blonde poker forum

hand 1.

just been moved to the table 4 to the money from 800+ runners, plenty of micro stacks on other tables. part of a BAP and one of my biggest ever online buyins so definitely feeling the pressure to cash if i'm honest.

PokerStars Hand #115875256630: Tournament #894306835, $1025+$1025+$50 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XV (300/600) - 2014/05/08 3:27:20 WET [2014/05/07 22:27:20 ET]
Table '894306835 29' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: willrobrobu (16196 in chips)
Seat 2: BBOY3110 (25135 in chips)
Seat 3: TransSib (55264 in chips)
Seat 4: Mihay28 (10500 in chips)
Seat 5: flurdabing (58213 in chips)
Seat 6: diesanser (60660 in chips)
Seat 7: GaggleoKings (61030 in chips)
Seat 8: dioxan (14884 in chips)
Seat 9: dontdonkoff (43773 in chips)
willrobrobu: posts the ante 70
BBOY3110: posts the ante 70
TransSib: posts the ante 70
Mihay28: posts the ante 70
flurdabing: posts the ante 70
diesanser: posts the ante 70
GaggleoKings: posts the ante 70
dioxan: posts the ante 70
dontdonkoff: posts the ante 70
TransSib: posts small blind 300
Mihay28: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willrobrobu [Ac Qs]
flurdabing: folds
diesanser: folds
GaggleoKings: raises 600 to 1200
dioxan: folds
dontdonkoff: folds
willrobrobu: calls 1200
BBOY3110: folds
TransSib: folds
Mihay28: folds
*** FLOP *** [6s As 7h]
GaggleoKings: bets 1690
willrobrobu: calls 1690
*** TURN *** [6s As 7h] [Ks]
GaggleoKings: bets 3110
willrobrobu: calls 3110
*** RIVER *** [6s As 7h Ks] [5c]
GaggleoKings: bets 36300
willrobrobu: ?

because of its relevance to the second hand the result of this was i called, he also had AQ + we chopped.

i called quickly on river as i made my decision to do this on the turn should i be set in (this is where i tanked).
fold leaves me about 20 bigs and an almost guaranteed mincash.
anyone got the balls to play it more aggressively on earlier streets? i would have 3b/f this hand vs some players but i felt that being the bubble a light 4b was way too likely vs this opponent/stack so elected to take the call/call/call line on a reasonable board but was obv hoping it not to be for tourney life.
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3hours later 40-odd players left. been basically watching gaggle bossing the table, opening the majority of unopened pots and never folding to 3bets. not many people puting up a fight and if they do rarely does it get to showdown. when it does he is subsequently (and obviously) very polarised having either complete air or a monster (although rarely/never a monster pre-flop). i have been playing way tighter than usual subsequently, getting quite frustrated and tired. i 3b once vs him and took it down on the flop. later im 10/38 and i 3b his utg open with black KK. he flats. flop is 3 small hearts. he calls my cbet. inexplicably we check down the next two blank streets and he shows AKhh for nut flush. obviously pleased to have lost the minimum but increasingly frustrated with how i'm playing.

i dribbled some more chips trying to loosen up a little and failing. also lost a sizeable chunk w AQs in a 3b pot postflop.

HAND 2

PokerStars Hand #115878845967: Tournament #894306835, $1025+$1025+$50 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXII (1000/2000) - 2014/05/08 7:18:06 WET [2014/05/08 2:18:06 ET]
Table '894306835 29' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: willrobrobu (88080 in chips)
Seat 2: BostonG12 (130004 in chips)
Seat 3: WICKED617 (71741 in chips)
Seat 4: imcastleman (58524 in chips)
Seat 6: mexican222 (65625 in chips)
Seat 7: GaggleoKings (248596 in chips)
Seat 8: flong78 (84524 in chips)
Seat 9: RSRMCA (35737 in chips)
willrobrobu: posts the ante 250
BostonG12: posts the ante 250
WICKED617: posts the ante 250
imcastleman: posts the ante 250
mexican222: posts the ante 250
GaggleoKings: posts the ante 250
flong78: posts the ante 250
RSRMCA: posts the ante 250
WICKED617: posts small blind 1000
imcastleman: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to willrobrobu [9d Jd]
mexican222: folds
GaggleoKings: raises 2000 to 4000
flong78: folds
RSRMCA: folds
willrobrobu: calls 4000
BostonG12: folds
WICKED617: folds
imcastleman: calls 2000
*** FLOP *** [Qh Ts Th]
imcastleman: checks
GaggleoKings: checks
willrobrobu: checks
*** TURN *** [Qh Ts Th] [Ks]
imcastleman: checks
GaggleoKings: bets 8115
willrobrobu: calls 8115
imcastleman: folds
*** RIVER *** [Qh Ts Th Ks] [6h]
GaggleoKings: checks
willrobrobu: bets 10189
GaggleoKings: raises 226042 to 236231 and is all-in
willrobrobu: massively regrets betting.

correct line on river really just to check or was bet/call ok here? obv bet/fold pretty dumb. :S

to be fair to myself, GoK had mainly been successfully smallballing, with most of his aggression pre and on early streets, and the river allin wasn't a big part of how he'd been playing to bully people, so although he had done it to me on the bubble i kinda had been lulled into not expecting after the subsequent 4hrs of play. plus it was like 6am and i was knackered.

anyways. im partly posting this cos i wanna know what u had tom :p

I wouldn't check back river i don't think. Deffo a tough spot in game, as played/described i dont particularly want to fold this to him though. Line possibly doesn't correspond to that many value hands? Also sounds like he's been pretty fkn aggro so far so expect this player to be able to pull the trigger on a big river c/r bluff, particularly as it looks like it's pretty hard for you to have a huge hand here.

3b/c hand 1, as played I call river.

This is an interesting hand. So he's opened from utg+1 which would normally narrow his opening range enormously. Except he has 3x average so....... /:-|

Think turn is most intersting. I can't imagine he'll think he's getting a bunch of folds on this board too much vs peeling ranges. So there's three QQ combos, I'll give him only 1 KK combo (due to flop check), a bunch of AJs Ajo combos and a handful of QT+KT combos for pure value. Non heart or spade Aces for thin value vs nut flush draws, Tx and J9 for thin value vs AQ/AK. *Pretty* narrow value range compared to his drawing range imo. When we include the small % of times he stabs with air hoping for a super scary river to get you off your thin value, I think when we consider what his entire betting range looks like I have to try and induce on the turn. Whether you semi bluff turns much to balance is I guess a factor in your decision. If you never semi bluff then i guess you only have one option.

I think you need to consider your own image on the river in his eyes. Once you've called the turn on that run out, your entire value range is looking fairly weak when hearts complete. In his eyes your going to have to seriously consider folding AQ, AK, Tx, KQ, J9 and AJ. When we consider the hundreds of now non showdownable made hand combo's that he'll certainly consider turning into a bluff on the heart, combined with such a narrow value range (30ish house combo's+40ish heart combos compared to thousands of bluff combos) we really kind of have to call.

I think.

hand 1 is played perfect hand 2 i would fold pre. fold now

Pretty easy to just jump on Bramm's back here, but these were exactly my thoughts as well.

Why wouldn't we be happy to 3b/c vs someone who is really aggro and we think " a light 4b was way too likely" ? Especially in a sko.

4 off the money i think getting in AQo is too thin for 27bb

Any arguments for just folding pre then so close off the money?

Definitely folding ore in hand 1v especially vs this opponent who will lrobab'y out you all in somehow.

Hand 2 seems like a fold pre too, kqs more of a defend.

Defo fold the river in hand #2 imo.

As for hand #1 if bram says its gd then im on board with that!

Hand 1 seems fine, river is pretty gross, I guess i'd call... not loving life at all though.

Hand 2 pre is fine with me, flops well, deep enough IP. I mean it's definitely close given positions, but I wouldn't say it's a bad peel.
What do people think about betting flop in this one? I definitely would some of the time at least.
River is 100% a bet and almost certainly a fold when jammed on, you have flushes and straights in your range, so seems unlikely he's c/jamming with air here much (or with worse for value ever)

id hazard a guess that Tom doesn't have a check/call range on the river in hand 2 so i very much dislike betting the bottom of our value range

Yh bet/folding hand 2 seems really really bad I'd definitely bet call if I were to bet but not sure I'd bet.

Hand  1 calling pre is just bleeding chips and pretty bad call IMO.

You suggesting 3b/c, 3b/f or just fold?

Of all those I like 3b/c most but still prefer as played.

Fold > 3b/f > call 3bc

3bc this close to money is disaster and just leave that stuff to holy hell. This structure so good my number 1 aim is cashing, the structure is good enough that I'll worry about winning later c

Calling as I said is also bad too as you're just bleeding money as he will make you fold at some point.

If we are going to 3bet/f anything aq seems decent. Blockers. Times he does call us we can flop top pair which is important.

But most of all I like fold.

thanks for all the replies so far. i guess i was expecting different responses as they are those sort of hands.

summary

hand 1 -
fold pre - pleno, george2loose
3b/c - mondatoo
c/c/c - nigdawg, MC, wotrthechances

as i played it though i think everyone agrees with the river call. dont think i can bring myself to fold AQo pre with that many bb vs someone stealing, so i guess i'm ok with that one, though i understand a fair amount of the time i will just end up having to fold the cbet (or to a cold 3b pre)

hand 2 -
most of you say fold pre although as played OTR we got

check river - pleno, tl900. though i suspect others would agree with this too.
bet river - wotrthechances

as played (having bet):
call - pinchop, muckthenuts, pleno
fold - nigdawg, MC, suuprlim, wotrchances

peel was weird for me but i'm used to opening a lot of pots and i wasn't getting the chance at all having gaggle on my right, so i guess i just wanted to get involved/put up some resistance to the onslaught and the opportunities were thin on the ground. i think i just should have checked the river, i didn't think it through properly at the time but with hindsight just checking although very nitty is probably optimal. if i bet i should really be doing it with the intention to call with this hand. i b/folded in game dribbled some more chips away and busted a little while later.

What does he bet for value on the turn, that he then c/jams river with?

In his eyes if you've called turn bet he can expect you to consider calling river bet too, especially since if he does have a stronger hand than ours, he's never going to want to check it on the river as its such an action killer thus will lose huge amounts of value. Also if he really has checked river with top of value range, with stack sizes as they are he may just 2.5x raise the river to try give our weaker value range the chance to call.

The kid likes to win pots so I'm calling.

I'm still not convinced that there isn't a point were 3b/c isn't the best play. Maybe Tom isn't aggro enough to do it vs him but I don't see how it doesn't matter how aggro villain is we just shouldn't do it. I know tourney life has value, obv, but still, especially in a SKO were some regs just go ballistic, ego wars on bubble etc etc.

It's certainly not my std line, I agree with just folding pre a lot as agree we are just going to get coffined a ton post flop.

In hand 1, if Pads is correct that it is better to fold than to call then logically it must be better to 3bet (as a bluff) than to fold. It is a blocker hand that is right at the top of our folding range, so therefore should be pretty much the first hand we choose to use when constructing our 3bet bluffing range. Only reason to fold this hand is if for some exploitative reason you want to have no 3bet/f range (i.e. bluffing range) in this particular spot. Postflop looks good to me.

Hand 2, I'm not sure if the river value bet is profitable, but if it is profitable it is very, very thin. Which means that when you are check-raised on the river you are very close to the bottom of your river betting range, unless you are bluffing this river 'too much'... and let's face it you are probably not bluffing this river often enough let alone too much, especially as on this board you likely need to turn made hands into bluffs to be bluffing enough. So you should fold since you are right down at the bottom of your range. Added to this, you have no blockers at all to his value c/r range which makes it even more of a fold. Calling would be an adjustment to exploit a read on this specific opponent, which is fine ofc if you have the appropriate read.

Incidentally, I'd prefer to call the check-raise with AT than with J9 (although I may still fold AT if I decided to bet it) - they are effectively the same hand but at least you block some FH combos with AT and you block nothing at all with J9. In fact if, for whatever reason, I ended up betting the river with a range that included J9 and AK (AK would be a bad hand to bet but ignore that) and was FORCED to call the c/r with one of those hands then I'd prefer to call with AK than with J9, due to blocker effects on his value c/r range. They are effectively the same hand vs his c/r range anyway (since it should be hugely polarised) so the blocker effect is more important than absolute hand strength.

Edited to say: The last point about AK vs J9 is likely taking the concept a little too far, but whatever.... I get carried away with myself sometimes.

spots like this 4 to the money (especially in tournies that are a big shot, yes this IS an important thing) against hyper aggressive players its fine to not have a 3b/f range in hand 1, but i did but it as number 2 on my list.

Fair enough. In that case I should fix my own post...


;)

Think this hand is super interesting, hopefully Tom comes in and divulges his thought processes.

i hope so too :p