playing 50/1 - 100/200 over half won't be capable of that play). The mistake in the hand is your turn bet-sizing, which is too small.

Agreed, definitely working on unexploitable betting

doesn't necessarily have to be "unexploitable" just don't chose a sizing that will make people MORE likely to bluff if you're going to bet and then fold. you wanna chose a sizing that is difficult to bluff vs if you're aren't going to call a raise

I would like to see anyone on this forum attempt to pick the 'Giblin' up, never mind throw him at anyone!!

(PS  Happy birthday Neil)

true :D

Birthday boy ITT!!!!!!!

Just sigh..... was happily scrolling down reading a good debate.
Then get to the bit where I'm called old, fat, useless at poker. Pretty surprised, you do know that there are people older, and fatter than me...........

sick posts from al from cambs itt

6bet shoving with 34ss was probably a good play vs this nit then mate

trying to rep Q8o was he?

whooosh