blonde poker forum

Yesterday's Super 50. 100 runners. Towards the end of level 1. Blinds 50/100. I have about 17,500. Villain has 13,500.

Table has a number of inexperienced players and is generally passive. Villain seems to have more familiarity with the game and has played more aggressively when in a hand than most. His 3 opens to this point have been 2-3x.

I have played one hand against him of significance in which he bet/checked/bet on a missed flush draw and I called him down.

I have been happy to limp along in position and have opened only once. Unsurprisingly for those who have played with me, I've been chatty and getting the table talking. I shall now go with first person plural, as is the fashion, and convey the hand to the best of my recollection...

We are the button. Villain limps UTG. Two other limpers to us. We look down at Ad Kc and make it 300 to go. We get UTG and the two limpers along for the ride. Pot is 1,350.

Flop: Qs 9h 5d

Villain immediately looks at his chips, then back at the flop. He leads 600. Limpers get out of Dodge. We think he doesn't like the flop as much as a queen and two overs in position with the possibility of being in front anyway is worth a call. Pot 2,550

Turn Qh

Villain looks at his cards. He thinks for a little while, counts his chips and bets 1,000. A single green chip. And now looks again at us.

We are satisfied this has not changed the hand significantly and that all options are available. We decide against raising where we stand a chance of having the best hand or getting him off a 9 on the end. We call. Pot 4,550.

River Ks

Villain goes straight to his chips. He picks the stack of green up, counts them in his head and puts the down, checking with his free left hand while putting the stack down with his right. He now looks again at me.

I think for a little while and bet 1,650. He takes no more than seconds to make it 3,500 to go. I feel compelled to call, having underrepped my hand.

Villain shows Jh Td for a straight.

Questions
1. Is a value bet on the end sensible? In other words is my hand too good to check?

2. When he check-min-raises a player who has led the river having shown no aggression other than Pre-flop, is Villain always super-strong?

3. Any other comments about the earlier streets or bet sizes?

hey,

pre flop I prefer to go 3x then bb for each limper, at least 500 here.

on this flop, is massively smashes his calling range, 98,, 910, jq, j10, qj, q10 etc etc, even when we improve to an ace/king we can be dead, we dont want to call and bluff later as its 50/100, its just a really simple flop fold.

1) you havnt under-repped your hand, you ahve A high, if anything you have overrepped your hand.
2) when he checks he is usually just c/f and will sometimes c/shove with 99/55 kind of hands
3) as played the c/min raise on the river is never ever a blufff and v easy fold now

Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?


No, but seriously, thanks. That's very instructive.

Eeeew.

1) More pre. Nobody is going to fold for 200 more. You want to either a) thin the field so AK has a chance of being best after the flop, or b) make people make a big mistake by putting lots of chips into a pot with a pants hand. 3x + 1bb per limper = 600 here.

2) Snap fold on the flop. Against 3 players, no pair isn't any good here. It's a very dry flop- it turns out he's got the only draw it's possible to have here. Against lots of players, the c-bet dynamic isn't really going on so much (since a c-bet is less likely, you may as well not bother checking to the raiser). So I think he could lead out with with a Q, or a 9, or two pairs, or a set as well as the hand he has got. Against this range you are toast.

Fair enough you think he's got a tell, but it would have to be a big tell (like he has JT scrawled on his face with permanent marker) to make it worth calling here.

also if we call flop, the other guys who checked the flop can come along and play too.

They've not got any cards any more. It's gone limp,limp,limp, raise by Hero pre on the Button, then donk-lead from V1, fold, fold, call by Hero on the flop.

+1 to everything posted so far.

Each street could have been played better but calling river is probs worst imo. Tal, you have to ask yourself what hands he is likely to have here, then out of those hands what can you beat or at least get to fold. Should always be trying to assign people ranges. Question. What hand did you think he had to make the river a profitable call?

The river check did suggest to me that he didn't have a queen or JT - I saw no reason to suspect he was that trappy and he would have no reason to suspect I would bet if he checked.

I figured there was a chance he had turned a nine or TT/JJ into a bluff, as he had taken a simple bluff line 20 minutes earlier.

Bet size pre was a mistake, agreed.

All feedback gratefully received.

The guy you have described sounds quite aggro to me and doubt he is limping utg with 1010/JJ especially after you have already seen him raise a few times.

If he is trying it on I would expect him to lead the river quite big, although for his c/r to be profitable he is putting you on your exact hand or AQ maybe 1010/JJ and thinks you won't fold or what is way more likely he thinks " I have a straight I must raise " in all cases it's a fold I think.

In this tournament you don't see a lot of "turning x into bluff" most of the hands make sense to some extent, obviously you get the occasional weird play but normally these players are busto pre ante's.

I think the value bet on the river is probably where you need to look to improve, thinking how the hand played out the only hand I could see you MAYBE getting value out of is K9, donking the 9 for w/e reason on flop, thinking you can't have Q on turn and then maybe calling even though he got counterfeited now that he has top pair, also people like to get stubborn when they get counterfeited so it's a good spot if you had for instance JT or Qx boat combo to go for a full pot bet.

As played, more pre, fold flop :)

Agree with what everyone has said before me..

Definitely more pre, and just check back the river. We're only getting called by hands that beat you and we're vv rarely getting better hands to fold.

i hate it when we river wehat we want to hit, we know even though we have hit it we are behind, but alot of players dont think like that and call, i think the best way in this pot would have been to re raise him on the turn to something like 3200, you find out where you are and if you are flat calling what are you flat calling to hit, the ACE or THE K that makes u loose,

don't post results to gain best from pha threads.

as pleno said flop smashes peeling ranges. bluff raising alot with equity is good vs lead folders. calling is good vs people who you think can fire multiple times. would definitely look for some value on the river. once we get c/r, even if it isn't a quick one just rofl fold nearly all hands you hold.

Think the river vb is pretty thin Tal. You bet 16bbs he calls with worse and I don't think his range to do that is very wide. Don't forget you look kinda strong yourself calling a dry flop and then calling the q turn so don't think villain is bluff catching much. There is 45bb in the pot when you bink the river so think checking behind is ok.

Fold cos Q9x hits preflop calling ranges pretty hard and we don't have anything, but in general in the super 50 don't try to take any remotely fancy line vs anyone, just try to have it when you put chips in.

Thanks to all for your comments, observations and advice.

I managed to play some hands better than that one in the comp, fortunately, and it made little difference if any to the end result, as it turned out (lost a big pot v a similar stack AK < QQ aipf and had very few chips left at 600/1,200/100, so the extra 5k would have changed little).

Nevertheless, it is useful to know I made so many objective mistakes in a single hand :)

A mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it

1. your hand is not underepped, especially when value betting on the end...... you probably have the very bottom of your range for value betting
2. simple answer - YES.... i would say that this line is 0% a bluff given the tournament, bet size, line in general etc
3. more pre, anything between 450 and 650 is fine with me