blonde poker forum

A couple of hands from a £11 MTT tonight. Hand 1, the sb 3 xes from the button. He is an extremely passive player, and needs a reasonable hand to play with even on the button.

The first time I ever came across this player, he folded down to 2 bb around the bubble, finding Kings to get it in. His get it in range, irrespective of how few BB he has is extremely tight.

Blinds 50/ 100. Folds round to button.

Button (3600) makes it 300.
SB (5600) calls.
Us in the BB (10,000) call with  Tc Jc

Flop:  9h 3s 6s (900)

It checks through. Button always bets pot with his strong hands.

Turn  5c (900)

SB Checks, BB Bets 400, Button Calls, SB Folds.

River:  7h (1700)

We bet 600, Button folds.

Hand 2

New player had moved to the table, he plays almost 100% of hands, and generally doesn't have a fold button, which in a way is why I checked the turn, but felt the flop was a clear value bet. He mostly limps / raises his strong hands.

It folds round to us on the button, we have  Ad Qc (11,000), SB Player is "away". Still 50/100

I made 300 bigger than usual purely because the player will not fold pre.

BB (9000) Calls.

Flop:  9d Kc 2c (650)

We bet 300, BB calls. The bet sizing is probably too small here.

Turn  Js  (1250)

Check Check

River  Qd (1250)

Check Check. Villian has Ace 8.

What does everyone think about checking the Turn against this particular villain? When he checks the River, we almost always have the best hand here, potentially missed out on a bet there as well. Maybe it is to thin to bet the river, but I suspect he would call with a wide range of hands we beat, potentially a small mistake on the river.

Also - He always open jams when he has the nuts.

Few hands previous, he min opens. Board 10jK, it checked through, turn q, rainbow, player checked and he jammed for like 4 times pot lol.

 

Hand one is pretty random with the sizing, don't think we're really getting both players to fold very often and we don't really have much equity, we've done a great job of making it small enough to let him bluff catch pretty wide, probably not horrendous though.

Hand 2 is a good example of confused logic, if flop is a clear value bet (which it isn't) with A high then how is river not? Also, as for sizing pre, 3x when we're 90bbs deep is pretty standard imo, if the guy isn't folding pre why not make it more?

Was going to respond to what you said about hand 1, but won't incase any 1 else chips in.

If I read your post correctly, you don't like the river bet sizing, why would you want to bet any bigger with our range versus his weak range?

Because, imo, by making it so small you are encouraging him to play better vs you in a spot where you have a range advantage, because even bad players recognize that it's cheaper to call a small bet and so can do more often (and we should be bluffing less often). Furthermore, if we're taking off here with a random hand without a great deal of equity we're going to be very bluff heavy, not sure how relevant that is vs this player pool but in general I think it's a good thing to bear in mind. Also I disagree that villain necessarily has a weak range here, even if you assume he bets flop with all his top pair+ hands and flop draws, for him to call on the turn he has to have something, whether it's a turned pair, second pair, a 4, even an 8 for the top end of the gutshot. A fair bit of that improves on the river, and even some of the stuff that doesn't might be tempted to call a bet of this size. I'd say if the river was, for example, the 10 of spades, then you have a pretty decent range advantage, but on this card I don't think it's that much.

In future don't post results on hands you want advice on.

I read your post, then reread the board run out. Amazingly, at the time of the hand playing out I only seen the 4 for a straight, I have no idea how, but missed the 8!

It was a fun hand, on the river had I noticed the double straight, I would have bet a bit bigger. The button has a lot more 8s than 4s in his range, where as I have both. But, I would say, is really struggling to call  without one of these cards in his hand.

I don't think we should bet bigger vs a player who is weak and inelastic to our sizing. I think he will call a very similar range whether we bet 5bb or 10bb. I'm a little skeptical about the turn stab. I think I'd be betting a touch bigger in general and we have our absolute worst hand in terms of equity and blockers. I'm a touch unsure as maybe btns leaks and the weakness of sbs range makes it ok.

Generally hands where you take a very exploitative line tend to be quite hard topics to discuss and I think that is largely the reason strategy threads cease to exist. You have to look at the big picture too much.


Matt I think vs a tight passive player we definitely have a range advantage on this board. He seems like the guy who might fold hands as strong as K4s/54s/A4o/a8o/78o. Admittedly what you say about him having something is definitely true. I think that's a reason to size down on the river rather than up. We will hopefully show a profit on the bluff without having to fold out many big hands at all. It also allows us to valuebet fairly wide vs someone so passive.


I have no idea how we can valuebet AQ here. It seems really bad. You say he open jams the nuts so although we can remove most Tx. We really need to be called off 98 or AJ to be winning and I think that is very speculative. Our opponent probably averages like 1.2 cards between a 9-K and we beat so few of those hands. I don't see any correlation between the reasons to bet the flop and the river either. Our equity is static on the river and it isn't on the flop. We can protect on the flop etc. If we had the Qs I'd like the river bet a decent amount more but not bu that much.

I realise I might be overestimating the player in the 2nd hand and underestimating the guy in the first.

Hey Adam, fantastic post.

Perhaps it's not the best having a stab on the turn, but I expect it go fold/ fold a reasonable amount of the time.

Hand 2

WHat I was thinking was, he would never fold a 9, so i'm missing out on value from 9x. I don't expect he has kx, he donks when he hits top pair. And certainly doesn't have 10x again he just leads his nutted type hands (overbets). All that being said it is far to ambitious to go for value from 9x, I certainly don't think ace high calls or  66-88.

So defo should be a check behind.

Thanks for the responses, it's really interesting I just posted because it's been really quiet in PHA. The hands are not amazingly interesting, well hand 1 is kinda fun betting with v. little equity and using a cool bet sizing on the river, hand 2 been really standard continuation bet flop, check check given board run out.

They were just a couple of hands I jotted down from that particular MTT, but it's amazing how much you can actually get from drilling down into one hand history.

Would be great to see you post up an interesting hand you have played Adam and go through your thought process through out the streets.

 

You're value betting because he'd fold worse hands than ours and call better ones? Honestly I have no idea what's going on in hand 2.