Small Blind vs Big Blind

[davidhendrie]

Final two tables of live deepstack freezeout. Nine-handed.  Blinds 1,000 and 2000 with a 200 ante, 45 min levels.

Started Day 2 as a mini-stack and have doubled up twice to just over 40k. Have just moved tables, no history with Villain who is on my immediate right, have only played one other hand SB vs BB: folded round to SB (villain) who raised to 3BBs and I folded my rags. Next hand (and only other hand that orbit I recall) Villain raised from button with A7 Clubs, call from the BB, Villain flopped trips which held against BBs draw – so think Villain is now on over 100k.

Next orbit again folded round to Villain who makes it 6k to call from the SB. I call with Q 10 off, thinking I am ahead of his range but that twenty bigs to too much to just shove pre flop and don’t want to raise/fold for half my stack. Shove > call here?  Or anyone just letting it go pre?   

Flop is AQx rainbow.  Villain bets 8.5k, I raise 11k on top, Villain calls. 

Turn is a Jack, goes check check.

River is a brick and Villain bets enough to put me all in. On the river I have about 14-15k left and the pot will be around 70k. 

Blatant “I made Day 2” brag post aside, I think the size of my raise is pretty bad on the flop, but I don’t really like folding or calling much here. If we call the flop what do we do if Villain bets turn?  Should I be shoving the flop thinking I am ahead of most queens and pairs?  Obviously we are behind to an ace but don’t think villain’s range is likely anywhere near that narrow. The call on the flop says we are behind but I’ve not left myself much back if we fold the river.

Opinions please.

[Longy]

I would flat the flop, pretty much turning your hand into a bluff here for no reason.

Not folding getting 5 to 1 on the river.

[MANTIS01]

Your betting has put you in a spot where the actual pot dwarfs what you have left in front of you, and this is something you should avoid. A half pot bet is useless. I pretty much think after folding in previous bvb encounters vs villain I'm using 40k of chips to jam pre and scoop a further 10k. This is better poker than dribbling your chips in with 2nd pair. As played you should only be checking the sd turn if you're calling the river imo. I'd call flop as well because we call when we have an A right?

[Cf]

I think a shove pre is good here. It's the second time in two orbits villain has done this so we can suspect he might be doing this light. 20 bigs is a good number to resteal. We pick up blinds+antes+raise quite often. It's a large amount for villain to call and without knowing you're capable of this play he needs a good hand to call you. You'll fold out some better hands too. And if you do get called then you have a half decent hand. Just win it and you're up to 80k+.

[buzzharvey22]

firstly q10o is a pretty junk hand, only hand id be flatting with with 20bigs would be premium pairs in an attempt to gain extra value.

with marginal hands and 20 bigs, its either fold or jam pre.

once you have flatted with q10o, u cant really fold when u hit middle pair, however, no point re-raising on the flop, because everything u can beat (which is is mainly his bluffs) will fold, so u lose all chance of getting value from a hand you beat. flat flop, hopefuly he checks the turn, check back, then if he bets the river flat call.

[action man]

i love the emergence of all these deep stack live tournies, just creating a breed of players who dont have a good idea how to play when they hit 20bb. Our image at the moment is ok in this spot as we folded the last time he raised BvB, personally i will raise every BvB spot until shown resistance so your image of folding the last gives your shove a little credability if villain is the sort of player who would raise/fold an ace pre here.

Once you have taken a flop which i neither like nor loathe, your flop raise is just a guess, villian should know you wouldnt peel AQ here or any pair, see how your narrowing your range of made hands down? basically you dont have a plan to proceed, a little green postflop using racing terminology, therefore your best play in this spot is to shove/fold preflop if your playing for profit,

if you are playing for fun take a flop fold riv and say "i know i had you beat" and discuss englands starting 11, fit birds, and shit casino ale.

[davidhendrie]

@ actionman: Easy bud. I may only be a bad live player but I’m not normally in the habit of calling raises with queen ten off with a medium stack, so my problem is more specific: I’m struggling to play my 20bb stack when I don’t have much information on villain, Q10 feels too strong in a BvB situation to just fold in position and too weak to shove when we are only really guessing at villain’s range, and our “tight” image is only an orbit old.  It’s context dependent – if villain raises in all BvB situations as observed over course of the day then I am happy shoving, but in the absence of that information I guess I thought at the time I’d take a flop even if it led to a difficult decision. Maybe I should have made a stronger decision whether to pass or shove pre-flop but at the end of the day that reduces the complexity of how the hand plays out:  I’m trying to work out having called what the best course of action is given that I felt I made a hash of it, even if just shoving pre is easier/better. Next time I will have a plan.

I am definitely feeling now that the raise on the flop is bad, and turning my hand into a bluff unnecessarily as Longy said. My thinking – for what it’s worth – is that I want to take the hand down there, and typically to me raising looks stronger than just jamming. But as pointed out the size of the raise in relation to the pot is ineffective, and leaves me more or less pot-committed with 2nd pair, which once he calls isn’t looking all that hot. And of course if I’m ahead of villain on the flop then I’m not really afraid of him hitting much (random Kings and 2 pairs/trips aside) and I don’t want him to fold, and when he’s ahead of me the range of hands he might fold is pretty narrow: KQ, QJ, maybe, weak aces but it’s unlikely.

 Is that pretty much it?

If we call pre-flop and call on the flop, what are we doing if the villain bets 15-20k on turn or river? Have we decided we are calling on the flop to get it in on the turn regardless?  I understand why the raise on the flop is bad but I'm not actually sure if it effects how the hand plays out. 

How would the hand differ if we had 30 big blinds rather than twenty? Presumably it’s not a pre-flop shove there. Is it still call the flop, potentially call future turn/river bets?

[MANTIS01]

@ actionman: Easy bud. I may only be a bad live player but I’m not normally in the habit of calling raises with queen ten off with a medium stack, so my problem is more specific: I’m struggling to play my 20bb stack when I don’t have much information on villain, Q10 feels too strong in a BvB situation to just fold in position and too weak to shove when we are only really guessing at villain’s range, and our “tight” image is only an orbit old.  It’s context dependent – if villain raises in all BvB situations as observed over course of the day then I am happy shoving, but in the absence of that information I guess I thought at the time I’d take a flop even if it led to a difficult decision. Maybe I should have made a stronger decision whether to pass or shove pre-flop but at the end of the day that reduces the complexity of how the hand plays out:  I’m trying to work out having called what the best course of action is given that I felt I made a hash of it, even if just shoving pre is easier/better. Next time I will have a plan.

I am definitely feeling now that the raise on the flop is bad, and turning my hand into a bluff unnecessarily as Longy said. My thinking – for what it’s worth – is that I want to take the hand down there, and typically to me raising looks stronger than just jamming. But as pointed out the size of the raise in relation to the pot is ineffective, and leaves me more or less pot-committed with 2nd pair, which once he calls isn’t looking all that hot. And of course if I’m ahead of villain on the flop then I’m not really afraid of him hitting much (random Kings and 2 pairs/trips aside) and I don’t want him to fold, and when he’s ahead of me the range of hands he might fold is pretty narrow: KQ, QJ, maybe, weak aces but it’s unlikely.

 Is that pretty much it?

If we call pre-flop and call on the flop, what are we doing if the villain bets 15-20k on turn or river? Have we decided we are calling on the flop to get it in on the turn regardless?  I understand why the raise on the flop is bad but I'm not actually sure if it effects how the hand plays out. 

How would the hand differ if we had 30 big blinds rather than twenty? Presumably it’s not a pre-flop shove there. Is it still call the flop, potentially call future turn/river bets?

There are loads of questions in your post and you can't really answer any of them with confidence. After one orbit that's pretty normal. You can avoid all that speculation and uncertainty through the streets if you jam. You say you're stuggling with 20bb's and it's because your thought process is too intricate for a 20bb stack. You think the lack of info handicaps you but if you jam the lack of info handicaps villain instead. 20bbs isn't a stack you can spread so thinly in a hand. I think actionman gave you some good advice btw.

[davidhendrie]

I think so too! I'm finding all of the replies so far pretty helpful in one way or another.

[Sighmuns]

Final two tables of live deepstack freezeout. Nine-handed.  Blinds 1,000 and 2000 with a 200 ante, 45 min levels.

Next orbit again folded round to Villain who makes it 6k to call from the SB. I call with Q 10 off, thinking I am ahead of his range but that twenty bigs to too much to just shove pre flop and don’t want to raise/fold for half my stack. Shove > call here?  Or anyone just letting it go pre?  

Personally I would shove. I generally work around the principles of 10BB shoving, 20BB reshoving, adapting it to suit the tables i'm at in live play. The fact that it does seem like a big shove in a live setting gets you a LOT of folds, especially if you havent been seen to be aggressive previously.

Flop is AQx rainbow.  Villain bets 8.5k, I raise 11k on top, Villain calls.  

The problem you have now is that a raise (or a shove) is getting called by a lot more than if you shoved preflop (Depending on the player, in a live setting I would expect you to get folds from A10 and below pre, sometimes AJ, more so now as we're approaching the final table bubble). Suddenly a lot of aces are calling a raise, as it stands to reason that you would have raised pre if you had one.

I think I understand why you raised, but you're just not deep enough to find out where you are anymore. A raise like the one that you did commits you to the pot. As played, you have to make the decision then and there really. You have to ask yourself before you make the raise, 'What will I do if he calls/shoves, how many chips will I have left?' You're not deep enough to raise-fold, for reasons I'll come to in a minute.  Not shoving preflop has left you in an awkward situation. Personally as played I think you have to do the old, "Sighfmlfold"

Turn is a Jack, goes check check.

River is a brick and Villain bets enough to put me all in. On the river I have about 14-15k left and the pot will be around 70k.

As played, ask yourself "Is he bluffing in this situation one out of 5 times?" If the answer is yes (and I think it is even based on the limited information we have about him) we do a 'Sighfmlcall'

[davidhendrie]

I wasn't loving it but in the end I called and got shown AJ for two pair.

Realistically I don't think there was much chance of opponent folding at any point in the hand however I play it but thinking it through has been good regardless. On reflection I couldn't have played more into the Villain's hands if I'd tried.

I think if I'm more in the 10-15 BBs range stack-wise then I would normally shove here pre-flop, I guess I just wasn't desperate enough to be getting it in here with the information we had. That might be a bad mindset and I'm... mulling it over. As it is maybe in the future I nit-fold here as suggested when I don't have the balls to shove. 

I'm not convinced that calling pre-flop then smooth calling the flop bet is that great unless we've decided that 2nd pair is good and we are going to the river come what may. If we are hoping to get to showdown for free surely a good opponent with a large stack will fire a second bullet when we've played this passively? 

[Skgv]

think raisng the flop was always a bad idea as if u r in front hes never calling your raise but flat calling gives u a chance to extract another bet on turn from him an if he fires again river you could always revaluate an then decide if u r beat or not.

[Eso Kral]

I think a shove pre is good here. It's the second time in two orbits villain has done this so we can suspect he might be doing this light. 20 bigs is a good number to resteal. We pick up blinds+antes+raise quite often. It's a large amount for villain to call and without knowing you're capable of this play he needs a good hand to call you. You'll fold out some better hands too. And if you do get called then you have a half decent hand. Just win it and you're up to 80k+.

+1