blonde poker forum

2nd time i have 3bet him in 2 rounds from the sb, he folded last time
4bet vs a sb flat and btn 3bet previously and has done some decent things (nothing noticeably terrible) and i wouldnt consider him tight although sample is <30 hands

tanked for about 30s otf as i wasnt sure which option is best and even after the hand finished im still not sure bc of the amount of chips involved, my hand in relation to the board, difficulty of progress on future streets etc..


PokerStars Hand #85593418305: Tournament #2012090001, $200+$15 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (75/150) - 2012/09/02 18:07:21 WET [2012/09/02 13:07:21 ET]
Table '2012090001 473' 6-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Diamond8 (13656 in chips)
Seat 2: pistons87 (20244 in chips)
Seat 3: discomonky (32100 in chips)
Seat 4: vikAAAA (10217 in chips)
Seat 5: Manta_Rays (19630 in chips)
Seat 6: easy_sun1978 (11343 in chips)
Diamond8: posts the ante 20
pistons87: posts the ante 20
discomonky: posts the ante 20
vikAAAA: posts the ante 20
Manta_Rays: posts the ante 20
easy_sun1978: posts the ante 20
discomonky: posts small blind 75
vikAAAA: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to discomonky [Tc Ts]
Manta_Rays: folds
easy_sun1978: folds
Diamond8: folds
pistons87: raises 150 to 300
discomonky: raises 550 to 850
vikAAAA: folds
pistons87: calls 550
*** FLOP *** [7s 2d 4d]
discomonky: bets 1275
pistons87: raises 1710 to 2985
discomonky:

thoughts?

2 options:

1) make it 5750, but then hating a flat from him, as could be either flopped sets or hands like  5d 6d or  5d 3d or  Ad 3d, however we pretty much know what the scare cards are.  Ad Kd less of a concern as he surely 4 bets pre with dynamics as described.

If he reshoves, I think with this dynamic, I call and expect to be ahead most of the time. We are only behind to flopped sets and maybe JJ, but surely he 4 bets u with the goods pre.

2) Flat the 3 bet and re evaluate on the turn (where about half the deck worries us).

So, bearing this in mind, option 1 wins, and if he folds I am happy because of (what I say in option 2).

5888/call i guess, dont rly like it but seems fine.

This. But im liking it as i feel he shows up with 88/99 here alot of the time when he rofls his stack into the middle, sets are only a small % of his getting it in range so were hardly ever crushed, combos make up another decent % of his range but once you 3bet the flop your deffinatly getting it in vs these hands.

(Gotta remember that its a wcoop with alot of people satting in - who wouldnt usually play at this level - so youve also got to take that into account (as you also have to account for spazzes in other MTTs - however this one more so i feel)

3bet pre is a really bad idea.

Could you elaborate on this one please?

Call/evaluate seems like it'll be hard to pull off here, there's a ton of bad turns and a good player in particular will make life hard. 3b/call seems like a slightly ahead/way behind spot for a ton of bb's if we get it in.

Thoughts on folding the flop in a massive well structured tournament like this?

Dont really like 3betting pf without some pretty aggro history by where a 5bet is going to be profitable, this guy is one of the biggest HU sng winners online so prolly going to play good post-flop were deep, OOP, with a hand that can defo by tricky to play.

Admittedly we'll be bluff catching most of the time post OOP without initiative with TT but I think he's way less likely to take off/more likely to PC slightly weaker hands in a smaller single raised pot. I'd take this over making a bigger pot and causing ourselves headaches/giving him opportunities to put us in coffin spots post-flop which is actuallly what has happened here.

I think folding might be better in a vacuum than 3b/call but obv there are a lot more reasons why folding is bad than any of the other options theoretically.

Flat preflop, it's not close really.

Fold now. Again, not close really.

This guy is a very good pro player, he's not "rofling" his stack in with 88 no antes at the start of a WCOOP.

Ok so do you have a 3betting range at all here??

Yes. For him to raise 88 or 99 on this flop would be bad. For him to raise the flop then 4bet vs a 3bet would be completely insane. Even the vast majority of huge fish don't do this, let alone good players.

Tbh, it wouldn't be terrible to simply not have a 3betting range when very deep and OOP vs a good player. Not saying it would be optimum, but it would definitely be a better strategy than one which includes 3betting hands like TT or AQ.

However, assuming you do have a 3betting range here, it should be extremely polarised.

Edited to say: All of the above is only true vs a good player. Against poor players then go ahead and 3bet an extended value range.

dont take into consideration that he is an exceptional player, when making this decision i do not know that, i just know that he seems decent  at least ...... basing your decision on a read i didnt have is pointless

True enough.

Readless it depends on your overall philosophy on how to construct default population reads and exploitative lines vs unknowns. My personal philosophy is to assume that my opponents are at least competent until proven otherwise, and to plan my lines accordingly. I know quite a few posters on here, especially the younger ones, prefer to assume that every unknown is automatically terrible until proven otherwise. I personally think this is a bad idea. Partly because it leads to arrogance, complacency and hubris. But also because, even if an opponent really is as bad as you assume, you don't yet know how he is bad. I have had this discussion with Dan Morgan (a very good player who talks a lot of sense) on these forums in the past, during which he argued that assuming opponents are competent until proven otherwise is a huge leak. I think he is completely wrong in both a philosophical and a practical sense. But it's up to you to decide where you stand on this issue.

What I will say though, is that it is a HUGE mistake to put yourself in these sort of spots if it turns out your opponent is competent... and it is only a small benefit if it turns out that your opponent is terrible. This is why in my opinion, in many spots like this you should take the good, solid theoretical line when readless, rather than try to make an exploitative adjustment before you know what you are trying to exploit.

3betting TT here when OOP and deep is not at all standard; it would be an adjustment to your usual strategy. Your default play should be to have a highly polarised 3betting range, and you adjust from there as you get reads, history and dynamics. This is not just correct in theory; more importantly, it makes poker much easier to play and prevents you making terrible FTOP mistakes.

fwiw I think 'huge leak' was a bit strong. Definitely wouldn't agree with myself now :D

Another thing that I didn't properly account for at the time of writing that was that the majority of my poker experience comes from HUSNGs which I'd say is a format that lends itself a little more to people doing really spazzy stuff than say 6max cash. I guess that is very hard to quantify though since you don't play many HUSNGs and I don't play much 6max cash.

I'd probably alter the sentiment now to saying that it is better to assume that everyone plays a static strategy rather than everyone is terrible which I think is closer to the true population tendency.

flop is one of those spots where ur getting fucked with a high % of the time, but there isnt a darned thing you can do about it.

results were he had 79dd and we held :)

appreciate the responses and agree with some of them.

not read replies, but pistons is a high stakes hu sng player who seems to flick in mtts and can fuck about quite a bit. pretty sure i'd peel TT pre oop this deep. or if u fly wanna 3b make it bigger. as played click it back call but sigh at how big this pot is

+1 to this

6k, call as played

Only hands im worried about is sets but more likely he has connectors, bigger cards, pretty sure if he was a solid player he would 4b anything better then us. With a good players range here , we should stilll be good enough on the flop readless IMO

Also maybe im not nitty enough but i like the 3b here, if he 4bets tank a bit :P sigh fold or stick it in

ok, i feel like i could have played this better, i didnt know that he was a sicko so the preflop 3bet i think is standard vs relative randoms in a weak feild and i could have 3bet/called the flop rather than shoving and folding out all of his bluffs...


thasnks for responses