Poker Hands and Strategy

Sports & Other Games
3873

HORSE tournament. I busted two from the money. Felt like I mostly played well. I liked how I matched up against the field and I’ve won a few HORSE tournaments in my life, so it was disappointing. I got a bit too sticky on the end in a couple of big pots and I lost some annoying hands to kamikaze short stacks picking a hand and going with it to drop me down from an above average stack to 4-5 big bet range.

I heard Hammers did the same thing to a guy in the 40/80 mix and the player literally told him to go fuck himself.

3874

Here’s a stud high hand I thought was interesting. Weak players will get it wrong.

2 :diamonds: brings in. I complete with a 7. Folds to bring-in, who defends. In fourth, villain catches 7 :diamonds: and I catch a 4. I bet, he calls.

Fifth is interesting. I catch a T for a board of 75T (suits don’t matter) and he shows 27T, all diamonds. I bet, he raises, and I decide to 3bet.

One relevant piece of info is that three diamonds were dead on third. And he seemed a bit hesitant to call on earlier streets, so my live read was that he didn’t have a flush yet, probably just a pair and a flush draw.

What sealed it for me was that we both had a 7 and a T showing. He blocks a lot of the two pair hands I can have. And he was an aware and experienced player. Weak players won’t use this info to inform their decisions, but I knew he was smart enough, so I could raise in this spot. Some table talk afterwards confirmed that this was a factor in how he played the hand, so I felt very good that I was reading him on that level.

He seemed taken aback that I would 3bet there and called. Weaker players will either not bet in my spot or just call the raise because they fear the flush.

Of course, it helped that I had TT in the hole to make a very disguised trips.

Anyways, he caught a K on sixth and I caught a 5, giving me position for the last two betting rounds. It went a standard check bet call. He checked dark on the river and I bet after boating up. He made a crying call and I took down a nice pot.

I don’t think I find enough spots like this, so the stud crushers have an edge on me, but hands like this are where I have an edge over much of the field.

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3875

Ugh, I didn’t realize there was a horse tournament in the series. I would’ve loved to play in that!

3876

Which non trips hands have the equity to raise back here? I suspect not many. It was nice to get three bets on third here…but what did he even have to call the end? I think you got a little lucky that villain still went for a fifth street raise despite you betting out, you never have one pair in that spot I’d reckon and are thus insanely strong to lead in.

Smart opponent would see that and not semibluff as much, but would always bet fifth once checked to, letting you get two in.

3877

He later said he put me on a big pair in the hole because he could discount me being rolled up, so he would have made a crying call with two pair in a pot that big. Him pairing two of my upcards really did make a difference to him. I’d also opened with a Q and a J behind me, so he gave me credit for a strong starting hand. I think he might have also called partly because I confused him with my play.

I’d been pretty tight but aggressive when I did play a hand and I could see someone thinking I could be capable of overplaying one pair, maybe aces with the A :diamonds: blocker.

I’ve seen players in this tournament who have put in three bets on fifth with one big pair. Some of them were bad players. Some of them seemed like metagame reg on reg battles where I didn’t have the backstory.

3878

The TD seemed pleased with the turnout. 88 players. He said there would definitely be a HORSE even in the fall classic after they switched it to dealers choice for 2019. I’m really going to make an effort to be there. Maybe I’ll see you.

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3879

My poker room is running $499 high hands every 15 minutes starting 9am Sunday through 3pm Saturday.

No daily tournaments

Going to be a madhouse with tons of passive fish limping all sorts of trash to try to hit the HH. I have 5 sessions and 35 hours of live play in over the last two weeks and only one where they would just let me run them over with chunky raises from CO to BB with anything that flops halfway decent. People play so bad at 1/3 I can’t imagine losing. Example: I 3-bet an EP min raise to $16 and he calls. JJ4r, check-check. Turn A, I bet $30 he calls. River checks down and he has AA. What in god’s name does this guy raise with? Quads plus. Another guy just announces he’s got a big pair and shows me his AA after the flop and I go ahead and lay down second pair mediocre kicker. Might as well convert your roll to $1 bills and burn them if you’re going to do that shit.

3880

This is a useful podcast for anyone thinking about taking a stab at a mixed game tournament this summer.

https://twitter.com/thinkingpoker/status/1516559166063751173?s=20&t=YfTZFMms-EVvPybYhXH-Yg

3881

Gimme some key takeaways to help me decide if I want to spend the time on this?

3882

There’s some stuff I’d already figured out like not pushing small edges that you would in a cash game or playing tight starting requirements in triple draw because that’s a game where it’s costly to chase. The thing that sticks out to me as something new I learned is the claim that ICM pressure isn’t huge unless there’s a chance you can go broke in the hand. Some pimping of an 8-game boot camp if that’s a product you might be interested in. Some life details for a queer anti-capitalist filmmaker.

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3883

Any Chicagoland folks been to the new room at Rivers? Might show up there in the next month.

3884

Copy/Pasting what I wrote in another forum:

"Played about 6 hours of 2/5 PLO. Game was pretty damn good. I ended up being down ~600. Couldn’t hit a hand. Made one medium-sized bluff that worked out, but bluffing too much in that game would have been disastrous. A solid older guy ran 500 to 5-6k in about a hour by hitting hands and holding. There was some pretty crazy stuff going on when the action was at its best. Can have a very solid win rate playing standard TAG/Nitty, but there will be sessions where you lose your shirt and then some. I was definitely viewed as a nit, but still got 3b 3 of the first 4 hands I opened, which coincidentally were all in EP.

The room was very nice. Some thoughts:

• Button/UTG were allowed to straddle up to $20 preflop. It seemed like the dealers didn’t know if the max was $20 or $25, but the first dealer said it was $20, so the table stuck with that. Not sure who has priority if both positions want to straddle.

• Speaking of the button straddle, it was apparent players weren’t used to it. Saw way too much limping/raising from the blinds preflop.

• The dealers were fine overall, especially with some being beginners. One or two admitted they haven’t really dealt PLO before so the table was helping out as much as possible.

• Thank you to whoever suggested parking on the 3rd level of the ramp. Poker Room is a 15-second walk once you enter the casino.

• The room was VERY strict on not exchanging cash for chips with other players at the table. Didn’t seem to care if you were 10 feet away from the table though.

• Phones weren’t allowed to be placed on the table. You can be on your phone, just couldn’t put it on the table/rail. Not a big deal as you can just put it in your pocket but thought it was kind of a strange rule.

Don’t play live too often, but might find myself coming 2-3 times a year."

One more thing to add is that while the waitlist was 15-20 deep, I swear there was an open seat for like ~45 minutes. I’m guessing they just went through a new name every 2-3 min and all the people on the list left by then? Seems like it might be a common occurence. though.

3885

What day of the week and time did you go and how long did you wait for a seat?

3886

Went last Saturday. Got there around 1030. Asked to be put on every list 5/10 and lower. Actually had to go up two more times as they didn’t put me on every list requested. Was annoyed but no big deal. Hung out in the sportsbook until they sent me a text around ~11:05 for my seat. Was initially for 2/5nl, but moved me to 1/2plo and then 2/5plo in a span of 5 minutes. 2/5plo game started about 10 minutes after I sat down (new table).

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3887

Nice, thanks for the report. I’ll be checking it out at some point in the near future. I’m surprised you only had to wait 35 min on a Saturday night. Or was that 10:30 am?

3888

1030am. Should have made that clear. It’s already on the Bravo App so you can get a good estimate of what your wait time will be before you head over.

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3889

I’m going to move the poker derail in the midterms thread here and talk about some of my thoughts about playing with nits. I do have experience grinding out wins at a table full of OMCs while waiting for a bigger or better game.

So, what do nits do? A lot of times, they fold. They usually don’t bluff except for standard continuation bets or semibluffs with strong combo draws (only on the flop with two cards to come, not the turn).

So, when you open for a raise, they respect your raise and fold a lot of hands that other players will call with. They know what a trouble hand is, KJo, a raggy ace. They fold these hands to even a small open, maybe even a min-raise.

But a lot of nitty players, a lot of OMCs will occasionally play these trouble hands in a limped pot. You’re not going to win money off them with AK vs KJ on a king-high board if you raise preflop, but you will if you limp preflop. You’re usually not going to overflush them in a raised pot, but you might in a limped pot because even tight players will sometimes limp with suited cards in late position.

And these tight players are often fit-or-fold, which means you can check the flop and they won’t steal, so your delayed c-bet on the turn will often take down the pot unless they’re slowplaying. Which they do. A lot. But since they don’t float or call you light, your delayed c-bet can be small, maybe a third of the pot. Anytime you bet and they call, you can give up if you can’t beat top pair and don’t have an obvious scare card to bluff at because they won’t punish you by bluffing their missed draws.

You can take down a few small pots at a nitty table that won’t raise behind your limps and grind out a consistent win without ever coming close to stacking someone as long as you’re patient and don’t need the adrenaline rush of big pots to play poker.

Of course, this comes at a cost. If you have several nits at the table, but also some calling stations, you’re leaving money on the table by not making the pot bigger against the stations.

3890

The thing is, given that they play too tight and fold too much, we seem to be leaving a lot on the table by not opening wide preflop. If I were at a table full of players as described, I would probably open on like as close to a 2.2x sizing as I could, knowing they’d either play a wider range pre than they’re used to and let me run them over postflop, or just overfold a ton pre.

3891

You can build a pot and take it away from them after the flop, it’s just that limping creates the biggest pot preflop. These are often the players with the widest gap between what they play for a limp and what they play against a min-raise. As in, I have seen these players fold 22 and unsuited broadway hands to a min-raise.

All of this exists on a continuum. I’d probably raise small like you suggest, if they have a wider calling range. I do think there are tables at lower stakes where limping pre a lot makes more sense and they tend to confound players who are used to being more aggressive.

I admit I sometimes go overboard with advocating non-standard lines more than I actually play them, but my overall theme is that I think people are a bit complacent about accepting conventional wisdom about standard lines and don’t think about alternatives, so you can confuse them sometimes by taking weird lines. It’s the same principle as Alex Fitzgerald talking about opening for 6x in a tournament.

3892

Playing my first live poker in 2 years, have had AAxx 4x in an hour, flop top set with KKcx and made the nut boat in a huge spot.

Shitty lineup though.