I don’t think I can. I just got home and have to take a shower and it’d be hard to get there by 7 and then I have to pick my daughter up at 10 or 11. I’m waiting to find out. How long do the tournaments run?
Longer than that if you get to the final table - 4-5 hours. Not getting there on time is no big deal. You can join until 9:15.
Thanks. I’m pretty sure if I play one of those things I’ll win, so I need the whole 4-5 hours. Can’t leave my 17yo waiting in an alley behind the Gelato store at night with all those Hermosa Beach drunkards.
Worst poker I’ve ever played. I usually buy back in if it’s before the cut off but I knew I was just not feeling it tonight.
Ever since I chopped at the FT with the chiplead about 5 tourneys ago, I’ve been extremely card dead and I don’t think I’ve won one all in.
I made a series of stupider frustration plays that ended in me just saying fuck it and donking off my addon. Time to triple up or go home.
I think maybe I should just buy the addon up front. I get squirrely with my stack knowing I can just add on if I go busto.
I hear ya, this is actually the only time I can play since we stay with the in-laws.
Tbh I’m baffled that you guys like low buyin live tourneys. If I’m gonna play live, it’s 100% cash games. Gotta be a better average hourly + the ability to get up and gtfo whenever I please
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Meh gonna play both, I just enjoy tourneys so I plan my visit around one if possible. If I was playing “regularly” I’d play basically all cash.
It’s better than staying home and getting drunk by myself. I like the low risk and relaxed atmosphere. And getting close to and at the final table where everyone’s sphincter tightens up is the most fun poker imo.
3 hands from tonight. Weird format where the ante is 2x the BB, but you start with 300 BBs. So it’s kind of like a straddle. My memory of my bet sizing might be off so don’t get too nitty about that.
Hand #1 super early in the tourney, so we’re playing 5 handed.
Blinds 100/100+200a - UTG (50ish dude) raises to 3BB, I call in UTG+1 with AJs, 2 more call.
Flop AK3 rainbow. UTG bets 1000 into 1500 pot or so. I call, everyone else folds.
Turn Q. UTG bets 1500.
Hero? Is folding here w/o a read too weak 5-handed?
Hand #2 blinds 100/100+200a
Folds to me on the button with KK. I make it 300. 50ish woman with WSOP sweatshirt in small blind calls. BB folds.
Flop 66T, two clubs. She checks. I bet 700, she calls.
Turn 8h. She checks. I bet 1000, she calls.
River Qc. She leads for 3000.
Hero is never good here right?
Hand #3 much later vs. villain from hand 1, who i’ve since learned is super splashy - like 40/20 VPIP maybe. Earlier I called him down with 66 when he bet on a rags river and had a 5 for 3rd pair. I’m not sure if he was bluffing or betting for value. He just knew he had a piece, so he bet.
Blinds 400/800 + 1600 ante
Someone limps from EP. Splashy guy calls from MP. Hero calls on the button with 8Tss. Blinds come along
Flop 567 two clubs. Checks around to hero who bets 4k into the 5600 pot. Only splashy guy calls. I really like my hand here as a 9 could get me mega-paid.
Turn Jh. Hero decides to YOLO and try get splashy guy off his middle pair and bets 10k. Splashy guy calls.
River 6s. Splashy guy leads for 6k into 35k pot or so.
He has about 80k chips behind and I have about 50k.
Sure feels like a blocking bet. Should hero go for it and shove?
If it matters there’s still time to buy back in for 30k chips. Does that matter? It really shouldn’t right?
I probably just call the first 2 hands down because I’m a fish. Last hand a shove is pretty interesting, I don’t know that I’d go through with it though.
Anyhow I shipped the tournament I went to and got a ticket for a freeroll in a couple of weeks. I don’t think I played that well post flop but still have my short stack skills and flipped well when all in.
Hand 1 just take one more off, you have a draw to the nuts, it can’t be that bad. He can have AJ as well or AT and will probably slow down on the river if he does.
Hand 2 I’d probably call, she can have QT and with everything other than QT there were other points in the hand where she might have acted differently.
Hand 3 it depends how the game plays but I’d be inclined to check behind on the flop because I’m not sure I can get 4 guys to fold and I don’t want to embark on a multi-street bluff. It depends how often people generally check and then call in these spots though.
lol, I only now read the rest of the hand. This is what I didn’t want to happen. I guess I think it’s worth shoving. He probably has a 7, the only issue is that he might call with it. The problem with triple barreling these boards is that it’s very easy for them to convince themselves you have a draw, because in their mind you can just have any 8, and maybe any 4 as well.
Hand 1: Ideally, you should decide if you are calling a river bet on a blank before you call any turn bet. On the one hand, betting 2/3 pot OOP in a multi-way pot is strong. On the other hand, the turn bet of less than half pot feels weak. I don’t know about in small bets in tournaments. I still haven’t figured out the psychology of down-betting, for example. Is it a blocking bet from someone with AJ/AT who wants to see the river? Is it someone with AQ trying to make it more attractive for a worse ace?
I would have considered a fold on the flop, but my local casino has a tournament population where the majority of players flat with AK and could have that behind me.
Hand 2: It’s a big bet from a player who has played passively on previous streets. There are no obvious hands that she would turn into a bluff here. It feels like she would bluff smaller. I’m fine with insta-folding.
Hand 3: Having the splashy guy in there suggests to me that a bluff isn’t going to work that often. I don’t think you need to bet that large on the flop. Once he calls the flop, he’s probably never folding a draw (is he more likely to have a draw since he was betting his weak pair on the previous hand?) on the turn unless you overbet, so I think the turn bet is a mistake. I hate trying to bluff bad players off of blocking bets because they like to level themselves into thinking you are bluffing because they made a bet that looks weak. I’ll do it, but I don’t auto-raise any weak bet.
Or he could have 6x here and thinks you won’t call a bigger bet. so he bets small hoping to get paid.
In a vacuum it’s weak on a slightly drawish board like this, but arguing against that is that it’s strong to bet twice at all on this board and that UTG raises frequently make strong hands here. It’s uncertain, so I’d take one off and fold to a large bet OTR, call vs a small one. If they do have the strong hand they generally get greedy and size up again OTR.
Couple things to bear in mind when interpreting bet sizing in LLSNL/low stakes tournaments:
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Bet size just straightforwardly describes hand strength much more often than you think it should. It’s not a hard and fast rule, obviously, but if you don’t know how to interpret sizing, fall back on that. The major exception is when they have a very strong hand and are trying to string you along, but that’s actually unlikely on an AKQx board, because:
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A large section of the low-stakes player base plays in a way not designed logically around making money, but in a way designed to minimise their emotional pain. Thus you often see very large raises with hands like TT and AK preflop, because the player remembers difficult spots they got into in the past, they want to avoid having that pain again. Similarly, LLSNL players generally hate giving free or cheap cards on drawish boards, because of how painful it is to do that and risk losing a pot they could have won. In the example of the AKQx board, they are averse not just to losing to a gutshot, but to the actual experience of seeing a J or T roll off the top. The pain and anxiety that brings is to be avoided, which means they work to avoid it out of proportion to the actual chance of losing to one of those cards. (Always worth asking yourself if you’re playing a certain way to avoid emotional stress, as well).
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Dude last night shoved on a K-rags flop. Original bettor tanked for a minute. Finally the shover told him he’d show if he folded. The tanker insta-folded and the shover turned over AK. Said he just didn’t want to get outdrawn.
But by far the worst part is the dude next to me started to berate him. A couple of us stared him down and I think he got the message to STFU.
“I’ll show you if you fold” reliably means you are beaten. In fact, unprompted speech of any kind reliably means you are beaten. One tell that is super useful is that people announcing their bet size when they bet means they’re relaxed and confident, i.e. they expect to be winning. You get the odd player who always announces it, but if they do it intermittently, pay attention.
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More live tellz please.
Another hand from last night:
- blinds 200/400 with 800 ante
- 55ish latino dude who I hadn’t seen get out of line, but seemed to be playing a lot of hands, opens from MP for 1200, I have 80k, he has me covered
- cutoff calls, I call on the button with A3dd, blinds call
- Flop AQ7 two spades - it checks to me - I bet 4k for 1/2 pot or so, only original raiser calls
- Turn 4c - villain leads for 10k, for about 2/3 pot, I call
- River 8d - villain leads 25k for about 2/3 pot
Hero? I figure this is either 77, QQ, AA, AQ or I’m good. Does he even check AQ on the flop? I tanked for a long time trying to get a read. I couldn’t pick up nervousness or confidence. Dude was kind of a blank page. I did get him to look me in the eye for just a bit but didn’t really get a feel. Maybe no read = strength.
FWIW - I feel like I’m generally ok at reading strength or weakness but couldn’t pick up anything on this guy. I think I’ve always been naturally good at the psychology aspect of the game - reading other people’s emotions - especially when it gets close to the money or FT money ladder and they tighten up. My problem has always been controlling my own emotions.
Other streets: Fold pre seems way too weak? Fold turn?
I should say that by this point I’ve seen lots of big bluffs - which isn’t common at this buyin IME. (But not from this villain yet.) This is $30k guaranteed and at Commerce when they’re running other bigger tourneys. So it seems, like the $50k guaranteed Gardens tourney, to attract a lot more actual poker players as opposed to just old nits and splashy guys trying to make hands.
Later on when I was at a fairly new table and down to about 10BB-ish effective (with the weird double ante thing) - a splashy guy in EP raised to 5k and I was thrilled to shove my TT over him. But dude to the right of me who I hadn’t seen play a hand and seemed to be doing the think for exactly 20 seconds before doing anything strategy - made it 20k out of his 80k stack. I folded, unhappily, then watched as he folded to aggression from splashy guy on a low flop. GRRRR.
Also Sat night vs. Sunday afternoon might make a difference. But no one is drinking. Commerce is quite the scene on Sat night though. I saw at least 3 guys who were clearly dealing or scoring coke and maybe some hos. But also a ton of people who seemed to be there just to hang out at the bar - like it was Vegas or something.
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I’d probably fold pre. I’d check the flop if I played this hand.
I’m more about betting patterns than tells. Check/call flop, lead turn is usually either a hand that was slow-playing and now doesn’t want to give a free card on the turn or a hand that improved on the turn. The first case doesn’t make much sense since it is the preflop raiser. The second case suggests either A4 or a spade draw that picked up a straight draw. This is how some people would play 6s5s.
FWIW - I folded and 1 and 2.
Hand 1 the guy said he had a really good hand. But I also saw him making some squirrely plays later.
I think 2 was very likely correct. But this early in the tourney where you’re likely to be at the same table with people for a while - I guess information has some value.
I did shove in hand 3. Blocking bets must be punished. Dude thought and muttered forever, then finally folded, and was clearly still thinking about it for a few orbits. Whew.
Probably the only bluff shove I’ve done in 12 tourneys. Not something to make a habit of imo given how much people hate to fold - at least not until money bubbles.
I’d generally threebet the A3dd there, suited aces being solid hands to light threebet with. Depends what my chances are of getting folds obviously. Calling is fine too. Folding is out of the question for 3x this deep with an ante, and in position no less.
That’s a very weird line and it seems like a close decision. I guess I’m calling him down? If you’re beaten I think the most likely hand is A4. I really don’t see him check calling this flop with a strong hand. He could also have some sort of draw and not have wanted to bet the flop into a crowd. He’ll occasionally also show up with a nonsensical hand like KQ. It’s tough because there are certainly players where you’re just always beaten here, but it’s just so hard to come up with plausible hands that I have to go with the pot odds.