blonde poker forum

Hero 1550
Villain 1700
@50/100 no antes
Villain is Gary Banks (unknown to me) sitting on my immediate left

Fairly passive table with only the villain 3 betting with any frequency. Not seen any of his 3 betting holdings.

Hero raises 300 late position KJo
Villain 3bets to 875

Probably should fold/raise here but thought I'd see the flop
Hero call

Flop - 2 6 j with 2 hearts
Hero Check
Villain 900
Hero 3 bet to 2k
Villain call

Turn - J (non heart)
Hero bets to 2k
Villain calls fairly quickly

River - 10 (non heart)

Hero check to induce bet

Villain all in

Call

Villain turns over TT

I understand I played pre flop wrong but can I get away at the end?
How would you have played it differently?

Flame away

calling pre is really bad, we are often dominated and have huge reverse implied odds. see this post I made on Leathermans blog.



on the flop we should just start calling down, raising can put us in so much trouble.

on the turn we should either continuing to look like we are bluffing and bet 4k~ as he will expect us to be on a flush draw because of card removal (its hard to have a jack in a 3bet pot when there is 2 jacks on the baord and your range in general bill be more weighted towards suited cards that he will (correctly?) assume you're peeling.

on the river, I like to keep betting and representing a flush draw, but as played we have to call.

Unfortunately misplayed on every street imo, but we live to learn :)

edit: whilst this may sound very harsh, peeling pre is even worse when we really have no idea how to play correctly when we flop top pair and generally fail to extract maximum from our hand when basically having the nuts.
1) we are going to win a small or medium pot a small % of the time
2) we are going to lose a small or medium pot a BIG % of the time
3) we are going to lose a huge pot a small % of the time.

I'd fold pre but as you know this was a mistake...

I really don't like the c/r on the flop, it achieves very little and just inflates the pot oop and a lot of the time we aren't even going to have the best hand here in a 3b so your basically just opening yourself up to a world of hurt.

Turn/River meh, sigh at runout.

Being bluntly honest pre and the flop is pretty spewy, esp at this stage of the comp, don't mean to be harsh when you just busted.

Just get pissed at the bar and tell everyone you ran terrible and got 2 outered on river.

Pre and flop are pretty bad.

Turn seems standard as played

Depend on stack sizes whether you can bet/fold river

Everything Monda said above, especially the bolded section.

It's a really poorly played hand, but we've all done it.

On the river I think you can still get away just because it's really early days in a long tournament and people are value shoving monsters exponentially more than they are bluff shoving.  We don't cover much if any of his value range.

we checked the river?! we can never fold as played imo.

Get yourself inside the mind of the average live player (we have no reads so I'm using that yardstick).  They have been looking forward to this event for ages, a lot of the field have satellited in.  At the 50/100 level they are not going to risking this much of their stack on a busted flush draw/stone cold bluff.  They check over pairs behind 100% of the time when we have been firing at them on flop and turn when the top card has paired on the turn.  They are not doing this move this early without at least the last jack, and bearing in mind they have 3bet us pre it's unlikely they have a jack we beat.  This is almost always an absolute monster from the average live player.

Now if the reads were the player is on his lappy grinding Stars while playing here at the same time then it's an obvious snap.

Not folding pre is easily the biggest mistake this hand

Lol Tommy, this is the same guy who Alex Martin said gl to and that travelled with Adam Reynolds who 3b5b k9 aip.

Well that changes things somewhat.

Thanks for all the comments and I fully accept I f'ked this up.

I did believe I was ahead on the flop and obv turn but these pesky internet wizzes do sometimes have a hand.

I should never have played this tournament as I had to make so many changes to my everyday schedule and was probably not in the right mind to play. I always intended to avoid this tourny but the allure of the 1m guarantee got the better of me lol.

Thanks again

Gary B is excellent. Also, great hair, good lad. Sort of unlucky that you cant fold the river once you're there

Not much more to say about pre and flop play that hasnt been said already however I really dont like checking the river after you have c/r the flop.  I think he will check back everything on the river with showdown value that isnt a J or better(most of which would call a bet on the river) so you're losing value against everything you beat that can call a river bet.  He might also check back busted flushes on the river too given how much strength you've repped by c/r'ing the flop and betting the turn as you can still have strong showdown value on the river and can check/call.

Gets there

Great post by Pleno.

Re-read it several times imo - I have nothing I could possibly add.

Fold pre? Yes
C/R on the flop? No
Turn? Bet bigger
River? Sigh - I would have called and cried

Did he believe you had a jack? No
Did he put you on AK/AQ/Middle pair? Probably
Was he lucky to hit a two outer? Hell yes

Am I glad I wasn't in this hand? Yes.

Pleno has summed it up very well, I can't improve on what he's said really. But I do think that you were very unlucky to lose the hand after the turn came a J. He could have quite conceivably had AJ and the betting does look like it so to River a 10 for the full house is just awful for us. Had you not posted he turned TT I think a the general consensus would have been him holding AJ and ergo we still lose - so all in all not a good spot to find ourselves in.

After his flop bet/call I could only put him on over pairs and maybe AJ but thought this was unlikely.
The moral of the story is don't play shit cards because even when you hit more than likely you've probably missed.

Totally butchered this hand from the off and paid the price.

I really do appreciated the feedback guys. As a truly recreational player who has lost his poker mojo over the last 6 months this feedback is very helpful.

It was a terrible post, he forgot the fact we win a big pot a small % of the time, BITB my arse.

You told me about a hand once where you were on the final table of the 300 at DTD, where you raised a bet with TT on a dry J high board; I personally think, like in this hand, it's a big mistake not to just flat call. I think in this spot you have this old school mentality where you raise to "find out where I am", whereas players nowadays understand that quite often you are not going to know 100% what you are up against but instead just try to control the pot based on their hand strength vs your opponents range. The stronger your hand is the more you put in, the weaker it is the less you put in. I know on this occasion he did have a lesser hand and called but can't imagine it's the right choice in the long run. But most definitely don't call the 3b pre with KJ.

another good point

hand reading has developed now to the point where betting because you think you have the best hand is no longer enough of a reason to bet, you need to be VERY clear about WHY you are doing what you are doing and what you hope to achieve by doing it.

If you have obvious gaps in your plans mid-hand - where you look a bit lost - good and even just decent players pick up on it easily nowadays and can really punish you.

I spoke to gary about this pot...

you dont want to know his thoughts haha

Very helpful, thanks.

Would have preferred not to know what villain actually had. Do you gues not do this on blonde?

Not having a dig or owt, its always better to know what the optimal choice to make is vs villain's range rather than the specific exact two cards

I think gary's turn call is a little questionable tbh

Although we certainly should have bet bigger OTT.