180 man early levels

[Mark_Porter]

PokerStars Hand #106735587327: Tournament #814955867, $2.28+$0.22 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2013/11/09 9:16:30 WET [2013/11/09 4:16:30 ET]
Table '814955867 11' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Meijerdinho (2990 in chips)
Seat 3: Al1k0 (1470 in chips)
Seat 4: Tomukas XIII (1470 in chips)
Seat 5: aaaalexxx (1350 in chips)
Seat 6: GORYSLAV (1470 in chips)
Seat 7: Christoph42 (1470 in chips)
Seat 8: bluecat1234 (1750 in chips)
Seat 9: Mark_Port157 (1530 in chips)
bluecat1234: posts small blind 10
Mark_Port157: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mark_Port157 
Meijerdinho: folds
Al1k0: folds
Tomukas XIII: folds
aaaalexxx: folds
GORYSLAV: raises 40 to 60
Christoph42: folds
bluecat1234: calls 50
Mark_Port157: calls 40
*** FLOP *** 
bluecat1234: checks
Mark_Port157: checks
GORYSLAV: bets 80
bluecat1234: folds
Mark_Port157: raises 125 to 205
GORYSLAV: calls 125
*** TURN *** 
Mark_Port157: checks
GORYSLAV: checks
*** RIVER *** 
Mark_Port157: bets 295

Opening raiser is unknown. SB is a definite calling station.

Post flop is pretty spewy in my opinion. Bet call off on the turn or check?

Particularly interested in how we should be approaching pre in these sort of spots in the early levels... flatting, 3bet, fold... in what order?

Also what is our default option, given reads, with AJ,AJs,AQ,AQs,AK,AKs type hands in this spot pre? How tight should we be playing in the first few levels of a $2.50 180man...

[lucky_scrote]

Peeling is going to be standard preflop.

Not sure about the flop, I think it's just a fold. He's cbet 3way on 9JK rainbow, I usually like to give credit here. I think you are losing money by calling or check raising. Check raising is really aggro and now the heart drops on the turn I'm prob gonna follow through with my bluff. You have 13 outs so if he does jam on you, you'll need to work out dem odds!

[Rod]

OK, I will post my thoughts on this. Mark and Myself were discussing this on APAT. I believe that calling preflop OOP with a marginal hand like this is a leak. I would be interested to know the opinions of some better players though.

When you call and hit top pair you are still never happy to get all of your chips in the middle. Given the quick structure of these and the fact that you only start with 1500 chips I want to be able to play for stacks whenever I am playing at this stage. With AT I am going to end up calling the flop and the turn sometimes and then having to fold on the river. I agree I will also win some chips from the SB sometimes in the hand but the chips I lose have more value than the chips I win. Although this might be a +cEV spot I think end up creating difficult spots a lot of the time. You don't have enough chips to draw profitably if we hit a flush draw and we really need to flop golden to be confident of getting the chips in.

I would be happy to call with AK in this spot and try to get the chips in if I hit TPTK. AQ might be OK for this as well although I would personally fold AQ in this spot. I would not 3-bet AK or AQ as all too often you miss the flop and again end up having to fold. Whilst later on in these I think you can min raise to induce shoves from a worse hand 4-bet shoves at this level are almost always premium hands. AJ and AT are folds for me in this spot.

The way you win these things is to double through lots of times by getting your shoving and calling ranges right. This is where you edge is not in playing down the streets. I would rather conserve my stack unless I get a massive hand.

Like I said I would like to hear the views of some of the better 180 players on this site.

[Mark_Porter]

I would go Call>Fold>3bet>Shove

I don't understand why we would ever shove. I want to swap fold and 3b around but I think that's probably wrong.

Really want to know what the 'correct' line is here. I don't understand why we would fold and Rod - I am still in disbelief that your folding AQ.

[mondatoo]

Think I'd rather to do this than call pre:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=62534.0

And if that goes wrong just fire up the next one.

But yeah still say fold pre for much of the reasons outlined by Rod.

Thinking:

F > 3B/F > Shove > Call

But others might disagree...reckon Mondatoo best for advice on this

Shoving would be by far the worst option.

Definitely peeling vs a randoms cutoff open.

Would fold flop, if I were to c/r this flop we have to barrel turn. River bet as played is very rarely getting a fold.

[lucky_scrote]

Why are we discussing which options are better preflop here? This is almost definitely a peel 100% of the time. It's a decent hand, we are multi-way and the hand plays quite well multi-way and 3betting is going to fold out a lot of worse hands and every time the pot gets big it's going to be really difficult.

[BulldozerD]

if peeling here is bad with AT of the same suit then the game has gone mad. I'm peeling 100% here
Don't get the postflop line at all though - its a bad flop to bluff, you get a gin turn to continue but don't and then make a half hearted attempt to bluff river that is unlikely to get through.

[theprawnidentity]

What Ray sez

[Rod]

I have to confess to being surprised that this is such a clear peel. I am not going to argue with some of the players in this thread as they are better than me at these and all other forms of poker but it feels like a win a small pot or lose a big one type of spot. Maybe having the fish in the small blind make more difference than I am giving it credit for but in my mind being out of position against the button means we are check folding a lot of hands (which I get is OK) but when we hit top pair we are not always good and end up putting in a fair % of our stack and having to either fold or lose a showdown and when we win we often don't even get a cbet from the button.

When we are deeper stacked I get the power of this hand but we just don't feel deep enough to exploit that. Check raises rarely work in these at this level so if we flop a flush draw we will need to hit it most of the time. By calling even though the pot odds are excellent we seem to make a spot where we can level ourselves far too easily. Look like reverse implied odds to me.

Guess I need to go away and try to understand this sort of spot better. I still don't think folding is really bad here though.

[celtic]

We have 75 bigs rod. Why do you think we are going bust or winning a small pot?

[theprawnidentity]

FWIW when I have 20 tables open I probably snap fold this and I do alright in these games.  I don't think anyones saying that folding is bad, just that calling is slightly better.

[verndog158]

Think im always seeing a flop with  , especially v a button open? MP raise think i just peel, but against a button raise, im 3betting a lot, as im often ahead of a position opening range.
slightly weird line check raising the flop, then checking basically the gin card on the turn. if your taking that line, think i could flat the flop check raise the turn. Bet on the end, makes little sense and will get called off a lot!

[The Squid]

Feels like OP knows what he's done wrong here already. peel absolutely fine, then just fold flop. Players arent good enough at this level for us to need to get too outta line. Also our range is too weak to put any real pressure on opponent.

[Mark_Porter]

Oh yes, post flop is such a mess… I do seem to get in situations like this in MTTs where I don’t want to bet fold away so much equity but, equally, I don’t want to bet call when it is clear I will be behind. Hence the check. He snapped the river with J10o by the way so I guess getting the barrels out on the turn would have worked. 

Thanks for the feedback, I am glad pre flop is clear.

[Rod]

We have 75 bigs rod. Why do you think we are going bust or winning a small pot?

Doubt we go bust just don't like that we might hit a flush draw and then end up calling a bet on the flop only to have to fold the turn usually and more often than not, not get paid off and even when we do they pay off does not feel like enough 75BB deep.

I fully accept after reading this thread that this is not optimal but think I still prefer to not get involved in this specific situation. If it is a cash game or a more deep stacked tournament with a better structure then it is a different spot of course. Also being OOP makes it harder to get paid off when we do hit the turn with our flush draw as we see a massive number of checks behind and then they just flat call on the river.

Good discussion though imo