Betting turn ok you think?

Poker Stars, $100 Buy-in (30/60 blinds, 5 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 9 Players

SB: 3,175 (52.9 bb)
BB: 4,423 (73.7 bb)
Hero (UTG+1): 2,201 (36.7 bb)
UTG+2: 5,617 (93.6 bb)
MP1: 2,166 (36.1 bb)
MP2: 4,203 (70.1 bb)
MP3: 2,885 (48.1 bb)
CO: 5,842 (97.4 bb)
BTN: 3,476 (57.9 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Ah
Hero raises to 123, 4 folds, CO calls 123, 2 folds, BB calls 63

Flop: (444) (3 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (444) (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets 180, CO calls 180, BB raises to 680, Hero?

CO is checktrap11
BB is MatFrankland

Hate this spot, always feel so abused, any thoughts welcomed.

Sorry I thought you were talking about asking players to wear patches for free at the series and at EPTs.

Reuctio ad absurdum, I like that hehe

I think you're wrong on those last two points though. The maths isn't as simple as you suggest in the second point. I'd actually estimate that you've overshot the cost of a patch but I'm not sure, it might be 10p who knows. They only physically last once or twice at a push. Is Joe Bloggs gonna get a new sign up every time he plays a side event at the GUKPT Luton, I doubt it. Do DTD want to be sending out 100 patches to people a week?


On the third point, it's not just at the poker table, it's at the bar, and walking around - there's definitely less down time if you're wearing a company patch. At the poker table the company is paying you to share some of the brain space you would ideally be spending focussing on the game.

One reason I would be disinclined to ask players to wear my brand for free if I ran a site is that it could very easily devalue the brand. I'd be relying on random people not to get in a fight at the pub/ do a bunch of drugs/ be terrible ambassadors while wearing my brand. I also would want to avoid a situation where I'd be saying yes I'd like you to wear my hoodie, but not you, to customers that I value the same

PS when I say Alex Goulder I mean any decent travelling DTD reg as outlined in OP... and when I say Jack Links I mean any company who thinks patching up players in poker tournaments is +EV. I have absolutely no idea if Jack Links do this sort of thing but goddam it I'd wear their patch for free jerky all day

The thing about patching up players is it's not actually that valuable right now.

What used to happen is that poker was on TV so companies were very keen to spend lot of money to make sure their name was on anybody at the table. Now it's not on TV, who cares if someone on your table is wearing a patch?

It's great that you signed up because you saw someone at a live game wearing a DTD patch and you asked them about it and they spent time telling you about it. In fact, that's fantastic!

Is anybody in Vegas going to ask Alex Goulder who DTD are because they saw him wearing a patch and act on that information? Not unless Alex takes time and explains why playing on the DTD software would be good for them. If 10 people ask Alex in a day and he spends 5 minutes explaining the site to them, how many sign ups do you think that will generate? It's non zero but it's close. That's an hour of Alex's time though.

If Alex makes a final table, that's another story. Hitting an FT/getting a bracelet picture might get some sign ups, but now there's a massive opportunity cost to Alex because he could be wearing a Jack Links patch for $4k or something.

Not having a pop at you here but I don't think its valuable to have randoms wear a club/site badge for the club/site and way way less than 90% of players worth their salt would be willing to do it completely for free (and why should they imo)

Going back to the point in the OP.  I wear the patches for no direct financial gain and clearly Tommy noticed them and went off and did some staking.  Just sezzin.

fair enough. I thought the OP was suggesting that the travelling DTD regs (off the top of my head I would assume he means people like Alex G and Mitch) wear a patch as a favour/out of love for the club. That's fine and admirable if they'd want to do that, but I'm just pointing out that there is an opportunity cost to the player that I don't think OP thought about. It's definitely not a case of 'I'm not wearing a patch so it's no skin off my nose to wear one'

While its a nice idea I think you'd find that the people who would be willing to wear a patch completely for free probably aren't the sort of players that are going to raise any worthwhile awareness for the club/site anyway. There's an opportunity cost to wearing a patch and most travelling pros, including DTD regs who love the club,  will be aware that a deep run in an event may earn them a few thousand selling a space on their shirt. This isn't as prevalent as it was 4 years ago, but it's still a consideration especially at the Series. You don't want to be in a position where you aren't asked the question from the man at Jack Links because you're already wearing someone else's patch as a favour. You might say that in that case you could remove the DTD patch in favour of the business deal, but then surely this makes the whole exercise even more pointless.

I drink redbull, if they sent me a T-Shirt I would wear it cus it is a shirt for free and a product I personally use and trust. I wouldn't email them and say give me money or I won't wear it.


People pay VPP's to wear the Pokerstars logo? Yes, massive brand, but the customer is paying to advertise their products.

Wearing a Rebdull T or buying a Stars shirt is surely just terrible fashion sense more than anything else. When making initial reads at a new table I doubt I'm the only one who brackets randoms wearing merch as a fish until proven otherwise. I certainly wouldnt think, that random guy is wearing a DTD patch, must remember to give them a spin. Not having a pop at you here but I don't think its valuable to have randoms wear a club/site badge for the club/site and way way less than 90% of players worth their salt would be willing to do it completely for free (and why should they imo)

On the Pokercast Ep #270 they had Lee Jones from PS who estimated June 14th plus or minus a day

I way preferred the jazz flute section to the generic auto tune R&B at the start. Wembley brought in the 90s wedding megamix towards the end and I think morale at that time was at a high for the day, music wise.
Great experience yesterday. It's hot in them domes guys, I wore a suit and was feeling it till about 5PM. Also bring your own packed lunch or go to tesco round the corner in the dinner break. Wembley restaurant was not able to serve everyone properly in the break. I ordered a burger (£25!!) at the start of the break and it didn't arrive for 2 hours. Pony by name, pony by nature.
That was the only tilting thing of the day, this is a great event, thanks DTD & staff.
Good updates here too, will be refreshing today to follow the action so keep up the good work

I played the last sat at there today and was so taken impressed by what they've done.

I really do believe that if Rob, Simon, Nicola and the rest of the DTD team had been on the project from day 1 then it would have been the most amazing poker tournament ever.

Would also be quite interesting to go into an alternate universe where DTD weren't involved to see what today would have looked like.

Gutted that I can't play tomorrow.  2.6 bags just too much for me

Sell mate, you should play this game off an 8k roll it's amazing

Father and Son on a day out to Wembley

<3 this

What would happen in that hand if u had limped the K10, and the BB 2.5x what do u do then?

I know limp/folding sounds filthy but I have found that I have been played back at so rarely pre flop that when the make it 2.5x they probably just have a hand they are calling off with anyway. Even decent regs seem to just be checking their option and check folding a bunch presuming I'm just trapping. That example I posted where villain had 88 illustrates this, he's not even raising a good pair.

It's not the best example and I know if we rip 20bb with KTo it's +EV to the tune of about 0.5bb in this spot. Is that case closed then? Shoving is +EV but I think it's worth considering an alternative sometimes.

I'm confused about your other point. I've looked at this effective stack size for this post because the decisions people make with or vs 15-25bb have become pretty robotic and limping could be a way of taking a player out of their comfort zone. You can apply it if you have 100bb and the BB has 21bb or vice versa. I'm not really sure what difference it makes to the theory aside from a 100bb stack might play against us with a big stack metality (is this what you mean?). Even so we can anticipate this and have plenty of limp/jams waiting for them.

Here is perhaps a better example, and fwiw the villain in this case has a 69% Av ROI over 600, ave BI $90 games on Sharkscope

IPoker Network No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t/t Blinds - 3 players - http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2225014
The DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: t96208      
Hero (BTN): t222312      
SB: t270480      

Pre Flop: (t0) Hero is BTN with
Hero calls t0, SB calls t0, BB checks

Flop: (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets t6600, SB calls t6600, BB folds

Turn: (t13200) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (t13200) (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t9000, SB calls t9000

Final Pot: t31200
SB shows
Hero wins t44400
(Rake: t-13200)

I wanted to share something I have  found to be really profitable recently. So far I'm working from a pretty small sample size so I wanted to share my thoughts and hopefully fine tune this idea. 

The move is most effective in the mid to late stages of an MTT where it folds round to hero on the BU and the effective stack between you and the BB is somewhere between 15-25BB. Min raising this spot is super profitable. I just filtered this scenario on HEM and I'm winning 38.91 bb/100. Not too shabby. However, recent videos on DC have made me consider limping this spot. The main reason I think it's worth considering this alternate line, is that these stack sizes vs steals are becoming really close to solved for most player types. Anybody half decent knows exactly what sort of hands they should be reshoving for 15BB from the BB vs a guy with 50% steal, they know what hands they should be 3b/calling or 3b/folding for 25BB vs a 60% steal.

To give ourselves the easiest life possible, I'm not going to consider limping the bottom 40% of hands. Lets keep those for stealing vs nits/5-10BB stacks, or folding. Also for the time being let's leave out the top of our range, say top 11% (77+,A9s+,KTs+,QTs+,ATo+,KQo), hands that we're really happy opening and calling off. I'm looking at doing this move initially with the middle part of my range (55-22,A8s-A3s,KJs-K4s,Q5s+,J6s+,T7s+,97s+,87s,A9o-A7o,KJo-K8o,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o,98o,87o) and I'll explain why.

Example Hand

Poker Stars €9+€1 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t4000/t8000 Blinds + t1000 - 6 players - http://www.handconverter.com/hands/2218107
The DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: t274773    34BB
Hero (BTN): t160290 20BB
SB: t224534    28BB
BB: t154554    19BB
UTG: t173040    21BB
MP: t204159    26BB

Pre Flop: (t18000) Hero is BTN with   
3 folds, Hero calls t8000, 1 fold, BB checks

What happens immediately when limping the button is that we force the players in the blinds to react to something that they are not used to. In this case the small blind folds, but often they will limp along a very wide range, and the big blind checks meaning that he is playing any two cards. In fact, his range is weaker than any two cards as I would expect him to raise the top of his range 100% vs this action. We've put ourselves in position with KTo vs a range that looks something like 66-22,A6s-A2s,K8s-K2s,Q9s-Q2s,J9s-J2s,T2s+,92s+,82s+,72s+,62s+,52s+,42s+,32s,A7o-A2o,K9o-K2o,Q9o-Q2o,J9o-J2o,T2o+,92o+,82o+,72o+,62o+,52o+,42o+,32o.

Against this range we have 64% and we're forcing our opponent to play OOP which is good. When we min raise KTo, villain is not going to fold KJ and he might rejam K9 and make us fold, both those things are bad.

Flop: (t26000) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t9500, BB raises to t19000, Hero calls t9500

We flop top pair and get check raised, considering how wide his range was to start with I would say we have the effective nuts a lot of the time here and just flat call. Because of our limp pre flop I would expect a lot of players to try a chk/raise bluff here.

Turn: (t64000) (2 players)
BB bets t126554 all in, Hero calls t126554

Gin on the turn and villain jams. Villain woke up with in this hand so we got lucky on the turn, but I think this still works as a good example of how we've got value from a hand that would otherwise have never been in the pot.


OK, results in the same time frame as I had previously filtered for min raising the button, now for limping the button are 169.49 bb/100. Obviously this is a much smaller sample size but even if this is out by 75% it's still coming in as a viable alternative strategy. As history builds up you will need to start considering balance as an issue and start limping some monsters to trap, but for know I'm really keen to hear your thoughts on this line and any initial pros/cons you can envisage.

Just one more thing. I'm aware forward thinkers like Sam Grafton have been limping the button probably since the Gutshot was open so if this is already a topic that you guys have worked on, analysed & decided was BS then just link me a previous thread and i'll continue on my merry way.

Happy limping!

Jamie Burland