blonde poker forum

I've been putting a lot of time into my online game lately but hands like the one that follows really get on my nerves. I'd got Burri777 pegged as a bit of a maniac so when he shoves me all in I'm pretty sure I'm ahead with pocket tens and it turns out I was.

Looking at it from one perspective it is a bad beat and I should just move on and get over it.

A different perspective though is that he shouldn't really have been playing that hand let alone shoving all in with it, at that stage in the game it was just not needed. Is it just pokerstars that these people seem to thrive?

Like I say I've been putting a lot of effort into my online game lately and seem to have a good ITM rate at single seater $7 tournaments and the players seem to be less maniac like. I guess I'm asking is what are other people playing online that is profitable?




PokerStars Hand #117608913066: Tournament #924819657, $1.36+$0.14 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IX (200/400) - 2014/06/16 20:43:58 CUST [2014/06/16 15:43:58 ET]
Table '924819657 4' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Burri777 (5590 in chips)
Seat 2: surfer_crx (4125 in chips)
Seat 3: tchelos123 (9021 in chips)
Seat 5: caziano (2785 in chips)
Seat 6: HOYER78 (5088 in chips)
Seat 7: Matej2804 (2409 in chips)
Seat 8: Viktorian79 (2884 in chips)
Burri777: posts the ante 25
surfer_crx: posts the ante 25
tchelos123: posts the ante 25
caziano: posts the ante 25
HOYER78: posts the ante 25
Matej2804: posts the ante 25
Viktorian79: posts the ante 25
Burri777: posts small blind 200
surfer_crx: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to surfer_crx [Th Td]
tchelos123: folds
caziano: folds
HOYER78: folds
Matej2804: folds
Viktorian79: folds
Burri777: raises 5165 to 5565 and is all-in
surfer_crx: calls 3700 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (1465) returned to Burri777
*** FLOP *** [As Kc 4c]
*** TURN *** [As Kc 4c] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [As Kc 4c 3h] [5c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Burri777: shows [7s 2s] (a straight, Ace to Five)
surfer_crx: shows [Th Td] (a pair of Tens)
Burri777 collected 8375 from pot
surfer_crx finished the tournament in 14th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 8375 | Rake 0
Board [As Kc 4c 3h 5c]
Seat 1: Burri777 (small blind) showed [7s 2s] and won (8375) with a straight, Ace to Five
Seat 2: surfer_crx (big blind) showed [Th Td] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 3: tchelos123 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: caziano folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: HOYER78 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: Matej2804 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Viktorian79 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

no offence, but i dont know what your asking here? just seems like a moan

fold the river

I late regged the dtd freeroll today, 2nd hand had Aces, flop came Ace-10-10, turn 6, river 10. The guy min-raised river and I flatted, he had 10-6 ofc ... Somehow didn't go broke, but was left with 3,500 chips when average was around 18,000. I then proceeded to chip up, with some good beats, some good play, some coin flip wins...to the point where I was 4th with 9 remaining, only to bust 8th getting it all in with jacks v ace-king (which in hindsight, as played, wasn't my finest play😁)... Moral of the story is something like... 'Shit happens, it's poker, never forget how quickly you forget the good beats before you dwell on on the bad beats'  ... and follow your first perspective, anything else is just time wasted.

None taken, yeah it's a bit of a moan but the two paragraphs that are proceeded by a question mark were non rhetorical questions.

Thanks Dwayne, I'm not dwelling on it and I understand that when you are just shoving preflop you are taking the element of skill out of the game and it is effectively a coinflip but I just couldn't understand the need to shove preflop when we are both pretty well stacked and in the middle of the tournament. As a small stakes player I was wondering whether this type of play happens at all stakes? Whether pokerstars has more than it's fair share of this type of player being such a large site with tournaments starting every second?

I like poker, I'm not keen on playing online and I find it difficult but am wondering whether the stakes I play at are too low to actually build a bankroll with because of the type of player it attracts.

That's quite some statement. Having a proper understand of what hands you should be shoving and what hands you should be calling with is one of the most important, most fundamental skills in tournament poker. People like Tomsom have spent hours and hours studying these ranges and this is why they are consistent winners. I certainly wouldn't dismiss shove-fold scenarios as skill-less (quite the opposite in fact), it's just that variance is so much more apparent here than pretty much anywhere else.

That would go some way to explaining why some of the successful multi tablers I've come up against play shove fold poker in the early stages of a tournament.

Just had a couple of successful games so am finishing the day on a high, there really is so much more to this game than meets the eye.

blatant i know tomsom bragz ITT :D
but matt does make a good point, understanding ranges is crucial to winning in these games. saying things like is stars rigged to allow players to thrive on their site shows a slight misunderstanding for online poker.
keep grinding and good luck, more volume evens out the variance!

How do you define a successful multi-tabler? Like, on what basis are you labeling them as successful?

lol funny post dude

sharkscope/ opr usually works for me. who knows they might be so sick that the 72o shove is optimal :D

I don't think it's particularly funny, looks more like a guy who's getting frustrated and looking for genuine advice on how to move forward to me.

I check out their results on OPR.

Yes I'm not trying to be funny either, just looking to improve my online game. I spend a good deal of my free time playing it so why would I not want to try and be a successful player,  by that I mean I want to hit the money more often and have to deposit less not give up my day job. I don't see that as being unrealistic.

just think the nature and first thing in the post that people will see if u called a 10bb effective shove with 10s and lost to 72, then they will switch off and not read what else you have posted, including myself at first. Guess in order to improve properly, try and select a few hands where you actually had really tough spots, then post and try to take on board some of the complex shiz the sickos say! haha

OPR isn't the best indicator since it doesn't actually show profit/loss lines. In other words, you could look at a player on OPR and think they're winning, and then find they are actually losing heavily because, say, they punt at bigger tournaments loads and rarely cash them. It's also worth pointing out sample size, so again it may look like some losing players are winning, but if that's only over like a couple of hundred tournaments then it's not really enough to go on. Sharkscope is definitely a better shout, basically :p

One of the things I've been surprised about is the amount of studying required to actually be a winning player at this game, and its only pretty recently that I've come to realise this. It's quite something when you see how many leaks you have, that you didn't even know were there. I review sessions regularly, look up stuff I'm not sure on, read PHA stuff, look through strategy stuff, talk to other players etc. I like to be able to justify the decisions I make as much as possible, and if I can't do that, then I want to know why. This PHA is a pretty good place to come to with hands you really aren't sure about, since there are a lot of good players willing to jump in and explain the situations. Basically, if you work at it, there is no reason you can't be successful in this game.

I just saw it as a moan thread. 50p job. guess we see things differently

I appreciate the advice and will try and make the next thread look like less of a rant/moan.

Just had a look on sharkscope at my profile and if that isn't the motivation I need to improve my game then I don't know what is!

Hey Surfer.  To me this looks like a moan/ 50p moment. 

In all seriousness though, its a $2.00 buy in tourney.  They guy shoving has 14bb, and you make the call with 10bb, you would fist pump call that all day long in any tourney?

He made a good shove to pick up 2bb, and you just happened to have a hand to call with.  Think of your chips as BB rather than the value or relative to the blinds in play, and you will realise this is pretty standard.  You just got unlucky.

if you arent sure about tt then it makes the jam very good from him.

I would say of the biggest things you could teach yourself with online poker is to not let silly hands like this bother you, as you're gonna see hundreds and thousands of them if you lay a lot!

Easier said than done, 2m hands into my online career some hands just wind me up beyond repair lol, just embrace that and don't let it make you play bad.

Hi surfer,

I would suggest you stop fixating on how bad you think the other guy played it. How can that ever help you improve?

For the record, no, he did not HAVE to shove, & nor did you HAVE to call. In fact, neither of you did anything wrong. 

Just try & do two things.

1) Don't lose money overall.

2) Enjoy every game, or session, every day.

That is the best you can ever aspire to, & that's a pretty good place to aim for I'd say. Most don't even get there.

Oh, & if a bad session makes you hate online poker, I'd advise quitting. Leave "hate" for racism & that sort of stuff.

For you & me, & most others, poker is a game. Just try & enjoy it, & maybe even make a little (or not lose) along the way. 

Hate, & worrying how badly we think others play the game, ain't gonna help us.

Good luck.

Great post Tikay!

Well since my last post in this thread I have spent most of the week reading and watching videos online and now understand why the other player did what he did.

My play is pretty weak, my stats are very bad and he probably assumed I would fold so a shove is a good move. I had tens and knew his range was pretty wide so a snap call was inevitable and as previously said it was just unfortunate on my part.

The good thing is I have learned from it and set myself some goals starting with finding which game format I am comfortable with and secondly trying to break even with my ROI. With a bit of luck and a lot of work and some emotional detachment I know I can achieve this.

Sometimes you will never be able to understand why the other player did what he did.

I was once 4 / 9 on a final table with ~ 10k up top. There was a raise from EP and a re-raise all in from the CL. I called for my tourney life with 57os because the dog jumped on to my lap just as I was trying to hit the 'fold' button.

I made a straight and won a monster pot.

Try explaining that move in the chat box...

Good luck surfer. I just re looked at the hand and it was completely standard on villain's behalf, he's shoving an unopened pot small blind into big blind, there are 800 chips in the middle and in Harrington terms his M is roughly 7... He is increasing his stack by 15-16% every time you fold, which will be very often as most of the time you won't have a hand to call with. Players also don't adjust their calling range enough in these spots so will fold hands they should be calling with. Readless, I'm shoving with any hand blind v blind in this spot. The average hand is something like J-7, but it's always more difficult to call off even if you're above this with Q-8, Q-9 type hands where you're more often than not ahead. If you've been playing fairly tight then all the more reason for him to shove in this spot. Your call was obviously standard and he just got 'caught' in the sense you'd found a hand.

On a positive note it's good that the studying you've done has helped you understand why villain made that play, just keep calling bvb shoves with tens and you won't go far wrong! ;)