2 recent hands

[EvilPie]

By the bye, wonderful to see Thewy Posting on here. Breath of fresh air.

He has my permission to use any legit poker expressiion he so desires. Including "backraise".

+1 to that,fk the haters say back raise,trips even three of a kind for me good to have someone of your pedigree posting on pha

BTW how do you pay someone a compliment/show respect without being a fanboy ?

Just do lots of ass kissing (like you have just here ^^^^^^^) then finish off by saying PS: I'm not a fanboy.

[GreekStein]

By the bye, wonderful to see Thewy Posting on here. Breath of fresh air.

He has my permission to use any legit poker expressiion he so desires. Including "backraise".

+1 to that,fk the haters say back raise,trips even three of a kind for me good to have someone of your pedigree posting on pha

BTW how do you pay someone a compliment/show respect without being a fanboy ?

Just do lots of ass kissing (like you have just here ^^^^^^^) then finish off by saying PS: I'm not a fanboy.

Julian Thew is one of about 3 people on the circuit you're allowed to be a fanboy of without being a gook.

[MANTIS01]

there both folds imo. Hand 1 your oppo is too shallow to set mine. Vs some oppo's you can set mine here but not against somone who is gonna fire 100% of flops and leave you guessing. Hand 2 is tough, if you think you can read him well and sometimes bluff him off a flop he didnt connect with then i suppose a call is just about OK. without history of him 3betting then i would fold.

Agree with Trigg here.

Fair enough we've got this read because oppo didn't look at his cards but so what.

We've raised with 99 and we've been looked up. To me we're still a bit too deep to potentially go bust with a non premium hand based purely on a physical read that may well be a reverse read.

Set mining isn't an option because we're not deep enough so just pass. Possibly even show it if you want to rock up your reputation and possibly get someone to pass AK later on

EDIT: Obviously we're not going bust because we have oppo covered but I think you know what I mean.

Aren't we turning 9-9 into a bluff if we raise/fold when we get looked up? bvb against a player who plays his cards in the dark this seems awfully weak. We are saying that after limping in the dark we know for sure villain has woken up with one of the 5 hands that can beat us. And I don't know how we can say that.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what?

If we shove or raise aren't we bluffing as well? What calls or back raises us that we beat? Ok we may get 10's to fold but probably not against this oppo. If we're lucky we get a race. Even a nutter probably passes 8's.

We raise with 99 with an effective 85bb stack. Oppo back raises us and now we have a decision.

Yes there's a decent chance we're ahead but I just think we're too deep to risk so much for 3.3k

It's a very tough hand in this situation. Shallow it's easy because we obv jam. Deeper we can set mine or out play post flop depending on oppo.

Also does oppo know that we noticed he hadn't looked? If he does know then it changes the strength of our hand against his dramatically. If not then we've got to take this as it is and say that we've just been 3 bet and we've only got 99.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what? So what? Well we're not bluffing buddy that's what. There's actually 4,400 in the middle not 3,300 and that's like 15bb's so I don't think it's such an insignificant amount to just let go and move on. I think tightening villain's range to big pairs isn't based on much and I think his range is much much wider than that. If he looks down to find any big ace and prob any pair he could well 3-bet. We knew about the effective stack sizes you mention before we raised so we knew the awkwardness of the situation but still raised, so what was our plan? Villain also knows the dilemma for us if we don't have a hand with these stacks so can raise just because of that. But we do have a hand so we're not bluffing and we do have plenty of FE to shut out overcards and that's not bluffing either.

[Dubai]

1. 6600 call shove
2. Purely dynamics based, sometimes its an easy fold, sometimes it an easy 4 bet/call , sometimes i just call. Given u called pre i prob call like 90% time on this flop, the other 10% im making a small raise and calling shove if I think he can spazz. Im shoving never and probably folding never.

[mondatoo]

By the bye, wonderful to see Thewy Posting on here. Breath of fresh air.

He has my permission to use any legit poker expressiion he so desires. Including "backraise".

+1 to that,fk the haters say back raise,trips even three of a kind for me good to have someone of your pedigree posting on pha

BTW how do you pay someone a compliment/show respect without being a fanboy ?

Just do lots of ass kissing (like you have just here ^^^^^^^) then finish off by saying PS: I'm not a fanboy.

LOL,I can't say i've ever been a "fan" of anyone who i don't no, don't no how that would work.I certainly have respect for an ept/gukpt winner and it would obv be a benefit to me and others if he posts on here more often

[EvilPie]

there both folds imo. Hand 1 your oppo is too shallow to set mine. Vs some oppo's you can set mine here but not against somone who is gonna fire 100% of flops and leave you guessing. Hand 2 is tough, if you think you can read him well and sometimes bluff him off a flop he didnt connect with then i suppose a call is just about OK. without history of him 3betting then i would fold.

Agree with Trigg here.

Fair enough we've got this read because oppo didn't look at his cards but so what.

We've raised with 99 and we've been looked up. To me we're still a bit too deep to potentially go bust with a non premium hand based purely on a physical read that may well be a reverse read.

Set mining isn't an option because we're not deep enough so just pass. Possibly even show it if you want to rock up your reputation and possibly get someone to pass AK later on

EDIT: Obviously we're not going bust because we have oppo covered but I think you know what I mean.

Aren't we turning 9-9 into a bluff if we raise/fold when we get looked up? bvb against a player who plays his cards in the dark this seems awfully weak. We are saying that after limping in the dark we know for sure villain has woken up with one of the 5 hands that can beat us. And I don't know how we can say that.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what?

If we shove or raise aren't we bluffing as well? What calls or back raises us that we beat? Ok we may get 10's to fold but probably not against this oppo. If we're lucky we get a race. Even a nutter probably passes 8's.

We raise with 99 with an effective 85bb stack. Oppo back raises us and now we have a decision.

Yes there's a decent chance we're ahead but I just think we're too deep to risk so much for 3.3k

It's a very tough hand in this situation. Shallow it's easy because we obv jam. Deeper we can set mine or out play post flop depending on oppo.

Also does oppo know that we noticed he hadn't looked? If he does know then it changes the strength of our hand against his dramatically. If not then we've got to take this as it is and say that we've just been 3 bet and we've only got 99.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what? So what? Well we're not bluffing buddy that's what. There's actually 4,400 in the middle not 3,300 and that's like 15bb's so I don't think it's such an insignificant amount to just let go and move on. I think tightening villain's range to big pairs isn't based on much and I think his range is much much wider than that. If he looks down to find any big ace and prob any pair he could well 3-bet. We knew about the effective stack sizes you mention before we raised so we knew the awkwardness of the situation but still raised, so what was our plan? Villain also knows the dilemma for us if we don't have a hand with these stacks so can raise just because of that. But we do have a hand so we're not bluffing and we do have plenty of FE to shut out overcards and that's not bluffing either.

If we think we're ahead of his range then of course it's not a bluff. We just want to figure out a way to get all the chips in. I can't see how the action here makes us think that were so far ahead though.

I just don't like going bust in a deep situation with 99 is all.

Obviously I would raise 99 here but then again I would've raised a lot of worse hands as well that I would easily lay down. The fact that this hand is better than my usual raising range doesn't mean I'm going to hang on to it for dear life and get 85 bigs in the middle pre.

Something I'm trying to work on now is not getting stuck on hands like this. Just because it's a good hand doesn't make it good enough to risk so much so early in a tournament.

It's just a pair of 9's ffs and on a table where we seem to have an edge so can profitably play flops. Why risk doing the lot on a hand that is so vulnerable. If I get it wrong and oppo has bluffed me then wp him. I'll get him back later at some point and hopefully for a lot more chips than the 1100 that I've just done.

[MANTIS01]

there both folds imo. Hand 1 your oppo is too shallow to set mine. Vs some oppo's you can set mine here but not against somone who is gonna fire 100% of flops and leave you guessing. Hand 2 is tough, if you think you can read him well and sometimes bluff him off a flop he didnt connect with then i suppose a call is just about OK. without history of him 3betting then i would fold.

Agree with Trigg here.

Fair enough we've got this read because oppo didn't look at his cards but so what.

We've raised with 99 and we've been looked up. To me we're still a bit too deep to potentially go bust with a non premium hand based purely on a physical read that may well be a reverse read.

Set mining isn't an option because we're not deep enough so just pass. Possibly even show it if you want to rock up your reputation and possibly get someone to pass AK later on

EDIT: Obviously we're not going bust because we have oppo covered but I think you know what I mean.

Aren't we turning 9-9 into a bluff if we raise/fold when we get looked up? bvb against a player who plays his cards in the dark this seems awfully weak. We are saying that after limping in the dark we know for sure villain has woken up with one of the 5 hands that can beat us. And I don't know how we can say that.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what?

If we shove or raise aren't we bluffing as well? What calls or back raises us that we beat? Ok we may get 10's to fold but probably not against this oppo. If we're lucky we get a race. Even a nutter probably passes 8's.

We raise with 99 with an effective 85bb stack. Oppo back raises us and now we have a decision.

Yes there's a decent chance we're ahead but I just think we're too deep to risk so much for 3.3k

It's a very tough hand in this situation. Shallow it's easy because we obv jam. Deeper we can set mine or out play post flop depending on oppo.

Also does oppo know that we noticed he hadn't looked? If he does know then it changes the strength of our hand against his dramatically. If not then we've got to take this as it is and say that we've just been 3 bet and we've only got 99.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what? So what? Well we're not bluffing buddy that's what. There's actually 4,400 in the middle not 3,300 and that's like 15bb's so I don't think it's such an insignificant amount to just let go and move on. I think tightening villain's range to big pairs isn't based on much and I think his range is much much wider than that. If he looks down to find any big ace and prob any pair he could well 3-bet. We knew about the effective stack sizes you mention before we raised so we knew the awkwardness of the situation but still raised, so what was our plan? Villain also knows the dilemma for us if we don't have a hand with these stacks so can raise just because of that. But we do have a hand so we're not bluffing and we do have plenty of FE to shut out overcards and that's not bluffing either.

If we think we're ahead of his range then of course it's not a bluff. We just want to figure out a way to get all the chips in. I can't see how the action here makes us think that were so far ahead though.

I just don't like going bust in a deep situation with 99 is all.

Obviously I would raise 99 here but then again I would've raised a lot of worse hands as well that I would easily lay down. The fact that this hand is better than my usual raising range doesn't mean I'm going to hang on to it for dear life and get 85 bigs in the middle pre.

Something I'm trying to work on now is not getting stuck on hands like this. Just because it's a good hand doesn't make it good enough to risk so much so early in a tournament.

It's just a pair of 9's ffs and on a table where we seem to have an edge so can profitably play flops. Why risk doing the lot on a hand that is so vulnerable. If I get it wrong and oppo has bluffed me then wp him. I'll get him back later at some point and hopefully for a lot more chips than the 1100 that I've just done.

What's your thought process/strat if you look down and see jacks instead bud?

[EvilPie]

there both folds imo. Hand 1 your oppo is too shallow to set mine. Vs some oppo's you can set mine here but not against somone who is gonna fire 100% of flops and leave you guessing. Hand 2 is tough, if you think you can read him well and sometimes bluff him off a flop he didnt connect with then i suppose a call is just about OK. without history of him 3betting then i would fold.

Agree with Trigg here.

Fair enough we've got this read because oppo didn't look at his cards but so what.

We've raised with 99 and we've been looked up. To me we're still a bit too deep to potentially go bust with a non premium hand based purely on a physical read that may well be a reverse read.

Set mining isn't an option because we're not deep enough so just pass. Possibly even show it if you want to rock up your reputation and possibly get someone to pass AK later on

EDIT: Obviously we're not going bust because we have oppo covered but I think you know what I mean.

Aren't we turning 9-9 into a bluff if we raise/fold when we get looked up? bvb against a player who plays his cards in the dark this seems awfully weak. We are saying that after limping in the dark we know for sure villain has woken up with one of the 5 hands that can beat us. And I don't know how we can say that.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what?

If we shove or raise aren't we bluffing as well? What calls or back raises us that we beat? Ok we may get 10's to fold but probably not against this oppo. If we're lucky we get a race. Even a nutter probably passes 8's.

We raise with 99 with an effective 85bb stack. Oppo back raises us and now we have a decision.

Yes there's a decent chance we're ahead but I just think we're too deep to risk so much for 3.3k

It's a very tough hand in this situation. Shallow it's easy because we obv jam. Deeper we can set mine or out play post flop depending on oppo.

Also does oppo know that we noticed he hadn't looked? If he does know then it changes the strength of our hand against his dramatically. If not then we've got to take this as it is and say that we've just been 3 bet and we've only got 99.

Yes we are turning it in to a bluff but so what? So what? Well we're not bluffing buddy that's what. There's actually 4,400 in the middle not 3,300 and that's like 15bb's so I don't think it's such an insignificant amount to just let go and move on. I think tightening villain's range to big pairs isn't based on much and I think his range is much much wider than that. If he looks down to find any big ace and prob any pair he could well 3-bet. We knew about the effective stack sizes you mention before we raised so we knew the awkwardness of the situation but still raised, so what was our plan? Villain also knows the dilemma for us if we don't have a hand with these stacks so can raise just because of that. But we do have a hand so we're not bluffing and we do have plenty of FE to shut out overcards and that's not bluffing either.

If we think we're ahead of his range then of course it's not a bluff. We just want to figure out a way to get all the chips in. I can't see how the action here makes us think that were so far ahead though.

I just don't like going bust in a deep situation with 99 is all.

Obviously I would raise 99 here but then again I would've raised a lot of worse hands as well that I would easily lay down. The fact that this hand is better than my usual raising range doesn't mean I'm going to hang on to it for dear life and get 85 bigs in the middle pre.

Something I'm trying to work on now is not getting stuck on hands like this. Just because it's a good hand doesn't make it good enough to risk so much so early in a tournament.

It's just a pair of 9's ffs and on a table where we seem to have an edge so can profitably play flops. Why risk doing the lot on a hand that is so vulnerable. If I get it wrong and oppo has bluffed me then wp him. I'll get him back later at some point and hopefully for a lot more chips than the 1100 that I've just done.

What's your thought process/strat if you look down and see jacks instead bud?

That's just not fair!!!! 

Why couldn't you make it QQ instead? Much easier then for some silly reason.

I obviously prefer JJ here but I'm still not getting 85 bigs in pre unless I'm very sure of oppo's range and also his perception of my range.

If I back raise here with JJ and get shoved on I don't expect for 1 second that I'm going to be ahead but now for some reason I'm commited.

Yes I know it's exploitable but there you go. Exploit me. I'd much rather be playing 58 blue and get the lot in on a nice looking flop.

[julian]

i think it was a queen high flop, i turned the 9...

the second hand i'm afraid to say that i pushed after a short dwell....folding just felt too weak after the preflop call & calling just felt too passive & potentialy committing.
him leading out for the pot put some fuzziness in my mind & i'll admit i was really unsure what to - in these spots i hate taking too much time as that makes any aggressive action look suspicious so i opted for the big heave, figuring he'd have to be a hero to call with a-q/a-j.
i swear to god he took a whole minute (i was feeling guuuud), stood up called with a-k.
suddenly didn't feel so guuuud

I don't get it. So you are turning your AT into a bluff. Forcing out all his bluffs and only allowing him to call with a hand that beats you?

yeah pretty much...i guess i felt i wasn't gonna pass, wanted to get my stack in first & would have very happy with the 21k profit.
not the best play i ever made by any stretch.
has been v interesting getting all the diff responses rather than just bouncing it around in my own head.
will post some more iffy spots soon

[Simon Galloway]

will post some more iffy spots soon

Time to own up.  Have you ever found yourself in a spot where you know it is a bit spewy, but you don't really mind because you know you will bink it anyway? 

[outragous76]

there both folds imo. Hand 1 your oppo is too shallow to set mine. Vs some oppo's you can set mine here but not against somone who is gonna fire 100% of flops and leave you guessing. Hand 2 is tough, if you think you can read him well and sometimes bluff him off a flop he didnt connect with then i suppose a call is just about OK. without history of him 3betting then i would fold.

sorry been away and only just caught up with this thread

trigg - im not sure you can say calling 2200 getting 10:1 on his 22k behind is wrong at this blind level. The pay off to set mine is huge, and although you are getting your minimum price well worth a call of 5% of ur own stack.

As for your opponent firing 100% of the time whos cares? You are set mining - you want him to fire if you are happy to fold on a none 9 flop. 

[NoflopsHomer]

10:1 is not enough imo when you factor in his air and the time he misses and c/f's when we hit.

[outragous76]

10:1 is not enough imo when you factor in his air and the time he misses and c/f's when we hit.

i usually look for 15-20 - but in some spots, when you are going to get a bazillion BB's it is worth it to take the straight price

[Longy]

10:1 is not enough imo when you factor in his air and the time he misses and c/f's when we hit.

i usually look for 15-20 - but in some spots, when you are going to get a bazillion BB's it is worth it to take the straight price

Surely that is arguement for not taking the straight price, the deeper you are the less likely you are to stack villian, no?

[Karabiner]

Backraise is the new hip, 3-bet is so passe.

The times they are a-changing, try to keep up shrewdies