Don’t know if you’re a 2+2 boycotter but the LLSNL Forum is generally pretty great for these type of games.
Well I binked $2300 today in the Hollywood Park $150 buyin tourney.
I think I’m starting to adjust pretty well to these guys. My favorite was calling AT high on an obvious river stab. No one messed with me after that. Of course hitting a set and sextupling up also helped. Went from like 7BB to chipeader in one hand.
I wonder what the best ROI possible is in these? They’re so soft. Feels like 200% is doable at least.
I finally identified a reliable tell on a player on Saturday. He was sitting to my immediate right and would place a chip on his cards when he intended to call and drop it from a few inches when he was going to raise. The further the drop, the bigger the raise. No chip almost always meant he was mucking. I wasn’t in position to exploit the tell, but it was pretty fun to sit there and predict his action correctly almost 100% of the time.
In other news, I notched my 8th straight winning session (8-0 for 2019). The game was super passive, with 6-way limped pots being pretty common. I accumulated a few chips early before I opened JJ in MP to $30 pre-flop and jammed to a button 3-bet of $100. My opponent called after about a 2 minute tank and his KK filled up on the runout. I ran the scenario through Flopzilla using super tight and moderately tight ranges and don’t love or hate my move. Any comments on that would be appreciated. So down $284 early and ground my way back for a $109 win over three hours, but still thinking about what could have been if I had folded the JJ hand instead of shoving. Still not sure what’s optimal there.
In addition to the physical tell, I picked up a tell on an OMC that I was able to exploit later for a nice pot. This guy would not call a bet of $100+ without the stone cold nuts. I wound up bluffing with third pair when the BDFD got there on the river and shoved for ~$200 after check-calling the flop for $30 and the turn for $60 and I floated him. He insta-folded to my shove.
This session was at a room that I haven’t played at in years. The room is small and wait times are usually ridiculous, but they added a few tables and started spreading $3/$300 spread limit. Dealers were not as good as my regular room and only a few tables have shufflers, so the pace was really slow due to that and players tanking regularly on $15 river bets into $90 pots. And mostly folding. So the play seemed somewhat worse than I’m used to, but I probably get 10 more hands per hour at my regular room. My bankroll tracker is set to a 25 hands per hour pace, which I think is accurate for my room of choice. My $/100 Hands rate is $150 there. If the play at both rooms is comparable, then playing slower will cost me at least $5/hr and as much as $15/hr (if I set the dealer’s pace at 15 hpr). Not sure how much bad play balances slow play or if I’ll go back…
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First hand at a $175+100R ($50k guaranteed) monthly tourney at Hawaiian Gardens. I’ve never played in this tourney or at this casino.
The tourney had already been going for about an hour and a half. Blinds 100/200. I sit down in UTG+1, get 66. UTG - a youngish guy with maybe 3x starting stack and kind of a hotshot look about him raises to 600. I call, everyone else folds.
Flop 245 two diamonds. He quickly bets 1200. I call.
Turn 7s. He quickly bets 1800. I call.
River Ah. He quickly bets 3500.
I can’t see his face any of this time because he’s in seat 9 and I’m in seat 1.
Feels like you’re up against an over pair. I’d be fine with a huge raise/shove.
Edit: over pair until the A on the river
Played on Friday and had to deal with some pretty extreme run bad. I was on an 8 session win streak heading into this one and it started off well enough. I got up about $120 and got AA and someone bet $15 into me. I made it $40 and a fun player decided to gamble and shoved for around $150. Folds back to me and I snap call and lose when he makes 2-pair with 85s. Whatever. My turn to pay the fish tax. He seems to feel bad about it and changes seats to be on my immediate right. Plenty of fish at this table. I get AA again maybe 20 minutes later, play it straightforwardly and lose another $150 when KJo flops 2-pair and rivers the boat. Fuck. It’s ok–you’re playing well and the table is deep. Play your game. Not long after that I pick up AQs UTG and open to $15. Fun player calls me from the BB, flops top two with AJo, rivers a boat and I ship another $120 or so his way. But it’s OK because I get AA again within the half hour and pick up a customer. Two tone, two straight board, I bet pot and he calls. Turn puts three to the straight out there and action goes check-check. River brings the third diamond and puts 4 to the straight out and I check-fold face up. Four in a row, but at least I lost the minimum on this one. I re-load for the third time and work my way back from down $340 to up $110 and have $725 in front of me when the giant stack at the table starts to rack up. He’s got $2000 in front of him and this will be his last hand. I look around and everyone else is short, so it’s going to be one of my last hands as well and I look down at AA for the fourth time in about 7.5 hours. Big stack opens for $15 and one call to me, I make it $50 and big stack makes it $250. Dealer says it’s capped. I don’t remember if there was a straddle on, but it seemed wrong to me. I just slid the call out and it’s the two of us to the flop. He checks to me, I bet $300, he raises to $600, I shove and my hand holds up for a 483.33 BB pot. He had KK. LOVE AA! The dealer pushed me a rack of $5 chips and a giant pile behind that. It was pretty fun and I hope to do it again soon. Into the game for $640, out for $1455 after being stuck a buy-in. That makes 9 winning sessions in a row and I’ve had to climb out of a $300 hole the last two. Pretty happy with my play so far in 2019 and this last session was probably the best I’ve played so far.
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Why would an overpair not slow down when the ace hit?
Most of the hands you beat on the turn are high card hands of the Ax variety. Feels like you should fold or bluff and I hate bluffing against an unknown, especially when a shove looks like it could be a missed flush draw. The turn was probably a better spot to raise.
You basically only beat an idiot here at this buy-in level. Yes, there are idiots.
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You think Ax turns a 2-street bluff into a value bomb that quickly? Wouldn’t it just be happy to get bailed out and check/call the river a lot of the time? Or at least think for a while then value bet smaller? Well I guess it was less than half pot - so not gigantic.
There’s also a chance it was the Ad. All I can remember for sure is it was a red ace. But I don’t remember thinking about flushes which is why I think it was Ah.
At this buyin I assume over-values hands pre and post, plays straightforward pre-and post, might stab at river - until I know otherwise. But this kid didn’t look like he came to play pure ABC poker.
I would expect an overpair to slow down most of the time, but not always. Agree with NBZ that your opportunity to take control of the hand was on the turn. Folding may be the right play, but it feels pretty unsatisfying. MDF for this pot is ~64%, so I’d try to figure out where 66 is in my range and use my spidey sense to get a read on Mr. Cool. Also wondering if you had a plan going into this hand. I am a recovering nit and am looking for solid excuses to bluff, so I would have put the pressure on on the turn and been OK with a fold or call, but rooting for a fold.
I think he’s more likely to bet Ax for value on the river than most players. Also, more likely to have some random two pair.
If he put you on the nut flush draw and bet the river, what bet-sizing would you expect him to use if he believes he has you out-kicked and what bet-sizing would you expect him to use if he is trying to bluff you off top pair? I think he is more likely to be value-betting thin than committing to firing three bullets as a bluff.
I’d start thinking about this hand by first assessing whether this player is capable of putting you on a hand and, if so, what hand should he put you on? What table image do you convey when you sit down? This gets into not just that you called on the flop and turn, but how you called. There are some things I do that I can’t fully explain which I think induce bluffs from a wider range or fear of a slow-play.
It probably also matters if there was a spade on the flop, since he could have picked up a flush draw on the turn and been semi-bluffing.
If I were this other player, I think far enough ahead that I would have plans for betting quickly on certain river cards to make you think I am bluffing. So, one thing I would consider is how much time did you take to call on the turn? Did you give him enough time that he could have figured out his river action before the card like I would do?
If I understand correctly, you have a 30K starting stack. I’m fine with just folding. I like to save my hero calls for when I have a better read. I wouldn’t be shocked if he hit his two-outer for a set on the flop. Or if you folded and he showed you a six.
I feel like you might be assuming villain is anything close to your skill level - which based on my experiences at roughly this level of live tournament - they are on average nowhere close. I just didn’t feel like he had time to process any of that the way the bet came out so quickly. I’m sure world-class players can pull that off as a value bet that looks like a bluff - but I’d be shocked to see it at this level.
I have no idea what image I convey - late 40s-looking bearded guy who buys into a tourney 1.5 hours after it starts, then sits down and plays a big hand on the first hand.
I need proof villain can put me on a hand before I assume they’re capable (well other than AK, which they always assume you have when you raise pre).
I took my time calling but not too much time. I use too much time for when I want to induce or want them to bet small with their made hands. I had a gutshot then open-ender and still thought I might have the best hand, so the flop and turn were no brainers to me.
Bluffing on any street never really occurred to me honestly. I tend to assume no one’s ever folding a better pair than 6s on the turn - until I see them actually fold top pair. You see top pair no kicker bet 3 streets and middle pair call it down constantly at these. Which is hilarious because no one ever bluffs. But they do value-own themselves by value-betting the second-best hand a lot.
Trying to bluff an overpair when the ace hits is possible but pretty dicey w/o a read. People don’t like to fold pretty hands. I’d have to commit a ton of chips and for the most part I feel there are much better spots when players are basically giving their chips away.
But it might be a leak that I just assume no one ever folds top pair and often won’t fold middle pair - so I rarely stab. That is until it gets late - then all of a sudden they switch to way too tight and you can pwn the shit out of them postflop.
But I dunno - I feel like 66 has pretty good showdown equity all by itself.
Here’s my rough breakdown of the player archetypes and their % of the player pool - after playing a bunch of these level tourneys over the last month:
25% - super ABC guy. Always raises hands he should raise. Calls a little too loose early and folds too tight late. Never bluffs except c-bet and maybe a river stab. You almost always know exactly where you stand on the turn with this guy.
20% - calling station. These are on a sliding scale from mostly ABC to calls > 50% of the time preflop. They mostly never raise post unless they have an absolute monster. Some limp a lot, and they limp AA.
25% - mostly ABC but plays 9-handed like it was 4-handed. Calls any raise with any ace, PP, unsuited 3-gappers, KJo, etc. Calls 3-bets pre with AT+, PP, KTs+, etc. Might not go broke with TPNK post-flop, but will put in half stack w/o thinking. Doesn’t bluff much.
20% - super nit. Waits for super-premium pre or sets postflop. Guaranteed they have it when they bet.
10% - people playing actual poker. This may be high honestly. People who are capable of running a 3-street bluff. People who at least try to put you on hands and think about multiple streets of action.
I do give the kid in my hand a much higher chance of being in the last group just by being younger than most at the table. Also this tourney probably draws in more actual sharks due to the higher buyin and $50k guaranteed (it ended up pulling in $92k total, $25k for first).
The Hustler Sunday tourney has almost as high of a buyin ($120+100 - but only 3 tables though lol) - and holy cow are the players surreally bad. They berate each other about their play too. It’s just crazy. I don’t like the vibe there at all. But the profitability is through the roof.
At this level of buyin, you have guys who bluff too much and guys who never bluff, with the latter case divided into guys who don’t value bet thin and guys who make bad value bets that are unwitting bluffs. The last case gives me problems. The guys who bluff too much are going to donk off their chips anyways.
So, you only beat players in the last group and they can be betting Ax and two pair.
This just feels more like a guy who liked his hand on the flop and doesn’t let scare cards deter him, either because he has a strong hand or because he’s an idiot. You probably need him to be the sort of player who overvalues 5x hands here.
Well I called. Something didn’t feel right about how the ace didn’t slow down the river bet to me. But also I am a station. He had KQo.
Fun first hand to get the blood going. No one messed with me for a while at that table.
Although the guy next to me kept asking me about the call. I think he thought I was a fish. He said he put the guy on TT. I don’t think TT insta-bets the river like that. They always put you on an ace if they don’t have one.
Folding on the turn is nuts! So is raising! You’ve got an open ended straight draw and some showdown value. And the dude is either bluffing or he has something that beats you. So why raise? Makes no sense.
Okay, it’s a brag.
So I’m playing OP against a wild cowboy in a ten gallon hat. MY AQ misses the J high ragged flop, but that doesn’t mean it hit him so I float to see if he double barrels. The turn hits my Q, so I check-call my girls and will let him barrel off. On the river, an 8 on the board pairs. Sometimes people check behind on such a scare card, so I bet. The MF raises me big. Wasn’t supposed to go that way. But my gut says that’s what a wild man would do. He may have thought I was bluffing one of the two missed draws and does not understand that you don’t raise a seeming river bluff, just call. And yes, my queens are good and the cowboy was unpleasantly surprised about his jacks. “So you didn’t believe I had an 8,” says I . . . .
Build stack up to a grand. A very drunk maniac who’s gotten extremely lucky is literally tossing two hundred dollar stone cold bluffs at $20 pots. I finally get a set, go all-in on the turn because I know he’ll call, and he hits his 20% longshot straight draw. Ten minutes later drunk maniac calls all-in pf with pKK and his probably $5k stack is cleaned out by pAA. Now my grand is gonna be harder to win back.
That line is very bluff heavy. It’s just mindless aggression from bad players.
In your average $100 tournament, everyone is bad. It’s just finding out if they’re bad bc they’re passive, too aggressive or whatever in between. Now, with the guarantee and runners this might play more like a $300-500, but everyone in those is still quite awful. The vast majority of your opponents will make terrible mistakes. Just put in some volume, play solidly enough and you’ll print money.