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$340 six max comp at Caesar's Palace (the apostrophe is mine, not theirs). We are six handed. First level (50/100), average stack is about 25k starting stack. The people involved in this hand are:

Dramatis personae

Seat one: Tal, hero to the people, purveyor of fine banter, philosopher, friend and occasional curator of betting discs. We have been the sickest mofo in the room most active player at the table, probably playing seven of the dozen or so hands to this point and generally with a raise.

Seat three: French chap, about 30. He dresses like a poker player, has opened a couple of times to sensible (≤300) amounts and has yet to 3bet.

Seat four (button): smaller, Parisian chap. 35ish. Riffles competently but not showing a particular level of comfort at the table. He's been the tightest player at the table thus far, but tiny sample size.

Seat six (BB) is a portly, middle aged American chap, shrouded in a Hawaiian shirt that would service well as shelter for a family on a desert island, both because of its size and how easy it would be to see from a passing 'plane. He has been quite loose and although he is a little awkward when handling his chips (shaky hands every time), I'd nevertheless say he's played a fair bit before; more likely he just gets a bit nervy early doors in a comp.

That out of the way, I'll get to the hand...

i've never yet read a pha which didn't manage to get to the hh itself in the first post.


marv wp.


<3 apostro'phes

Based on descriptions I do a shove for all of my betting discs with my value hands. They are Frenchies - they'll call with 5 high ;)

We gonna need full footwear and posture details.

We look down at  9h 9s and open UTG to 225, playing 27,600.

Seat 2 folds.

Seat 3 raises to 600, verbalising it as he throws in a 500 and a 100 chip, in a manner of no discernible difference to how he has thrown in chips before.

Seat 4 calls quickly.

Seat 5 folds.

Seat 6 thinks for a while, counts out calling chips, thinks some more and then calls.

We decide this is a good spot to 4bet and make it 2300 to go.

Seat 3 passes quickly, as does seat 4, so we lose both Monsieurs.

Seat 6, our American neighbour, dwells (we can't see much of his facial expressions past the dealer, but his posture has largely remained unchanged) and 5bets to 6,000. He started with about 25k.

My questions follow...

(And yes, pleno, the posture comment was for you)

In before questions, to give the reader a sense of the pauses in Tal's prose.

I have 4 options, so far as I can see:

A) Fold
B) Call in position
C) Raise to 11k and reassess if he jams
D) 6bet jam

I discounted B quickly, as I don't see any point in calling, when I have repped so much strength so far. Why would AA or KK just flat, when this guy is five betting me?

I didn't give C much thought tbh but maybe I should consider it.

The time I took to make a decision was largely spent between A and D.

I figured the only way he could have a monster is if he didn't mind playing a four way pot OOP, he didn't want to get knocked out early or he thought I'd likely four bet.

Alternatively, AK fits the bill.

I'm really not sure what I should have done. Was happy to pull the trigger but elected it was more likely that something was up so folded. I suspect the shove was better, but I welcome criticism on this.

Off you go then.

why is this a good spot to 4bet?

why is this hand a good hand to 4bet with?


how will you continue to any action from anyone once you've 4bet, how many froppies do we like to see that don't contain a 9.

how super dooper excited are we to get this hand in preflops for 27 thousand of the betting discs?


where any of them wearing a scarf?

I call the 3b pre. We can probably set mine this deep. It feels too weak to fold to a with 99.4betting you're only getting action from the top of his range, which buries you. What was your motivation to 4bet?

As played pass immediately.

Stopped reading after first line.

You are 300bbs deep why are you min raising?

We should be opening to at least 3x, 4x would be fine min raising is jut too small.

I'd rather have a limping and raising range than min raising at this point.

It is absolutely not a good spot to 4bet.

What is the reason of a bet?

1) for value - thus happy to go with out hand, 270bbs deep what are we hoping for 88?

2) as a bluff - we don't need to use this hand as a b,if or even have a buffing range if we are going to bluffid rather do it with aq that would fold to another raise, be ahead of their range whilt still being able to improve. 99 is too static and flops horribly with aq we can out kick people and outdraw them later whilst representing but flushes etc. aqhh would've even more appropriate.

Reasons for calling

1- the other guys likely have pocket pairs under 99 meaning this deep we can legitimately stack any of them given the chance of set over set.

2- the 3bettor should have a tight range as its small blinds and small buy in tournament (ranges generally tighter and more passive) thus enhancing our implied odds, but in this case it doesn't matter as we're deep enough to profitably set mine vs anybody

3- we don't have any reverse implied odds. If we get staked 1 in a million on k92 that's ok but generally were gonna know where we stand most of the time.

4- reverse implied odds 2- sp,etimes when you call 88-1010 you call 1 or 2 cubes however this will go 4 way most likely the meaning we can expose a no set no bet strategy.

5- if the player who squeezed is competent and we do want to get tricky we can represent a lot of boards like 875, 78t where we represent sets and put pressure on his static, tighter range.

Well, I think I have the best hand most of the time when I four bet. I would rather thin the field and play against one or fewer opponents post flop.

Getting all in with 99 if he calls my jam is probably a horrible spot for me, which is probably my main driver for folding. I'd likely be turning my hand into a bluff and trying to get TT-QQ and AK to fold.

I can confirm the table was scarfless, despite a LAG air conditioning system.

Excellent op.

I'll take 10%

Have we got a hand yet? The rouge apostrophe threw me, then the bit about needing advice vs 2 frenchies and a tourist

;0p

Why should we be making it more for the initial raise? Isn't "little and often" the best strategy?

that's correct later when stacks are shallower, earlier when we are all deep we are looking to take the chips off the weaker players, rather than minraising with 300bb because we are opening super wide, we open strong hands and playable hands etc and make it slightly bigger, this pf change to raise size has exponential affects down the streets and allows us to build pots when we have very strong hands, build decent sized pots for when we realise equity and gain more fold equity.


4betting turns our hand into two napkins face down, whilst peeling the 3bet gives us a multiway pot (I don't know why you don't want to go multiway given how well this hand plays) where we can do a third nine and be all like zomg lets get 300bbs in vs france.

Just read your signature, Titbeam.

Irony.

google translate helped me get to there.

<3 FISH STICKERS. and brutes.

I have a horrible feeling I shouldn't ask this question. However...

How often do we think seat six folds if we shove?

We are where we are and have a decision to make (which, I am learning, for several reasons, we should not have been asked to make), so what do we do? Should I fold because I shouldn't compound the error, fold because I am only playing the topof his range (call the 3 bet and then 5bet?) or turn my hand into a bluff?

Heck of an education, posting on PHA...

well it's live, and they've put the 5th bet in. zomg lolz.

you have certain options.


declare your intent to 'get there' and jam your 99.  if he turns over AK say you knew he had it.

play like a frenchman peel 99 open shove instantly any 9x flop, c/f or open fold if you miss.


or we can range him up as being ridic strong and us being behind, look at the stacks and decide whether we should get our peel on and pray to the god of sets or whether we should just look at our hand realise how well it flops multiway to get 300bb in and then think 'tal you mug why did you 4bet and announce sigh fold'.

Point taken. Good fold, then.

not if a 9 was coming innit

then we go on from here, to thinking how we should construct our continuing ranges here, what hands would we want to have in our value 4b range, what hands of which we open pre do we fold to this action etc.

Note to self: all future PHA OPs should begin "I have this friend, right, and he played the following hand..."

or the classic, post the hh from the other way round then say BUT HOW CAN HE CALL.



furthering the education, at what hand strength do you looking back on it think you would have been comfortable stacking off preflop here, as I would be overcalling QQ/JJ for sure.

To 4bF a strong value hand such as QQ-99 you need to expect your oppo to be loose in 3betting, wide in peeling 4bets and essentially only 5betting better hands than you hold, some of the time he may min 5bet or w/e giving us odds to actually peel whilst the rest of the times we can raise fold feeling confident in our strategy, it is a very aggressive and read based strategy though, so readless it's generally going to be a pretty bad idea.

Titaniumbean on owning threads

(http://www.yuppee.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/alan-partridge.jpg)

I get called lazy post 20 lines and no recognition.

Fold pre.

not enough gifs/pics/spelling mistakes pleeeno

True story: I had to ask the chap I'm rooming with (who's a more experienced online player - decent 99.something OPR low stakes MTT player) to explain it to me. He said, and I quote:

"WOW. That is an uunbelievably insightful thing to say. That is probably the best thing I have ever heard written in poker. You should really thank him for that!"

Was contemplating watering it down, but you did ask nicely :)

Seriously, thanks for the analysis. Really appreciate the feedback, however hard it can be. Expected the 4bet to be questioned but was blindsided by the opening raise question.

Very educational. I just don't get much experience of being that deep very often.

In before "well giving your chips away helped, then"

it's all about a trade off, your odds on the raise size you make, and the implied odds you are offering your opponent. when we have a stronger range we want to be opening larger and when we have a weaker range we want to be smaller to make it a cheaper steal.

by definition cheaper steals will work more later rather than early.