If they don’t think about ranges or make reads, they you shouldn’t be concerned about making plays that would be transparent and exploitable against good players.
I’m not - that’s what I was saying. I feel comfortable going for the CR with good made hands but lead with good draws. Or similar.
Binked $2500 tonight in a $140 tourney. Poker is easy again.
Only hand of note I remember:
Blinds 200/400+400a. I have a nit image from being card dead for 3 hours. I have 12k in my stack and wake up with black KK on the button.
Guy who seemed pretty straight up and has me covered MP makes it 1200 from MP over one limper. I debated shoving, or calling and trapping, because a re-raise here just feels like screaming the old nit finally got QQ-AA. But ultimately I did make it 3k. Villain calls.
Flop 468 all spades. Villain checks. I have 9k behind and the pot is 7k. Should I just check here and try to trap more? Obviously I’m not too scared of many run outs. There are aces that I wouldn’t be nuts about. Doubtful he has connectors here but he could have a low PP that hits a 4-straight.
Probably just bet like 2500 and try to nickel and dime him into doubling you up. Unless you have actual information that the guy is inclined to bluff, he’s probably not going to start bluffing the turn with like JThh. Betting 2500 keeps all the uncertainties open, like he can still “put you on AK” if that’s what he’s inclined to do, and it’s hard for him to fold there with a hand like 99 or 77.
Yeah sometimes I feel like I’m playing it too straight and need to be trickier or something. But straight usually works unless you find the rare aggro opponent at these things.
I bet 3k and he folded 99 face up lol. He didn’t have a spade.
Fun hand that I maybe butchered. I raise KQo on the button, SB - normalish guy I’d been playing with for a while that seemed to at least grasp basic strategy - calls.
Flop T93 rainbow. He leads for 1/3 pot or something. I call.
Turn 6. He leads for 1/2 pot. I call thinking I have a gutshot + overs, I might have the best hand, and if not I might be able to get him off middle pair or something on some rivers. I was also planning to call a normal river bet on a safe river. I just feel like top pair gives up after two streets and is happy to see what I do. I don’t think ace high bets the turn.
RIver J. He leads again. I shove. He calls with Q8 for the rest of his stack. Wasn’t happy about it.
I didn’t get messed with much for a while after that.
Yeah well checking isn’t going to help there, he’ll just check it down. Can’t double up on em all.
Yeah if he’s folding that flop to one bet, he probably folds if I shove pre.
Eh, he might call, but specifically mid pocket pairs is a narrow range to target with a shove. I don’t think any reraise size pre is obviously best really. Don’t like flatting unless V is known to be overaggressive.
Would probably raise flop in the KQ hand, you’ll want to have some value raises (are you flatting 1/3 pot with an overpair? AT?) and this is a pretty good hand to use as a bluff to balance that. Also just generally disinclined to tolerate people donking 1/3 pot at me.
FWIW - I’m not convinced range balancing is important at all in these games - unless there’s some reason to do it other than your opponents will start to figure out what you have.
The second thing yeah.
Everyone wanted to chop as soon as we got 10-handed last night, which is standard. After busting 6th as second in chips with the QT debacle last week - I was fine with chopping for 2nd place money as second in chips this time.
I’m trying to figure out what the strategy difference might be assuming they’re going to chop the FT. Obviously any little chips you can pick up right before the FT turn into cash. But that’s basically ICM anyway, right?
Obviously gigablock theory goes out the window.
IE - let’s say it’s last two tables and you know they are never going to chop, and I have a slightly smaller stack than most everyone else at my table . So I’m in that territory where I basically have one move - shove over a raiser and hope they are raising light, or shove into a few and hope no one wakes up. If I do raise, cbetting with air becomes really hard (not impossible, but hard) - since it cripples my stack if it fails. Etc. So I’m going to be inclined to make risky plays or gambool on doubling up - because just getting that covering stack is soooooo valuable. Now you can steal and cbet - and they basically have one move instead. There’s something psychological too that when you have most players covered - they clam up - even though they could still cripple you.
Anyway you get the idea. Now in the previous scenario, if instead I know people are going to probably chop - I probably play it less risky and am just happy to take down ~third place money when we get to the FT.
So then the real bubble in these things becomes the FT bubble - and the players know it. So THAT is the one to own if you can. 11th got $260 last night, 10th with like 4BBs got $700 something. I had the big stack at my table - 5-handed. I was stealing with abandon and still felt like I was leaving equity on the table by not trying to steal basically every hand.
Are there any fallacies in this thinking that I’m missing? I guess maybe even if I know they are going to chop I should be making risky plays to be able to own the FT bubble. But 12 or 11 handed can end really fast. Hmmm
It’s fun to have time to think about all this at the table as opposed to playing 17 SNGs at a time.
My new plan is to become a nomadic vagabond in roughly a year - picking up a little income here and there however I can - including small stakes cash and tourneys. I’ve played a couple random casinos around the world and the games are ridiculous. Plus once the local calling stations finally realize I never raise into them w/o the nuts, I’m moving on.
I don’t need tons of money. If my ROI is 100% to 200% in that tourney last night - that’s $25 to $50/hr based on the average amount of time I spend on them. I can live with that. Is 200% ridiculous?
There seem to be 15-20 “pros” at Hollywood Park who play almost every tourney. One guy told me he’s a poker pro and this is his only game. Which seemed sad to me at the time but I guess it could work. He said he used to be a huge winner at small stakes MTTs on PS back in the day. I have my doubts based on some of the stuff I’ve seen him do. He does run bluffs though which puts him in rare company. He wouldn’t tell me his SN.
Some of these regs literally fall asleep during hands - and I mean literally. Some of them are on the phone or read a book the whole time and pay zero attention. A lot of them have no problem folding down to 2BBs.
Okay I’ll add another cash hand that I was wondering about…
Late Saturday night game that is pretty splashy though pre-flop I’m the only player to have 3bet, which I’ve done like 4 times in the last 3 hours or so. 1/2 game
Hero: $400ish has a LAG image.
V1: $175ish white guy, new to the table. Seems to know what he’s doing.
V2: $150 Asian guy, been there about an hour and playing with reckless abandon. His stack has moved from 50 to 500 and everywhere in between in the hour he’s been there.
V3: $600 Indian guy, played with him for about 3 hours and plays very loose passive. Will bet when he has it, otherwise calls too much for his style of play. Has chipped up with getting some playable cards.
OTH
Hero UTG: AhAc raises $15 (standard raise tonight is 10-18)
V1: calls
V2: calls
Two others call as well
V3 (on the button):calls
Flop ($93): 9h 7c 2c
I think I should bet the flop? Or with 5 callers is this a check? In the moment I felt like this was a bet. Maybe it’s too small? But I thought a bet of $60-$70 would yield the same results as a bet of $40 at this table so I went with $40 to see where everyone else was. Idk.
Hero: bets $40
V1: calls
V2: all-in for $130ish
Two guys fold
V3: just calls the $130ish
Pot: $390
Hero:???
This is an all-in or fold type situation, right? Is this ever just a call? I’m not worried about v2 as he can have literally any two. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what to do staring down V3. Normally I act pretty quickly at a 1/2 table but this was a couple minutes of thought. I honestly didn’t consider V1 when acting because I was focused on the much larger stack of V3.
If you can assume V3 is cold-calling every draw and made hand except bottom pair - you’re still ahead like 80-90% of the time right? I agree that calling seems disastrous here. But I suck at cash so that’s all I got.
Man ritalin is such a boost for live poker. It should almost be a banned substance. Instead last night I had a few drinks before going to the casino. Sloppy play all over the place. I swear it was easier to robotically play 17 SNGs online piss drunk than one live MTT slightly buzzed.
I think this hand is pretty standard but just checking. Blinds 2000/4000+4000a. I have about 110k chips and QTo in the SB. Avg stack is 90k I think. 24 ppl left, top 12 places pay.
8-handed - super limpy-raisy splashy guy (50/30-ish) limps from UTG. Erratic Asian kid limps behind. Guy who limps or calls a PFR 70% of hands calls on the button. BB plays pretty straight up. Everyone except BB has me covered. BB has like 80k.
There’s 22k out there - shove? There may have been one more limper for 26k if that makes a difference. I can’t remember.
I’ve stolen a few pots but otherwise have a snug image. I haven’t done the shove SB/BB over multiple limpers light move yet. I usually do that at least once or twice when I’m in 10-20BB territory with pretty good success.
You have to read v3 annoyingly but flatting is a mistake. There’s too many hands he’d pay off now but wouldn’t later due to either missing the draw or free cards coming off that scare him. if I can’t read him for a set I shove it.
Don’t think flop sizing particularly matters.
Ship, hope for the best. Not a lot else you can do against described villains.
Shove looks good, yeah. This is a good hand to do it with because it’s a solid hand but out of the SB it can be hard to realise equity with it - for example on a flop like KTx you’re just going to end up checking and folding a lot.
It’s usually a bet on the flop, unless you have a read that trying to check/raise is a good idea. V2 seems like the kind of player who might give off a tell that he will bet the flop if you check.
The relevant fact here is that V1/V2 are relatively short. So, I would start by thinking about what hands in their ranges they would shove against for various bet sizes that you might make. I might decide that the correct bet size is the largest bet that I am willing to fold vs a shove from V1.
As played, there’s some merit to the idea of just calling the raise and shoving a safe turn. If V3 has a draw, he sometimes maximizes his EV by getting it in on the flop, so making him put more of his money in on the turn is to your advantage while jamming the flop helps him play better. It depends partly on how much of his range is composed of draws.
Even calling stations can find a fold if you slap them in the face too hard, so it is possible that he would fold a one-pair hand to a flop shove, but call a turn bet. The pot is already big, so maybe you are fine with getting him to fold a five-outer.