The casino always has you fill out an IRS form if you win over $5K because they have to withhold the state taxes from your winnings. You won’t have to file as a professional poker player or anything like that. Also congrats!
It’s indeed abysmal. Flop and preflop (lol) aren’t folds at any level of tournament. Turn is a bit closer.
Thing is it’s not like the correct play is massively +EV or anything, folding in either spot is “abysmal” just in the sense that it’s obviously missing out on very small value. Folding suited trash hands for great odds is a small leak and you can probably have a long +EV tourney career without getting punished for it.
They didn’t withhold anything. But I got a W-9 that I’m going to have to file when I do my taxes.
My accountant said don’t bother with professional poker player but just collect receipts from other tourneys and deduct it as gambling losses. I hope he’s giving me good advice. I also lost $1k in cash in Vegas - but I don’t really have any receipts except the ATM withdrawal. So I assume I can claim that.
Yeah I think what’s happening there is you’ve got micro-MTT grinders mixed in with $150 live MTTs - since in general the level of play is about the same. But some things are still different like reads and level of focus on any one hand.
I can see if you’re 30 tabling $3-$11 MTTs - calling in the SB for a tiny edge and getting into a weird distracting hand probably isn’t worth it. But when you have live reads and all day to think about one hand - sure.
I’m not folding any two suited cards in the SB in a limped pot like that ever. Only argument for folding pre is if you can’t play worth shit postflop.
I wouldn’t fold in that spot but you do have to be surprisingly tight out of the SB in tourneys. The reason is similar to why you have to be tight calling people’s shoves - i.e. that you don’t actually want to be going to showdown in big pots without serious advantage, it’s better to build your stack by taking pots down no-showdown where possible. Playing out of the SB tends to limit your ability to either take pots down or control the size of the pot, which is a serious handicap when playing in a structure which biases you towards wanting to do those things. For example, if you flop Txx with this hand, you are going to need to check-fold flop a lot of the time because tournament structure makes taking bluffcatching lines less viable.
I think one reason it’s generally advised that people fold in those spots is that if you play those spots well, you can eke out at best a small profit, while if you play them poorly it’s very easy to bin a lot of money. So for players who don’t really know what they’re doing they would be well advised to fold.
Folding flop is a ridiculous suggestion. I also think checkraising turn is pretty bad, that turn bet is pretty strong from villain and x/r turn is pretty obviously a draw a lot as hero doesn’t credibly rep many made hands.
That hand is somewhat illustrative of the problem btw, like hero is offered the choice between passively drawing and getting probably a small profit on what is a well above average flop for the hand, at the cost of investing 1/5th of his stack or whatever, or getting aggressive and losing half his stack. It’s just really hard to play the hand for anything other than a small profit under a tournament structure, the headwinds in terms of it being bad to put lots of your stack in speculatively are very strong.
Three-handed at the final table of a tournament. I am the short-stack, with about 10BB. The other two have at least 40BB.
Chip leader limps in the SB. I look down at A3o. If I shove, I am probably getting called by a small pair, a weak ace, or two broadway cards, all of which are in his limping range. I wouldn’t be surprised if he limp/calls with 77 or A9. He might call other hands like suited kings. I could be an underdog to his limp-calling range, but a shove would be +EV due to all the hands he limp-folds.
If I check behind, I have position and I can probably steal any pot where he doesn’t flop good because he is transparent and respects me. I am very clearly the best player at the table and they know it. My skill advantage is such that I think I can wait a few extra orbits compared to other players before entering jam-or-fold mode.
I shoved, but I feel like the table dynamics were such that checking behind was an option that I couldn’t rule out immediately.
I shove this every time. It would be completely different if there were other shorties at the table and SB was CL or something. But you’re not exactly coasting to 2nd place.
I don’t see what skill advantage you can have with 10BBs except in knowing what to shove/call. The only scenario where you should be playing postflop is if you are in the BB with rags and have one or two limpers.
They limp/call a lot three-handed, so I get to play a lot of limped pots.
Btw hand 1 I shoved. Novice lady called with 55. Yay me for not overthinking.
Hand 2 I bet 20k putting elvis shades all in. He tanked for a couple minutes, kept playing with his chips (instead of looking at his cards like I wanted), muttering about AK, and finally called. He had T9o. If I had any idea I was up against someone who would stab at the turn with air I would never bluff - because the average player at these would never do that - so they tend to not think you would bluff a river. My read was ok on his turn and my float. I was at least considering calling a lot of rivers. Note to self don’t try to bluff elvis shades. Whole hand ends if I just c-bet though.
I’m still playing fairly crappy since my bink last Friday. I’m having a hard time taking grinding a normal stack seriously. Working on it.
Blinds 300/600+600a. I have 40k chips for a decent stack. Last hand before the break, which is last chance to re-enter. I’ve been joking for a few hands about how someone always busts on the last hand.
Lady who’s played pretty straight, but overvaluing hands pre and post raises it to 2k from UTG+2. I have JJ in the hi-jack. She has 35k chips or so.
I have no idea what to do here. I know I’m ahead of her range - but if I shove her call range is pretty bad for me I think. Also someone behind me could wake up. I have a feeling 3-bet to something like 5-6k is best. But as usual I worry if I am good enough to let it go if they shove - vs. one villain - when HOLY COW HAVE I ALREADY SEEN SOME THINGS AT THIS TABLE. IE - I got my stack by raising AKs UTG, then shoving over a very scary button reraise - where I actually considered just calling. But I shoved and button, who had seemed very normal to that point and even knew poker terms, snapcalled with AJs. And my image was tight as a drum. And that was one of the more normal hands.
So I just call. What I really want is one of the loose players behind me to shove and her her to fold - then happily get it all in with them - ether pre or post flop on a safe flop.
Super splashy guy who has me covered and who could have almost anything calls in CO. Button - new guy to the table in his 60s with ~25k chips, calls. Blinds fold.
Flop Q52 two diamonds. PFR leads for 3k into 7600 pot. I call. Splashy guy and new guy call.
Turn 8s. She checks. I think about betting here but it seems like one of them probably has a Q.
I check. Splashy guy checks. New guy shoves all in for ~20k. PFR mutters for a while then folds.
One of them has to have a Q right? RIGHT? I figure I only beat a flush draw here and that would be happy to just check behind.
Only splashy guy can bust me but going down to 15k is almost worse because then I can’t re-enter and I’ve got about 15bbs.
I’m getting a little tuff fish Fed Up of seeing just abject insanity in the early levels of these and whenever I finally get a hand I get coolered.
Fuck you Doug Polk - 3-betting in position is not worth it!
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Hero is SB in a deep stack 6 max with 100bb’s, average effective stacks are about the same.
- 50/100 blinds. Limped all around, then BB raises 474 and gets calls all around. flop comes 234. BB bets out 2k into ~3.5k. EP calls. Everyone else folds.
Call? Fold?
What’s the buyin? Live or online?
Terribly day of poker yesterday - ran bad, played bad - donked off ~$700 of my big win last week.
I decided to check out the Bike $2k guaranteed 10pm tourney. Basically a 2-3 table SNG as expected. Also - they put you off in a quiet side room. I like Hollywood Park because they at least have a club thing with some music. I hadn’t been to the Bike in 15 years and it looks exactly the same. Cavernous. They did have a couple high roller tables going and Live at the Bike - I didn’t recognize anyone.
Anyway the only reason it was a 3-table SNG instead of 2 was there were a bunch of kids there from something called Global Poker - who won an entry into the $1100 main event tourney tomorrow (you can also buyin Sunday for $4300 for average-ish stack).
I just kept thinking - yes this is the kind of poker all these videos (JLittle, Doug Polk) I watch are talking about. People actually 3-betting light, raising from LP w/o the nuts, folding top pair, folding to raises pre, more heads up pots than 3,4,5-way pots, playing actual poker. You have to think about your range. It sucked. No way I was beating the rake if I even had an edge w/o the rake. I felt like I was just waiting for monsters once I got below 40bbs. Not much else you can do.
I’ll take my ultra soft tourneys tyvm.
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online, $50
I think shoving ~ folding >>> calling. There’s a lot of money out there. You might be ahead and if not you’ve still got a draw to the effective nuts.
Fwiw thats what i did but felt like i was drawing
Yeah I guess A5 and sets are both pretty likely. Every time I fold one of these though I see A4 and K5 or something.