Lets play a hand... 2nd edition

[totalise]

This is an exceptional hand to analyse.

Once again, you will be taking the mantle of my opponent. We are playing 10/25NL on UB... and we are UTG

First of all... reads:

1) button +1 is a sick fish, will stack of with any hand/pair/draw.. whatever. if he has a piece of the flop, he is putting money in

question 1: given this info, how does your strategy change. What hands are you looking to enter the pot with.

2) UTG+1 is totalise. You know from experience he is a winning player capable of many gears. So far, he has played very textbook, but you noticed that 10 minutes previously he won a $4,200 pot with 78s vs KK all in preflop on a different table. He knows you know this as well, as you congratulated him on his sterling play.

3) button is hyper agressive, loves to attack limpers relentllessly. You know that every thinking player at the table knows this as well.

4) big blinds are non-descript run of the mill one trick poneys. Likely winning playeers, but not by much


Onto the hand... you are UTG on a stack of $3,495 with


Question 2: Given your reads, do you call, fold or raise?


Action: You limp

totalise limps (with a $2850 stack)

Question 3: Ask yourself, when a good player limps, why are they limping, they must have reasons. Lucidate on what the good player is thinking to limp behind here. Make sure to include the reads of the other players before responding.

maniac limps, button limps, and the blinds complete


Flop is:



the blinds check to you

Question 4: What is your action?

Action: you check


Question 5: DO you like this check? What are the pros and cons of checking in this spot, given its multi-way. Dont just concentrate on the pros and cons of the flop, think about how it might impact decisions/situations on the turn and river also.

Totalise bets $100, and loose PoS motherfkkker calls.

Question 6: What do you do here? and as always, why?

Action: button and blinds fold, you raise to $300, totalise calls, the loose dude folds

Turn is   for a board of


Question 7: What is your action now? What are you thinking in terms of your oppositions hand strength, based on the action


Action: You bet $400, and totalise calls.

Question 8: How are you feeling now? Are you confident? Bit confused? what range of hands are you applying your opponent? You should be thinking now about what you are going to do on specific river cards, because you dont get much time to think once the card is dealt, so you should maximise your thinking time. So, what are you thinking..


River: for a board of

Question 9: Given the way the hand has played, and the range of hands you think your opponent might have, what are you going to do now? what are the reasons for checking./betting/pushing etc etc.

Action: You check, and totalise pushes all in for $2,150, pot is $1,575, so his bet is slightly more then a pot sized bet


Final Question, and this is the one that should have the best response...Would you have checked the river, and if not, why not, and if you did check the river,Why are you checking, and what do you do now?


I found this hand really interesting when I played it, so am hoping that the response is good and it generates exceptional discussion, because it defo has a lot of fascinating areas to it, from preflop to the river.


Regards

[NoflopsHomer]

Ok, half-asleep and rubbish at cash games. I'll have a go.

1) I am looking to raise more often with more hands and bet any monsters or solid hands strongly knowing he will call and pay me off.

2) Fold. Why do I want to play Q9o OOP when the button is very aggressive with his position and I may call a raise knowing that totalise behind me could easily have limped with a monster hoping for exactly this situation?

3) suited connectors/gappers , a medium to small pair, or a monster such as AA or KK. The first two are obvious, while AK and AQ would like to thin out the field first, as would JJ/TT. AA and KK could limp here, knowing the weak button +1 will most likely limp too and combined that with the aggressive button, who can build a pot for to you.

4) I bet $100 to $125 into the pot and see what happens behind me.

5) I dislike the check here, I prefer to act than have to react, plus we know the button +1 will call us with any piece of the flop anyway, Totalise knows this too, so he may decide to raise us here to deny button +1 odds for an awful draw or the bottom pair he is on. Thus he is building the pot for us to. Having check/raised we've pretty much announced we have minimum TPTK or maybe an overpair, two pair or a set, by leading out, we can keep our motives more hidden which could be useful later on in the hand and allow us to possibly pick off a bluff on the river. The Check/raise gets PoS out of the pot, but really we want him in giving us his cash, but with only Totalise calling, he knows the relative strength of our hand and we don't know what he has.

6) Flat-call. It disguises your hand, and you will most likely be put on JT and drawing.

7) Mixed blessing of a card. Although you're now behind AA and KK also, it makes it less likely that Totalise has a full house or quads. Ok, we're losing to AA, KK, and the less likely QQ, 99 and 44, but we're beating any drawing hand and any Q, except Q4 which is very unlikely also. If Totalise were holding QT or QJ call a check/raise on the flop here? I'm not sure he would. Would he call a bet with JT now on a paired board? Again, I don't think so since he may be drawing dead. In fact it's very hard to put him on a hand now, by leading out on the flop, we could have ascertained better where we stood. The only matters if he had AA or KK, otherwise if we were ahead, we still are and if we were behind we still are.

Hmmmm, tricky one, I think he isn't calling with a straight draw after the paired board, so I'm not worried about 8, an Ace is bad if he has AQ, KQ would be a little cautious about making two pair since it makes the straight, a third club while unhelpful, is not a big worry and neither would be a third 4. If a Q comes and Totalise is holding the other Q, we will get all his chips with the bigger full house which is the dream scenario.

9) I bet around $700, this will give us roughly 3-1 odds to call if Totalise decides to push which lessens the chance that he can bluff us out of the pot. If he moves in here, it's unlikely that we are ahead. We may lose money that we'd get from catching a bluff, but I believe this to be the safest option.

10) No, for the reasons I've stated above.

Right that took me an hour, and it could all be gubbins, so be gentle.

[The_Diamond]

question 1: given this info, how does your strategy change. What hands are you looking to enter the pot with.

Your overall strategy shouldn't change all that much. One player isn't going to change the table dynamic hugely. Preflop i'd probably be a little more passive with this player because I'd want to see lots of cheap flops against him. Postflop, very little bluffing, bet my big hands very strong and if he is the aggressor and I have a legitimate hand but is vulnerable I'd just try to get to a showdown as cheaply as possible.


Question 2: Given your reads, do you call, fold or raise?


Standard fold. You have a shit hand in bad position.

Question 3: Ask yourself, when a good player limps, why are they limping, they must have reasons. Lucidate on what the good player is thinking to limp behind here. Make sure to include the reads of the other players before responding.

He could limp with a lot of playable hands. You can probably rule out any big ace or KQ/KJ. I would tend to rule out big pairs also. I would imagine his range is small to mid pairs, suited connectors and some broadway hands.

Question 4: What is your action?

I bet close to the pot here.


Question 5: DO you like this check? What are the pros and cons of checking in this spot, given its multi-way. Dont just concentrate on the pros and cons of the flop, think about how it might impact decisions/situations on the turn and river also.

I hate the check. You have no reason to believe you will be able to check raise here,  Your hand is vulnerable enough that a lot fo turn cards can make life difficult so you should want to inflate the pot early in order to price out any draws on the turn. You should bet close to the pot and expect at least one caller.


Question 6: What do you do here? and as always, why?

Raise to $500. I want to make the pot big enough to jam the turn. This size of raise raise also makes it -EV for my oponents to to chase a straghit draw.


Question 7: What is your action now? What are you thinking in terms of your oppositions hand strength, based on the action
[/b]

A bigger raise on the turn would rule out him having JT. Since he is a good player. He can have 99 or 44 also. I would probably rule a out QQ and top pair. There is a slight chance he limped preflop with KK/AA. I'm leading for half the pot o the turn here but if we had check raised more on te flop, I would check. Against a bad player I would CRAI.

Question 8: How are you feeling now? Are you confident? Bit confused? what range of hands are you applying your opponent? You should be thinking now about what you are going to do on specific river cards, because you dont get much time to think once the card is dealt, so you should maximise your thinking time. So, what are you thinking..


I'm thinking there is a good chance the only hand I can beat is JcTc. 


Question 9: Given the way the hand has played, and the range of hands you think your opponent might have, what are you going to do now? what are the reasons for checking./betting/pushing etc etc.

Checking the river would be terrible. I bet $500.  It's a bet that looks like it wants a call and and since the villain is a good player he will not push over the top with a weaker hand. This isn't really a value bet but a stopper bet because I think there is a good chance we are behind and this is all I'm willing to pay to find out.


Final Question, and this is the one that should have the best response...Would you have checked the river, and if not, why not, and if you did check the river,Why are you checking, and what do you do now?

I'm not checking!!!! but now that we have I fold. He doesn't have AA/KK now or top pair. . He could have 99/44. He could have JT but we need him to have JT a lot for the call to be profitable. This is where raising more on the flop would have helped.

[doubleup]

Q1  Need a bit more info - is he passive i.e just calls all the time pre and post flop or does he have some respect for preflop raises?  Does he bet his "bit of the flop" if checked to?

As a general principle I try to play as many hands as possible against this kind of player.  Table positions aren't ideal.  I would play more drawing hands than usual and never raise with them.  Given the late positions tendancy to raise I would want to be able to call these raises and hopefully trap in a monster pot. 

Q2 hmmm not sure that this is a good enough drawing hand - does the fish bet his marginal hands on the flop?  If he does there is a slight chance a Q high flop might be playable if I check to him and he bets and clears out the players in between.

Q3 ok I limped because I mis-clicked.....

Good players limp essentially because they want to see a flop with other players at a minimum price.  They might also limp to an aggressive player or a loose player with cards that they would otherwise raise with.  In the first case to reraise and in the second case so that they can outplay the loose player.

Q4 - I really do need to know what the maniac does with his bit of the flop to answer this.  If he bets it, I check to him.  If he doesn't, I overbet.  I need some information.

Q5 see answer to Q4

Q6 Hmm not much of a bet I'm making it 400.  I need to get some info on totalise's hand.  He could either be trying to keep the pot small or trying to induce this bet.  I'd like to find out.

Q7 I'm behind now a bit more than I was before, I'm betting 1000 with a view to check folding any unimproved riv to totalise.

Q8 didnt bet enough on the turn going to have to use the 600 to bet the riv and fold to a raise.  Very annoying that loosey goosey folded, I could have got some protection from him. 

Q9 and final Q Totalise either has JT AQ an overpair or less likely a set.  I would like to get a showdown but don't think I'm going to get it.  There is absolutely no reason that I can't have a set of nines and a larger turn bet would have completely cleared the air.  If it's called I'm beaten. 

Hmmm another thought I suppose totalise could have Qs9s....

[Highstack]

1) I am entering the pot limping with small pairs and big aces, to see what develops behind me. I am raising with premiums, despite the action that may be lost as I can isolate teh fish in the cut-off.
2) Pass everytime. I am out of position, I am expecting the button to raise and I am not wasting anything here.
3) If a good player limps in ep, I am concerned that he is waiting for a player round the back to raise. He must have AA or KK imo here.
4) I have hit the flop well, but top 2 is vunerable, I am leading out for a pot sized bet.
5) I hate the check, if the board pairs or A/K arrives I have missed an opportunity
6) After bet and call, I am raising big possibly jamming. If one player has AA or KK (be unlucky to walk into a set) then he may not be able to lay it down. I am sure I am in front here.
7) I am check calling or check passing now, depnding on the action and the size of it behind me. I now think that there is a better 2 pair probable. I may ch cal, because AQ/KQ now thinks 2 pair and top kicker could be good.
No I am not at all confident
9) I have already given that oppo a likely AA or KK so how can I bet?
10) That is too much to call. Unless I have history with the player I pass here.

[tantrum]

Ok i am very bad cash player but give a try:

Q.1 - My hand selection won';t change, with raiser head I might call more of their raises if in position.

Q.2 - Q9 UTG- i fold, is out of position,

Q.3 - first- the fact that i saw totalise going all in with 78 on the other table, and here he is choosing to limp after me rings alarm bells.  Also if he limps and the button likes re-raising limpers, the smell of rat is coming from the kitchen.  Unless it's some kind of red herring.

Q.4 -
this is a multi -way pot, with 6 of us in it and although there is not a straight draw per se, it is possible somone has JT, so I would over bet the pot and if it is get to back to me from one of the players, I might cry and fold, esp from the good ones as probably I might be here against the set.
If it is flat called, i'm  beggining to sweat profusly.

and the rats are running underneath my feet. 



Q.5  Not sure I like this check, but taking into an account that the raiser- head is in the pot the chances is that if I check somone will raise and I can go for check raise.  but then again if i have totalise in the pot as well, it will be difficult to see what he has if I check and he flat calls - neurofen pls.

Q.6 well now i'm re-raising pot or a bit more as now I  either take this here or take more tissues and cry (the reason why I hate the check -raise against 6 pple as it cost me a fortune. )  or flat call it, thinking about it what they might think I have. 

Q.7  when the turn comes 4 I think my two pair here is not looking so great Tbh, and being a chicken I just check  and see what totalise is going to do if he checks behind me and perhaps he will bet I might just let go of my hand.
 
Q.8 On the river I am done with my hand and I just check and fold and go an learn more about poker.

[moritzey]

I probably couldn't even beat the 0.02-0.05 NL cash-tables, that is the one game that completely escapes me, but here we go.

Question 1: given this info, how does your strategy change. What hands are you looking to enter the pot with.

Hand selection remains the same. Will call more of his preflop raises if I have position on him with connectors / gappers / lowcards.

Question 2: Given your reads, do you call, fold or raise?

Easy fold, gap too big, not suited, if I hit a part of the flop, chances are someone else will have hit it harder, dominated by too many playable hands (AQ, KQ, QJs, QTs besides others)

Question 3: Ask yourself, when a good player limps, why are they limping, they must have reasons. Lucidate on what the good player is thinking to limp behind here. Make sure to include the reads of the other players before responding.

I'd put him either on a low drawing hand (small suited connectors, small-medium pair or an absolute monster AA,KK). With other big hands (AK, AQ, QQ-TT), I'd expect a raise to get heads-up. But then if he's a good player, I'm best of not putting him on too much of a range and instead testing the waters on the flop.

Question 4: What is your action?

Multiway-pot and a very nice, non-scary board. I'd expect someone to bet into the pot, so I'll check with the intention of raising or calling, depending on who the bettor is and how many people are left in the pot subsequently to a bet. If it's checked round, I'll have to bet out on the turn.

Question 5: DO you like this check? What are the pros and cons of checking in this spot, given its multi-way. Dont just concentrate on the pros and cons of the flop, think about how it might impact decisions/situations on the turn and river also.

Yes. See above. The main con of checking is that the strength of the potential bettor after me will be concealed slightly based on position and table image again. A bet would give more information there, as there is a huge difference between betting and calling a check-raise in late position to raising an EP bettor in late position.

Question 6: What do you do here? and as always, why?

Raise a significant amount to figure out exactly where I'm standing. Right now there's $225 in the flop, make it a $400 bet, that should help me narrow the range of any potential callers.

Question 7: What is your action now? What are you thinking in terms of your oppositions hand strength, based on the action

Based on what I thought preflop, I think I can safely eliminate the suited connector option, that reduces the range to any pair. AA, KK have me beat. QQ, JJ, TT are unlikely because of preflop assessment. All low pairs I have beat except for any potential set (99 - unlikely) and 44 which would be quads, again unlikely.

I'd bet approx 2/3 pot, willing to fold to a raise.

Question 8: How are you feeling now? Are you confident? Bit confused? what range of hands are you applying your opponent? You should be thinking now about what you are going to do on specific river cards, because you dont get much time to think once the card is dealt, so you should maximise your thinking time. So, what are you thinking..


AA, KK, 99, 44. Don't like any of those. With a 9 or Q I'll again bet 2/3 of the pot for value, hoping for a call from AA and KK. Any other card I will check and then base my action on the size of my opponents bet.

Question 9: Given the way the hand has played, and the range of hands you think your opponent might have, what are you going to do now? what are the reasons for checking./betting/pushing etc etc.

Check. See above.


Final Question, and this is the one that should have the best response...Would you have checked the river, and if not, why not, and if you did check the river,Why are you checking, and what do you do now?

I'm upset that I didn't stick to my fixed-limit tables and make a fishy call hoping for AQ, even though that contradicts all of my previous reasoning. All-ins have that effect on me.

[tantrum]

PS, unless I know that totalise is capable of bluff.... as i wonder what he thinks of my holding in this situation.... maybe I shall hammer the turn?

[doubleup]

PS, unless I know that totalise is capable of bluff.... as i wonder what he thinks of my holding in this situation.... maybe I shall hammer the turn?

That is a bit of key missing info from the question IMO.  What does totalise think of the Q9's play in general.  I wouldn't think much, as unanimously no one responding would play the hand anyway.

[tantrum]

That is a bit of key missing info from the question IMO.  What does totalise think of the Q9's play in general.  I wouldn't think much, as unanimously no one responding would play the hand anyway.

I agree with you, I just posted it to discuss this hand from slightly different P.O.V.


let's think what he (totalise) thinks we might have? Because what is the likehood of totalise putting us on Q9o?  So what range of hands he thinks we might have in order to limp from UTG?

[action man]

i take it he must have called you as you wouldn't know his hand of Q9 otherwise. i am really struggling to put you on a hand that you would push all in with. With Queens or 9's full i would expect you to bet $800-$1000 and the same with JT if u were chasing with intention of bluffing if missing. Surely by the time he has checked it on the river you know he isn't mega strong. My guess is you had quad 4's

[doubleup]

That is a bit of key missing info from the question IMO.  What does totalise think of the Q9's play in general.  I wouldn't think much, as unanimously no one responding would play the hand anyway.

I agree with you, I just posted it to discuss this hand from slightly different P.O.V.


let's think what he (totalise) thinks we might have? Because what is the likehood of totalise putting us on Q9o?  So what range of hands he thinks we might have in order to limp from UTG?

Q9 has played it a bit like AQ/KQ/JQ.  He has played so weakly that he is begging to be bluffed.  The fact that we get to know his hand means he called the riv or he is actually totalise

So maybe the twist in the tale is that he induced the bluff unintentionally...

[totalise]

nice comments

I had AA in this hand

I didn't think too much to his river play, I presume he intends to check and try to snap off a bluff from 10/J or keep the pot small and let me value bet AQ/QK kinda hands, which is ok, but I figure to know what his game is, so its unlikely to illicit a bluff. I kinda thought the push was a thin play, but didn't think he would risk checking a boat on the river, I think he would be more likely to bet small/medium on the river with the boat to try and tease a raise/call from me or to just get value from a second best hand. Not sure though, still feels marginal even though it worked out ok this time. He should be bet folding/calling depending on the size of the bet. At the time though I was thinking what my hand looked like, and it did look a lot like it was AQ/QK/10J or some mid pp, so by the river it was pretty nicely disguised, more through luck then judgement though.

Also preflop was pretty meh (for both of us) Q9 isn't a terrible hand, it doesn't suffer too much from dominating hole cards and does pretty well if it flops big because the hand fits a lot of drawy hands... but still think its a bad play. Incidentally his limp is exactly why i limped as well, I figure he had plans to attack the button, so wanted to be the brick wall he walked into.

As for flop play, I am unsure what is the best way to proceed in these spots... Diamond makes a real good point here:

Raise to $500. I want to make the pot big enough to jam the turn. This size of raise raise also makes it -EV for my oponents to to chase a straghit draw.

because villain didn't put in a big raise, I felt like peeling and seeing what he did on the turn was probably the best play, his hand felt more like QK/QJ then a set, players tend to try and build the pot up to get their money in before the river on drawy boards, as Diamond alludes to, but at the same time, id consider folding to a pot bet on the turn, and he would be quite likely to make one, so who knows. I guess its a case of see what happens when you get there, but it feels a bit like guess work to me. The answer of course is to make these spots easier by getting more money in the pot when I know my hand is the best (ie preflop) but sometimes you should mix it up a little, and despite the shennanigans on the other table I wasn't doing that awesome so fancied trying to play a big pot. Usually when you want to play a big pot and are slightly steaming, you only get your wish when you have the second best hand.

Also almost every time I try these plays (and its not that often to be frank) they never seem to get the required raise.. I'd never open limp, thats just wrong, but limping behind, the button was a loose player but wasn't a complete moron, so he prolly figures that one of the EP mugs are lining something up. Its not something im gonna be trying in the near future, that much is a fact.


Oh yes, and as for the UTG play in general, I think its funky, but works out ok against bad/average players.... limps/calls a bit too much, but does sometimes go off on one preflop, which is why ultimately the riverr got pushed. He is probably a small winner in the game, so I didn't think he was a complete moron, but at the same time have no concern if we are at the same table. Cant believe I forgot to include that in the origional post.

[SupaMonkey]

Did he call your river bet?

[totalise]

sry, yes he did