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I was originally just planning on talking about how whatever your strategy is, no matter how much you plan there is still a weak link - and it's the player. I got on this thought as I was playing the other day, and got into that mind set of my bets and bluffs just couldn't miss. Had a pretty good run on taking blinds and chipping up after a good hand where I was just behind. Then I went loose on my range and just pushed a pure bluff, pre-flop and got caught. Had to fold the hand as they had me covered and jammed, this left me nearly crippled and I just couldn't recover.

It was in doing a bit of hand analysis - this one didn't take long - that I thought about sharing poker stories here. I've been playing a lot lately, mostly tournaments. So I figured I would gauge interest in sharing some more interesting hands, like key double ups, or beats both bad and deserved. Finally the hands that get me eliminated, often these won't be anything of interest as they will be an all-in from short stack, but I've had some beauties over the years that I didn't see coming.

It would depend on the week but I generally play 3 or 4 nights a week depending on my work schedule, and would maybe make a post or 2. I know it's not the general gambling discussion that goes on, but figured there's gotta be a few people who may take an interest.

I would also totally welcome others to post their tales. By the way I'm not pro, I play micro-low stakes, and just really enjoy playing (ignore those 20 seconds after some hands) and trying to improve.

^  Use a hand converter when sharing your hands (look for one that works in the forum).  And don't include the results for interesting discussion and analysis.  It also avoids any results based thinking.

Good luck on the tables.  ;)

I'm also not a pro at poker. Bluff may also work especially to those who are weaker in mind. Some poker player bluffing to another player and other player return the favor and also did a bluff so the result is that the first one who bluff would only fold his hand. Actually, it happened to me in person playing poker in my neighborhood.

Poker strategy largely depends on the opponents. Bluffing could be a good strategy in 1 in 10 games. If you bluff enough, and found, you'd b cornered.
It's really difficult to play with a bluffer with huge funds to spare. Need to play safe until you get a very good hand.

Bluffing is as good as a strategy as it is risky. Heck, all of us probably already experienced being defeated by a bluff, even if we actually held on to a good hand. On the other hand, bluffing requires a huge push. A huge bet where its almost close to you going all in. And if you actually meet a fellow bluffer, that turns the fight into a quite interesting scene. And in all honesty, bluffs are the ones that make the poker games really fun and enjoyable, but also really risky.

up against nitty players, it's tough not to get a bit loose-aggressive. on the button or in the cutoff position against weak nits, i'll raise any two cards. every once in a while, they catch a hand---that's the game.


that'd be cool. it's been a few months, but i've been getting the hankering to fire up ACR and get a few tables going. MTTs are an old pastime of mine. maybe i can join you in some hand analysis. :)

maybe we could even get a bitcointalk private game going sometime. where do you play?

Well, the player is the cause for a good and bad result of a strategy. I mean if you follow the strat to the last word, could lead to a potentially stupid loss since the person himself doesn't know how to adjust properly in various situations. On the other hand, impulsive reactions could lead to huge losses, just like the bluff OP has presented.

Though tbh, Bluffing is a huge weapon of gamblers. Have lost to them quite occasionally and have often used them myself. Just that... Me using it hasn't really brought any benefits or at least has made a close enough win to offset my losses from it.

When you are caught bluffing you can use it to your advantage the next time you have a good hand, lets suppose that a few hands later you have a high pair or an ace with a high card and then when the flop comes your hand is improved or it is still the best hand, if you make a big bet it is still going to be fresh in the minds of many of your opponents the bluff you made a few hands ago, especially if you made a big deal out of it, so your opponents are more likely to not believe you and that is when you can get them and get most of their chips.

Thanks that's good advice I'll play around with what I've found so I can try and bring something polished in here for discussion. Wish
That's exactly what it felt like... that or they were sick of losing blinds either way hand was definitely caught in the cookie jar there. Like you said part of the game.
I definitely welcome anyone wanting to take part in analysis and just general chat. I'll try and take some time to get set up and put something together. I've played on and off for a few years usually call it quits when I drain the small bankroll. This time I took a different approach and decided to be a bit more focused. It's paid off. Currently I'm only playing on ACR, they drew me in with the BTC deposits. A Bitcointalk crew game would be pretty epic - might be tough finding enough players that fit the same stakes but definitely would be a good time I think. If you think we could get something like that going I'd be down for sure.

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Don't have time to respond to everyone, but just to clarify for some. You need to bluff in poker - it just has to be a balanced part of your game. It's no different an aspect than raising, betting or checking; if you aren't trying it you will not win - unless you have a very well placed horseshoe  ;)

Last night I had the opportunity to try something new in a final table and it was pretty sweet. Made final 2 and just steamrolled my opponent for the win. I'm still not trying to be results oriented and this past month or so is a small sample but I think I've been doing a decent job of plugin leaks and not letting a bad beat or sucking out wins sway me from my overall gameplan.

that's why bet sizing is so important. i see a lot of guys in late position overbetting---like 3.5-4x into an empty pot, no antes---to steal blinds. it's a high risk/low reward situation. in that situation, i much prefer to bet small because weak players will still fold a similar amount of the time. they are also more likely to call a weak bet then shove all-in, because an overbet from late position makes for good pot odds for them to re-steal. i don't like to give the blinds favorable pot odds like that.


great, i'm on ACR as well. i'd love to play on pokerstars or full tilt but alas, i'm in the states.

i'm pretty sure most of us would be happy to keep this low stakes. tourneys are always more fun than ring games IMO. ACR has private tournaments. we could set up a password-protected game. $5 or $10 buy-in etc? maybe we could make it a monthly or weekly affair. :)

You sound like you know what you're talking about.  Were you one of the guys who joined the wave from gaming to online poker to crypto..?  ;)

Just wondering...  And if yes, I wonder what you think what the 'next big thing' is after crypto.  ;D

I think the best strategy is to play safe and follow what the cards are.Also being extremely patient is a virtue only a few have and it adds up to your skills well.As for bluffing I would only use it as a last resource for example after I see all 5 cards and knew that I can’t win but I think the opponents are bluffing too.Trust me rarely use it and most of the time you will come up as a winner.

yep, online poker was my gateway to crypto. i was in college during the mid-2000s poker boom---i miss those days. so many fish everywhere! after i graduated i played semi-pro for a while, getting staked, until black friday hit. that fucked up everything. the smaller networks still serving USA players didn't have enough player liquidity and they had all sorts of banking problems paying people out---bounced checks, delayed wires, etc. so i went out and got a real job.

but i still played casually on the smaller networks, and eventually in late 2012 i stumbled onto this thread on the 2+2 poker forum about a bitcoin-based poker client called "seals with clubs"---no banks, no slow-paying, no bounced checks. sounded great! so i bought some bitcoins and hit the tables. not nearly enough players, lost interest......but then in early 2013 the BTC price started bubbling. and then i became fascinated by it. all the things i loved about poker---the psychology, the numbers---it all applied to markets too. so my love for poker became a love for trading (and also a love for this new technology that cut banks and governments out of the equation!)

as for the "next big thing".....too early to say. i think we still have another major wave of cryptocurrency adoption ahead. after that, where do i want to invest my money? the legal cannabis and especially the hemp/CBD markets probably. the CBD market is going to be bigger than anyone can imagine right now.

So true, poker is a patience game, we need to wait for the good hand but if the good hand never comes them bluffing is the way to stay alive until the good hand comes.

For the bluff I like to rise from the start and then all in after the 3 cards come to the table, that's a nice bluff.

For my strategy i will play with patience and waiting until i have good cards and if i already have it then i will pretend have bad cards but i will call the bets to those who very liked to bluffing while playing and if everything's open in the table then at the end of game i will go to all in from my bets so usually those who have no good cards will fold and i won the money but this strategy needed extra patience to ensure our cards really good

I still keep playing poker but not so much as a couple of years ago. Of course, my favorite game is Texas Holdem and I play all kinds of tournaments and games like Sit N Go's or heads up.
As I said already, I don't have so much time lately to play but still, at least I try to play one tournament a week and if possible additional few hours on Sit N Go's or heads up tables.

The only problem with poker is that it takes a lot of time. You have at least spent a couple of hours to play a medium-size tournament with 5000 people. Many times I didn't have so much time and there is nothing worse as to play at the final table in such circumstances. This is obvious that if you want to achieve something in poker you will have to allocate a lot of time fo this.

Now I am waiting for OP to share the hands to discuss further.

I still considered poker game is based on luck game, because when you have received cards in your hand try not to over-analyze everything when you are in a table. Because probably opponent players will find tricks in doing something stupid and for sure you could ever come up with on your own.

Yeah, it takes time but dont be afraid to bet a strong hand on the river that isn't the nuts just like a set when the flush hits, as you can almost always fold with confidence in your self to a check raise.

Nice thread op, I want to learn more on hand strategies.

Poker is based on luck and strategy, based on my experience, it's will always be a bluff game when you are playing on higher stakes game. You can do a safe game or win quick and big.

You can just read your opponent's gesture and betting pattern on the first half of the game. Based on my experience, it's easy to win if you know the person you are playing with, and if you don't, stay low on the first half of the game and read them one by one. Poker will always be a bluff game, so don't establish a betting pattern, the more your bet is unpredictable, the more it is okay. Real-life poker or online poker is just the same, so my tips is, if you have a brave heart, poker is for you.

That's why bluffing is a skill and you need to practice while you play and play poker. That's why it is called poker because you need to control your facial expression for your opponent to become confused about the things that you're doing in the table. Bluffing is not that easy to perform because it is a way on how you will help yourself win a lot of money in the end.



It is very hard to predict the cards of the opponent if he's very good in performing bluffing during the game. By bluffing you can manipulate the game but the risk are higher because if you're doing bluffing while you don't have good cards then you're dead. The consequences will be only towards your money, and some of the gambler in poker are losing a lot of money because of that. If you start a poker game with continuous losing then you're not that lucky in that certain day.

Hah...  CBD won't be as much fun as the sickos here in crypto tho.  Lol.  But yeah...  Same story here but my introduction to BTC was thru none other than genjix, who used to play poker small stakes back in the day.

Anyway poker...  Anybody serious about the game should learn NLHE Short Deck.  IMHO.

Actually in poker I don't know some strategies on winning because I've learned different way on how to win based on my experience. Playing with a lot of people especially underground makes me stronger and be able to earn or double my money in just a split of second. In poker what you need to have is the peace of mind and the sense on how to read the enemies entire card in order for you to think what may be his/her move on the next round. This probably the best way I have been learned in my years of gambling and playing poker. Poker is one of the very hard game to play yet the most good and mind blown gambling you can ever play. Always remember that the game is always an act and all you need to do is to go with the flow.

That's a great point. I have a fairly standard RFI, and if not first I do use a larger multiplier for 3-bet pre, if they come in light, or my hand calls for it. Min raising in first especially from early position is a pretty big flag for me that screams attack. The biggest thing there is stack sizes, as I've seen it played like a limp trap before; so it's one of those spots I try to balance with flatting. Hard to explain... for me anyways but even online you get a feel for who is just scared to get stacked.
Speaking of late position raises giving favorable pot odds - I love it when people Jam the button or cut-off (RFI pre), it reeks of desperation; this is usually how I get a good base for a tourney early on when I'm lucky enough to have even a half decent hand to defend my blind. The odd time it's someone with AA and there's not much you can do there, except suck out on them lol

Yeah that's a weird situation for you guys in the US, being state dependent where you can play from what I can tell. I was watching a Vlogger jump state lines so they could play a newly launched state-run online poker room. I had it pretty easy as far as being able to play anywhere pretty much; drawback is my bank and credit card won't allow a direct deposit to any site from what I could tell - All the more reason for BTC. More than happy with ACR so far - Withdrawals are a bit slow, and am still waiting to see what rate they use for my BTC equivalent as it has fluctuated quite a bit.
Black Friday must have been a bitch, I've talked with a couple people over the years who were either PRO or Semi, sounds like a fuk'n tough decision. Some relocated and just kept on trucking, but I can understand not uprooting entirely.

I love the idea of a private tourney. We should definitely talk on it some more maybe I'll start a thread about it to garner interest. I agree I'm much more a fan of a tournament than just a ring game, used to be purely for the amount of hands I could expect to play for experience. Even a small group would make it worth while. I'm not sure of a date yet, I work shift work and might be starting a new job in the next month or so. Once I know a day that works for sure I'll set something concrete up with you for sure. I'm pretty pumped for this.

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I used to think very similar to this. Unfortunately it's not always the case, sometimes the good hand isn't coming and when it does you can still be edged out. If you keep your bluffs balanced and disguised similar to bets with good holdings it's a very effective tool. I don't play much in the way of cash games; I do imagine I would be bluffing with a lower frequency if I did but would still find spots to try.
I've used this as a strategy before, both with a strong hand and pure bluffs. It's generally done from Out of Position - I do only Jam the stack if I'm short other than that it's a standard C-bet size 3/4 or pot size. I do take in account the player positions and what I believe their range should be, if the flop appears to miss this then it's my time to take  a shot.
Not bad to disguise you hand strength. Just keep in mind that you hand strength can weaken significantly if you just call along, sometime they bet using their fold equity expecting to put you off a decent hand. If you never let go their draws can get there, and if you Jam they are smiling. You might want to consider working in some re-raises on the turn to push them off their draws.
That's the truth, I was up until 4:30 Am on Friday, started the tourney at about 10 ish. Now that only happened as I went deep, final table was a slow moving beast. Though these are the times it's definitely worth it. Unless I feel gambly and jump into a late reg, I make sure I have a minimum of 5 hours available and no hard plans afterwards in case.
Very good points, a pattern easily gets picked up by good players. Having a strategy is what's needed and you have to work it around a lot of different factors. Getting a read on people is good, but definitely don't forget that you still want to get in at the right spots for your hand strength and stack size.

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Sorry for not coming back with some hands. I need to download some software, I should have grabbed long ago. My old site had hand history and replay available right there on the table so it was easier to review, ACR can be clunkier in that way. I will get that done tonight and when I hit the tables on Wednesday and Thursday I'll bring some hands back to the thread.
Side note on my play. I moved up in stakes on Friday, the night started with me playing my usual games of 1-3$ and luck was not with me, as I got stacked a few times; let's say against questionable hands that were likely played by individuals who could care less about the money... or the game. I hate seeing people say things like "chill, it's a 2$ tourney" to justify playing hands like 94 off suit. Not all of them, but enough that it mixed in to essentially ruin the experience that evening. So I jumped up to a 10$ game - Not advice to "chase the loss" as some would say, but this is well within my budget for playing. So far I've noticed the frequency has declined of let's call'em "Donks", and I can feel the increased level strategy and gameplay. I've decided to stay at this level, doesn't hurt I took that Friday night tournament down.  ;)

Bluffing is a good strategy but only if you do in control and dont bluf often while playing. Bluffing might work with players who you have not played much with but if you find table where people know your style, too much bluffing might get you cornered. I feel the best strategy could be to play according to your hand , know your opponent, make variation while bidding and also bluf periodically but not often.

poker is a tough game it requires tremendous amount of self discipline. Having the stamina to go into the microscopic details of any hand breakdown is key. Poker demands a well trained mind and at the same time ability to focus and grasp quickly. Having said that the biggest skill is BANKROLL MANAGEMENT, however simple it may sound, it is a tough skill to acquire because it depends upon your personality (how aggressive you can be regarding your funds), I believe that every person look and treat his bankroll differently, there is no golden rule regarding that.
 

never played, why do you say? i'm skimming the rules and hand rankings.....seems like a really high variance game, yeah? harder to wrap my head around the probabilities from street to street. perhaps a bit like omaha in that way.


last time i withdrew they required a manual phone call, which was annoying, but withdrawals have always come through within 24 hours and i don't recall ever being bothered by the exchange rate.


i'm pretty open myself. i'm self-employed with a really flexible schedule. shoot me a PM when you have a better idea of timing and we can start gauging interest. :)

I am not a regular Poker player or a pro. I play using Zynga. Bluffing still works but not all the time. There are times when I got a bad cards, I just go all-in and they will all fold but that doesn't work all the time as there are players who really have a good card with them and willing to go all-in as well.

I usually practice on a mobile phone where you play Texas Hold'em poker and play with imaginary chips. That's how I remember the possible strategies that could happen on the real table. Just like what others said, it's helpful to know how strong your hand you are dealt with and if it's still effective when the flop happens and when it's the end game. I play with my friends and bet a small amount of money, and it's just for fun.

Practicing the poker face is hard, though, especially when you are playing with friends who knows you a lot. Bluffing makes it even worse, and you will catch the lie given. Lol. Good times.

Just imagine that one time I started to play in a tournament with 10.000 people which takes as you know a lot of time. It was the first time that I managed to be in the last 20 people but didn't know that it would take almost 10 hours with all these breaks and stakes changes. Of course, when I was at the final table I couldn't focus because I had to go to work and was playing the final table when driving in the car. Luckily I could switch to my phone but anyways it cost me a few hands because I had to log out and log in again. For sure you know that these few hands were crucial because the stakes at the final tables are high. Don't mention that I couldn't focus properly and to watch other players.

I was lucky to start with poker in 2005 when all these poker rooms just opened online like Pokerstars, FullTilt or 888 and many others. They were easily available in Europe and every poker room offered no deposit bonus from 20 to even 250$, many times without any KYC or IP checks. You just needed to open an account with an email. Of course, many players abused the system and opened multiple accounts but in my case, that was not needed because when I counted all bonuses I have taken in poker rooms it was almost 5000$ in total. That was very lucky because with this money I learned how to play poker without spending even a dime from my own money.

Many times I was able to lose these 250$ bonuses in a few days if this would be my money I think I would stop but that was all free, so I continued to take new bonuses and tried further. I was a great fish to reap off at the start. With time I learned how to properly play poker thanks to many websites which taught how to play. There were websites with free courses even with couches back then and for free. Today everything changed and for a good poker course you have to pay a lot of money and there are almost no no deposit bonuses anymore, only very rare and small once 10 or 15$.

Additionally, if you didn't have the money there were always many freerolls with very high prices. I was able to play all day long only freerolls and not one only multiple at once. Today this changed drastically and only a few rooms are legally available in Europe. The time from 2005 until 2012 it was the golden time for online poker. Even small tournaments had very big awards.

If you don't have the skill in poker, winning can't be attainable. Sometimes the experts of this card game will give you winning chances but in the long process it's a very disappointing situation, when you're about to lose all your moves. Bad cards always depends on how you manage each and every pattern.

Super high variance...  More so than PLO but I'm playing it at nano stakes for fun so I wouldn't know how people play it with money that would actually matter to them.  But from what I've seen, lots of limping pf which makes it the correct play due to the structure:  Everybody antes a small blind, with the button posting a bb.

I used to play poker every day at Zynga, which is provided by Facebook. At that time around 2010 ... just like you I played it with my friends. I prefer playing with cards on the table. In a sense I rarely do all in when my card is good in the hand for example a pair of Ace. So I'm not the type of player who relies on bluffing.and I have never played with real money

not the type of game i would ever play for nosebleed stakes but micro stakes sounds fun. too bad they don't have it on ACR, otherwise i'd give it a whirl. ACR only just managed to add fast-fold NLHE last year (which full tilt poker had in 2010-11). they are behind the times to say the least. :)

The BTC withdrawal went through fine, I just didn't realize they processed them Mon-Fri. It looks like they used the rate at the time I requested it so that was nice. The only annoying issue was that I had to use a legacy address, and it wasn't clearly stated but I had a wallet available so no big D.

I think we might be able to set something up one of the last weekends in February. Looks like I'll have a new job by then barring any pre-employment testing failures and I have those weekends off due to training. Love it.

Downloaded the trial of poker tracker to see if it's what I want to run with, but I definitely noticed my elderly PC struggle to run it and ACR... couldn't resist jumping into a tourney to test it out  :P So 2:30 am and  busted out in 15th for a 1 buy-in profit, fired 3 bullets  ::). I am dropping a hand below from sometime in play for discussion.
For whatever reason hands I thought I tagged didn't show up but I'll do a little research later on that, might be a trial version issue not sure. The tracker definitely froze up for a good hour mid session though as I couldn't toggle the HUD and it appeared to be stuck on hands long passed.
More disappointing purely for ego boost, is that it picked up tourneys from before and after my big win but left it out.

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Hero has 30ish BB in CO, Villain has 14ish BB in HJ, SB is short-stacked and BB is chip lead
Villain min raises pre
Hero CO with Ac 7c , calls
BTN folds - Small stack as well
SB folds
BB calls

Flop - 4 2 7 rainbow, 1 club
Checks to villain, they bet 1/4 pot about 1/4 of their stack.
Hero Jams all-in.
BB folds

I jam to put them in and isolate. My thought process here is that BB does have me covered but they floated in with odds and I am more than 60% of their stack, not a great point in the game to push it. With them not flexing with a donk lead I figured they were scared to lose chips to early position players with stronger ranges, even if they connected with this board. I have shown a wide range so it's hard to put me on or off anything. Villain isn't repping any strength with the min bet in and small C-bet compared to their stack size. I have fairly good pot odds especially given I have a back door flush draw and top pair top kicker based on the board. Villains stack is about 50% of mine and would put me in a strong position for the remainder of the tourney.

Let me know what you think happened in this spot, what you might have done differently. I will try and work on actually pulling hands in a forum format in the future or maybe even posting hands in a locked thread for ease of viewing. Open to suggestions.

Edit: Thought maybe I would add the hand that stood out to me the funniest of my early busts. I had AA, and an early position player Jams. I happily put in the call, they show A 10 offsuit, 4 to a straight 10 high and I bust out.

Yup, it's fun.  :)  Go try it at Pokerstars.  And use Neteller.  You can make a deposit over there via BTC then to Stars.

Withdrawals back to BTC is gonna be a problem tho.  But in my case I'm the fish now...  I donate to the poker economy.  Lmao.

Poker is classified as a game of skill and it is not difficult to see why, even if you do not control the cards you receive, you control what you do with them, this is no different than what happens in real life, you do not get to choose what happens to you by events outside of your control but you can control yourself and this is the reason why we see such huge differences between the outcomes of two different persons that begin their lives in similar conditions.

Because of just one caught on bluff doesn't mean it has ruined your plan or gaming quality. It's better to sit on regular tables (not on fast forward or turbo) and play with players that have decent money cause more likely they'll play on long term (personally I think so from my experience). During bluff, the best thing to do is to manage when to show your cards (muck) and by this way decide what to show them: You had good cards and lost, you had bad cards but still follow the game (bluff).
But of course bluff is useless against good cards, gambling of poker in real life is a whole better experience cause it's easier to understand other's emotions, despite the fact that they may fake it, if you are great at it, you'll see fake emotions and use it for you.

Without any solid reads and I assume the antes hasn't kicked in yet..?  I'd jam or fold pf but leaning towards a fold if there are no antes and if villain is on the tight side.  Lean towards jamming with antes.

As played, iffy spot.  He'd be playing perfectly vs you if you jam (folding worse, calling better).

Thanks for playing lol. So I did forget to mention the ante would be equivalent to 1 BB, and this is made up of a smaller ante from each player... I only found out a few months back it's common for a BB to pay the full ante at times.

I was fairly new to this table and 2 or 3 hands ago this guy got coolered he had QQ, and player to his right had KK. He was pissed, calling him out in Chat and stuff "Of Course the German wakes up with KK, WTF" I had a good laugh.

I'm guessing you meant preflop "pf" or is that post flop?? So the way it played out the villain was limping and really risked not getting the value from their premium hand... they had AA. I definitely didn't put them on a pocket pair of any significance with how passive they played the overall hand.

The point in the tourney was final 15 players I believe I was 8th or 9th at the time. I did finish in the money still, nothing big. I also had a little troll and said "Of course the American wakes up with Aces" couldn't resist. I was essentially crippled and made my stand with 9 10 of Diamonds and was called down by JQ suited and lost.

So I believe all my hands and tournaments from the last week showed up yesterday. Still getting used to this poker tracker thing. I will likely be able to bring some more hands to this thread for some fun time analysis of my failures... and hopefully a few successes. I will try and balance them out to keep an accurate picture of where my gameplay is at. This week in general has been a bit shit in terms of Beats and flips just not going my way. I was also trying to get away from having to fire multiple bullets into tournaments but my overall strategy and ranges just doesn't allow me to get away from a lot of those spots at times. When your beat you are beat.

This week wasn't without it's entertainment though. Now I really don't have an issue with Americans, I try and avoid generalizations as best I can, but a shit person is a shit person and I will play the troll game when I can if provoked. So here's my poker table talk time, and a hilarious outcome.

Early in the game on break I see the chat lights up with Canada sucks, being the only Canadian at the table I shrug and decide to use my 3 minutes for fun. So I apologize for not speaking "pew pew pew". Buddy launches into a hilarious tirade of political, crap homophobic ranting. It's always easy to have a response against someone like this. My favorite was his hypothetical of "Say Iran bombs your country" I go for the literal and just type it back... he doesn't get it. So game fires up again, and weirdly enough at every table change he is moved with me, not only to the table but he keep his position to my right... annoying to say the least. About an hour after I stopped responding in that break, in UTG I see JJ sweet as I'm a well shy of average stack and well off the money, as I've been card dead for about a half hour.

Do my 2.5X raise, 1 caller on the button, then BB(Mouthpiece) Jams. This is about 17 or 18 BB raise, JJ isn't going anywhere as he could really have anything... I honestly didn't take the chat into account.  Call him down and wouldn't you know it my friends AA are what he's holding.
His overall play hasn't been splashy or anything but I have seen him throw out a few raises to protect his Blinds and what not. I chalk it up to again just being coolered and somethign I couldn't get away from. He then tosses out a parting comment along the lines of shitty Canadian player or something. Made me laugh as if he had masterfully trapped me with some shit holding or something.

Curious if others would have called that Jam. Stack sizes for me and the mouthpiece were around 20 BB, he had me covered by about 200$ 1/2 a BB at this point I believe. BTN had us both covered by a wide margin. There were about 3 rounds of late Reg available but at that point you are just buying in to gamble a flip.

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Side note on game types. I tried one out last night and it honestly felt like drinking a pot of coffee, and being injected with Adrenaline. I could not feel calm for the life of me. 6 max turbo. Blinds increase every 5 min, you are constantly chipping down as it's 6 max, even worse when the tables only have 4 people at times. The weirdest part was hand strength felt like an illusion, people were jamming anything and everything likely feeling the same pressure I was. I did finish 16th I think for a little over min cash, but I don't know that I will sit down to this table again. Maybe if I catch it from the start, but even joining after 5 levels had me feeling uneasy fast. Maybe I'm just a woos lol

depends how frustrated i was by the cold cards. :P

his style sounds too tight to be calling given those stacks. what's his expected range? you think he's jamming TT or lower, AJ or lower? unless he's been loose with all-ins, you're probably either dominated or looking at a flip. i think we can afford to wait for a better spot.

Thanks as I think you nailed it. I was feeling like I overvalued my J's based on the cards I had been dealt in the last half hour and was creating my own ICM pressure. For whatever reason I played this hand as if I had ~10BB or less, in regards to the call.

I am ashamed to say I didn't give his jamming range as much thought as I should have. I didn't even get to the time bank, so about 30 seconds of consideration, which at most I could have given 90. In the same way I played my call as if I had ~10BB I believe I projected that on him. HEre is what I did put him on in that rather snap decision

AX suited, 99+, and A10+ off suite. I did think there were possibly some mid range suited connectors and/or gappers. I know this as that's what I was most likely expecting hoping to see.

I have to play around with poker tracker so I can understand what it's telling me about my hands and also now that most are there I can try and look back over a few to get a better feel. I personally feel I have been overvaluing a lot of the bottom of my ranges in spots. Some flips that I lose are just that, and I believe I should keep playing them, but in general I think I'm calling a bit heavy. Not always but enough that it's a noticeable leak. There is also a mental aspect to the game that I believe is leading me down that path, as noted above with the pressure I create for myself.

While thinking this one over, I had to ask what better pocket pair would I have still found myself in this situation. I would have called KK all day long, I can't decide on QQ though. In trying to learn from this I think it's a fold; I just don't know if I could lay it down and think it has to be player specific - so in this case lay it down for the same reason as JJ.

Yup pf is preflop.  Anyway you lost me at the rest of your post.  Lol.  You said at the hand history the villain minraised, now he limped pf?

Sorry I could see how that is confusing. I might have it wrong but I consider min-raising and small betsizing to be a limping strategy. I can avoid referring to it in that way if it is confusing... or just plain wrong in the terminology. This is really the only time I've had people to talk poker with so I'm bound to get things wrong from time to time  ;)

probably so. QQ is a slightly tougher fold there because of the possibility that he's holding AQ (or maybe even KQs). i am also calling that all day with KK regardless of the player.

laying down monster pocket pairs pre-flop is always tough and counter-intuitive. :-\

So I had an interesting week; not winning wise but that's alright I only got into 2 tourneys I think. I did find a lot of time to do some theory study and realized something about my strategy. I had essentially been applying a cash games strategy to my tournaments; which isn't inherently wrong but was definitely opening me up to a lot of bad spots and missed opportunities.
There were hands I was laying down in places that I could have played, and also some insights into facing RFI's where I now have a better understanding of their range and why they may be doing things.

One big thing I'm trying to shift is in my sizing up of opponents, I feel I need to give them more credit for having it. This doesn't necessarily get me away from a lot of the flips I should be getting involved in. It does however prevent me from chipping down in spots where I could let it go, and leaving me in a rough spot down the road.

One thing I'm still having trouble narrowing down, and I'm not sure if it's a problem or this is a results oriented thing. Bet sizing post flop - Pre flop I RFI from 2.15-2.5X. Post Flop I tend to try and tie it to a % of the pot - say 30-45%, then looking to either the same or to a 50-60% on the turn, I mix it up(not hand strength dependent). I will play my bluffs the same as I play my strong hands - middling if I haven't decided to try and bluff based on villain position and board texture is generally a check/call or check fold.

I think I was also falling into an old trap I create for myself. Seeing there as being a proper way to play OOP. Mostly with the "donk" lead. Sometimes you just have the hand or a decent opportunity for a bluff to balance the play out. I've come around on this and think it's a decent play, especially if when you have it your hand could suffer in strength from a turn or river card.

I'm going to try importing my database again today to see if the hands I've been tagging show up and then I'll bring hand reviews into the thread. Still having a great time making decisions with hands like JJ, QQ pre but I've decided tournament wise anyways it sort of depends on stack sizing and my tournament life, it's about as simple as I can make it for myself but something I'll need to keep weighing as time goes on.

annoyingly, ACR never got back to me about setting up a private game. i wish they had a "home game" type feature like pokerstars. it would make things a lot easier.


based on pot size or BB size? do you not fluctuate bet sizes much based on your position, eg UTG vs OTB?


too many factors (stack sizes, villain playing styles, ITM considerations) to settle on any "hard and fast" strategies. you've always gotta be in flux from tight/loose and passive/aggressive, and always be learning too. otherwise you'll end up no better than mediocre. :)

i've been meaning to share some hands as well, but mainly only been playing blitz ring games so far. tournament hand review is way more interesting.

Staying humble and being calm works when you are playing stakes on the table. Dont play a single style game and keep variations. I prefer to play according to my hand and i dont shy away to fold at the starting when I am not sure about my hand..you can bluff but do know the players on the table with you. If you bluff too much or too less , others can learn your style and try to corner you.

this is the same as playing on other kinds of gambling or online gambling for example .

if we keep playing with the same bet and the same payout the system will soon catch us and deploy red strakes on us resulting for us to get busted but if we keep on changing our setting its hard for them to catch us because they will get confuse so we can increase our chances of winning .

That sucks, at least there is no rush I've heard of a few other newer/smaller sites offering the homegame feature but I doubt they accept BTC.

I was gauging it mostly based on a % of pot size post-flop. I used to always use a manual number based on feel and board texture, and I think that was a better betting strategy. IF nothing else it was better for my bluffs. RFI I always use the same betsize to mask the weak hands with the strong hands, I adjust for limpers or to flat if there is earlier position action.

Well not to fall into the gamblers fallacy, but damn. I have to start getting there or winning a few of these tough spots. I had a funny first 6 hands last night when I took a shot.
AA first hand, in BB - folds around to me
KK when I'm button - RFI 2.2 BB - Folds through no action
QQ - UTG - RFI 2.2 BB - BTN caller and BB Jams. They just sat down a hand or 2 ago, and folded to a 3 bet. I take my time and think on what BTN may have, didn't think anything to strong without the 3-bet, and BB could be anything but likely 99+ maybe Ax s, ATo + or some other suited broadways. I call, BTN folds they show AKo and hit an A on the river.

Now here's the fun part on this next hand I'm down to less than 1/4 starting stack (11BB) and looks down at K7s - Not ideal but with 2 people flatting in I elect to Jam. Wouldn't you know it 1 caller, unfortunately he was shorter than I was at about 3BB, Flop a set, and turn quad K's.  :P  Worst timing ever for such an epic hand, but it did help me to survive a while longer.
Despite losing in a few of those spots, I feel like I made good decisions I got into a few spots where I played QQ, and AK, against people - the math said I couldn't fold, but more importantly the game feel made it feel right. They were flips in mid stages that went my way. Part of the game, but it does suck how often, people are Jam or Fold, with 25+ BB.

The hurt was real when I took AKs against AKo, and they hit 4 to a flush on the turn.

I forgot to bring the exact hand history I wrote down, but I have a good one here to share. This was a bluff - that I think worked as I manually chose bet sizing. To start they had maybe 60BB, and I was around 50BB

I open mid position at the bottom of my range early in the tournament 23 of hearts for an RFI 2.4 BB
1 caller Late position
[Flop] 9s 4h kd - I check, Villain checks
[turn] 7c - I lead out with a bet of 3.6BB villain calls
[River] 6d - I then size up my bet to ~11BB - Villain goes into the tank. I chose this line figuring if they had an Ax type hand they missed, not betting the Flop led me to bet turn to probe for a Kx type hand they were slow playing. The flat call leads me to believe they may have hit a 9X hand or something similar and are worried. They fold.

This guy was chatty and needed to know what I had lol. He elects to tell me he put me on JJ, and folded his TT. Even gave me the explanation that he figured I put him on Kx until the turn. I decide to throw him a bone and say only that I did not have JJ.


Edit: restructured for opinions and What would you do?
I have around 16BB, BTN around 21BB
I am BB with 5c6c
Folds to BTN
BTN RFI for min raise
SB folds
I call
[POT] 5.5BB

Flop - 3s,3c,4c

Checks through the flop
Turn is 8 diamonds maybe

Action to me - feel free to weigh in on what you would have done to this point and what you would do next. I will update with What happened after people have had a chance.

some other bitcointalk members are looking to set up a private game on sportsbet.io. it'll probably take place on sunday, could develop into a regular game: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5217547.0

i'll have to play via VPN since they don't accept USA players, but it should be doable since they allow anonymous accounts. feel free to join in, we're still trying to fill up a table or 2.


i'm ambivalent about it. i'm often annoyed when i bet into those people because i like to see flops. they turn regular tourneys into turbos. at the same time, they are the usual source of my double ups in the early/mid stages of a tourney when my range is still fairly tight.


what's your read on his preflop range? what are the odds he flopped a boat?

in most cases, i would not check down that flop. i like a post flop semi bluff here to put the pot odds in our favor. at these stacks, i would play it strong and make him pay for the turn and river.

as played, it depends on your read on the turn. do you think he connected with this board? i might prefer check-calling a small bet at this point and seeing if we connect on the river, although i'm still kinda tempted to bet the OESD and flush draw to see if we can get him to fold.

i think villain will have missed the board completely lots of times here which is why i prefer betting the flop. if he calls that bet, that narrows down his range. if he raises, you're still drawing to a monster with good pot odds.

Thanks I posted there, I might be able to make it work.
I used to really enjoy these players, but I gues I'm just on the other side of the variance fence these days, and you know what. It's not that fun lol. Just another thing for me to think about, and decide how many bullets I'm willing to fire into a tourney to deal with it.

---

My read so far is he only comes in with his strong hands. Generally he C-bets, and others have folded to it so I figured he might continue swinging regardless of what he has; we've only been playing for a little while and I don't recognize them from other tournaments. He's seen me go to showdown on a few occasions with strong holdings.
Here is roughly what I figured his range to be
I'm putting them on something like an Ax s, maybe ATo+. I typed this up earlier before changing the theme of the hand analysis - I did think he could have 88+ kind of hands he's fairly tight with what he plays pre from what I could tell. I personally felt he missed the board entirely on the flop and was looking to actually check raise him if he brought in a small c-bet.

Spoiler I feel I played this hand poorly regardless of the outcome. I'll post the finishing tomorrow in case anyone else wants to weigh in before the results are revealed.

so what happened with the 5c6c hand?

did you say you're using poker tracker? pt4? are you finding you're consistently getting all your hand history imported? i don't see support for WPN listed.

i was trying to go through my hand history manually yesterday and found that loads of big hands were missing from the file. i dunno what's happening exactly but ACR isn't consistently saving them. i'm tempted to try out pt4 if it can manage to save all my hand history....

Well sadly it went off the rails lol. I jammed the turn as I was still sure he missed it, or he fooled me and had a set or some overpair he was really willing to slowplay. Thinking it over I think I was annoyed at the missed opportunity for a 3-bet raise on the flop. If nothing else I was thinking this would elicit a fold and be seen as protecting my equity or realizing value form a 3, considering I was the BB and called a min should have been believable.

Villain snap calls, so I figure I'm boned, yes and no
River is a brick 9 of [I sure don't care as it's not a club lol] he shows AQ of diamonds. Good thing I'm at home as I bring out my WTF face.
In retrospect I would have liked to bet the turn at maybe a 6-9BB and then jam the river - either as a bluff or if I got there. This is my normal line and I feel it was a poro line to take - I would have felt the same if I had won the hand... I think.

In this particular hand I believe I gave my opponent to much credit for their gameplay and got burned because of it.
I have to play around with it as I feel like it has only imported my low stakes cash game hands I played. I thought it had brought in more but I was looking and couldn't find any of them. I'm going to spend some time going through their support/forum to figure it out. I'm still on the trial but that shouldn't be affecting the minimal use features to get used to it; I also don't want to buy it if I'm not sure I will get what I want out of it. I did enter a micro tournament to see but it didn't import yet either. It did find ACR and tie into the account when I registered, I was also able to bring up the HUD and hand reviewer the couple times I opened it up during play. It was just so slow and laggy because of my PC, that I haven't run it live lately. I will spend some time thisweekend getting to know it better and get back to you if I sort it out.
I can't believe how difficult to navigate the ACR hand histories are. I figured if I had hand numbers I would be able to search based on that but no luck, so I immediately go through and copy/paste it to notepad right after the hand is complete. I did grab 3 or 4 the other night I'm going to play around with a few hand converters and see if I can bring them in here easily, or I'll just type them out.

Edit: I did figure out where my tournament stats where but it's spotty at best. It doesn't have any of my winning tournament stats there, it doesn't have the buy-in info. It has chips won stats and positional stats, RFI and VPIP, among others.
I think I'm going to try another software before buying into this one as it's not really doing anything for me ATM.

been there. villain snap calling that blank turn, makes one wonder if they're trapping you with a flopped monster. tough hand, i'd have my WTF face on after seeing AdQd as well.


it's atrocious. WPN software is still like a decade behind pokerstars and full tilt.


it looks like HM3 supports WPN/ACR. same prices as poker tracker with a 15-day free trial. they accept bitcoin too. https://www.holdemmanager.com/hm3/

^  Is Stars still holding on to FTP's software without any intention of using it?  Such a waste imo.

Anyway has anybody tried Phil Galfonds poker site?  No huds allowed.  Should better for the casual players.

Patience is very much needed, in poker, you need to think of the possibilities that your enemy will release their card, it is needed to be patient and do not release your ace immediately, do some bluff that make your enemy bite that thing and then release your card, it is the matter of fast hand and fast mind strategy , poker may be so hard too, you need to have a good strategy and poker face if needed.

I did actually download it out of frustration the other day. So far it appears to be a much more intuitive program. Still doesn't break down my tournaments based on buy-in and what not. I haven't played around with it much yet, but I think it will be the one I pay to use.
I'm flopping around on trying it out, I believe it's actually possible to get HM3 free if I do give it a go, have to deposit and generate 100$ in rake to get HM3 free through their link. I'm going to read up on it a little more first to be sure. No HUD's is a pretty good idea to draw in the straight reg/casual. Couldn't hurt me, lol.

So I have hands... straight from my ACR hand history, I am apparently to stupid to figure out how to paste it into a converter so I'll just give it to you straight. I'm going to remove names, and that's about it. I'm going to post it without the end result and will save those to post after a day or so.

Let me know what you think of this format. I'm open to posting them however.

---

Going over these most were favorable. I just wanted to grab them quick as I wanted to go back over them and see if they could have been played better when the opportunity presented itself. Not going to lie it was also nice to finally get out of the slump that it felt like I was in and get there or hold a few times. Funny note I can't remember which of these hands it was but one of the bigger ones. Deeper in the tournament one of the Villains I beat at showdown thought he bluffed me off something as I bet RFI'd pre flop, cbet the flop then check folded the river. I had A high, and they had K high on a Q high board. I didn't have the hear to tell them I had nothing at all, lol. They actually showed instead of mucking so I felt like they were trying to poke a little.

Hand 1 this is an all-in before the river so I'm showing the result. - Level 7 (75.00/150.00) 18$ ante per player
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 144.00
Villain 1 calls 150.00    [UTG-1]                             chips - 4982
Dealt to Hero [8s Js]  [CO] raises to 435.00              chips - 4738
Villain-2 calls 360.00 [SB]                                     chips - 15583
Villain-1 calls 285.00
                                                 *** FLOP *** [Jc 5c 7h]
Main pot 1599.00
Checks to me
Hero bets 685.00
Villain-2 folds
Villain-1 calls 685.00
                                           *** TURN *** [Jc 5c 7h] [2d]
Main pot 2969.00
Villain-1 checks
Hero bets 795.00
Villain-1 raises 3844.00 to 3844.00 and is all-in
Hero calls 2805.00 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (244.00) returned to Villain-1
                                     *** RIVER *** [Jc 5c 7h 2d] [6s]
Main pot 10169.00
                                   *** SHOW DOWN ***
Villain-1 shows [3d 5d] (a pair of Fives [5d 5c Jc 7h 6s])
Hero shows [8s Js] (a pair of Jacks [Js Jc 8s 7h 6s]) collected 10169.00 from main pot

---

                                        Level 17 (500.00/1000.00) 125 Ante
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Hero [Jc 7c]

Villain raises 2000.00 to 2000.00 [CO]  chips - 32575

Hero [Jc 7c] calls 1000.00 [BB]   chips - 23860
                                                                          *** FLOP *** [8s 9s Jd]
Main pot 5375.00
Hero bets 2975.00
Villain calls 2975.00
                                                                     *** TURN *** [8s 9s Jd] [7s]
Main pot 11325.00
Hero bets 2355.00
Villain calls 2355.00
                                                                *** RIVER *** [8s 9s Jd 7s] [Qs]
Main pot 16035.00
[Hero] checks

---

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 400.00
Hero [Kd Kh]    [UTG]          raises 985.00 to 985.00                     Chips - 22834
Folds to BB who puts in the call                                                        Chips - 17153
                                                     *** FLOP *** [Jc 4s 3c]
Main pot 2570.00
Villain bets 1285.00
Hero calls 1285.00
                                                    *** TURN *** [Jc 4s 3c] [Ac]
Main pot 5140.00
Villain checks
Hero bets 1985.00

---

                                                           Level 12 (200.00/400.00)     ante 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Level 14 (250.00/500.00) ante of 60

Hero [UTG] [Js Kd] raises 1215.00 to 1215.00   chips - 10854
Villain [SB] calls 965.00                                    chips - 14989
                                                      *** FLOP *** [8c 9c Jd]
Main pot 3470.00
Villain checks
Hero bets 1785.00
Villain calls 1785.00
                                                     *** TURN *** [8c 9c Jd] [2s]
Main pot 7040.00
Villain checks
Hero bets 1955.00
Villain  calls 1955.00
                                                     *** RIVER *** [8c 9c Jd 2s] [5d]
Villain checks

---

                                                  Level 14 (250.00/500.00) ante 60
Main pot 900.00
Folds to me in the button
Hero [BTN] [Ks Ah] raises 2085.00 to 2085.00                               Chips -33048
Villain-1 [SB] calls 1685.00                                                           Chips - 3625
Villain-2 [BB] raises 17778.00 to 18578.00 and is all-in                   Chips - 18678
Hero calls 16493.00
Villain-1  calls 1440.00 and is all-in
                                                                          *** FLOP *** [5c 5s Kc]
Main pot 11475.00
Side pot(1) 30106.00
                                                                 *** TURN *** [5c 5s Kc] [9h]
Main pot 11475.00
Side pot(1) 30106.00
                                                               *** RIVER *** [5c 5s Kc 9h] [2c]
Main pot 11475.00
Side pot(1) 30106.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot 11475.00
Side pot(1) 30106.00
Hero shows [Ks Ah] (two pair, Kings and Fives [Ks Kc 5s 5c Ah])
Villain-1 [SB] shows [2h Kh] (two pair, Kings and Fives [Kh Kc 5s 5c 9h])
Villain-2 [BB] shows [As Js] (a pair of Fives [5s 5c As Kc Js])

---

Level 15 - (300.00/600.00) ante 75


Hero [LJ] [Jd Ks] raises 1535.00 to 1535.00                           chips - 14394
Villain-1 [BTN] [ calls 1535.00                                               chips -28698
Villain-2 [BB] 935.00                                                             chips - 9450
                                                                   *** FLOP *** [Kh 6s Jc]
Main pot 5580.00
Villain-2 checks
Herochecks
Villain-1 bets 4185.00
Villain-2 folds
Hero raises 12784.00 to 12784.00 and is all-in
Villain-1 calls 8599.00
                                                              *** TURN *** [Kh 6s Jc] [7h]
Main pot 31148.00
                                                        *** RIVER *** [Kh 6s Jc 7h]
Main pot 31148.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot 31148.00
Hero shows [Jd Ks] (two pair, Kings and Jacks [Ks Kh Jd Jc Td])
Villain-1 shows [Ah Kd] (a pair of Kings [Kh Kd Ah Jc Td])

^  Try using this:  https://upswingpoker.com/convert/

It should work for ACR hand histories.

Lol, that's the one I tried. I started by pasting the whole thing in, then tried various versions of excluding parts. Nothing came back with a forum code I could use. I'll play with it more in the future, worst case I have to manually copy it here and edit for usernames and such.

yeah, it's a travesty. they killed the best poker software in the world.


also bans USA players. :'(


yup, it certainly worked in bodog/bovada's case. thinner player liquidity, but you get rid of a lot of those nitty rakeback grinders.

in fact that reminds me, i've been meaning to fire up bovada's rebranded USA site (ignition) to see how soft the games are. they support bitcoin deposits/withdrawals and will double your deposit bonus if you use bitcoin.


glad to hear it. i used HM1 back in my semi-pro days and was always happy with it. i'll probably grab HM3 myself. ACR's manual hand history is absolutely killing me.

i'll take a look at those hands when i'm back home. currently on a tiny netbook.

The level of the excitement that I felt during my first experience playing poker is something that I cannot explain. It is a game of psychology because the strategy that you need to do is base on the other players emotions and gestures. The feeling that I felt in poker is like the feeling that I felt when I was a lvl 1 trader. The excitement and the feeling is unreal because you do not have still enough idea to what you are doing. Luck is also factor in poker but it is better if we have intelligence that will give us a upper hand from other gamblers.

Most of the professionals are doing bluff and most of them are successfully executing it because they have skill where they can read the mind of the other players. For those new gamblers that are playing poker, do not yet try to bluff because professionals can easily identify what you are thinking. There are skills that are required in order to study first in order to go to another level of a poker gambler in order to match the other players skills and knowledge.

Highly doubt it. Unless the newbie player is totally playing from scratch with PRO then agree with you. First of all, I'm talking a usual poker competition here in casino `kay?, The newbie and the PRO player has no data in each so definitely no one knows the play style of each other, This could be an advantage for newbie if he knew the play style of the PRO since he can watch his previous game before. All poker player is just paying base on odds and probability so definitely no one have a 100% win rate. The only skills in poker you need to develop is the probability calculation skills and some Psychological skills. You can easily hide your emotions if you wear shade and hoodies just like what other newbies do.  ;D

@Steamtyme, is it possible to note how many are seated at the table? that would affect preflop range.


i like the preflop raise and c-bet. on the turn RRAI i'd have put him on a strong draw (and called). i tend to give people too much credit. :P was he trying to bluff you off that or was he just a donk?


yikes. that turn and river is why i try to keep pots small after flops like that. very connected board. how often do you expect him to check behind you if you check the flop? i guess that's what determines whether i go for the steal (i'd rather not see turn+river if i bet) or play it more passively to get a cheap showdown.

without reads, villain could easily have raised AT, KT, QT, JT, TT (unlikely), T9, T8s, T7s, maybe other Tx. He also could have raised XsXs. there is a much wider range but the possibility that you are completely dominated by a straight or flush on the turn is real enough that we want to keep the pot small or get out IMO.

i'm probably not betting that turn and i'm probably check-folding the river. better spots to be had....


i might prefer a postflop 3bet there.

very frustrating turn. i would bet into his turn check and probably fold to a 3bet.


on the turn, your stack is only marginally bigger than the pot, correct? i think it's probably time to shove. the post flop check-call suggests either weakness or the nuts. either way, at these stack sizes i really don't like bet-folding to a turn check-raise. so i wanna get it in first to scare him off draws, weak pairs, top pair/weak kickers.


not much to say about this one, seems fine.


given that it's 3-handed i might bet the flop to isolate but that works.

Indeed this is the wrong assumption when it goes to Limping Strategy because:

https://i.imgur.com/8FwRs4m.png
https://www.google.com/search?q=limping+strategy&oq=limping+strategy&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Anyways, I keep reading this thread and follow hands updates but didn't have so much time lately to discuss them with you guys here.

From now on I will try to share my thought about the gameplay more frequently if there will be new hands to discuss of course  ;).

I assume yes because OP is really dedicated and still hungry for play when it comes to poker. I had this same, especially when I was at the winning strike for a longer time.

I do not use specific strategies. I think you need to adjust your gameplay depending on the game you are playing. You cannot apply the same strategy when playing a 6-max turbo as when you play a 9max slow format.
But the key in my strategy is having patience. Do not play to many hands but play the hands you do play perfectly.

I remember once a tournament I won on PokerStars. I remember it was the 10.5$ super knockout with over 3000 participants. Until reaching the final 100 I only played 7% of the hands that I got dealt. In the final stage it increased to 15% and at the final table I turned very aggressive.

But like I said it all depends on the format. If I am playing a turbo or hyper turbo you need to be more aggressive from the start cause the blinds are increasing much faster. When playing a hyper or a turbo I start more aggressive and try to build out my stack as fast as possible to get some room to become more passive mid stage.

Second best poker client in the world.  ;D  I always thought Stars has the best software, since those days playing the play money tables.  I thought FTP was too heavy on resources (esp. with tracker and hud running).

I recommend to play more till you come with your playinf style and dont keep it stable and do have variations. Start playing with your friends , with small blinds before you more on to big stakes and play with professionals. Bluffing is helpful at times but should not be your style..if you bluff too much and include it in your game , people with experience might corner you . Play humble , set your budget and dont be shy to fold if you are not confident about your hand.

how did those other 3 hands play out, Steamtyme?


i could see that. i was never a mass multi-tabler (6 tables max, often closer to 4) so i never noticed issues but i knew guys who 24-tabled and shit like that. it's true that those guys always played on stars.

btw you should join us on sunday if you can---private forum game on sportsbet.io, 1 mBTC buy in:


anyone who wants in can PM me for the password.

It's very important for us who played gambling, people with enough experience tend to take advantage of your weakness. This game involves a lot of psychology, and if you're showing emotions they'll easily catch your idea and strategy. I don't think being humble isn't effective to provoke them, most probably being aggressive type can trigger their minds to take a gap over in order to prevent all sorts of hesitations.

Sorry, I was on a short change and didn't get around to updating you on the hands. Here we go.

I'll mark it down, but I believe all of these hands were 9 seated, some may have been 8 but I'll go back through and confirm.
He showed [3d 5d], so he jammed on me chasing the gut shot on the river With next to botton pair and no draw, misread as I typed it out  :o There were 8 of us seated at this time.
This hand checked through on the river. He mucked the hand but looking back at it in replay I could see he had a worse 2 pair. I fully intended to check fold the river. I was flipping over whether or not to down bet the turn or check/call. In the moment I hated this hand so much just watching it get better and worse at the same time. I see the value in going for maybe a 1/4-1/3 pot bet size on the flop, as it was getting dicey on the turn. I felt fairly confident though with them just check calling and not re-raising me, they had seen me call down a few times previously. I had them on a better J based on the way they played, but still would have walked away on the river.

We were 9 handed here. Here they folded to the bet on the turn. I definitely see the value in the 3-bet, I thought the same thing when I saw that A come up, and was kicking myself thinking I may have let them get there. I'm thinking they had a lower pocket pair, maybe a weak JX that they were trying to protect by leading into me, and thought I hit the A on the turn.

You had the right idea for sure. I was unwittingly letting them get a good price drawing on an open ender. They were holding [Jc Ts], The Jam on the turn would have either been a nice payoff or they would have got there on the river. As it went though I checked through on the river, I believe I was being to cautious due to my stack size and them calling me down. I think I was feeling like they were slowplaying a pocket pair that may have flopped a set, and were just hoping I'd get it in. This was also 9 handed.


This started out 9 handed at the table. This was one of these moments when I didn't want to bet the strength, I do try to pay attention and mix it up. Some times betting and sometimes checking so as not to give away my hand strength.

---

As always thanks for the insights. I've been keeping in mind the "better spots" when I get into a tough spot, and have been playing around with smaller betsizing on certain boards post-flop depending on texture and holdings. Now I have to get a little better at handling the aggression of other players, normally not an issue. I did get into 1 tourney on my days off and just got lucky with my stacksize. I got real sick of the BB, at my table when I was BTN, 3 bet jamming and called him down with a couple off-suit broadway cards - definitely not a better spot. He hit a pair on the turn, it was a true 50/50, but not something I needed to be in. I did manage to claw back from it, but the rest of the tourny I feel my gameplay suffered from letting that moment get to me. I have been improving on finishes overall though with min cash or better the last 4 outings. I'll take that all day as I continue to improve.

damn---i always give people like this too much credit. i would have called down here but there are similar spots where i know i've been bluffed out of the hand.

how would you play it if you were dealt A7 in the CO? check behind the turn? still bet-calling the same way?

any interesting hands from the private forum game? not sure if SB even has hand history since i can't find it. good job cashing. :) i slept through it and donated the buy-in..... hopefully we can push back the time a couple hours next time!

Yeah there's always that worry of monster pockets that they slow played for the trap, or they just have you beat. I know there are spots where I've busted out by taking this same line it's just a tough call whether you're being slowplayed or bluffed.
Everything up until the turn would probably be the same, and then check behind was my initial thoughts, then call down on the river if there was a bet, if not probably bet pot.
Then I started thinking of doing it the same but downsizing the bet on the turn, to see if they just call down or re-raise. Try to use the small bet size to evaluate their hand strength. I think this might let me get bluffed more often though not to sure.
Not so much on my end I was sort of a splashy donk at times, being very aggressive pre. Then folding out flops and what not if I didn't hit anything. With the wide player skill level I wanted to be seen bluffing  small/mid size pots so I could get called down with better hands. It was a weird vibe starting out as me and betwrong were essentially heads up with 2 or 3 players afk, and 1 dropping in and out. A couple times they just got there with a straight or a flush. It was sort of backwards going from that to a half full table with dead money to my right unfortunately.

It was tough waiting on you to blind out I had to jam 10's once couldn't fold it for the 3rd time and I think k's the other time, this was actually your last blind in and I got called but it held.

Yeah getting another game going would be nice, hopefully everyone can sort out login  issues and timing. You should have just stayed up and been the splashy drunken donkey  8)

I'm going to post some hands below - There are quite a few of them. I'm going to try and keep it as clean as possible.

I also was wondering some opinions on strategy. So pre-flop there are a lot of people who limp or min raise. Now I never min raise unless maybe late position and shortstacked deep in a tourney; even then I'm not really feeling it. So I have a rather straightforward 2.15-2.4X betsizing when I'm first to act. If It's not a hand I would 3-bet normally I don't like to 3-bet min raises and am more inclined to just call, but I feel like limpers are different. What I can't decide on is should I raise to my normal betsizing or should I be increasing it when facing a limper?or 2?

So I recently was studying up on 3 bet sizing, and not going to lie it feels weird to apply it in game. I honestly felt a rush, and a bit of adrenaline making these plays - good thing it wasn't live my god I would have looked crazy. It's the sizing - (3-5X the bet depending on position) and committing of chips to that pot, I only applied it twice I believe the other night - which is fairly in line with mixing it in when applicable. Once was top of my range the other was near the bottom, not going to lie neither felt good. Looking forward to getting over the newbie feeling of it. I did notice though that I've definitely been on the other side of that and understand the pressure it applies.

I have decided to stop multi-tabling for the foreseeable while I focus on the improving. I don't go crazy 2 tables and generally it's not to bad, I honestly haven't done it in a few weeks, but I had a feeling I was near busting, or blinding out and thought I'd get another table going before it got to late in the reg. Couldn't do it lol, conveniently I got playable 2-3 playable hands in a row, multiple streets on both tables, the shit part was action seemed to line up each time where I was trying to figure out what to do with minimal time. Funnily enough I was happy with the plays, but had some river beats and was busted out of the new tournament, survived the other - go figure. I just really didn't like that position and found I couldn't give the hands the thought they deserved both during and after. Not to mention busting on the one had me feeling a little tilty, and I could feel myself fighting the urge to get spewy on the other.

Hand #1 9 seated - 175/350/45 Level 11 Hero - UTG (18810.00) Villain - BTN (43613.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Main pot 360.00 Hero - [Ah Qd] raises to 790 Folds to BTN             Villain -  1930.00 Blinds fold I call *** FLOP *** [Ad 3s 4h]   pot 4745.00 Hero checks Villain bets 1050.00 Hero calls 1050.00 *** TURN *** [Ad 3s 4h] [2c] pot 6845.00 Hero checks Villain checks *** RIVER *** [Ad 3s 4h 2c] [Jc] pot 6845.00 Thoughts?

Hand #2 9-seated blinds 175/350/45 Level 11 Folds to me Hero -HJ [Qs Ks] (24280.00) I raise to 830,  Folds to Villain BB (7583.00) jams 7538.00 I call *** RIVER *** [3h 6c 8c Ah] [Kc] pot 15611.00   Villain  shows [Kh Jh] I win with the better kicker

Hand #3  7 handed - Blinds 300/600/75 Level 15 Villain - BTN (25969.00) Hero - UTG(22927.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Main pot 525.00 Hero [As Qh] raises to 1395.00 Only the villain calls *** FLOP *** [5c Ad 5s] pot 4215.00 Hero bets 1865.00 Villain calls *** TURN *** [5c Ad 5s] [6d]  pot 7945.00 Hero bets 2695.00 Villain calls *** RIVER *** [5c Ad 5s 6d] [Js] pot 13335.00 Thoughts?

---

Hand #4 9 seated Level 6 Blinds 65/130/16 Folds to hero Hero LJ [8s 8d] (5266.00) raises to 295.00   Villain HJ (5589.00) 3 bets to 966.00 Folds to Hero who calls *** FLOP *** [8c Ts 4c] pot 2255.00 Hero checks Villain bets 888.00 Hero raises to 2395.00 and villain folds

Hand #5 8 handed Level 7 Blinds 75/150/18 Villain UTG (10396.00) raises to 325 Hero UTG+1 [Qc Qs] (7816.00) 3 bets to 1015   Folds to Villain they call *** FLOP *** [Jc 2h As] pot 2417.00 Villain checks h0twatercl0ck bets 875.00 Villain calls *** TURN *** [Jc 2h As] [Qh] Thoughts ?

Hand #6 9 handed Blinds 75/150/18 UTG folds Villain UTG+1 (5007.00) raises to 350 Folds to Hero BB [5s As] (10057.00) I call   *** FLOP *** [7h 8s 3c] pot 937.00 Checks through *** TURN *** [7h 8s 3c] [7d] pot 937.00 Hero bets 435.00 Villain calls *** RIVER *** [7h 8s 3c 7d] [9h] Thoughts?

Hand #7 9 handed Level 15 Blinds 300/600/75 Hero HJ [Th Ts] (17175.00) makes it 1465 folds to Villain-1 SB (7990.00) calls Villain-2 BB (9560.00) calls *** FLOP *** [9c 4d 2c] pot 4995.00 Checks to Hero - Bets 2950 Villain 1 folds Villain 2 Jams all in

Sorry for cluttering the post for Hold'em but it is very interesting for me! Actually never knew the terms for the various stages in english till recently, we play Poker where I come from but because it is not legal, we always host it at someone's house and we only play with people we know (or invite someone rare but still within the crowd).

We all have different names for it locally! And we call Jack "uncle" Queen "grandma" and King "grandpa" and a lot of variations of rules in between the turns. Like if you have both Aces red, you can "challenge" one guy to choose one of the first three cards to open, against you, whoever higher wins automatically like on a sidebet,,, Now that I have seen Hold 'em I think our versions are too complicated!

limpers and minraisers are basically sweetening the pot. when i have a 3-bet worthy hand and i have multiple guys like this in the pot, i like a big 3-bet to isolate one of them.

this is how i see it: they are giving us the pot odds to bet big. meanwhile, i am giving them the pot odds to fold. that aims for the sweet spot where only one of them (if any) will call.


in big stack/slow blind games, 4-bet ranges were a lot more interesting to contemplate. most tournament structures these days leave us short/mid-stacked most of the time (unless you're crushing it), so 3-betting often has a big "do you want to make your stand here?" kind of psychology. pot odds and pot commitment play a big role.


i'm curious, why'd you play it so weak? i think we have a healthy stack to do more fishing with. he could be on a (non-AA) pocket pair that didn't connect, broadway suited connectors which missed, a weaker ace, or worse. people are fairly liberal with preflop 3-bets these days.

i prefer betting in post-flop, or maybe check-raising his weak c-bet. see how scared he is of that ace.

as played, i might bet-call the river, assuming he doesn't do some crazy RRAI or something. based on preflop range, i figure he's unlikely to have flopped or turned a straight/set. we can probably put out a modest value bet on TP2K at this point. (in b4 villain rivered JJJ :P)


i assume you had KQ here? your hole cards are missing, but i'm pretty sure from context. suited or no?

this call looks a bit dicey based on my usual preflop ranges tbh. but there are (higher variance) strategies that probably justify it, especially if suited. unless he's been jamming in my face repeatedly and/or showing trash hands, i think i'm raise-folding preflop. what did you put him on before you called?

lots of hands here, i'll look at the others a bit later.....

Here's the final play on that hand. I took it down
Hero bets 2355.00
Villain calls 2355.00 [Ac 9c]

So my thoughts on just calling as opposed to RRAI the flop  was that he would continue to barrel on the turn. I thought he had something like 88+, and any Axs , A9o+, KTs+, and maybe some KQ KJ off. The 3-bet was worrisome at first but I credited it more to his stack size than his overall hand strength. I didn't want to scare him off with a 3-bet on the flop, I was confident in the hand I had and wanted to let him push the action being in position. The turn really F'd that up I think, as he shut down, and I was not feeling it at all. I know I didn't have him on many 5's but the thought was still bouncing around in my head. The river had to be bet, and I likely would have called a re-raise up to 9000ish.

It was KQs fixed it in the post. Yeah the ranges I've been studying are definitely a higher variance, and I'm trying to apply it while not being mindless in situations. Part of it is a go for it Pre, and be ready to fold after evaluating post.
It was tough to say what he was pushing. I had him down to any pair, maybe not 2,3,4. AXs, 9Ts+,maybe AJo+, I didn't really put him on any gappers which is why I was surprised at the end. It seemed like a bold shove. If my stack had been 18000 or less I probably would have laid this one down. Stack size and perceived odds made it seem like a good call here, I toss it up to being a flip, but not one that puts my tournament life on the line.

Your game sounds like it would be crazy. I'd likely just be handing over cash trying to wrap my head around the side bet portions. Not sure if friends was popular where you are but it reminds me of "cups"  :D

Hand 1:  Bet/Fold, around 1500.  Villain prolly has an under pair (KK) you could extract value from.  If he raises, fold and pick a better spot.  Sure you block AA, AK but what else could have except a pure bluff?  (He could have a lucky JJ too if that's part of his 3bet range vs UTG raises)

Hand 2:  Don't include the results in any of your hands.  Anyway, it's a math problem.  It's your hand vs his range and see if you have equity to call (I'll try throwing in some numbers at twodimes later if I'm not lazy.  I suck at it tho.  Lol)

Hand 3:  Bet 1/2 pot...  I think I'm going broke if he shoves.

Hand 4:  It's fine.  Calling's fine too giving him a card, the board's kinda dry.

Hand 5:  Can you post pf action again?

Hand 6:  Bet (make him fold better A high hands).  You're mostly losing at showdown if he checks back.  And size it on the bigger side and make it look like you're doing it for value.

Hand 7:  Nothing else to do but call.

Edit:  That's just all IMHO.  I suck at this game.

paired boards are tough, especially when playing them OOP. i like a check-call on the river. we already built this pot up enough.


i like how you played it post-flop. i'm not sure how i feel about the pre-flop call for a 1/5 of our stack, since we're OOP and 88 is often tough to play post-flop. the flopped set made it easy, but that's not what will usually happen.


i'd be betting hard on the turn, maybe even just jamming depending on the villain. against a donk-ish player, you will run into KT or backdoor straight/flushes a non-zero amount of time but i still think this is the right move.


iffy spot. i don't really like value betting the river OOP with a weak ace after getting called down on the turn. i'm probably check-folding here, maybe calling a weak bet.

EDIT: this is villain-dependent. there are situations where i'd bet the river to get him to fold if he's the type to call down on A-high or K-high earlier in the pot. it's a shitty spot OOP though. he wasn't calling on flush draws, and if he was calling on straight draws, he could have hit or rivered top pair. then there's the possibility of A3 or slow playing A7 or maybe even X3s (though that calls for a pretty donk-ish UTG+1 RFI range).

i'm curious to see how this played out.....


i'm snap calling this. lots of villains will do this with garbage, thinking you're just c-betting a missed board. or he's got the flush draw/pair and we've got the right pot odds to call.

i played a few low stakes MTTs today. here are a couple interesting spots that came up. i'm wondering if there are some leaks i can plug.


the table had been pretty damn aggressive, so i was tempted to RRAI as my first action, but it felt weird 3bet jamming with 30 BBs, ya know?

how would you have played it pre-flop? can we possibly have the odds to call here?

Thanks for looking at my hands guys. I'll respond soon. Just wanted to take a moment to review these 2.

Well we know I'm already so bad at giving up paired broadways. QQ was right on the cusp and completely situational. This one I would have probably folded. I know you said they had been aggressive, but how loose was the UTG with his entire stack? I'm less worried about the SB big stack because I think he's trying to isolate or push you guys off. The call from UTG, makes me think AA or KK, maybe something like AK but not much else given he's going into 2 people and probably assumes you are committed.
I can't believe I'm saying this but I would likely be putting him All-in guessing he has an overpair or maybe something like 88 or 99, he might just be assuming you missed the board and were bluffing your c-bet. With him not jamming there I'm guessing he's hoping for a fold. I'm guessing with your bet size you were hoping to hit the flush and get stacks in anyways once you were sure. You could just flat it and see the turn to save some chips but some people will still fold holding on to their last 10BB or so.

Now given how late it is and that it would leave you with sub 20 BB, it could be a case for just folding them and waiting for something more sure.

i had no reads on Villain 1, so yeah, i folded. if it weren't for the UTG call i would have snap called the oversized jam in order to chip up. what they both showed surprised me. this is how it played out:



great minds think alike, or fools never differ? :-X

my c-bet sizing was intended to steal the pot, while also repping value on the flush draw. a semi-bluff, essentially.

i shoved on him. i figured that a fold was unlikely but possible, and that i had given myself the proper pot odds given the overcard and flush draw. i did not anticipate villain hitting bottom 2 pair on the flop however:


thanks for taking a look at these. i had a few more interesting hands today. i'm gonna glance through my history and see if they got saved....

How my previous hands finished off (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214582.msg53736275#msg53736275). Thanks for the insight guys let's see what I did.

Hand #3 *** RIVER *** [5c Ad 5s 6d] [Js] Main pot 13335.00 Hero bets 3485.00 Villain calls 3485.00 Hero wins [As Qh] Villain had [Ts Ah]

Hand #5 *** TURN *** [Jc 2h As] [Qh] Main pot 4167.00 Villain checks Hero bets 5908.00 and is all-in      Villain folds

Hand#6 *** RIVER *** [7h 8s 3c 7d] [9h]      Main pot 1807.00 Hero bets 904.00 Villain folds

Hand #7 *** RIVER *** [9c 4d 2c 8s] [2h] Main pot 21035.00 Villain shows [9s Td] (two pair, Nines and Deuces [9s 9c 2h 2c Td]) Hero shows [Th Ts] (two pair, Tens and Deuces [Ts Th 2h 2c 9c])

---

Yeah I elected for a slightly larger sizing. I hadn't really considered the pocket J's at the time and that would have been crushing.
In the future I'll leave out as much as possible. Thanks for the feedback. These are the spots I hate to call down as I've lost to an A high so many times in the past. It's also still a profitable play in the long run, so it's an uncomfortable part of my game lol
Yeah hoping not to go broke on it lol. I probably would have had to fold to a re-raise as there aren't many hands I should have been a head of.  In the moment though I likely wouldn't have and that's something I need to think on in the future, I know in these spots I tend to think I need to bet to win the pot, but I should be trying to get to showdown cheap at this point and hope I have enough equity. I'm definitely trying to push the check-call into my gameplay more often.
Pre-flop it was a bit of a toss-up to call the 3-bet. I think it was their sizing that made me go for it, had they been 1075 or more I probably would have laid it down. I can't remember but I believe this was a player I had seen making a few 3bet/re-aises in a short amount of time. It may have been more of a taking a stand with a marginal hand, with his smaller 3-bet, so I wasn't getting pushed off my ranges. It is likely the worst hand I could have done this with. It definitely could have ended in me folding post to a worse board texture.
pf- They RFI, I 3-bet, they called. I elected to Jam here. I remember thinking back on some of your previous insights along the lines of what my stack to pot ratio would be for my next street. I was a little concerned also about them being able to get there with if another broadway came up making it 4 to a straight. If not for the J in the flop, I would have probably slowplayed this with a smaller betsizing working towards a river jam
In this spot I just saw it as a good opportunity to bluff. It really just came down to ranges, it was much more likely that I had hit this board, and that he stuck around hoping to hit his overcards. River was his most likely chance to hit a pair A9s or A8s, this would have explained the call on the turn. If he did have something me starting to barrel the turn would have rep'd the 7x hand fairly well. Just one of those spots that I felt good about the bluff, especially with a decent stack behind.
I couldn't get them in fast enough lol. With them not 3-betting me pf, I wasn't to concerned about overpairs.

---

Okay I did not expect that. Pretty much the holdings I expected just in the wrong players hands, and to hit 4 to a flush for the win what a way to double up +. Good fold. I'm torn on folding in these multiway all-ins sometimes as people either come in nutted or just tossing darts with mid connectors. I imagine that will die down a bit if I earn my way up to higher stakes, but for now I'm generally out unless I'm rocking AA, KK, and AKs and offsuit if I'm not at risk.

Wow, I must say I'm amazed he called pf with that. It's not bad to maybe a 2-2.5X RFI, but I wouldn't be defending the BB with those cards given the situation. It's funny I kept thinking about this hand for a couple hours afterwards going back and forth on the jam/call.

---

I had a deep run last night with a dissapointing finish. 10th, playing an 8max which was fun full of ups and downs. Fired 2 bullets, as my first one was essentially neutered when I got coolered KK in the CO, and AA in the BTN. I RFI, he 3-bet, J high board rainbow, I C-bet they jam I call. Left me with about 5 BB. I did get my equalizer though later on with a similar situation where I had the AA in LJ, and I believe it was the SB with KK had to do more work for it but got my double up at a critical point waiting out the money bubble. Wound up about 80BB deep or so.

How I got elimed though was just a big stack being splashy and lucky. I had watched him Suck out on 5 players to this point which was great for the ladder, until I was a rung. Hero BB defend 2.5X with AJo against BTN, board came up 3 5 9 rainbow. Checks through, then a J on the turn, he jams and I call. Villain shows J5o. In retrospect the only thing I could have done is 3-bet pf, and I likely should have. I made that maneuver earlier on against the same player, the sizing though for an effective 3-bet should have been around 4X which would have been about 45% of my stack. If I'm going to go for it I almost have to jam, would have been about 1/3 of their stack. I can't even be sure they would have folded. Not sure what I will do in the future.

Either way it earned me 5 buy-ins, so that's a bonus. Would have been 6 if I didn't accidentally register for the wrong tournament that was on last round of reg  :P

if we're calling w/ AKs or AKo then we should be calling with QQ. right?

i wonder if it really was a good fold. like you said---pretty much what you expected but in the wrong players hands. QQ is winning 45% of the time there 3-way. https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tools/odds-calculator/texas-holdem

high variance for sure though. that's issue #1. issue #2 is the larger range question---the likelihood that AA or KK is in the mix.


i guess that's what i get for playing $6 and $11 tournaments lately? :)


i like a pre-flop shove there, it's a value shove against a splashy better. we're happy to steal but we have a strong showdown hand as well.

Had to get home to check something. I figured our odds had to be a little worse given we wouldn't know what they had. So I ran it through equilab. it came out with this. I used UTG raise range and BB defend against a UTG raise range then gave you QQ, I was surprised that it turns out my anticipated holdings for both were essentially backwards. I guess that's what happens when you make assumptions. I didn't have a chance to run it through icmizer… I thought I had it downloaded but I wanted to see how much stack sizes would play into the numbers. The math still says you should be good ~1/3 times but for tournament life it just feels wrong.  

      Equity     Win     Tie
MP2    25.39%  23.10%   2.29% { 99+, AJs+, KQs, AQo+ }
CO    35.93%  34.65%   1.27% { QhQs }
SB    38.68%  36.09%   2.59% { JJ+, AKs, AKo }

Edit: i forgot to run the same with us holding AKs or AKo, just to see what we get for numbers against those ranges


Splashing around in my pond lol. Were you in the cyclone?? I busted 2 bullets in 3.5 hours and was done with it. I will likely play it again but with a tighter approach to many loose plays and jams with that smaller buy-in I found. I have been picking better tournaments lately though which I think will help me play more profitably... given I learn from my mistakes like last night.


Yeah I'm still kicking myself for that. It was definitely what I would have done in the past. I think it's a learning experience that I have to not overthink things to much. I can't ignore premium jamming opportunities out of fear I bust out. Seeing as I can bust out regardless  :P . Part of me thinks it was a transitional problem as I had to play very conservative and pick spots to get to 10, but was stuck in that mind set.

It is probably like that because that type of gambling is not legal where we come from,,, only certain types of lotteries are regulated and even then not really done well,,, so the people who gamble have to do it as sort of in small communities and everybody knows each other so it is quite creative and usually heavily on the house edge.

For example even simple BJ you can have the dealer make it all sorts of rules;)

I do not know friends or cups, maybe it is called something else in our language;)

good stuff! yeah, when approaching 1/3 equity for tourney life, it's probably not justifiable. if my equity were closer to 45% (like the simple QQ vs AKo vs 99 example) i might take the shot at tripling up. MTTs are a numbers game, and chipping up early is an important consideration. especially in that situation, where i had late regged and only had 1.5x the starting stack.


i was in the cyclone, yes. same here, two shots and out. ;D

tbh ACR has been an adjustment for me. i haven't played much online poker in years so maybe it's just that i'm rusty, but i feel like their non-turbo tourney structures are still faster than ideal for my style. it's not so much the minutes/level but the structures themselves, although i do really miss 15+ minute blinds. and because of the lack of constant action, i find myself late regging more than i should. so there's a lot more shove fest action than i'd like.

i'm actually thinking of playing around with some more loose/aggressive, splashy ranges in the early/mid stages.

here's another one of these semi-bluff spots. this is a 6-max table btw---been getting more into that because of blitz cash games.

what's your opinion on the preflop flat call? post-flop against pairs, we have less than 50% equity. my instinct is still to RRAI post-flop in case of a c-bet bluff or weak (non top) pairs we can get him to fold. what do you think?

It was a popular TV show 90s into 2000s, that was just a made up game with silly rules. lol

I am not surprised you are finding the adjustment to be a little difficult but am sure with your core skills and experience you will adjust. There are a lot more people out there training like myself or learning from youtube and most push ranges that are fairly wide and completely position dependent. Most offer 3-bet spot training and stuff pre-flop. In the under 20BB there is a lot of jamming going on both for value and bluffs so it can get crazy, I find myself folding to a lot of that early on.

I have found the tournament I do best in are the ones where I feel like there was no action from level 4-9. I tend to fold to a lot of pressure due to the wide ranges and missing draws. I have sort of decided I will no longer late reg into anything beyond level 3 or 4. The pressure to chip up is to great and does not allow me to play my game. Those cheaper cyclones I have to just accept that a later bullet is just that taking a shot, and is a bit different than a pure late reg, as I can treat it like I just chipped way down or something.

I jumped into a couple last night, and was disappointed to see no more 11$ tourneys, I hope that is not the norm, even just the jump to 16.50$ will dent the bankroll much faster as I learn. That also helped in the late reg decision I have come to.

I would RRAI in this spot as well, the call does not leave you any fold equity on the turn given P2S ratio against the villain. A recent study block of mine would have them c-bet bluffing this spot like 90% of the time with their range UTG They would be playing essentially a full ring LJ range so they could have any pocket pair and have a lot of JX, but still it is a board that benefits your range. I will do some of the numbers tonight again but with draw to the 2nd nut flush, back door straight and an overcard it is a pretty good spot to go for it. I had a similar spot where I repped a flush, the story made sense as I check, bet, jammed the flop, turn(flush completed here and they checked), river, but unfortunately it did not matter they just had such a large stack they did not mind calling me down with bottom pair. Just something for me to remember in the future.

I think the call pre is good, it is probably the bottom of my KX suited. 6 max is weird in that I always feel I can play looser with less people repping pure strength from EP. You still have to play CO and BTN the same though when you are first to act, but can be looser calling an RFI from early position because their range is no longer as nutted as it has to be in full ring. I am curious to see how you made out.

I have had to play on my laptop a lot lately but will come back with some hands soon.

yup, i realized recently that was a huge leak for me. coming into big fields with 15-20 BBs (or even less!) doesn't let me exploit weak players with my stack, and really ups the variance due to all the shoving.

when there are no interesting MTTs i'm gonna start firing up 5/10 or 10/25 6-max blitz tables instead.


good, i'm not crazy. i have a similar attitude about it. we've got a good deal of outs facing a likely c-bet bluff = good bluff opportunity.

i shoved. they called with AJ---fair enough. turn and river = A + J and i was knocked out. :)


i've never played much 6-max but i'm enjoying widening up my ranges. playing fairly loose from the CO and BTN has been paying off pretty well. in late position, i'm open raising weaker suited kings as well.

some ranges i've been playing around with:
https://upswingpoker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/6-Max-Open-Raising.png
https://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/8829/pre-flop-charts-6-max-cash-games

btw, what are your thoughts on HM3 after the free trial?

Wow not just happy with beating you the turn and river just had to rub salt in it lol.

I'll check out the other one but I've enjoyed upswing, i actually bought into their lab during Black Friday sales. They have a crazy in depth range calculator with options for 3-bet or rfi vs 3 bet as well. Its helped a lot in visualizing spots.

I actually haven't played much with hm3 but for me It was best just starting out i'm just weighing whether or not to buy it outright or go play on that other site for a bit to get it free lol
Edit: It was a bad time to start a 14 day trial, I really wasn't on my PC much after the first couple days.

Always play with good starting hands.  Dont play most junk.  Even on hands you end up bluffing, bluff with a semi strong hand with outs.  Dont bluff leaving you open to being called especially in tournaments.  In cash games you can recover but that's how most people get busted in tournys they start getting antsy.  Look for those people and strike.

yikes, $99 for the first month and no free trial! i'm looking for some training on 3-bet/4-bet ranges but that's pricier than i expected. you think it provides good value to intermediate/advanced players, or is it more for beginners?


i'm still having a lot of trouble saving hand history from ACR. is HM3 at least importing 100% of your hands when you run it?

The price was off putting to me at first as well. I'm in a different boat though as I had a decent grasp of the game but had no idea of the concepts I was aware of and using correctly or applying incorrectly. This really clarified a lot of it and then showed me a lot of what I was missing. You can get that cheaper though for sure, I'll find one of the youtubers that have a 25$ off code for anything 99$ or more - pretty sure it works for the lab. It's one of the reasons I bought on black friday, a few months at 25% off.

I'd hate to steer you wrong as you've helped lots. I do think though you'd find value in it, if nothing else their MTT pre-flop ranger is great. Gives you great baseline ranges for RFI for all positions then VS. RFI for all positions and RFI VS. 3-bet. Some of the MTT stuff is definitely geared to beginners but it also goes fairly deep in-depth on a lot of spots, I still haven't gone through the entirety of that section but it will get you thinking.

Then there is the cash game stuff as well.


I believe it imported all my hands, I tried to go back and check out my last couple of tournaments but they were outside my trial. I couldn't off hand think of any other hands to search for. I don't really know why but ACR seems to be problematic for some of these programs, where most other sites are no issue.
I believe I will bite the bullet this week and pay for the program, and then I need to spend some time really figuring out how to use it effectively. If nothing else it should make it easier for me to post a hand history here.

Are you losing the odd hand here or there, or is it blocks/full tournaments?

tbh like 90%+ hands don't get saved. i can't figure out any rhyme or reason to it. significantly more hands are retained in ACR's in-client viewer (although seemingly not everything) but those aren't text searchable, which makes things super difficult.

i'm gonna grab the free trial of HM3 and see how it does.

did you see this shitshow on ACR today? they kicked off the OSS series this morning and the servers crapped out 5 hours in! https://twitter.com/ACR_POKER/status/1226646240659636236

ACR's CEO: "growing pains"...."i don't know what's going on"

everything has been frozen for like 35 minutes. i'm in the top 1% of chip stacks in MOSS #1 (more than 10x the starting stack), with 3 levels of late registration left. according to their cancellation policy (cancel after 30 minutes down), they are about to refund my buy-in and rob me of all that equity. >:(

sigh.....

Oh man that is fucked. It's shitty because it's not like oh yeah next tournament will work out the same. Until I woke up and read this I was super bummed I wasn't able to play in those today, they looked promising. I've  only had that happen one time when I went in to reg, and then realized they were down fortunately I didn't even get a hand in just never got to play.

I heard it used to be a real problem in the past but it was DDOS attacks and they have a strict no ransom paying policy which I can agree with. Hopefully they sort it out for the rest of the series as it looks like a great spot to get in a few big tournaments.

looks like they had a full meltdown. https://twitter.com/ACR_POKER/status/1226687450665361408

i pulled up the client 2 hours ago and they were still in maintenance mode. refunds within 72 hours, etc etc. doesn't scream confidence about the rest of the series. ::)

i had heard of past DDOS problems, wasn't really thinking about it when i registered. i just saw the tourney lineup the night before and decided to play a full sunday run. big mistake! i'm still missing like $80 in to-be-refunded buy ins. i'll get one buy in back where i had already busted out, but for the most part, i got robbed today. i was crushing it for the first time in a while. i was fuming when this happened.

i didn't realize their TOS was so shitty for cancellations. 5.5 hours of late registration, > 2/3 of the field was knocked out already, tourney cancelled after 5 hours........and no chip chop? seriously!?

when shit hits the fan, their terms favor those who busted out. i'm almost wondering if that justifies taking more shots during MOSS since there's a good chance you'll get your buy ins refunded anyway. ;D

Yeah the lineup looked like it would have been a good day at the tables. I couldn't imagine having put in the hours only to get the refund. I'm hoping to get in something this evening, but we'll see how it goes. I did spend most of the night researching other sites to play on but I'll likely have to use workarounds to fund them. If I want a decent tournament selection that is anyways.
I also don't know how many of them will be able to provide hand histories as that's a biggie at this point for review and improvement.
Yeah that would have been a much better system. If you've busted out you shouldn't get the buy-in back and it should be divied up with the remaining players. Would help with the burn a little anyways.
That would be the most degenerate gamble ever. Just firing bullets on the coin toss you get refunds or double up to try and run deep.

Hi Guys,

I used to play on pokerstars 6 years ago. I haven't played online poker since, on rare occasions I played in live casinos. I like to play cash games (NL Holdem $0.25/$0.50, I was a break even player).
Regarding these reviews https://bet1coin.com/bitcoin-poker/, Betonline seems to be a good site for me.

In your opinion, what the best site to
Play CG (small/mid stakes with average/bad players :) )
Deposit and withdraw using BTC (or ETH)

Do you have general strategic advice to give me?
I used to play tight and value oriented. Is it still a profitable style?

betonline has a pretty good reputation among sports bettors. they've been around since the early 2000s. they've got some pretty rough reviews on trustpilot though: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/betonline.ag

granted, most of the complaints are for slow-paying, which is typical on sites that serve USA customers. i'm assuming you're from the states, right?

there was also a scandal in 2017 around their live dealer blackjack games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BetOnline#Live_Dealer_Blackjack_Controversy

i'm trying to open betonline's browser client to check the lobby, but it keeps timing out. ::) judging by the MTT schedule, you can get better action elsewhere.

ACR has decent cash game liquidity but they're on my shitlist right now. i'm still waiting for a bunch of refunds from a server meltdown they had a couple days ago. >:(

tbh i'm thinking of firing up ignition casino. it's bovada's rebranded site. i'm pretty sure they carry forward the tradition of "no HUDs" which makes for more fun and casual games with less nits. they have a fat bitcoin bonus too.


i'm finding that players are much more aggressive than in the poker boom days. nitty strategies don't pay off like they used to. you're gonna need to get more creative, mix in bluffs and weaker starting hands.

I would say just take some time to read up on articles or watch a few current pros who stream or produce youtube vids. It will give you a decent idea of what most people are using as strategy these days. It's definitely looser ranges and more aggressive overall, with people generally being comfortable firing 2-3 bullets in tourneys so more jamming in general early on looking for double ups.

Did they sort you out yet? I saw some people had their refunds then there was some clawed back, seems like a shit show. I never did fire up a different site, I pulled the trigger on a daily low stakes and a 6.60 MOSS, busted in the moss, but had a deep final table run on the daily finishing 6th. I was short stack and had to get jammy, probably could have waited out another ladder but was playing to win lol.

I was hoping to get more hands brought in here, but I got distracted. HM3 won't let me use my USD PP balance as they want to set up with a method they can continuously debit annually for their continued service and update program. So I'm just going to go the BTC route today. Then I should be able to bring some hands in the next couple days. Overall some interesting spots if I can find the hands.

they put out a statement saying they fully refunded everything, which is pretty upsetting. i've had to contact them multiple times and they've only refunded about half of my buy-ins.

it makes me wonder how much they are pocketing from this. they robbed everyone in late registration of chip equity but they don't seem to be reliably refunding people whether they busted out or not.

i can get over a server snafu. i can get over the shitty terms that i agreed to as a player. but this shit? feels pretty shady.....


nice!

Curious what peoples thoughts are regarding live tournaments. I've never sat down at a legitimate poker table for cash or tournament games. There is a large annual series coming up about 2 hours away from me and I'm going to enter.

I'm definitely taking a bit of a leap stakes wise. My plan is to show up day one and buy into the satellite for 180, prize is entry to the 1100$ and 600$ tournaments later in the week. I believe there will be 10 packages available if they hit their max of 200 entrants.
There are other individual satellites i might try instead if the field seems to small where i don't like my odds of winning a package.

I've heard and am expecting things to be more old school. No one has huds or their ranges and analyzers pulled up. Personally i think i have the ability to play a solid game in this sort of situation, but thought i'd take opinions.

The new job has given me no chance to play online lately but this weekend i will be back and will return with some hands. I have been toying with a small percentage of donk leads as part of my post flop strategy so ill try and grab a hand or two with that if i can.

Live poker is a very different animal.


Not sure, if it is more old school, but you are definitely more reliant on your instincts to judge human behaviour in stressful situations. You have no stats available to support your decisions. And this goes vice versa for your opponents judging you too. They will look at you, monitor what you do and also maybe how your body will react (shaking hands for example). If you are cold as ice, you are fine, but if you tend to get nervous easily in bigger pots, you should definitely have sunglasses available and maybe even some hoodie to cover your face/neck. It will also give you a shield to decouple a bit from the whole environment.


The biggest difference, and this also refers to the above and the stats, is, the amount of hands you play. If you are an impatient person, good luck ;D I often get bored already in online poker, because it is so slow sometimes and people take ages to make their action. In live poker this is ten times worse. You might sit there for an hour and do nothing but fold. There will be hands that take like 15 minutes; then you are looking forward to your next hand - Q2 - and you can wait again for some minutes.

If you are an impatient person, you might then be urged to play bad hands just because you are bored and want some action. And because people play rather few hands during such a tournament, it's also hard to get some read on them; the sample size is just not big enough to make good assumptions.


For your first live tournaments I would be very cautious with what you are willing to risk as entry fee. People will easily notice, when you are scared and take advantage of it. Behind a screen you can always hide a lot of things, but this is not possible face to face.

i've probably played a million hands online in my life, but can still count the number of times i've been to the casino on 2 hands. i've never lived close to one. when i've gone, time constraints always forced me to stick to cash games.

playing live is super fun. you should play the satellite just for the experience if nothing else. it feels way different, very old school. players are more donk-ish and passive than typical online players. you'd probably do well. the lack of hands vs online makes for high variance though. a bad beat on a $180 buy-in stings a lot worse than $11 at the online tables. :P

i've had no time to play lately either. i haven't bought into anything since that MOSS meltdown on ACR last month.

Live is def a lot softer than online poker.  There's lots of limping pf and lots of calling down with marginal holdings.

So if you've played a lot of online poker, the transition to live is much easier than the other way around.

This is good to know because i have never play live, only with local friends on a party but never in a casino. If you say the transition will be much easier i should test my luck in local casinos.

I will try to chase a local tournament, that would be fun.

isnt it live is simillar to offline ? if you play with your friends locally on a party then i assume tha you are playing offline but that is good to practice and improve your poker skills sometimes  . that is also good to know because your only playing when theres an occasion . its like simillar to drinking or smoking only when there is an occasion  like i what i do  .

he means the transition will be easier if you already tried playing on online casinos but if not , then you might find it slightly hard to start on a local casino and as well as when you decide to play on online casino after that   .

when i sat down at live $1/$2 games the first couple times, i gave people way too much credit for their holdings. :D there's something about the high # of hands seen online vs live..... people playing live (at least low stakes) get bored. they want to see action and gamble. they love to call down, sometimes just to see what you have.

i wish i lived near a casino. a decent reg could generate a nice side income off any of the $1/$2 or $1/$3 games i've seen. that's where all the weak players and tourists seem to sit. i found that skill level and aggression noticeably increased at $2/$5 but i'm drawing on a pretty limited sample.

Good response guys - not going to quote to tough on mobile.
The buy-in is something I'm okay losing - can't win them all and it's not an amount I would be dropping consistently. So I'm not worried about letting it dictate my game; i have a strategy and will play it win or lose.
Physical tells are something I will have to adjust to in the moment. The celebratory and the deflated semi rage ones are more what I'm concerned with. I have been trying to treat my online games that way leading up to this, that includes a neutral reaction when being dealt my cards. I have caught myself smiling on the flop and turn when i get lax, so room to improve.

Glad to hear that I wasn't necessarily wrong in my assessment that live will be softer and potentially a more straight forward game. When i say that part I mean people will have a gamestyle and play that as opposed to HUD's telling them I've 3-bet to much this session or RFI'd a high percentage.

I am pumped for this despite it being 7 weeks away. I have always wanted to play live but never had the opportunity. Even 1/2 cash games seemed over budget for me, and I just like tournaments, despite being not to bad at micro stakes cash games. My biggest prep here has been to try and actively track pot size manually so I can size my bets appropriately.

I actually got a bit of a confidence boost last weekend despite losing in what I have to consider to be a decent leak in my game. I have to remember to breathe and reevaluate my hand strength on each street. So I will bring some hands to the thread tonight hopefully.

The confidence boost came from playing a few orbits at the table with a vlogger poker pro I watch - Jeff boski. I held my own quite well with a 4-bet that got him to fold, a few RFI'S he folded his BB to, and continued aggression bluff on the flop to get him to fold.
I just played my game and when I found myself thinking about holding back, I had to remind myself that it's important to just play your game.

@figmentofmyass did ACR ever get tour refunds sorted out? I have played 2 or 3 tournaments since then. I just wasn't able to save hands until this last weekend. I did pay for HM3 I'm just waiting in my new monitor to get that station up and running again. Then I can actually review my overall gameplay the last few months. Manages to use BTC I just had to message their support to get an address.

they put out a statement saying they had refunded all affected tournaments. i looked and saw half or more of my buy-ins were still missing so i opened a ticket with live support. they basically told me "it's gonna take several days for the team to research and issue refunds for this, but i can see your original entries, so i can issue you tickets for all the missing buy-ins". i wanted to be done with all the drama, so i went along, but the whole thing still feels pretty shitty since i was thinking about just cashing out my account.

i have several unused tickets on my account now, which i'm sure i'll use eventually, but if i end up busting this account i'm gonna try out ignition casino instead. i wonder if their games are as soft as the bovada days.

Finally some hands again. This first batch is from 2-3 weeks ago. I should have about an hour each morning after work to post how the hands finished up, and a new batch of 3 or 4 from other dates. Despite how promising this run looks even at the Level 30, I eeked out a little over a min cash. Lost several major flips with KK, and AK suited I believe I may have also had AA cracked. Memory is a little foggy, enjoy.

Hand #1 Level 19 (500.00/1000.00) 125 Ante; 9 handed     Table '108' 9-max Seat #9 is the button Villain - 1 SB (35029.00) Villain - 2 BB (35975.00) Hero UTG+2 (76441.00) Hero -[Jd Jc] Raises to 2285 SB & BB call *** FLOP *** [9d 8h Tc] Checks to Hero Hero bets 3585.00 Villain1 calls 3585.00 Villain2 folds *** TURN *** [9d 8h Tc][5d] pot 15150.00 Villain1 checks Hero bets 5175.00 Villain1 raises to 12350.00 Hero calls *** RIVER *** [9d 8h Tc 5d][T d] pot 39850.00 Villain1 checks Hero ??

Hand #2 Level 20 (525.00/1050.00) Ante 130; 9-handed       Hero CO (95696.00) Big stack Villain SB (24306.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Hero [9h Qc] raises to 2375.00 Villain calls 1850.00 *** FLOP *** [Qh 3s 8d] pot 6970.00 Villain checks Hero bets 1465.00 Villain raises to 6415.00 Hero ??

Hand #3 Level 27 (900.00/1800.00) ante 225; 8 handed       Hero SB (270530.00) Table Big stack Villain BB (153006.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Hero raises [Ts Kc]to 4500.00 Villain raises 10800.00 to 12600.00 Hero ??

Hand #4 Level 30 (1250.00/2500.00) ante 300; 9-handed Villain1 HJ (86000-ish) Villain2 CO (155849.00) Hero BB (314995.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Villain1 5000.00 to 5000.00 Villain2 raises 15000.00 to 15000.00 Hero [Qs Qd] calls 12500.00 Villain1 folds *** FLOP *** [6s 2s 3s] pot 38950.00 Hero checks Villain 2 19475.00 Hero??

---

That's a raw deal for sure. They likely offered tickets assuming most people would pull funds. Well hopefully those tickets happen to fall on a run-good session. I keep thinking about playing elsewhere but I've managed to be a break even player...mostly so I'm just going to keep plugging away for now. I'm done playing in the long ass big money tourneys for now, and am sticking with the regular low stakes nightlys. I just get a better return when I don't shoot myself in the foot. Stay tuned for more hands to come. Sunday I finished 15th in a 6K. Should have been a better showing but, it's a process taking the time to breathe and consider ICM in the moment. Jammed AQ (11 BB) from the CO into AK fresh big stack (50BB) UTG+2 He RFI'd 2BB and it just seemed the right price. There were at least 3 shorter stacks in the tournament.

^  Hand 1, I'd bet close to pot on the turn and call it off.  All sets, two pair and prolly 76 raise that flop.  You block QJ so I wouldn't be worried much about that.

As played, your small bet on turn might have looked weak to him hence the raise. 

On the river I think go for thin value.

Hand 1 final.
Hero Checks and takes down the pot. Villain shows [Qh Ac] for a failed gutshot and 2 overs.

I elected to check, despite it being less likely they now had a 10, their raise on the turn had me thinking they had a strong 10 and were charging draws, I did consider the possibility of a flopped straight that some might play the same way, or a pocket overpair that beats me. Considering they had a complete air I don't think they would have called down any bet. I agree a flopped set would have probably been played more aggressively.

What I'm not sure of is in these spots if the checkback on the river is lost value in the long run if done in similar situations or not. Without having done any analysis, just from memory, I feel like it's a fairly even play as I can recall winning and losing in similar situations.

i like the river check.

if it were based purely on equity analysis, a value bet would be in order, but 3 considerations i see: 1. it's villain-dependent---how likely is he to check-raise there? 2. villain bluff range aside, the pot size lends itself to a CRAI. do we want to invite that bet sizing? 3. we've already invested what, a 1/4 of our stack? with one overpair on a 3-diamond, 3-connector, paired board. is this really the spot to go fishing?

i still have not been playing at all myself. been afk a lot, and all my energy at home has been focused on trading/hedging the BTC market lately.......

Bluff is very hard to identify when you are playing online casinos because you don't see their facial expression. One good tactic when playing online is playing a bigg bet real quick so they think that I have a good hand this throws off their mindset even if they play a good hand, they wouldn't risk a play against an unpredictable player. Psychology works really well when you play poker.

Def not a 10.  I don't think he would spew and c/r the turn with 10 X and anything really strong would've c/r'd on the flop.

You block QJ.  So he has way less combos of the nut straight and usually 67 folds pf with how the action went.  But dunno how the games are at this site.  You know better than me.

And overpair would've 3bet pf.  So less likely he's holding that.

On river after a c/r on the turn usually means he's weak.  Go for thin value all day here.  Bet 1/4 pot and let all his weak holdings make a crying call.

Thanks for uploading the videos for the tournament @Steamtyme, very interesting. I am no expert or pro, but here are some comments:

This hand (https://youtu.be/pXIja64WXP0?t=380) - what was your thinking here ? What did you put Iv4n on ? I like the play, but river bet size was a bit too high imo, for what you were trying to achieve. A straight will always call you and you will lose. Pair of Q's or 9's will probably call you. Lower pairs and busted straight draws will not call you for 295. I think something around 100 would have been better, since you lose less against straight/QQ/99, but will make it more likely to get called from 77/66.

In the very next hand, with 83s, you immediately pre-selected fold - I wouldn't do that. If two players just call, you can invest 10 chips here imo and check the flop. Just like it was here (https://youtu.be/-w9mRwPQ9G4?t=3992).

The next hand then, is the one we talked about, but I still don't remember, what I had there, maybe KQ.

I like that fold (https://youtu.be/UzIu6924PnQ?t=196) here very much, although a lot of people would say, that it's a bad decision. Same here (https://youtu.be/-w9mRwPQ9G4?t=3164).

Here (https://youtu.be/-w9mRwPQ9G4?t=748) I would have re-raised to isolate figment and only play against him. After he checked to you on the flop, just make a continuation bet, play the button.

This fold (https://youtu.be/FVC7nMIr28I?t=656) I don't know - you could just go all-in here as small stack with ~10BB.

i remember this hand. i would have called a preflop 3-bet. i would have check-called a c-bet (or maybe opened) on that flop too. ;)

what do you do now if i open on the turn? how about if i check? are there 9s, 10s, and pocket pairs in my range?

missed boards with overcards are a bitch unless villain is super weak, and you're confident you can get him to fold.

I'll fold. I am most likely beat then, so no need to invest more chips and/or wait for a miracle on the river.


I would probably check too then. It's too dangerous with just overcards (and no draws) to invest more chips and you are most likely just waiting to re-raise me ;D


Hard to put you on a range so early in the tournament. That bet on the turn looks 6s to 8s. Your preflop bet more like QQ+. But I guess you had something completely different^^


Yes, but you have to check out, where you stand with your hand. For this very hand it is easy to judge (for you) what is right and what is wrong, because you know both hands. But you need some general approach to play these kind of hands, which are/look strong preflop, but are often a nightmare to play postflop, if you don't hit. Thats why I would isolate the raiser first. Often times, a re-raise preflop and a c-bet on the flop will get you the pot already. If not, you ran into some better hand or opponent flopped something good and it's better to give up then.

not a bad a read. i had a pocket pair. ;)


agreed, sorta just commenting on how frustrating it can be to play broadway cards (especially gapped/unsuited) postflop.

i think there are solid preflop betting ranges that say AQ (especially AQo) is an open raise/call and not a 3-bet, even in late position. it's all about how tight vs aggressive you wanna be at the time.

It's a pattern you can often observe and I tend to do the same (we are all humans after all). Pocket Pair and two overcards on the flop get checked out of position. When the turn pairs one of the overcards, that pocket pair feels way stronger - which it certainly is just from mathematical point of view - and you can see 1/2 pot turn bets then.

---

I have sent you 1000 chips on SwC for the side bet.

Actually if you already know how yo read someone's card then probably it would be teally easy for you to win on every rounds in poker because you will gain it through the experience just like me I caj read someone's csrd according to their movements or betting styles so it is really helpful to use those kind of tricks when you sre betting or gambling in poker or different hand cards. That would be the only strategy I can taught to you.

^  Easier said than done.  Smart, thinking players play tricky vs you and make you think they're playing some hand when they're really playing something else.  That's why it's taught to better think of playing your equity vs a range of hands than vs a specific hand.

Thanks for taking the time to watch it and all comments are appreciated.
When I was looking back I wasn't sure exactly what I had put them on. Limp bets area tough call, My estimates where an Ax or Kx, maybe some braodway combos with a J or Q, I figured they most likely had a pair but nothing really strong.
The bet itself was meant as a polarizing size by going Pot or just a little over I believe. I would do the same thing sometimes with a made straight in this position.
This one is just something that is outside my range for hands I will play, the second time around I wasn't actually thinking about it I was AFK... sorry guys lol. I would definitely play it though as SB VS BB.
The first one I would play as a fold or a raise sometimes. It's hard to figure out a set strategy for this game with all the limped bets pre. With some people I treat it as if they had raised pre and accept that is their standard open.
The A2 again would be a hand I would play S VS BB all day. The second hand UTG is just to loose for me with so many people behind left to act, if it were suited though I would likely play it.
Again just a little shy of my re-raise range, suited might fall into that category. I also know figment is a competent player so I remain aware of that when given the chance to get out of line.
If I had less than 2500 chips for sure. It is tough to watch them fold through when you are so short, but with ~12BB  I can still afford an orbit or 2 waiting for a better spot.

---

Here is how the previous hands I posted here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214582.msg54000524#msg54000524) ended up.

Hand #2 I re-reaise and Jam putting them all in            *** RIVER *** [Qh 3s 8d Ac] [7c] Is the run out and they show [Jd Td] I scoop the post

Hand #3 I call and the flop is *** FLOP *** [3d Td 6h]                  Main pot 27000.00 Hero Checks checks Villain bets 13500.00 Hero ?? s

Hand #4 Hero re-raises to 42750.00 Villain Jams making it 140549.00            Hero??

First off I'll repost the videos of the Bitcointalk poker series here.
Saturday April 18th (https://youtu.be/E1JzpZtnDaM)
Sunday April 19th (https://youtu.be/2uIgxD6QjxM)
Saturday April 25th (https://youtu.be/r7Qt1pBJK8Q)
Sunday April 26th (https://youtu.be/WN7VPauAWwQ)

I fared rather poorly throughout but if you see any plays in there you want to talk just post a link.

---

Secondly I thought I might take this thread in a different direction. I'll still bring the odd spot here and there but I am going to begin posting the hands that bust me. Some of these I'm sure I should get away from at some point but most of them I feel I made the right decision and play. This one though, has confirmed I gave poker the will to manifest and show me how much it truly detests me.

Here I sit with about 6 BB 2 off the money. I have been folding out hands for the last 40 minutes roughly. I have watched 4 smaller stack double up on crazy draws. Then I am tossed this lifeline...
Game Hand #331173253 - Tournament #20417475 - Holdem(No Limit) - Level 28 (2750.00/5500.00)- 2020/05/01 05:18:59 UTC
Table '20' 9-max Seat #1 is the button

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 5280.00
Dealt to hero [Kc Kh]
Hero raises 32448.00 to 32448.00 and is all-in

Villain BB calls 26948.00
*** FLOP *** [9d 3s 7s]
Main pot 72926.00
*** TURN *** [9d 3s 7s] [4d]
Main pot 72926.00
*** RIVER *** [9d 3s 7s 4d] [Qs]
Main pot 72926.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot 72926.00
Villain [As Ah] (a pair of Aces [As Ah Qs 9d 7s])
Hero shows [Kc Kh] (a pair of Kings [Kh Kc Qs 9d 7s])

So I've had a few of these lately. AA dropping to 77 all-in pre. Couple of over pairs to a board losing to flopped sets. Top Top losing to flopped sets and or flopped straights... those were interesting. So I figured why not share some of the misery  :P

Thanks, I was waiting for that one video from April 18th :D We already talked a bit about that one hand in the chat:

https://youtu.be/E1JzpZtnDaM?t=2243

I had you on pocket pair JJ or a bit worse, but not TT, or the hand you were actually holding (AK). I "knew" you weren't that strong, so I could make you fold on the river. By trying to outsmart you, you actually outsmarted me, because I wasn't thinking it through till the end.

As said in the chat, I was expecting a river bet from you, where I then would have re-raised all-in. What I missed is that you were very unlikely to make a river bet with what I put you on. JJ would have probably done a small river bet, but all other hands just check behind with this board.

AJ is really a nightmare to me. Often times I just throw it away pre-flop - even on the button or SB - because I am traumatized with it.

Okay let's talk about a new hand which I experienced earlier. I am not going to disclose what I did before I hear some of the experts input here:

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobe78ccb2cb3a4af01.jpeg
Wtf will be your next move?

Note: Khaled's turn on the table and other two are already not in the equation.

Good to know that I am not alone. For me QQ and QJ are also nightmares.

Thanks for recording and uploading these!

I didn't realize me and Obaming were playing for 45mins in the end. Now looking at it again, this is probably the most scared/conservative poker played in the series by far and it's not like any of us needed points to qualify for the championship game. I guess this is what you get when both player's main objective was not to lose.

i've had a lot of this lately, QQ/KK into AA. it's tough because i've been playing mostly 6max---really hard to fold monsters when short handed and everyone is calling/raising light. SwC loves dealing out them cooler cards! :P

i have also seen quite a few tough hands with TT and JJ lately. always an overcard or two on the flop, and with aggressive preflop betting, larger postflop pots than i like to see in that situation. i need to crunch the numbers and work out a solid postflop strategy with 99-JJ. i'm beginning to feel like there are some holes to plug.

You weren't necessarily wrong that I could have dropped a triple barrel bluff in that spot. These tournaments though had been in my head a bit as a lot of people were limping the nuts and not betting for value. So this was horrible for bluffs. Looking back on it now, I don't see me ever getting any extra chips bluffing that river. If you had bet that river I would have folded out.

Give it long enough you will hate all hands equally lol. The monster hands just hurt more and cause more damage to your stack when they go bad.  ;D

IT's tough to say for sure as I can't tell how the action has gone so far. I'm going to guess something like them RFI preflop to something like 1200-1500. You call. Some larger size bet call or bet raise action on the flop.
Please fill us in on how this hand went.

Personally I'm going to check this turn. 2 reasons - 1 you are out of position here and betting here might just scare off your opponent. Secondly with a second A on the board they might be inclined to bet their Kx to push you off a heart or straight draw. You can easily call down or re-raise for value if they do go for it on the turn.
Secondly you aren't scared of any cards that come off except for a T or J that isn't hearts that could complete some straight draws. If you are beat by AK or KK or a suited heart connector like TJ, 9T something that flopped the nuts, you aren't getting away from it cheap in any case.

If it checks through look to bet the river.

Not a problem it's nice to be able to look at hands sometimes. It would be neat to see if there was away after tournaments to get the video and do a voiceover commentary.

---

I've had the idea for bustout spots for about a week, but I keep snap closing the browser and forgetting to go back and grab the hand. I need to put some effort in and gather all my hands in one spot - playing off 2 devices that don't have hold'em manager installed. That one isn't even top 10 this week.

I hate these spots really. It really only gets worse when you are OOP. In position as the caller I call a flop bet, I feel most aggressors carry on with 80-100% cbets on those kinds of boards. So a lot of the time you are still good. The turn is iffy and really comes down to pot-odds and SPR, if you can afford it and they continue with a turn bet.

It's not bullet proof, but Ideally you just check call to the river if the price is good enough. You can generally get the feel for someone who starts to go for value, and getting bluffed off a lower pair isn't the worst thing as it won't happen all the time. I like the check call with 1 over, 2 or more and it becomes way more of a gamble. If you are OOP, this is one of the spots I've considered using a donk bet either on the flop or the turn. You can get a bit more information depending on whether they call or raise, sometimes you just generate the fold as they place you on a strong holding that hit

Of course, just like OP stated above it would be great to know the hand from the beginning to be able to say something more because from the size of the pre-flop betting and positions we can assume how strong Khaled hand is. We are missing almost the most important info, which is the pre-flop play.

BitcoinGirl.Club has already three of a kind, flush draw with the highest card, a possibility for a full house, four of a kind if Q or A would hit the deck, which gives a lot of outs (at least 13) and put you in a very strong position, still there is a possibility for a better hand if Khaled is holding AK from the start, then he would have the nuts here.

As always I would try to take out as many chips as possible from Khaled, but all depends from his betting and how aggressive he would be. Here I will try to check and figure out how strong he is? If there is not much confidence in his betting, I would try to seek for more value on the river. Of course, I would call even all in with such hand, especially if there will be a flush.

Many times I see when two monster hands find themselves on the table and there are no easy choices. One will make a lot of cheaps from such hands, but also there will be quite a few very costly surprises like AK or KK could be in this particular hand. Still, with three of a kind and the flush draw, you are just committed to check here and on the river almost any bet.

This is why pre-flop play is so important and to observe how opponents value their hands, to be able to figure out their ranges properly. With such a hand as AK, players tend to bet pre-flop aggressively and high, many times re-raising on and even without a position.

donk betting, there's a thought. it's never been in my toolbox really, but i may try mixing it in.

indeed it's these OOP hands that are toughest---barrelling creates huge pots and checking invites bluffs. sometimes i wonder if i should stop 3-betting TT/JJ so much preflop (at least OOP)......but then i flat and end up in a 3 or 4-way pot, terrible in terms of equity.

I can't remember where I was watching someone talk abou thow they had begun throwing it in when they were in a tough spot they weren't sure of. They said live they found it to often confuse their opponent. I use it every now and then OOP, when there is 1 broadway on the flop. It's a gamble as to them hitting that broadway if not pocket pairs but it looks like I'm trying to protect something week. I will also mix this in with very strong holdings that hit in the same instance if I didn't 3-bet preflop.
Personally I wouldn't be 3-betting TT/JJ especially if I'm going to be OOP like SB or BB. I'm probably the worst for advice on 3-betting as I don't think I do it enough, especially later tournaments. I generally stick to AQs+, KK+,AKo and then mix in some 55,66,77 and some low to mid suited connectors. This makes it a lot easier to decide to throw away cards post flop if they don't connect, or continue to barrel while balancing everything out nicely.

Now one bustout I had a few days ago, that I can't find on ACR. It didn't seem to show up was a similar spot. I was torn on whether or not to 3-bet this pre, but I elected to try and get more callers as I was only 23 BB deep. Me and UTG=1 have similar stacks and BB has more than double

UTG+1 leads 2BB, I call from Cutoff with QQ, and the BB calls.

Flop is 8,9,Q rainbow - Original raiser checks and I bet out 3BB into a pot of roughly 8BB, BB raises to 9BB, original raiser folds. Now there isn't a flush draw out there but I don't like the idea of seeing any more cards for a chance to get to the straight, so I elect to fast play this hand sitting with top set. Jam all in and he calls. Runout didn't help.

FFS he shows TJ off. Reasonable call from BB given the price, so that's why I feel I might have benefited from a 3-bet pre.

---

I was re-reading one of my posts from earlier after a nice finish. It helped as I've been really focusing on the negatives lately, keeping track of bad beats/loss streaks or counting cooler spots. When these happen earlier in a tourney it seems okay and I still manage to play a reasonable game afterwards. Definitely worse when it's a bubble scenario and puts me out as it leaves me to stew until the next game. It hasn't been anything crazy but it has been a worse month though especially considering the volume I put in. I guess I should take comfort in the fact that most if not all spots are expected plays and it I'm just losing flips.

We will see how it goes I have a few tourneys lined up tonight, and the wife cleared me to play tomorrow so I might take a stab at one of those long ass massive entry pool tournaments tomorrow. Been a while with all the series tournaments so it might be a nice change of pace. Then I'll be away from the tables for a week while I'm back at work.

in early position i'm usually raising first in and flatting a 3-bet, and calling from the blinds. in late position, i definitely prefer 3-betting to get marginal callers out of the pot. (or just steal it)


absolutely, that's a perfect example of why i like to 3-bet, especially a monster like QQ---it weighs the odds of those marginal calls in my favor.

here's a hand from earlier today. 9max tournament, but only 6 seated at the table. 50/100 blinds.

CO: Hero (5,574 in chips)
SB: Villain 1 (2,990 in chips)
UTG: Villain 2 (9,590 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Kh Ah]

Villain 2  raises 200 to 200
Hero raises 800 to 800
Villain 1 raises 2,880 to 2,980 and is all-in
Villain 2 calls 2,780
Hero?

a call would leave me 26 big blinds left with ~9k chips in the pot. AKs 6-handed is a tough fold, but what do you make of the preflop action?

It's tough to figure out if over time it's +ev with the total of pots stolen and the times you come out on top, against just having to fold out against overpairs and bluffs. I'm curious what you do in a similar spot with a 3-bet that misses the flop, I'm not sure if your 3-betting KQs and there is an A high rainbow flop, or better yet if you hit a set. Looking at your post flop strategy for hitting; and incorporating it into your overall strategy might help keep bluffs out of the pot. It does put more chips out there to play some of these spots as if you got there but it should generate folds unless they have you beat. Then it also disguises those hands that hit so you get calls when you want them.

I also like going for Betting the flop, and checking turn (regardless if I improve) when I am OOP and there is an overcard. I do mix in a Bet/Bet as well but it's usually table/player dependent
So I was in a similar spot today, and after playing it out to me after I see where I misread the situation and again couldn't walk away from QQ pre. I probably still shouldn't have but you never know.

To me The Villain-2 choice to call and not try and isolate is a lure, he's giving good odds to come along or the illusion you can put him off the hand by jamming. Sometimes inexperienced players also do this, so it's tough to say which they are without playing a while with them. Personally in this spot I am probably going to want to jam pre... but I'm trying to get away from that especially if you can see a flop in position. I would call and evaluate afterwards, as you said you would still have 26BB behind and could choose to check jam or bet jam, or worst case walk away and wait for a better spot. Not just because of the UTG possibly bating, and not likely to fold for the rest of your stack, but the BB jamming into both of you suggests a pocket pair maybe the same hand as yourself.

T

i had never seen either player before and tbh didn't have 100% attention on the table. villain 1 i put on some generic range like 99+, AQ+, maybe some suited connectors like QJs+, possibly a total donk shove. the flat from villain 2 felt weak and he seemed to be giving me proper odds, so i called.

922 rainbow flop. villain 2 donk bets, i jammed (regretting it even before i did it), he calls and shows KK. villain 1 shows AA. lol.......

i definitely felt committed postflop, probably should have walked away.

Oh damn drawing dead from the flop.  Blockers to both of their monsters that sucks. Sorry i read this the other day and forgot to come back for a reply. I get why it was hard to get away from it but you were down to maybe 24% of hitting a pair... not knowing it wouldn't help. I dont imagine you play this spot often, but in the future if it doesn't go all-in pre it has to be a fold in the flop. I don't think there are enough people bluffing that spot to justify it.

I will say for my own sanity lately i'm happy to see i'm analyzing and picking these spots apart better in a reciew... now to try and apply it to my own jammy tendencies. I will be bringing some spots back this week ... from the microstakes, last month pretty much wiped out all my profit from the last 3 months.

The gameplan is microstakes buy-in tournaments and satellites for low, medium buy-ins until i win my roll back. I've spent a few hours at work this week reviewing my strategy and training materials and then reading up on opposing theories to try and get out of my seemingly robotic play. I also have to start remembering the level and caliber of players in my pool, and stop playing as if they are thinking the same way I am.

Hopefully this helps me use the knowledge and strategies i've learned but gets me back to some of the core gameplay that i was using before i studied. Ideally i will be tightening up preflop, playing value more aggresively, and overall a slightly more faceup and less blanket hidden strategy.

People keep taking me out with fluke last cards, how can you read that?

I just read this whole thread for advice. I think I cant understand half of it.  :/

Now I replied here I will be able to follow the future discussions. Thanks.

@Globbo

Don't worry if it doesn't make sense now. The more you read listen and even bring your own spots in for review the more you will understand and see how you can apply it to your game.

We all start somewhere just for reference here is how terrible i started... i still remember this that's how bad it was. Feel free to rofl.

So about 3-4 years ago when i was still just loading up 30 dollars here and there and playing on 888 i found myself in a spot where i was second in chips and at the table with the chip leader. For whatever reason i figured it was a good time to bluff hard. I had nothing maybe like a 9 high. The river comes and he jams... i again have nothing and could have easily folded out and loomed like i had a clue.
No i called... you read right had nothing, bet 2 streets with nothing and then called his jam.
Iirc he has flopped a straight or flush, and i just gave him my chips and tournament life.

Feel free to ask questions about what you don't understand whether it be terminology or our explanations. Hell look at the beginning of the thread where i was incorrectly referring to a limp strategy.

looking back, there was technically a backdoor flush draw---not a huge factor. :D

yeah, plugging in some reasonable ranges into pokerstove, i was destroyed on the flop. maybe 20% equity if i was lucky. i was in the mood to donk it off.

i tend to overvalue holdings like AK preflop.....6-handed makes it even tougher to get away from. but considering the ridiculous sized shove for >1/2 my stack when i had 47bbs left, i think this is a spot where i could have (should have) just folded preflop.


that reminds me of the poker boom days. such juicy games! :D

Yeah I hate myself when I make those crying calls already knowing. Been getting better. regardless of how many coin flips I lose with it AK will just always have to play those spots. pre. Post I hate when I'm stuck with a big pot and just a couple over cards praying that I get a free turn or a cheap price.
You would have loved me  ;D

---

So I have a couple spots from last night. I have a bustout,and a tough river decision. Hand #1 is a spot let me know what you do on the river. The other 3 are as played hands, #2 and #3 I see as similar spots let me know what you are doing in these situations. #4 Is a bust out I like how I played this hand overall but would like to hear form others.
The only other hand I was going to bring was KK that I 3-bet pre, was called by the UTG+2. I checked it down to the river because it was an A high board with A,2,6 rainbow. Turn 3 and then a 4 or 5 I believe. Felt like a spot at the time but reviewing it seems pretty straight forward to check that down. Not sure if I would have called a bet on the turn or river.

Hand #1 9 seated Level 15 (500.00/1000.00) Villain-1 LJ Raises to 2000 (19608.00) Villain-2 SB  calls (81537.00) Hero BB  [Ts 9c] calls (21860.00) *** FLOP *** [2h 9s 8h] Main pot 6960.00 Checks through *** TURN *** [2h 9s 8h] [6c] Main pot 6960.00 Villain 2 bets 1740.00 Hero calls 1740.00 Villain-1 calls 1740.00 *** RIVER *** [2h 9s 8h 6c] [Ac]  Main pot 12180.00 Villain 2 bets 6090.00

Hand #2 Lost some info in copy - 2 levels before Hand#3 Villain-1 UTG calls 600.00 limps Has me covered Villain-2 UTG+1 calls 600.00 Villain-3 UTG+2 raises 5795.00 to 5795.00 and is all-in Villain-4 LJ calls 5795.00 BB folds Hero SB Folds (4c4d) I believe I had around 16 000 chips Villains 1 and 2 fold *** FLOP *** [4h 4s Ad] Main pot 14365.00 *** TURN *** [4h 4s Ad] [Js] Main pot 14365.00 *** RIVER *** [4h 4s Ad Js] [5s] Main pot 14365.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 14365.00 Villain 3 Wins shows [As 8s] (a flush, Ace high [As Js 8s 5s 4s]) Villain 4 shows [Qh Ac] (

Hand #3 Level 16 (400.00/800.00) 9 seated Villain-1 [UTG+1] limps 800.00 Stack (52691.00) Villain-2 [LJ] raises all-in to 4725.00 Villain-3 [HJ] calls 4725.00 Stack (69742.00) Hero [BB] [9c 9h] raises all-in to 29905.00   Villain-1 folds Villain-3 calls 25180.00 *** RIVER *** [7d 9s 2d 4s] [Qd] Villain-3 shows [Ac As] Hero shows [9c 9h] Villain-2 shows [Th Kc] (a high card, King high [Kc Qd Th 9s 7d])

Hand #4 Level 27 (3000.00/6000.00) Deep 9-seated 22 left Villain [LJ] Limps 6000.00 (225088.00) Hero BB checks [Th 2h] (216573.00) *** FLOP *** [6h 3s Qh] Main pot 20600.00 Hero bets 6000.00 Villain calls 6000.00 *** TURN *** [6h 3s Qh] [Ts] Main pot 32600.00 Hero bets 16300.00 Villain raises 48900.00 to 48900.00 Hero calls 32600.00 *** RIVER *** [6h 3s Qh Ts] [2d] Main pot 130400.00 Hero bets 65200.00 Villain raises 163488.00 to 163488.00 and is all-in Hero calls 89773.00 and is all-in *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 440346.00 Villain shows [3h 3c] (three of a kind, Set of Threes [3s 3h 3c Qh Ts]) Hero shows [Th 2h] (two pair, Tens and Deuces [Ts Th 2h 2d Qh])

AK is good against random hands (~2:1 favorite) but nowhere near as good as a premium pocket pair. i have to stop treating them equivalently when it comes to oversized preflop bets and all-ins.

hand #1: second to act postflop, i like a bet there. lots of villain 1's range is missing that flop. as played, villain 2 may have hit a straight on the turn, possibly 2 pair. both villains (particularly villain 1) could have an ace. 3-handed on that river, i don't see a big reason to pay 1/2pot bet with one more to act.

hand #2: i feel your pain missing flopped quads but i'm not taking that risk preflop, no way. :P

hand #3: seems like kind of a marginal shove. i don't love it. i wouldn't have put villain 3 on AA (although in hindsight maybe he wanted to build a side pot rather than isolate the short stack) but still feels a bit donk-ish 9-handed and out-stacked. i could justify a call though, thinking lots of villain 3's range can miss the flop.

hand #4: that's a tough river. i probably would have played it similarly, you know i like my semi-bluffs. i might have put on the brakes on the turn for a shot at a cheap river, but with that river it's gonna be very hard to fold either way.

I like the idea of putting in a bet on the flop. I thought about it but figured I would check to the preflop raiser. I was pretty confident when it checked through and considered a re-raise on the turn. Here is where I think I let the "table big stacks" stack get to me. I know they were playing a wider range with their chip advantage from previous hands so I wasn't sure I had the best hand. I'll post how it played out after but I agree with you on the river.

So these hands were all from the same tournament and involved a lot of the same people. I didn't mention it before but these guys are involved in hand 3 as well. I agree I can't ever call this 1 at that price multiway just to battle post-flop. Heads up against just the All-in I would call this though, I think it does well enough against what they are probably shoving with 10BB

Yeah definitely not married to this play. I was trying to go for a squeeze to get heads up against the all-in. The limper had been limp folding quite a bit from early position. The caller was the wide range bigstack and I figured they would get out of the way, seen them let it go to a few 3-bets earlier not all of them. The call was not what I was looking for. It was more a situational play and it could have gone terribly.

Yeah this sucked the more I looked it over the more I realized I was never getting away from it. The flush draw is what really kept me in there, and the 2pair river sealed my fate. The turn I was close to letting it go, it was when I started to think Limped AA, KK and they had me on a Q, again with the flush and some equity with my pair I was in intending to fold river.

https://youtu.be/i97buOlc2II

That is Saturdays tournament. You can see my hole cards all the way to the end as I finished second. I'll post todays after it finishes... I was out real early so not many hole cards.

thanks, i took a gander last night as i was falling asleep. you caught some very nice flops on the bluffing end of your preflop range. :) well played overall. that 99 hand at the end was a bitch!

there was a hand of mine in there i wanted to discuss. in fact, all the hands i wanted to discuss from this weekend are sort of about short stacked push/fold strategy.

let me know what you think of these spots:

hand #1, from the bitcointalk series:


hand #2, also from the bitcointalk series:


hand #3, on the bubble in a small field MTT. villain had been tilt shoving every 1-3 hands:

I remember that hand very well and I think it was an ok move from you to go all-in. Was a bit surprised with what hand 1r0n1c called it, but T9s is good enough in this spot imo.

The A9 in hand #1 I would throw away with one limper ;D Just a nightmare to play post-flop, if you don't hit and have only 12.5BB behind. Even if you hit the A, you don't really know where you stand, so you would have to invest some more chips to find out ;)

-

I am not in the position to give you advice, but I think you are too tight in the middle to latter stages of a tournament from what I observed (I have the same "problem" btw^^). That is why you have good results, but it's missing top results. I know it's hard to go against your temper, but you should be more aggressive, while you are still in the middle of the pack chip-wise and before being forced to go into push/fold mode as short stack due to blinds rising.

he had just lost a big hand for like half his stack the hand prior to this. i didn't take that into consideration when i jammed. i wonder if he normally would have called down that light.


that's why i'm thinking about it only from "push or fold" perspective. not interested in playing that postflop with that stack. it seemed like a decent spot to steal with one limper but.....too marginal you think?


i agree. i've been trying to adjust from an old school TAG style (which is not as effective these days as it once was) to more LAG recently, but old habits die hard. some rungood re set mining or draws in the early stages and i can get chip bullying but it's been a tough run lately.

For me definitely yes, but then again I am pretty tight too. Risk-reward ratio is too low imo for just some chips that won't improve your position at the table that much. If you get called, it's most likely by a better hand or you have a coin flip at best. 12.5BB is still fine and not yet any need to get desperate and challenge your luck with these smaller A's.
More aggressive players would probably take the risk and these are the players that either finish 15 or Top3, but that is not what we tighter players do ;D

I don't enjoy playing these Ax hands in general from whatever position, because more often than not you find yourself in very uncomfortable situations. And since I am not very ambitious with my poker, I just avoid any situations that give me too much headache :D Even in push/fold mode I am always hesitant with it^^

Hand #1 playout Villain 2 bets 6090.00 I fold on the river with my pair of 9's Villain 1 calls 6090.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 24360.00 Villain 2 shows [Tc Kd] (a high card, Ace high [Ac Kd Tc 9s 8h]) Villain 1 shows [3c 3d] (a pair of Threes [3d 3c Ac 9s 8h]) for the win                       Villain 1  collected 24360.00 from main pot

So you can see I folded to this river bet. Hitting an A or a better 9 was a possibility for both the preflop raiser Villain1, and the SB calling range. I didn't put SB on a higher pocket pair as they didn't 3 bet, but maybe they have TT+ and just don't 3-bet the small blind.
I was also much more concerned with the in position player as they could have any number of Pocket pairs...didn't expect 33, and A smashes a lot of their range.

Overall happy with the fold, calling down with second pair is something I've struggled with. So this time I would have amassed a massive stack, but overall in this spot I think the safe play is the right play more often than not.

---

Thanks, I liked my overall play, had a few lucky spots and was able to capitalize on monsters. That was a tough beat, not sure which hurt more that one for the win or the boat over flush that knocked me out Sunday. It's funny you bring up hitting on the bluffing range for opening, as these have been costing me a lot of chips as well lately. Mostly 2 pair spots, and draws that brick out or lose equity by the river.
** haven't read the replies before answering

hand #1, from the bitcointalk series:
I don't like a shove in this spot with this holding. Mostly because of the limper having ~8X your all-in. They could be limping to induce a jam given the stack sizes in the blinds, or they limped because people are over folding to them and they have a monster. There is also the very real possibility they call down with any 2, not the best for tournament life. Also tournament specific, people limp so many monsters and high equity hands it's tough to not always have that thought in these tournaments. With your smaller stack you want to be the first raiser/caller in any pot you play unless you have a top tier hand. If you were down to 9BB or less then I think go for it, I have also been experimenting until 6-7BB shoves with weaker AX combos, as I feel it still generally has some fold equity.
To shove here I would want 77+, AJ+. I'm not even giving preference to suited here, as I think broadways and pocketpairs are best here. Maybe go ATs. My thoughts here are that broadways with an A block a lot of the combos either player may call with that could be ahead of you.


hand #2, also from the bitcointalk series:

My instinct here is to jam. I can't recall much about wither players style but this falls into what I said last hand somewhat. You get to RFI (Raise First In ... for @Globbo). Stack sizes are pretty much even between you and the blinds so this essentially puts any callers tournament life on the line. 9Ts plays pretty good with any flop. The downside is if they do have an A, K or some other random broadway combo they are calling, but you still have a strong hand. If not here then you are essentially waiting for the range above, which isn't bad but you lose a lot of the fold equity you have at this point in the game.

hand #3, on the bubble in a small field MTT. villain had been tilt shoving every 1-3 hands:

As out of character as this sounds I would fold here. First on the bubble, I don't want to call down all-in pre with anything less than AQs, AKo or QQ+. Even some of those don't feel good. Now this villain could be shoving any 2, or they've had a few Ax,Kx,Qx combos. Jamming into a BB big stack is a bit alarming as well. Personally I would wait for a better spot or for someone else to catch him. These are tough hands to fold especially when you just want to knock out the jamming donkey.
I will say this I am also less liokely to call down one of these players if I find they've annoyed me with this sort of play. I used to get into this mindset of they can't have it their always playing and would find myself calling without thinking as much. I also hate any spot on the bubble you are putting tournament life at risk with K high, with no pair any A takes it.

---

Edit: Here is Sundays tournament. I unfortunately cutoff the final 2, I got right up until the 3rd player was knocked out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It1vBjaO7qo

Yes, good point. After 12 tournaments you already know most of the players and their playing styles, so some general advice like maybe "always shove your A9 against early limper with 12.5BB" is a bit meh, since you have to take into account who was limping. Playing randoms in other tournaments and getting re-seated all the time, you can maybe operate with some standard play, but in our series you need to think twice imo.

It's a very mixed field we have. Here cygan was the limper, what if it was Yahoo ? Would you play it differently ? I think you definitely should. The more LAG players (Yahoo, Iv4n, ceehe etc.) will definitely call you with any2, others might not. Otoh, if cygan limps, I would expect him to have a better hand on average than when the LAGs limp, so your A9 might not be as good against cygan as it is against the others.

Thanks for making and posting it! We can analyze our opponents' tactics more thoroughly now. ;)

As I see you are using standard two colour deck, which I've been using my whole life until just recently. Several days ago I was convinced to switch to four colour deck. I'm testing it now, and it seems okay, but now I'm wondering what are the reasons for your not switching to it?

---

Regarding hands and strategy discussion, what do you guys think about going all-in preflop with pocket JJ and higher? I was discussing it with an offline friend of mine the other day, and he said: "I don't even raise with those cards cos I want to suck out as many chips as possible from the table." But I think it's a bit too presumptuous to think that you will necessarily win with those pocket cards in the end. Wouldn't it be better to go all-in and make someone fold with, say, K8o instead of giving them the chance to beat you?

I mean, I don't know the right answer. Sometimes I raise, and other times I go all-in, and in other times I just call any. I know that although poker is called a game of skill, lots of things still depend on luck there, so there is no strategy that works all the time. But what, in your opinion, would be working most of the time?

Glad you find the video useful.  It's nice to go back and watch my own play to see if there was a better path to take.
For deck color it's mostly because I play on a larger screen when recording and don't multitable. When on my phone and multitabling tournaments I use a 4 colour deck. It is very useful I just don't think of it when on a large monitor.

---

Oh JJ you silly bitch of a hand lol.

My short answer is sometimes all those plays work. I will always RFI this hand. I might 3-bet it depending on who the raiser/limper was. All-in i will call if I have them covered and ICM isn't a big factor, I will Jam this from SB,BTN and maybe cutoff. This all depends on stack sizes. I will call down RFI's for a standard betsizing 100% including multiway pots.
Your friend is overvaluing the hand if they expect this to win most of the time by flating or limping.  You are right in thinking they are giving other hands that can beat them a good price to call.

^  You should also consider your stack size.  If you're around 20bb's or less, it's def a jam no matter who raised and what your position at the table is.  IMHO.

that's certainly not what i expected! i still think folding was the best move, without any more obvious reads on either player.


he did indeed limp QQ here but i don't think @cygan is thinking on that level tbh. in hindsight, i probably could have gotten him to fold the Kxx flop, which is what he had likely prepared to do by limping. i could be wrong about that.

this was my main concern, which is why indeed A9 may be too marginal:


it seems the consensus is against A9 in this spot. A9 and AT have always been a struggle for me in preflop selection on shorter handed tables or nearing push/fold stage. card dead tilt may have been a factor.


that was basically my mindset on that hand. however, i did not really expect a call from A-rag. or random K-highs either. i was definitely hype on my fold equity there, especially considering the tight play due to points considerations.


fair enough. he had certainly annoyed everyone by then. he was almost knocked out at one point, but chipped up twice against the other two players. my concern was that he had scared them off from calling after that, and while my stack wasn't tiny, it was definitely the short stack at the table.

i ended up calling. he showed QJ and hit a J on the river. good game. :)

Is anyone going to review this hand?


It was a good battle between me and Hhampuz. I think this was a 180 degree turn for Hhampuz to win this tourney. I had this feeling that he was going to win this tourney and he indeed won at the end.

P.S: That ALL IN from Hhampuz was in the pre-flop to answer my raise of the BB. I was very happy to call him once he gone ALL IN but the rest is history 🤪

Pretty standard spot and play. These hands always suck for somebody, either Hhampuz gets coolered, or they 2 outer you for the win. I think the same amount of money would have gone in either way after the flop. I'm curious about how your hand on the last page went, nut flush draw and trip Aces.

---

Yeah at the time I had nothing on them but it did play on my mind in later spots against them.
Yeah I don't have a lot to go on with cygan... apart from efialitis's reviews  ;D
If you had limped behind you might have been able to push them off with a kxx flop.  I have begun to call some limpers as opposed to raising them... especially in the series play.
I've shoved both a bunch depending on the spot. They tend to hold up well, but i need to be really short if someone else was first to act.
I am surprised by that call somewhat. This happens lots though some times people just expect the BTN/CO spots to be stealing very wide. Usually they only call down at those stack sizes with a more nutted hand but some people like to gamble... or as you said they just lost a big pot.
Damn rivers. Well you were ahead so it wasn't exactly a bad spot apart from the greater ICM implications. I've had to consciously put in an effort to not worry about keeping the table in line. It helps because more often than not after 10-20 minutes someone tags them with a monster.

Clearly it was his day and that was a great comeback.

Hand on the last page? What that means? Sorry, I am still learning the porker words LOL

By the way, I suck in River round most of the times, is there any tips on that to improve my river round?

Lol not a poker term. I was referring to the hand you posted here. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214582.msg54340381#msg54340381

A couple of us weighed in on it, and I,m curious how the river played out.

That! damn it!!
I can not remember how I lost but I lost that hand. I think it was a flush with K. If I am not wrong then that guy had a K-hearts with another two hearts in his hand. He gone ALL IN and I was happy about it to go ALL IN too but after showing the cards I was shocked! I think I had the flush in mind too when I called ALL IN but still I called because it was nearly an impossible provability because I had the Q of hearts too.

Sorry guys, I should have followed up with it.

Edit,
Now check this
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1458034.msg54469483#msg54469483

the problem with limping is there are 3 more to act preflop. we're guaranteed at least 3 in the pot (if no one raises) and i may not be in position postflop. in terms of preflop equity a limp seems fine but the problem is the difficulty in playing it postflop with a small stack.


AA vs KK......not much to be said. you both played it correctly.

there's a big element of chance involved in preflop all-ins. KK beats AA nearly 1 in 5 times. that's poker!

Okay guys, here is a hand and how would you progress when you will have such hand?

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobd0c85174e1308931.png

In the pre-flop I gone with BB and then in the flop I think I gone with pot amount or called the guy khaleddj, really can not remember but in the turn what would you do?
I will tell mine after listening some of you although it's very much assumable �
However keep in mind that in poker you will have better hands always from the other guy.
I have the screenshot of the next turn and how we ended but let's hear all of you first 😀

What is the threat? I suppose if he has 2 queens.

Check and let him try and push you off?

I see you are already very much into the game so it is do or die position for you. With Full House on turn, I will surely going 'all-in' on this hand. There are very less possibilities to lose from there. Let me count, if other guy is holding AA, KK, QQ, JJ, A10, K10 or 22, only then the other guy has a chance to win if river turns out to be one of A, K, J or 2. Else you are winning this hand. Possibility of that happening is 1 in 1611. Either you have won this hand, or SwC has the most rigged random generator or stars are absolutely not with you.

I think I should wait for few more users to have their input in it.

Say other guy has a AA or KK or JJ, will he go ALL-IN in this situation?
How about having QQ for the other guy?

for sure. In these cases i'm really just paying for a flop. Kind of a delayed all-in. It really depends on how the villains proceed. If i connect with the board there is a good chance i'm jamming regardless.

I don't know if i'm going to continue to deviate from a push/fold here with limping. I have to give it some more time but it's also not a spot i run into often. I almost prefer being oop in these spots, if BB checks it looks fairly strong.

You are only losing to 1 combination at this point QQ. I would probably put them all-in here, the other option is call and see if they keep barreling the river.. If you lose to a 1 or 2 card outer with a KK AA holding so be it but you can't play a winning game and fold expecting that to happen. It would suck but sometimes it is just your turn to lose chips unfortunately.
Most likely they have the other T, overpair, or straight/draw, flush draw.

A good tell if they may have this pocket pair is did they 3-bet you pre-flop?? Not always but this can be a clue to their holding

at these chip stacks, the guy is pot committed either way.

even if he 3bet preflop (suggesting possible QQ) there's pretty much no way i'm getting away from this hand on that board at these stacks. second nut boat, no quads possibility, and you've already put in damn near your whole stack. this is one spot where i'm smooth calling the turn and getting the rest in on the river.

i'm assuming you're setting us up for an epic beat? QQ or JJ/KK/AA hitting a better full house on the river? :P

I must say you have a good analytical sense. FYI, my river always sucks, in vary rare case I get favor from the Poker God LOL

How many winning combinations the other guy can have?

AA and in the river: A
KK and in the river: K
QQ and in the river any card
JJ and in the river: J
Any card from hearts and he has two hears in his had

What else he can have?

May be this will help.
As you can see he was the BB so
In the pre-flop I think I gone with BB, he checked
In the flop he rose and I doubled I guess. I did not want to go big, I wanted to milk others to maximize my return and then he called it
In the turn you can see he placed 300 chips and it was my turn...

May be this will help to understand his moves in the hand.

Oh I see 1 more card to come. What a tease.

What does that mean? I don't get it

Why not just tell us, if you don't want the opinions you asked for?

i guess there is a possibility he is semi-bluffing the heart flush draw, but obviously he's drawing dead since you have a boat.

he checked from the BB, so he could have anything going in. random ten combinations come to mind.

the bet-call on the flop and small bet on the turn (rather than shoving) suggests he could be holding a T. if he's holding KT or AT, i could see a potentially nasty river outcome here. :P

i'm still not folding.......


it's better this way. posting the full results at the same time encourages "results-oriented" analysis. this way, we can run through the likely possibilities without being influenced by the actual hand result.

Globb0, patience brother, you ain't having fun here? 😀

@figmento, I am not going to say anything yet on your inputs to ensure that others are not getting biased from it. Let's wait for Steamtyme and webtricks to give their final inputs before I post the result. I hope you are cool till then?

Here  you go another one 😀

https://media.giphy.com/media/14aUO0Mf7dWDXW/giphy.gif

The first one was because you did not realize in the first place that the river was yet to come.

You were a newbie once not so long ago.

Sorry if I offended you with my presence.

I only saw QQ as the risk, now I realise A 10 and so on thanks to FOMA

This is why I keep losing. Im not quite seeing it all

sorry bt

I am still newbie man, not even 2 and half months that I am in poker. And you did not offend me brother. I took it easy as usual.


You mean an A10 in the other one's hand?
Yeah and in the river he will need another A
K10 and int he river K is another possibility for him to win too.

I play a lot of free rolls both in SwC and in sportsbet.io. Try them. More time means you will have more experience with the hands.

Let me make up my final mind. Now thinking from the other guy's head. You said he was the one who raised to pot amount on flop. Considering only 2 10 and Q were dealt, he surely making pair from the flop cards. So he's either holding 2 or 10 or Q. If a player is holding QQ, 9 out of 10 times, player raises in preflop. So I am ruling out the possibility of QQ here. My guess is he's holding 22. River card was another 2. You lost QQTTT against 2222.

Got yours and now let's wait for Steamtyme on his final thought before I post the result 😀

Sorry I'm at work lol. Shouldn't wait on me to much. I assumed this was a loss as the bad beats are what you bring for our enjoyment lol.
Tough call on what they have especially given the game. Some of these guys will bet any T like it's the nuts. That wouldn't get you a loss, i like what webtricks thought about the 22. I still think depending on stakes they might not raise any pocket pair.
So i'll take JJ with a J on the river.... or the KK/AA lol. This is a big leak I had to overcome letting go of monsters in these spots.

And yes as mentioned before your hand should never be folding here.

Right let's end this drama now 😀

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobc57bb852b8886926.png

Honestly speaking, on the table I did not have any of these in mind:
2222
AAA
KKK (it was a K in the river by the way)
QQQ
JJJ
Or even a flash on hearts

In the flop I had 2 pairs and I doubled and in the turn when he chipped 300 I was happy to go ALL-IN without thinking much about those possibilities. I mean who would. He matched it and then card was shown and the river card was dealt.

I never had a 2nd thought of losing this hand from the flop round.

A few words about my strategy: never limping, except cases where i would like to see flop and i'm SB or BB on table. Limping is in fact one of the worst things, if you're not a pro player but rather noob (like me).

Do not rise on tables where too much aggressive players. One of them will definitely re-raise and i will be on a hard choice: call or lose money.

Trying to not call "all in" in pre flop, even with good hands (like JJ or KK) because opponent can be lucky as hell, and will beat me with his set or something bigger.

ah ok, i thought you were hinting at a bad beat. :)

i see this kind of play a lot---limping (or checking from the big blind) with a premium pocket pair then being unable to fold postflop. nicely taken down.


it depends on the table IMO. at a very aggressive table, limping is terrible. at a passive table, you can see cheap flops and capitalize on them.

Wait, it wasn't a Short Deck Poker, so, you would still win if he had a flush. You know this, right? :)

As of your going all-in, I absolutely support your move. If I were in your place, I wouldn't think of those losing possibilities either. I'd be thinking something like this: "I'm definitely winning this time. Now, how can I suck as much chips as possible out of the Villain?"

Aah! Now I see where it ended. I was expecting this to be some Super High Roller Bowl level clash but it turns out to be one amateur getting extra-adrenaline flow after seeing Jack pockets on SwC. If I am in that guy's place, I wouldn't raised pot on flop, makes no sense to me. Even if he's trying to bluff, EV value of that hand wasn't enough to raise that much stake. Maybe a small bet or check was enough to test you out. Turn was last nail on the coffin, if I saw you raising enough of turn, I would have straight away folded that hand.

O man! I almost made up my mind that I won't play poker any more but you have ignited the heat within me once again, lol.  I think I should go on and deposit some funds on SwC and meet you homies on table after 2 hours. 

It could be a great upset if I would lose this hand, it's not that it was impossible to lose.

What is short Deck Poker and isn't Flush is always higher than a Three of a Kind?
I mean the ranking from low to hight is: Hight Card < One Pair < Two Pairs < Three of a Kind < Straight < Flush ?



Good! See you on any table there.

And now time for a new hand, new analysis.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobbcd1cf861a5f045a.png

Hand history:
I doubled the BB in pre-flop, both players matched it
I chipped 15 in the flop, both matched the bet
In the turn with pot amount (71.18) and you are seeing their moves in the image above.

How are you going to handle the hand now and why?

the question is flush vs full house. in full deck poker, if he were semi-bluffing the flush draw on the turn, he's still drawing dead and had no chance to win since you already had a boat.

short deck poker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-plus_hold_'em

in short deck, flushes outrank full houses since they are harder to make.


this is 2/4 stakes, right?

i like a bigger preflop raise, especially in 6max where everyone is calling loose. isolate one player and your preflop equity is huge.

the flop bet is fine but you gotta know this is a dangerous board. in a 3-way pot with possible flush and straight draws and a paired board on the turn your equity isn't great. i'm checking the turn (definitely not pot betting) and likely folding to a bet + raise from the other villains. the SB is repping a monster hand.

Still long way to go for me LOL




What do you mean by 2/4 stakes?


Good thought on going bigger in pre-flop but I wanted to play safe coz I have lost so many AAs in the past that when I get an AA, I do not really feel very comfortable.

Let me understand what you mean by 2/4 stakes then I will be posting the result.

2/4 cash games on SwC.


what do you mean by "play safe"? getting involved in a multi-way pot is the easiest way to lose with a premium pocket pair. that's why i like to bet strong and isolate preflop.

let's think about the amount of risk taken preflop vs on the turn. you didn't wanna risk more than 8 chips preflop on AA, but you felt that betting 71 chips after that dangerous turn card wasn't risky? remember, they both called your flop bet so both likely connected to the board in some way (draws, top pair, second pair).

I can not reme3meer correctly but looking at the image I guess yes this was a 2/4 cash table.

Meaning not to risk too much of my chips.

Very true. I did not looked at that way. This tip will surly help me in the future. Thanks for that.

Anyway, my mistake was to match that call from the monster [I still did not know that he was a monster though] and gone ALL IN.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobab8b252739112fe3.png

And then I was watching them to call each others until the cards were shown.

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blob8c2b66171d4ed999.png

Lost all that was in my hand on that table LOL

alright @Steamtyme, i gotta ask. what actual range did you put me on here? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5245365.msg54487465#msg54487465

you mentioned in the chat you thought you had me out-kicked, and you said in the other thread "with top pair shit kicker I wasn't folding out". so i'm OOP double barreling/shoving and you thought my range was limited to A3/A4 and bluffs?

nobody is respecting my bets at all lately. i wonder why. normally this would be great because i'm mostly TAG but i've been facing quite an awful run of variance the last few weeks. lots of 70-30 to 80-20 spots lost lately. this one takes the cake as far as recent beats go.

https://i.imgur.com/IJYmb8B.png

Yeah I wanted to type out more in chat in the moment to give a clearer picture of my thought process which wasn't great. Going into it you legitimately could have had anything, from 22+(not sure your threshold for set mining),  ATo+, AXs 56s+, 9Toff+ and a massive amount of broadway combos suited and unsuited. It was a small blind flat against a 2BB raise I think, pre-flop this range is huge. I can't remember if this is before or after I went from 2.5x to 2x.

Taking the lead OOP to me said you had something but were worried of being pushed off. I thought I was making a more exploitative play here, and I went more with my reasoning than with reason. If that makes sense. The jam on the turn then made me wonder, and I considered folding out but it nagged me that this line didn't make sense if you were strong. Why make bets to scare me away if he has it? Does he put me on just peeling for the flush draw,? Is he trying to push me off with his flush draw?? Is this grabbing max value and I misunderstood the leadout? maybe I'm definitely capable of calling light.

I also kept having our previous conversations going through my mind, that you could have had a pocketpair that now had an overcard on the board. Of course all of this was only momentary flashes of though that were all competing. If I had a shorter stack I would have had to fold out but as I said with my SPR and what I figured my odds of needing around 30% that I was okay with the gamble. I would have thought about it a lot less with other players.

Do I think this was an overall good play on my part. No. Not necessarily for the call down against most people; but the donk lead really f's me up. I called down 3 streets later on in almost the exact same situation. Only I had second pair, and they had it. I guess when I see a donk lead that is out of character I almost never assume it is a tier1 hand, on that street. Something I have to change about my game for sure.

Long story short I didn't give you enough credit for being a TAG player in this instance.
The comments about having you maybe outkicked was more in regards to if you had an AX, which there are fewer combos available because I hold an A, but it wasn't the only holding you might have had. It was more a possibility if you did hold an A, because again the flat call. Maybe you did have A4s A3s, and are now open ended and top pair. These are the sorts of hands I expect an OOP lead most of time. The top pair shit kicker was just in reference to your leadout on the flop - At that point I can't fold my hand otherwise how do I ever play that hand again preflop.

I can't say for sure how I would have played it but I feel had you jammed the SB pre-flop I would have folded out. Hell a 3-bet might have done it, but given your stacksize at the time It almost makes it a mandatory shove if you are going to be more aggressive. Check raising the flop if I were to bet would have put more alarm bells in my head than questions, same for the turn if I had checked back, which was probably unlikely. In a more standard line I would have been more likely to fold. It's a bad habit of mine and goes against a lot of advice and tips I've seen where if you are confused or unsure best bet is to fold.

Edit: Ignore the above. I'm being to situational. You played it right, I just got lucky. Just because of a bad suckout here doesn't mean you shouldn't play this spot identical next time. I think I was more focusing on an explanation for why your bets aren't getting respect. I can't speak for others how they would have played this spot.
Can I ask though what were you wanting to achieve with your betsizing and leadouts? I feel you got the desired result I just sat on a horseshoe yesterday. Did you want the max value doubleup or where you looking for a fold from me on the turn?

You've been playing poker only since recently, so it's understandable that you may miss something.

Take a closer look

https://i.imgur.com/QVurkxr.png

You didn't have Three of a Kind, you had a Full House, namely, tens full of queens.

Now, there is a game, which I personally don't like much, called Short Deck Holdem(aka Six-plus hold'em), where the 2 through 5 cards are removed from the deck. In this game a Flush beats a Full House because the probability of hitting a Flush with the reduced deck is lower than that of hitting a Full House.

Hope that helps. :)

hmmm, but there was never any donk bet. on the flop, it was a 1000 chip bet into a 1425 chip pot. on the turn, it was a 2466 chip shove into a 3425 chip pot.

i can understand the preflop range you put me on, although tbh with only 14bbs preflop my range is definitely stronger than that. i can sort of understand the flop call too, to see if i checked the turn. but calling the shove on the turn in position? i don't get it.

i'm just curious what actual range you put me on at that point where a call would seem profitable.


what's your definition of a "donk lead"? any time someone ever calls you OOP and bets postflop, regardless of bet sizing? if you as a rule never respect the bettor there it sounds kinda leaky.


here is another way to put it. once you saw the A on the flop, you had already decided you weren't going to fold no matter what?


i was betting for value. i didn't want to give you the opportunity to check behind the flop, especially with the heart draw on the board. the flop call screamed weak ace to me so i shoved for value. i'm not much for slow playing TP2K.

Yes, I know I had a full house but this ranking for Texas hold 'em seems different from others. I never played any other type of Poker so I really have very weak knowledge. Can you share the rank of that Short Deck hold'em?

First I just want to preface that my use of the term "donk lead" is just that. I'm not actually calling anyone a donk.
This is the best range I could think of while trying to figure out what I was up against. 77+, 78s, 78+ hearts, There are the ATo+, and the Axs combos. Maybe you had hit a set but again I couldn't be sure you were playing 66 or 22, might have jammed the flop with those.

I made some assumptions that were clearly wrong. I thought from SB you might 3-bet stronger holdings some of which might be a 3-bet fold - in lieu of that jamming with 14 BB you might not have a 3-bet range of any kind. I assumed a weaker made hand or strong draw with the flop lead out. The turn jam had me confused, mostly because of the lead out.  
Those factors had me heavily leaning away from you having a strong holding. I have been trying to expand beyond purely GTO which my studying had me heavily focused on. So I talked myself into a feeling that if you had a strong A and wanted to get all the money you might play this slower both on the flop and turn. With that I was already knocking off some of the higher AX combos - coupled with no 3-bet or jam on the river. (This did also take away some of the higher suited combos at the same time). Not that you couldn't have them but the gameplay so far gave me reason to discount them

It clearly does given the 2 spots I found myself in. Generally if heads-up post flop - if I am in position and was the preflop aggressor I do think of any leadout by the OOP player to be a "donk lead". I see this as a couple things , stealing my chance to bluff, as a probe possibly to see if I raise, an attempt to steal the pot on a board I may have missed, or they hit and are worried of getting pushed off. I don't often give it a lot of credit, especially if I have top pair. I just naturally assume they would rather go with a check call/check raise scenario, but if I miss I often have to let it go whether I believe them or not.
I feel I also would have played this the same with AK in my hand. I would call down and then go for a re-raise on the turn if they put out another bet

To a leadout on the flop most of the time yes if I have hit top pair or a decent piece of the flop. Jamming or an overbet would have made it weirder for me in this spot, and might get a fold out of me here. The turn call like I said I mostly didn't believe the story. I expect more fiction and subterfuge in poker, and I should remember sometimes it will be exactly what it looks like.

In this spot I truly didn't expect this play. It was very face up representing a strong A, and it's not what I expect a strong A to do to get the most value. This call while bad is more just me thinking you were trying to bluff me off my hand, thinking I missed or was just drawing. It does give me more insight into how you play a certain spot, and go after your equity. It's just not something I would have thought of. We actually haven't battled it out post flop in many spots and I read it all wrong.

I don't know how often I'm good there with top pair weak kicker but it's something I'll have to keep in mind. I played 2 tourneys tonight and there was a spot with a similar feel I didn't have top pair. I didn't get it saved but I got to see it runout because there was a blinded/anted out player. We are about 15 people off the money 64 left I think.

I had around 28BB [HJ] Kd8d, they had 13BB [SB]    I make it 2.22BB they call
Flop is AcKh9c
SB bets 3.7BB into a ~6.5BB pot I fold out. They show 33 in showdown against the blinded out shortstack

Here I think it was easier to fold out because I didn't block some any pair holdings. I would have rather not seen the runout.


 

Last night I got told off for "limping" a monster hand

But they couldn't explain during the game and said will explain tomorrow.

I had   A K   off suit.


Thanks, I have no idea what it means.

okay, thanks for clarifying. i always thought a donk bet implied a small bet.


you don't often give it credit---is that based on actual showdowns? gut feeling? i guess i just don't understand where these assumptions come from, or why a 70% pot bet would be perceived as weaker than a check.

the way i saw it, AQ beats most of your range there, but it was still only top pair with 2 hearts on the flop, straight draws on the turn. i don't make a huge distinction about who the preflop raiser is here---too many people are checking behind. slow playing top pair on a wet board seems like an awesome way to flush equity down the toilet. tbh i'm betting AAA there too. i don't give people free cards when there are strong draws on the board.


can't fold top pair, rag kicker---noted. :P


with 14bbs there aren't many options. i can either 3bet (then stack off if you raise or jam any flop if you call).....or i can see a flop with 12bbs behind. my flatting range is very strong here.

if i wanted to steal i would have just jammed preflop. that's why i find this all so confusing.


that's a very odd spot for that move.

still, i generally lose money when i call down large bets with rag kickers and second pairs. that's the long and short of it.

Hey didn't want to leave you hanging. Wasn't trying to tell you off. Sorry if it came across that way. It was a joke about the hand after it played out.

What I meant was that in general people usually have a larger range of hands that they "raise" preflop rather than limp in. This is a raise first in ( RFI) if it folds around to you.  People still have limping ranges but it's usually a smaller amount of hands. Generally they are weaker hands or maybe AA as it's making a comeback at some stakes to try and generate raises and more action.

The monster being that AK suited or not is a very strong hand or a "monster" hand to limp. Obviously not as good as AA KK QQ, but against QQ and smaller it still has good odds. So good in fact that it is often a hand people are willing to go all-in with a lot of the time pre-flop. It's one of those hands that you would like to start building the potoff with a raise and a caller or 2.

---

Edit: added reply from PC

I had to look it up and that does fall into a lot of the basic definitions I had seen out there. My view was more shaped from what I had seen. I could just be using the term loosely.


Much like the example I showed from yesterday the gut feeling that I had in that spot comes from past showdowns. It's not always but generally with that level of open aggressive betting someone is trying to push me off. Sometimes they are drawing and hit/miss, if they barrel 2X and then check river I'm usually checking behind as I feel I might be getting trapped there whether a flush or straight draw come in that I wasn't chasing. It's only a spot I am willing to follow if it's not going to overly jeopardize my position.
This is the sort of betting I was suggesting for your pocket pairs that you were 3-betting and having to fold out to a board with 1 or 2 overcards. I can now also see why that advice/play seemed counter intuitive, as a smaller betsizing kind of incentivises peeling a draw or overcards.
"An ace can never lose you just have to believe in it" Anonymous tournament player 3rd bullet  ;D  Just another spot I have to think on more,less is probably better.

I knew you played tighter and more aggressive I just don't think I fully grasped it. This more highlights a fundamental difference in our play, which I don't see a problem with. I run into much more variance, and am able to lets say lightly patch leaks listening to your position and thoughts on spots. You seem to be a more consistent player by winding up in less spots but being able to capitalize on them. If nothing else I show you that you'll always be able to hook someone  ;)

This is a spot I'm going to keep an eye on and track as I'm sure it will stick out next time I feel I'm in it. I feel like it's not always a bad play against someone I have no reads/history with, I feel like overall it's been more of a flip and that's why I'm only inclined to go for it with a decent SPR or no other outside considerations. Especially in low/micro tourneys where people barrel off air at times or just make unusual moves. Then again mabe this is the sort of spot I need to just leave alone in the grand scheme of things.

Then I don't understand this part :) :


Why were you afraid of a Flush of Hearts?



I wouldn't call it very weak knowledge if you don't know some trashy games. (There are many of them, check out this link https://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/).

I tried to play almost all of them at some point, and in my opinion none of them is half as entertaining as Classic Full Deck Texas Hold'em.


Yeah, sure.

https://www.partypoker.com/en/how-to-play/short-deck-rankings

Only I think, if you are still in the phase of learning(aren't all of us, btw? :) ), you should better concentrate on only one game, which you like the most.

Hey no worries I just used that turn of phrase  :)

I could have said brought to my attention or alerted me.

Thanks for explaining.

I agree with you, that free cards are always a bad idea, but sometimes it is wiser to let the opponents bet, especially if we are OOP and already hit the nuts post-flop, or there is a flush draw, additionally it is always good to remember who the preflop raiser was because we can probably correctly assume what he is holding if there are any readings of course.

During all these years of playing poker, I was able to play many hands in a different way, but TBH still wonder how correctly draws should be played?
I personally think that to be good in poker one has to perfect the bluff play and of course test it on tables with at least medium stakes because on the lower once there are just too many fishes, semi-bluffing a calling station can be very costly on drawing tables.

Many times, I tried to aggressively play draws and was called on all streets with the lowest pair, of course, finally, I have missed the draw majority of times and then on the river, only left to fold, bet or call with literally nothing, all three possibilities are rather shitty in such position. And, when you slow play and hit finally the draw on the river, then there is no value and if you bet too high they will just fold.

not all semi-bluffs are created equally. if i have a flush draw + open-ended straight draw with two cards to fall, i can be quite aggressive (check-raising) or keen to get chips in a huge multi-way pot.

look at the odds vs top pair/top kicker:

https://i.imgur.com/9AmDutC.png

a gutshot straight draw doesn't play quite the same:

https://i.imgur.com/32YnoAh.png


i find that aggressively betting draws often represents weaker made hands (that villains are more likely to call on the river) whereas passively calling draws seems to have the opposite effect when eg the 3rd flush card hits.

sometimes shoving the nuts on the river can yield some calls from villains who think you are stealing. sometimes.

^  And it's opponent dependent.  Some guys are loose and you need to continue the pressure with only the top of your range and some combo draws, others tight and you could get away with bluffing a wider range.  IMHO.  But it's usually better to stay on top of your range as your standard play til you notice somebody get out of line.

Agree and now I want to ask, what will you do on the river (fifth street) if you were aggressive betting all 4 streets and get called?

Of course, the last card turns out to be a total disaster, 90% of the time, even with flush draw + open-ended straight draw, I end up with nothing majority of the times.

What will you do on the river? Bet or check? If you bet, then how much?


A few months back I would say, that I don't agree and the luck has only minimal impact on the play. I always thought that skills are most important, but today I agree with you.

Why I changed my mind?

Because lately, I had (still have  ;)) continuous bad luck by the tables. Not only from weeks I got mostly trash dealt, but also even when I have something, very often lose because the opponent is lucky and hit the nuts on the river. It happened so many times lately, that I finally started to appreciate the luck.

It's just insane because even mathematically, I should be getting better hands dealt, not only trash all the time. Additionally, I have lost many all-ins when holding premium hands, which also depends on pure luck or to be precise unluck/bad luck  :D. Even tried to make a break, to let the bad luck go away, but the first session I played after waiting was even more unlucky, as the previous once.
Played almost 100 hands in this session, only one time hit AA and of course, lost all-in with KK http://emots.yetihehe.com/sb/wallbash.gif. To be more funny, I wasn't the one who goes all in first.

Aaahhh..  That's where your real poker journey begins.  ;D  Some players use exploitative strategies by taking advantage of player tendencies, history and reads.  Others go the GTO route by using combinatronics and theory to try to estimate how strong a range an opponent has.

I'd suggest the GTO route.

I see now where you are coming from. My bad, I must be overthinking LOL

Okay everyone, now how do you guys save yourself from this kind of hands?

https://talkimg.com/images/2023/05/14/blobe0ee27a5dfa84f9c.png

In my mind I know that I have a three of a kind with an A
May be there could be a possibility for a straight if anyone had a 5 but in your mind will you ever have this in mind that it could have 444 in the opponents hand? Honestly speaking, I can not remember how much I have lost on that hand.

There are alot of variance in gamble therefore I would just simply brush away all those kind of math


Tough luck you got there, It happened alot of time to me as well. When you have a pair of those high cards and someone goes all in, it will be hard decision to fold . Mathematically speaking the chance to win with KK and AA is different but for me during an actual play, anyone with a pair in the hand has almost equal chance to win . Thats what makes poker an interesting game to play, you never know you are going to win until the end

In bitcointalk poker series game, I have won few times again higher pair in hands than mine . Most of the time I got pair 8 or pair 9 but I won with three of a kind. Sometimes I lost with pair Q against straight or flush as well  ( someone tried to bluff with bad cards and ended up winning with either straight or flush )


I will have this possibility in my mind if the player keep on raising the chip from the start of the game. Someone with either Ace, king or queen probably wont keep on raising it from the start

assuming the draws missed? this is villain dependent. does he have missed draws in his range? can you get him to fold a weak made hand like top pair/rag kicker or 2nd pair? there are cases where you can still have decent fold equity while bluffing the river. if not, then consider shutting down on the river and controlling the pot size.

if the draw hit, i guess it's also villain dependent. into an aggressive player who may try to resteal the river, i may check-raise or minbet-raise here. into a more passive player i'm value betting and hoping for the rare opportunity to 4bet.

if stack sizes are appropriate (no overbets) then i like to get my stack all in on the flop, especially multi-way. a good example is @Trofo in this 3-way pot:



selective memory is in full effect! :P

OESD + flush draw = 15 outs. that means you have a 54.1% chance of hitting on turn or river, and 32.6% chance of hitting on the river. http://www.pokerology.com/lessons/drawing-odds/

Yes, I know the math, but after my latest losing strikes by the tables, I tend to agree with this statement.



Maybe, I never thought about this before, but taking into consideration bad luck and shitty cards dealt, many times I ended up with weaker flush on the turn.

On the other hand, hard to talk about "selective memory", when I count hands and the ratio is 100 to 1. Only one time, I got decent cards dealt from the 5% starting range in a hundred hands.

That is why sometimes the math just won't work without a bit of pure luck, as quoted above  :D.

 
We can shake hands here, I have the exact same strategy and would answer, just like you if somebody asks me such a question.

Agree, this would be the best way to play such hand and of course, all depends from position, betting pre/post-flop, readings, and... luck.                      

I can not remember how the hand progressed. It was few days ago and in between I had lots of Poker lol. But I got your point.

Yeah draws can be a bitch. I'm a little wishy washy on most spots at the moment. Draws OOP I am generally check/calling flop. I used to 3-bet these spots if I had a strong flush draw or OESD, but found I was getting pushed off my hands with larger bets into a big pot on the turn. Sure I would generate some folds from weak bets folding the flop, but more often than not it ended badly. I tend to try and keep the pot smaller when I am purely drawing, as I want to be priced in to get to the river.
This is a spot where I don't mind an OOP lead on the flop if it's a board that the Villain probably missed, if they call they might just check back the turn given the opportunity. It can put the fear of a turn check-raise in their minds.
Straight draws are irritating. I honestly can't think of to many that I make when I'm actually chasing it down. I also don't often get to the river in these spots, and fold turn. I often hit them on boards when it's unnecessary and already have my villain dominated. They do often turn up in hands that I get crushed though so that's fun lol. Now that my tunnel vision is gone, post flop I don't chase a gut shot unless it checks through or I have something else going for me like (2 overcards, a real good price, or player/spot dependent reasoning). OESD feels great when you see it but it still only carries like 16% chance of hitting on the turn or river(8% if calling on the turn) So again it's a spot I like to try and get into as cheap as possible.

It's not a perfect system, but it does create a large portion of my bluff spots. IP I like to work bluffs on turn and river if it checks through. A lot of these spots I turn into bluffs on the river, like I was waiting to make sure the draw didn't come in. The big thing I try to do is play the same in a bluff as I would if it made it, all the while mixing it up between aggresive and passively playing a spot. I used to lose a lot on chasing draws or aggressively betting them so I try to play something like this 70/30 passive/aggressive. The determining factors are how many villains, how strong is my hand if I miss, position, stack sizes.

Couldn't agree more. If things are deep enough that on the flop the SPR is even close to 1:1 I am inclined to get it in. Not so much on just an OESD, but a strong flush draw for sure. Not a lot of people want to call down their stack unless they are nutted if there is a draw out there. It would likely be less if they give it enough though to think you are protecting a made set or 2 pair.

Making trips is great until you find a guy with a boat. Honestly I don't know if I've ever gotten away from a set - never folded and seen one in a hand playout. They are hard to tell apart from a top pair aggression to me. This would have probably been the onetime for me.
I hate any 4 to a straight or flush spot. I sometimes bluff the flush spots on the river. If I face aggression here though I am running into a sunrunner who made the straight, flushes are worse as I have lost to a 2X completing the flush.
You might have missed it but that river also completed the flushdraw on the table. It sucks but I wouldn't bet if given the chance and would fold to a bet. To many hands crush you unfortunately. For an idea of why they may have a 5 A5 is a typical preflop hand that people play.

luck is just another way of describing variance. i love this quote. (https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=50033898&postcount=3)


we all have good runs and bad runs. we tend to focus on the bad runs because they are traumatic. at least this is my personal experience.

100 hands is a crazy small sample. 50k is a good sample. if something is very wrong then you'll probably see deviation within 20k hands. over just several hundred or few thousand hands you should always expect some bad luck. it always hits sometime.

i guess there is also the possibility that you are just statistically unlucky. ;)

On passive table mostly it's good to raise, i think you understand why. The less people in flop we have, the less probability that you will face with stronger than your hand. Also, with raise it's easier to bluff. With limp you must have really good hand, because your opponents will not believe that limper have a strong hand.

But as i said, sometimes, limping is good if it fits to your strategy. The problem is that limping is used by fish mostly. And the worst way it's limp and check on flop (if it of course not a 80 lvl bluff)

well there are tight/weak passive players (folds when he doesn't have the nuts) and there are loose passive (calling station) players---two very different player types. it's usually a bad idea to bluff into a calling station.

if it's the type of table where lots of players are calling and seeing flops (hard to isolate especially as the first to raise) then i tighten up my raising range in the interest of pot control, and start limping more. when there is lots of weak preflop play then you get better odds on limping, both pot odds and implied odds.


yeah it's a fish move, but at low stakes you can often get away with it. it's all about the odds for me. for example, i love limping low pocket pairs for cheap because flopping a set can pay off huge.

First game when I came last I was trying to see the table cards each time. Like that.

Second game 11th I was more hard on myself and folded the crap.


In the end I could have been even harder later and stayed in longer. But I felt you have to go for it sometime or you get left behind in stacks.

When your all in is 2k but someone has 12k they don't even care it they have to match you, they can hardly feel it. But if you lose you are dead.

I ll agreed that this all depends from the table. Raising is worse when there too much aggressive players, or calling stations, but limping is very often ends up after someone raising and you have to decide: to lost BB or to raise and maybe, if preflop will be shitty for you, lost much more.

I would tell, that limping can be used when you're small blind or previous player, because there much less chance that someone will raise after you. And this is bed idea to limp if you're moving first or second.

So i'm just trying not to limp, this is easier from all possible strategies (of course, eventually, because i'm fish, i'm falling under limping anyway :D )

I lean heavily on a raise if there is a limper and I had planned a RFI. I can't really decide on a sizing. I generally RFI something like 2.22 or 2.48 BB, and add anywhere from 1-1.5 BB for a limper. I prefer this if I am in late position not so much if I'm LJ, as it generally picks up a caller. It happens a lot in our little series and I've been leaning more towards calling as to many people limp their value hands. In general though it's probably like 20% of the limped pots either the limper or the flat call after has something strong.

---

I might now better if I didn't have a nearly empty database atm. I sat down today and gathered up all my hands across my laptop and PC I've been playing from and there were 200 hands. That doesn't even over all of last night. So I don't really know what's going on. My HM3 still has some of the data from before the PC went down, but it's very sparse. I'm pretty annoyed with ACR about this as it's the biggest annoyance I face on their site, is lost hands I want to review. I have to spend some time figuring the ins and outs of HM3 so I can figure out exactly what I have and then sort out the best way to get accurate info moving forward, as it all "feels like" to me at this point.
I have been kicking around trying out a few different sites but most don't offer the lineup that ACR has and that's really beneficial to my erratic schedule. I'm not sure if I should start trying playing all my hands with the HUD running  as this lets me tag hands in real time. It's just I often start on the laptop then migrate to a PC, and the HUD slows things down drastically. I've been kicking the idea around of dismantling my Mining rig and converting it into a poker rig; might be tiome to get on that.  ;D

---

That all sounds like progress to me. It's tough and there is certainly a point where you have no fold equity against a big stack. It's just about picking your spots as best you can. It's common to come up with a 10BB shove strategy from any position. There are also better spots than others to try and steal blinds like SB VS. BB. It's uncomfortable but it's a good part of the game to get used to, because you can wait for KK or AA and lose all the same.
Good Luck this weekend

---

So I have been trying to find this hand for a couple days and it's gone. I have been trying to adjust and catch myself in spots where my pocket pairs might be behind. I'd like to get thoughts on this spot. This is about 40 people off the money. I am sitting around the bubble for position at the moment.

Villain 1 UTG  22 BB   Raises  to 2.5 BB       Folds to
Villain-2 BTN  39 BB   Raises  to 8.3 BB
Hero      SB    31 BB   Calls
Villain 1        Jams     22BB to call
Villain 2       Calls      22 BB
Hero with TT  ????   13.7 BB to call                   Pot size is roughly 53 BB

---

Question for the group. How faithful are you to following the odds in making a call. Does a small betsizing keep you in it chasing a draw if the odds are there? I know that there are times I personally get away from the math and it's been hit or miss but sometimes things just don't make sense. 3 days ago I had a 100BB stack jam turn into me (40BB) when I had top pair 3rd kicker and a flush draw had come in on the turn. Flop was checked through. So I hero called it and he had pure air. Did the same thing the next hand and I called it down with second pair, again he had air but at least had an overcard.
Funny note on that tournament I got taken out by 2 hands about 15 apart same player. He called down my 2 pair and my flopped set, with solid value bets on flop and turn chasing a gutter that came in... TWICE. That tournament lasted about 45 minutes for me and I went from 220th to about 3rd until I ran into this guy.

point taken, i'm talking specifically about this situation:


......and mainly early/middle position. the thinking being that between pot odds (lots of limpers) and implied odds we can get close to the 8:1 on flopping a set.


i try to keep it close to the odds and i think i do a decent job, which is why i rarely stay in hands that are gutshot only.


tough beats. made gutshots hurt the worst, except maybe for overpair vs underpair hitting set.

Sometimes you just need to push your luck instead of waiting for pair to appear on your hands. In the early game, you could take your time slowly until you are sure to win because there isnt ante yet


Most people that have lower stack of chips usually gets impatient especially when the BB is quite high already. That means it is most likely for them to try to bluff. A player with higher stack will most likely call that kind of bluff , even if they lose they wont be losing alot . Happens alot of time in bitcointalk weekend's game especailly when we are near to the last 10 player


Glad you got my point. Not a pro in poker unlike you guys here and I cant really explain things well  :D

Thanks for the tips guys. I appreciate my questions are much lower level obvious to some of you guys.

I cant play today but still hopeful for tomorrow.

Reading thru the thread..  It's nice to see some of you starting to take learning more seriously.  Here's a book that could help you guys with the basics:  https://www.scribd.com/doc/51188067/The-Poker-Blueprint (https://www.scribd.com/doc/51188067/The-Poker-Blueprint)

Here's something a little more advanced and math centric:  https://www.scribd.com/doc/36453558/Let-There-Be-Range (https://www.scribd.com/doc/36453558/Let-There-Be-Range)

They're kinda old but still good.

And I suggest you guys watch Doug Polk's poker hands series at YT to have a glimpse of the thought process.

You're welcome.  :)

i read the poker blueprint when it came out many years ago. some nice bedtime reading there.

so when you gonna find your way into our poker series anyway? series #3 will probably start in ~3 weeks. :)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5245365.0

btw, i'm digging the return of the dude avatar.

^  I thought about joining but I didn't feel like it.  Felt kinda depressed.  But I'll join a couple of tourneys next time.  :)  

And yup.  Lol.  I haven't used this avatar in a looong time.

Thanks definitely looks like some good material. Might make that some of my casual reading at work couldn't hurt to go back over everything. Agreed on the Doug Polk hand review videos, I watched so much of those unfortunately for me, I really was just getting back into poker and was reall digging his content as he lost his desire to play or continue making poker content.

I did however follow him into the upswing lab which was helpful and worked out as they just updated a bunch of their MTT ranges extensively as my subscription was ending. I've lately been watching the content put out by BenCB/Raise Your Edge on youtube and i think it is a very complimentary after studying purely GTO strategies.

Sorry to hear you were feeling depressed. I don't know you from a hole in the wall, but if it hits again as it usually does and your feeling stuck reach out anytime. Apart from that will be happy to see you playing in series #3

^  Ah...  I quit poker by the time Upswing Poker went online.  I did have a couple of subscriptions at other sites tho.  RIO owned by Phil Galfond was good.  He was really good back in the day.  Prolly at the top 5 best in cash games...  Up there with durrrr, Ivey and Antonius.

Yeah Galfond is crazy good. Not sure how much you follow these days but he's become quite the PLO wizard. He's running some challenges now and made an insane comeback against the first challenger. I'd say you made a good decision for someone to study from.

I have to ask as it fascinates me. Why did you quit playing poker?

^  Yeah I heard about it.  He still has it.  And he's the guy that durrrr won't ever ever play HU.  Durrr has too much respect for Galfond's mad skillzz.

I quit cos I had the worst run of my life...  I was losing a lot.

Edit:  I still play from time to time tho.  Short Deck Holdem, it's fun.

Watch this vid.  About a mysterious Swede who came to FTP and shocked everybody.  He was taking on anybody HU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFq9sJMmbEg

Great vid! Thanks!

I believe I watched it around 3 years ago, but I totally forgot this wonderful story.

What I like the most about this vid is that it shows that no one can be objectively the best in poker. Since luck still plays a big part, "poker kings" have been replacing one another all the time. (Aren't our Bitcointalk Poker Series is another illustration of that? :) )

^  It's mostly variance not luck or bad luck imo.  You could say Isildur1 ran pretty hot vs durrrr but he wasn't just lucky or for the most part lucky.  He's a good player.

And Hastings?  The vid didn't show that Hastings and some other guys were sharing their HEM and PT databases to study Isildur1's plays.  They pooled their action to beat him.  And the game was PLO...  Isildur1 was mostly an HU NLHE player.

Love it that made for some good watching this morning before bed when I got home. The delivery made it, I had read a few things about Isildur1  and their early and cryptic entry into online Poker. Just goes to show what dedication and study can do. i was so far removed from anything resembling serious or interst in the poker scene beyond playing fun home games back then, but I get the feeling he likely had done some very dirct research on each of his expected opponents and their play.

Glad you filled in the blanks on the Hastings dude, I had a feeling this was a very targeted approach, the "teamwork" in database sharing doesn't surprise me. I'm sure I was a learning lesson for Viktor as it is almost ludacris to think you can jump from Hold'em to PLO at the same stakes and expect to crush it. I've been thinking on this a lot lately as I watch quite a few stream highlights on youtube, some for fun others as they share a lot of the thought process and reasoning behind their plays. If they aren't trying for a purely balanced GTO strategy it really opens them up for exploits in the long run. Not just streamers but really any online crusher that you can go back over and watch their action all the way through seems  a very big risk.
I have no idea how often they make adjustments to their game or how easily they can spot an exploit in their gameplay in these situations.
Good on you. A lot of people can't make that decision. I've considered giving short deck a try for fun but will probably hold off a while and see how I make out in the next month or so with my standard holdem MTT's. Can't be any worse than April/May really.
I almost forgot does anyone have opinions on what they would do here. I forgot to pop it into equihash and see where I am at. With a pot like this I don't feel like flatting the 4-bet jam and call, is a good play as I'm left with 9 BB and am pot committed. It feels like it's a Jam or a fold. It's been up for a while and I'll just let you know what I did. I folded.
I'm also curious on what you think about me flatting(calling) the 3-bet as opposed to Jamming not much option for a 4-bet.

^  If anybody had the same kind of mind f**k poker was doing to me they'd surely quit too.  Day in day out I get set over set, a straight or flush that goes all in at the flop or the turn vs a set and river pairs the board.  And it's been going on for months! 

I shit you not.

But then again in hindsight, the meta also changed and I stuck to how I have always played and never adjusted.  I guess I got lazy.  Lol.

i'm folding there most times, then kicking myself when villains both show AX hands. :P

given generic ranges i think you're winning there maybe 1/3 of the time at showdown multi-way? being only in for 0.5bb and with very little fold equity vs villain 2, and with villain 1's range being a bit of a wild card, i think we can walk away. just too much to invest preflop IMO.....

Still a good call. Tale as old as time as they say. I barely remember what poker was like as I didn't pay enough attention to playing it well, but I can remember sorting out things like raising from the BTN with pretty much any 2 and it getting through more than it should have. Not the case anymore. It's shitty when you get hit with Variance, and a changing landscape all at once, and have to make a tough call. If the desire to adapt wasn't there then it was probably for the best to get out overall at the time. Definitely better than chasing the win by doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result.

Wait a minute were you there... They both show AKoff, and the cards run out clean. This spot was a test for my patience. Initially I was pissed and started to doubt the spot and whether I should have put the chips in, but calmed my tits and was able to find some better spots later on.

Even as I thought on the initial call I made I kept going over whether a flat was the error and it should have been a 4-bet or Jam. I still have to talk myself down from that initial reaction to flip for my tournament life. I clearly have to put BTN on a strong range that has very few pocket pairs I beat maybe 88, 99 for the 3-bet but likely JJ+ then there is KQs, AJs+(maybe) AQoff+. Even that might be to wide, hard to say.

It was just one of those things that ate at me having to see the runout. When I was considering it I didn't really think UTG was going to call down, let alone jam. Can't recall what it was but something about their play so far made me think they were mostly RFI/Fold pre. So when they called I figured it was a strong pair, and was elated at first by my fold.

Either way thanks for the insight. I'll have videos tomorrow night likely. I'd love to have people come in and talk spots about the Championship game. I'm curious what people thought about some of my call downs. I definitely got lucky hitting with them but I think most are standard for a final table type scenario for my situation.

probably not, doesn't ring a bell---just such a standard annoying spot. i posted a similar multi-way pot a while back where villains showed down AA and KK. i've seen my share of AX vs AX there, which is always frustrating.


i'm looking forward to it!

Here are the videos for the last qualifier (https://youtu.be/x5j-5BleKXk) and the Series 2 Championship (https://youtu.be/R6MlZOIWp7o).

With TT in that spot and with those stacks, it's a jam and never a call if you're continuing with the hand.  TT is vulnerable and being oop makes post flop play harder.  And you want to keep the pot HU.

thanks, i just gave the championship a quick look through. were there hands in particular you wanted to discuss?

i don't feel so bad for @arallmuus now that i see he limped KK on that trip Qs hand. still, pretty gutsy call on your part with top pair, 8 kicker on a very wet flop. i assume you put him on the flush draw?

i should have been in that hand lol. i had 5h6h and would have flopped the flush. i had just taken out @iv4n and wanted to let you splash around with the small stacks for a bit + nurse my stack. you came through in spades. :D

Thanks for the insight. I think I might be getting a bit gunshy. I've been playing around with a few things to try and play these pots without necessarily getting it all-in pre. It's been a mixed bag so far, really flop dependent. I guess it just comes down to defining my range better for what I'll continue with. I'll have to give my call/fold, call/call, Jam range there more definition.

I don't have any hands off the top of my head. I'm going to give it a watch later on to see if anything jumps out at me.
I had to track down that hand with arallmuus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6MlZOIWp7o&feature=youtu.bet=7950), to remember what I did. It was just a weird spot, for them to Jam. Mostly the call was odds, I need to be good there 1/3 of the time to call down ~4K. With top pair, I felt okay because of the Limp pre and this Jam made me think he was trying to protect something worse. That or they had the A, maybe K of hearts. Overall it felt like they were just trying to rep the flush and steal the pot. I'm not sure whether or not they are capable of trying that as a bluff or not but I'll be a bit more cautious next time something like that pops up. I got lucky there no doubt about it.
I had some notes on the before that they limp strong hands not sure that I had put premium pairs but definitely all AK hands.

Damn those could have been your chips  ;)

---

I have to say this patience fucking sucks. Okay maybe an exaggeration but fuck me is it hard, and heartbreaking when it winds up being for not. I've been working on this a lot, slowing down, putting less chips in and trying to control pots better. It was a change from trying to get in as much as possible to flip with a volatile stack size, or abrupt end. Not so much early on but as late reg nears it's end and through the battle past the bubble and then for ladders. LAst night was one of those tourneys. With about 3 levels left in late reg I was 4th of 236, and stayed in top 10 until we got down to 50. From there I was around 15-19th until we got down to 20. I made it to 17/17, by nursing my stack down to 6 BB, then to 2.6BB getting it in with A3off, and survivng to the ladder at 15. Did the same to make the jump at 14/14 with 9Ts
Then here I am 10/10 with 5.6BB and I get KK - The only premium pocket pair I've been dealt this whole tournament. Okay JJ but that's not the premium I mean. I jam and get called by AK, they run 4 to a flush lol. I can't complain I really went card dead from 42 players remaining and just focused on surviving to the ladders rather than jam garbage in good spots to try and steal. I made potentially made 3 buy-ins more by waiting and getting lucky, but damn that final double-up would have been nice.

Pretty Gutsy from him , if he / someone else beat me with a flush that would be great call but three Queen was very lucky from him to call my all in considering that he has only pair of Q in his hand with no chance to get a flush IIRC (?)


I know this might sounds stupid but IIRC the number of flush that I have seen in the tournament ( From regular tournament to Grand Finale ) was so low that I am almost 95% sure that it would not be a flush if you call my all in

Turns out yes it wasnt but three Q, you lucky man  :P

Thats part of the game of course, being lucky and Im not LOL ;D

Nono folding is fine.  I mean it's def close with 31bb's left.  But could go either way.  It's around 20bb's that's when you really start getting stacks in a little lighter than usual.

2.6bbs, damn! i am rarely blinding all the way down to there. at that point you're just playing for the next payout ladder. i think it's more optimal to keep playing for #1 even if it means shoving weaker, earlier. it retains more fold equity too. at 4-6bbs my range is fairly wide for this reason.

not a bad result anyhow considering the lack of premium hands. realistically you gotta ride out hundreds of MTTs without shipping one sometimes.....

It's a good strategy, in my opinion, but unfortunately sometimes I don't have the strength to use it. Often I start worrying when I have less than 10 BB, start playing more aggressively, and in the vast majority of cases it ends badly. Even though I remember how I leddered really good multiple times just because I was patient and keeping calm, I fail at it sometimes.

if you have less than 20 bb you have to play aggressively or take risks, of course with observation too.
for example there are 9 players at the table and 6 people fold then you are the seventh person to take action, you can do all in or raise to 10 bb.
because you need more chips to last longer.

If it could have been avoided it would have. This late in I think BB was around 50K, and hitting 2.6BB was just after blinds increased. I really used to get jammy at 10BB, but have gotten more comfortable with waiting until 6 or 7 BB before I really start to feel the pressure. I definitely wasn't mucking anything that was worth playing while I still had some fold equity. It was just more of an accepting of my fate should I remain card dead.
Yes the MTT's have been a bit of a bitch. Great results in some regards mostly SWC, which I believe I will keep playing more often. Then others where I just can't do anything but shake my head.

Last night I flipped for a stack, this was mostly player dependent. Was a pretty dead tournament for a few levels after I reg'd and it was level 11 or 12. I've noticed the villain do some weird shit, limping and slowplaying medium and strong hands and jamming stacks in other times flop and turn. They are UTG+1, I am BTN. My stack is 23 BB, they have 29 BB

Villain opens 2.25 BB folds around
Hero 3-bet to 7.1 BB
They Jam. I elect to call off with AQ. I figure they might have a weak pocket pair, suited Ax. Could be a strong pair but like I said they play these in a trappy fashion from what I've seen.

They show 46 off....  board runs out 26Q ? 5   It was a rainbow flop and can't recall the turn but that F'n river 5. Just annoyed about it is all. I had the right read on the player, strong enough hand against their range if you want to call it that.

The sting was tempered as I took 4th in the SWC Nightly Seal Battle(I think) just before. Might have shipped it if not for a hand that had me with Trip Q's 9 kicker, losing to Trip Q's 10 kicker. The fact I didn't go broke was a victory in itself.

Not going to lie. You are probably one of th emost patient players in our series imo. It's something I've noticed and tried to integrate into my game to some degree.

Oh yeah for sure. Blinding out isn't my regular strategy. It's just something that is a possibility for anyone that has ranges they will stick to. I would have loved to have had any number of hands in the scenario you describe. I've also been in the position where I have 4 or 5 playable hands in an orbit with a 20 BB stack, and get whittled down by playing the hands I should and missing flops. All just part of the game, sometimes there is nothing you can do.
If you have an interest in poker, we play a forum series we are talking about the next one here. Bitcointalk Poker Series format discussion - Let's keep them all in one place. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5247993.msg54418274#msg54418274)

i'm assuming you're saying they hit 2 pair on the river? did you mean 56o?

that's the tough thing about tournaments. the odds don't care about how deep you are or the time invested. aggressive players with live cards are dangerous. even as played you're not much better than 60/40 there. when you can get it in vs Ax it's pretty nice, but no matter how you look at it, deep runs/strong finishes require running good on flips.


it's tough to find the perfect balance. i agree that the old 10bb threshold for shoving is often premature, but there is a lot of room between 10 and 2.6. :)

Ooops no I meant the flop was 23Q - They rivered a straight.
Yeah the beat shouldn't sting anymore than losing to AJ or KQ, regardless of it being a vastly weaker hand. I was more pissed as it switched tables right away and I couldn't leave a note in case I see them around again. Just to be aware.

---

Last night I took a look at GGpoker. Heard okay things and wanted to try it out, I can say this much. I've gotten used to the large guarantees on ACR. I was checking out their schedule and I'll try out a few tournaments in the next couple days to see what the field is like. Not positive I'll stick around but who knows. It does feel nice to have a few options, I think SWC is going to be in the regular rotation for a while. Gotta dig a little deeper but last nights tournament was essentially a 3X buy-in by the time late reg ends.

It was weird, you can make it a double rebuy from the start, then an add-on at end of late reg. 1500 starting stack and 5000 add-on.

I'll consider it research for the field when I get into that Big BTC on SWC.  ;)

ah, classic. :P


did you have to KYC? no USA players allowed. :(


that's pretty standard structure for a rebuy tourney. you talking about the nightly seal battle?

That's shitty, I thought about that after mentioning it. I didn't have to KYC, that's not to say they wouldn't hit me up with a verification of some sorts down the road. I sort of breezed through it so not sure if I even had to give them my address. Eitehr way they didn't ask for supporting documents but might decide to when I go to withdraw.

What sort of jogged my memory to try GGpoker was this thread about a skin of them. I'm not to familiar with skins in poker or how they work but here's the thread. ♠️ 7XL - the largest poker & casino network in the world 100% cash back! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5252302.0) I thought for some reason I couldn't deposit BTC directly to GGpoker so I was humming and hawing about this. It's just sort of out of my depth but it was apparently a way to open up GGpoker to the rest of the world. Might be worth a read.
Yeah that's the one. I've also played the nightly re-buy once. My one gripe on SWC is that their tournaments are lacking a bit on details. For instance at no point was I sure what amount of chips I was getting for the rebuy. I just made the assumption it was going to cost a buy-in and would probably be 5K chips.

Tonight I'm going to try and tackle the Thursday Double or whatever it's called. 2 tourneys at the same time, best finish across both get's an additional prize. Then there is a progressive for someone who wins both at the same time.

here is a spot i ran into yesterday, relatively early in a small buy-in MTT:


i hated playing this passively OOP and the T on the turn was such a troll since it made AJ and J9 straights.

how often does villain have a straight, KQ, or set? i felt like i was inviting him to bluff the river (missed straight/flush draws or weak pairs)......i'm just not sure about this spot.

I think you are good here more often than not. Villain would likely play AK the same way. These spots are tough, as there really isn't anyway to discern if they flopped a set or Top Top, even though you block some of those combos. BTN has a very wide range for RFI, so they could have flopped open-ended and missed or turned the straight, AJ more likely than J9. While you have to be aware of those, we can't be scared of them. It will suck to call and see a set or a straight, it's always on my mind when I have 2-pair and is devastating.

Personally I would call it down. If it's a set or a turned straight it's just unlucky but with you playing it passively they may think they can push you off a weak single pairholding. A blocker bet on the turn might have been a good play to evaluate strength. I've been working on pot control so it's not always ideal to take the lead and volunteer chips to the pot but a flat call from them let's you set the price and gives you some insight, likewise if they re-raise.

---

Congrats on that solid finish yesterday.

i tanked for a while and ended up folding, which has been bugging me for a while. he mucked it and in hindsight i really would have liked to know. :D

i agree that i probably gave him too much credit, and i also wonder if i should have gotten active on the turn. i just had a really tough time figuring out range and odds in the moment. given the weak flop bet, it felt more like a slow played KQ or set that got scared of draws on the turn than AK, but i agree TPTK is in there.

in retrospect, what exact range do you put him on, on the river?


thanks. i can't complain with 12th given the insanely fast blind structure. big stacks bullying like crazy, short stacks winning shoves for tournament lives over and over. it was a very tough game near/after the bubble.

i really hate their software and blind structures. the huge overlay made it worth it, but even if they had more traffic, big freerolls and overlays are all i'm interested in at sportsbet. i really hope they overhaul their poker room.

was sunday a dud for you? otherwise i assume you would have reported back with some good news....

It really feel like AA to me. I had to double check the numbers but their sizing lined up fairly well to get this to a pot-size bet left on the river. Range wise I have
9Ts+,J9s+ - Suited connectors and 1 gappers. Could make a better 2 pair or possible straight. More likely to create a  straight and/or flush draw imo.
K9s+, Single pair/2 pair holdings would have had strong draws to continue betting
ATo+, KJo+, JTo+ Flopped straight possibly, strong pairs, some 2 pair combos, and missed draws
44,TT+ - Flopped sets, pairs with draws

Most of the suited combos that don't improve on the turn would likely give up, apart from spades. If they picked up an open ended straight draw they would likely continue to barrel.

This might be flawed but I was just trying to figure out what they might have shown up with and carried forward on. They might have had some out there AX of spades that turned nutflush draw and then jammed the bluff in the end. C-bets on the flop are hard to use as an indicator. I find a lot of flop c-bets are just a straight bluff especially when the board smashes the perceived range.

Nothing wrong with folding out there. It's a tough spot and you could have been behind from the Flop. I've been there where i improve on the turn and get pumped only to realize I was drawing dead on the turn  :-\ . Such is life, one take away would be on the turn, ask yourself all things being equal on the river, will you call a jam. Given pot size and SPR. Doesn't necessarily mean you have to but it saves you a bit of the rushed process on the river online MTT's create.
I dislike playing there quite a bit. Samecamp as yourself, but not positive a freeroll is worth it lol. I find myself getting frustrated just trying to use it, mostly the betting is my biggest issue. I can get past everything else really. It's fine if you only ever want to use the standard bets they give you but the option of 2,3,4 BB pr-flop is just stupid. I've timed out in the past just trying to type in a custom bet. I've also accidentally jammed my stack in  :o

I like that they offer the forum such opportunities and will continue to support those events, and offer suggestions. I just don't think they are listening or at least not mentioning it. Problem is they won't improve the traffic if they don't improve the software first.

Sunday was a big Dud. I went to showdown numerous times and was just behind, in a lot of spots. Most I was ahead until the river. It was just a bad high variance day, with let's say unexpected and questionable hands showing up at times. For example I 3-bet pre against LJ from the BTN, they called with J8 suited. I had TT I believe and they revered a J, after calling down 2 streets, The board was dry and had a K high flop, no draws for them.

I busted out at 25 min mark... I still think this was a decent spot to bluff jam the river but could be wrong. Getting fuzzy on it but I missed with everything. The board by the river has made flush and straight draws and paired 8's. I bet the Flop spade draw is there, A Q 8,(2 spades) Ts, 8 - board has

Iirc I bet 2 streets, smaller on the flop, then larger on the turn. I then jammed river. I essentially figured they had a strong pair maybe 2. It seemed like a spot I could push them off and might have been able to if they didn't have A8 - So i was out. Second boat I ran into that made it on the turn.

The big BTC, was better but similar result. Gameplay there really was hot and then cold. Lost a lot early with AK, AKs - just not getting there, 3-bets getting no respect or running into monster hands. I went out in a spot where I had TT, called from BTN or SB against UTG+2. Board flops 8, 7, 5(I think), I c-bet they jam. I have them covered and it's 18 BB to call for a pot of 43BB. I call they have AA, roll around a few hands and I'm down to 5 BB, jam Q5s SB VS. BB, BB has AA.

Just wasn't my day. It was really disappointing as there was so much on the table. I don't think I could have done much differently. Running into AA there, yeah I though maybe they have JJ+, but they could also have had a straight draw pair on the board, maybe 99 I guess I could have played much more passively in the Big BTC with AK, but that seems wrong to adjust my play solely because of the stakes. Probably should have though as I've noticed SWC regs probably don't distinguish much between a 1K or 10K buy-in.

Call river imo.  You gotta go with the hand as played being short and him being at the bu with most likely with a wider range than usual.  I think his shove represents either the stone cold nuts or complete air here.

thanks, i appreciate your insight.

re the "will you call a jam" question---great point. that's what bothered me so much about this hand. i had sorta implicitly decided when i called on the turn that i would stack off if the river wasn't super wet (9, J, A....maybe spade). yet i reversed on that and decided to fold anyway. afterwards i felt like i was throwing away chips, which is why i brought up the hand.

2-pair is such a bitch sometimes. tough spot, as you said.


yeah i don't play it seriously, just go for a quick double/triple up (in which case it might be close to a $10 buy-in value for the 0.04 BTC freeroll) or bust.


several times i've tried to custom bet and minbet instead, with terrible consequences. i've also timed out trying to bet. it's just horrible UI.


+1, i dunno if they understand that. the software is so horrible that no remotely serious player wants to pay value to play there. they have to pay us with overlays.


sounds like it. fucking poker! ;D

Always glad to repay the favor.
They make it hard to stay away, but I don't even consider it until I hear about a big one. I'm set up on 3 sites now so I can easily choose to stay away.

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That sums it up perfectly. It's funny how the same can be said when things start going really well.

The last part is something I've been thinking on a lot lately. For a while after my first big bink on Low Stakes I was able to hold my own but looking back my graph was on a steady decline. There was a lot of bad plays and learning going on in that time, so not all bad. Then came bad decisions ... very late reg, poor re-entry spots, and just some bad bankroll management. Then there was the inevitable poker variance that was in there as well, a double edged sword so to speak.

The run-bad was real at times, and really took the forefront. There were some massive sun runs at the same time, but they generally get forgotten. In the end the variance helped me rebuild, from 0 essentially. I had burned myself down to about break even. The winnings I had on SWC was being transferred to ACR, as they had a better schedule for me. Then came a few binks, SWC has been a really good field overall for me with their new schedule, not to mention our Forum Series. Everything really turned around, the bankroll was rebuilding and I'm building up consistency for cashing. ACR has mostly been min cashes or Top 20, which has been nice but was still break even or losing in the long run. It was definitely still frustrating as it just seemed something I couldn't fix.

Brings me to last night. Not a proud moment but I was on a typical schedule as the wife let me start early for fathers day.  8)
Pretty much standard on my second bullet in a low stakes and down 2 in a micro. Just couldn't gain traction until I ran hot and was primed for a solid finish. Got coolered 2 hands in a row with pocketpairs and I wound up out 26 off the money. I probably could have gotten away from the first one and was likely tilted going into the second one. Got a little frustrated looked over the schedule and made the choice as it was early, to buy-in to tournament more in-line with the SWC buy-ins I've been playing. Not a great idea nor advice to anyone to lose and go up in stakes. Probably more of a chasing a loss than anything.
I still had a week or 2 worth of buy-ins but wasn't sure if ACR was going to be a field I kept playing in. So while this wasn't just me punting off a bigger buy-in I wasn't going to be heartbroken if I ran down my ACR funds quicker this way.

Well turns out I'll be sticking around. I didn't take the whole thing down but it was close. Played a solid game and took 5th overall, for my highest score by a few bucks. This last one actually has me with a full bankroll, that I have won - 95% of apart from my initial deposit. This is spread across SWC ACR and GGpoker(small amount but have been somewhat successful on their lowsakes tournaments)

Anyway just thought I would share that as it was sort of a big deal and hit me this morning. Now the hard part of keeping it up and growing it. Anyways here are a couple hands from last night, this could have easily ended my night. There were a lot of ups and downs but nothing that I think was a real head scratcher or anything. The first 2 hands are one orbit apart. Apart from all the ups and downs the craziest thing happened the PC I was on froze on th efinal table - I went scrambling in the dark searching for my laptop so fast lol, only tripped over 2 things.

Level 20 (1000.00/2000.00) -8-max Seat 1: UTG +1 (23889.00) Seat 2: Villain (65894.00) Seat 3: LJ (65232.00) Seat 4: HJ (28798.00) Seat 5: BTN (51523.00) Seat 6: SB (18001.00) Seat 8: Hero BB (109778.00) Vilain UTG+1 raises 4000.00 to 4000.00 Hero BB calls 2000.00 *** FLOP *** [Ac Jh 2h] pot 10750.00 Hero BB checks Villain -  bets 2000.00 Hero calls 2000.00 *** TURN *** [Ac Jh 2h] [Th] 14750.00 Hero checks Vilain bets 5000.00 Hero calls 5000.00 *** RIVER *** [Ac Jh 2h Th] [Kc] 4750.00                       Checks through *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 24750.00 Hero shows [6h Ad] Villain shows [Ah As]

Level 21 (1200.00/2400.00) 8-max Seat Seat 1: BB (50980.00) Seat 2: UTG+1 Villain (74544.00) Seat 3: UTG+2 (63432.00) Seat 4: LJ (14798.00) Seat 5: HJ (84073.00) Seat 6: CO (104614.00) Seat 7: BB (113218.00) Seat 8: Hero SB (152568.00) [6c 6d] Villain UTG+1 raises 4800.00 to 4800.00 Hero SB calls 3600.00 Villain 2 BB calls 2400.00 *** FLOP *** [6s Ac 2h] Pot 16800.00 Checks through *** TURN *** [6s Ac 2h] [2s] Pot 16800.00 Hero checks Villain-2 bets 3850.00 Villain-1 calls Hero raises to 11040.00 Villain-2 folds Villai-1 calls *** RIVER *** [6s Ac 2h 2s] [8d] Pot 42730.00 Hero bets 31200.00 Villain-1 raises all-in Hero calls 27204.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Pot 159538.00 Villain-1 shows [Ah Ad] Hero shows [6c 6d]

Level 22 (1400.00/2800.00)- 8-max Seat 1: BTN (46830.00) Seat 2: SB (122282.00) Seat 3: BB (63432.00) Seat 4: UTG+1 (42661.00) is sitting out Seat 6: UTG+2 (159348.00) Seat 7: LJ - Villain (79568.00) Seat 8: HJ - Hero (90524.00) [9d 9c] Villain UTG+1 raises to 5600.00 Hero 3-bet to 18200.00 Villain calls *** FLOP *** [3d 9s 6d] Pot 43050.00 Villain checks Hero bets 8680.00 Villain jams to 61018.00 and is all-in Hero calls 52338.00 *** TURN *** [3d 9s 6d] [Kc] Main pot 165086.00 *** RIVER *** [3d 9s 6d Kc] [8c] Main pot 165086.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Pot 165086.00 Villain shows [6s As] Hero shows [9d 9c]

congrats on the deep run! :)


ace-rag gonna ace-rag. off suit at that. :P

that early position 2x RFI smells like a big hand, no? or was this guy particularly active?


not much to say, tough beat. i'd have done the same.

^ ^  It's better if you post your hands without showing the results to avoid results based thinking and to make the analysis as objective as possible.  You can post the results later anyway.

And it would help if you share your thought process with each hand.

Thanks.
You know that Ace-rag is a cornerstone of my range  :P
In all seriousness the call was 1 BB into a pot of 5.5 or so pre. BB defend for me when I'm deepstacked is definitely any Ax. The call on the flop is standard for me in that spot as well. I think it's common that people c-bet almost 100% if they were pre-flop aggressor. The turn call was 50/50 for me, but the price was still good imo. Looking back on it it's clear he was trying to keep it cheap and keep me along with my weak A or draw. With the straightdraw and flush draw getting there I was beginning to consider turning my hand into a bluff on the river, by leading out. In the end I chickened out, with any Q making a straight as well.

Odds are this guy would never have let go his flopped set anyways so opting out of the bluff was probably a good call. I'm glad he checked it back as I would have folded to any bet on the river.

I know I'm bad at playing the blocker game in my head so when I have a certain pair I will give less credit to others having it. Like most things in poker sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong but overall I think it's been +EV. I just balance it by keeping pots smaller with check-calls, and if it gets to pricey then I have to walk away.

2BB open seemed to be his standard. I've noticed that most people aren't varying their sizing at all. I was the same, but have picked a few different spots to vary it. ACR actually makes it more difficult for me because it will almost never let me type in 2.3BB for a betsize. You'll notice he did the same 2BB open in the next hand. I left this part out from the information to see if anyone would pick up on the seats. 1 orbit apart this guy flopped a set of Aces, and I was in a spot that put me in his crosshairs each time. Crazy.
You know what all I could do was laugh at this, probably because I actually had a very healthy stack leftover. It was actually a + in my book as I didn't wind up with a toxic mindset immediately afterwards. Chatted with the guy for a few minutes, he figured I had hit a 2, and couldn't believe the cooler himself.

Will do. These hands weren't so much a review of spots themselves just a snippit of the highs and lows in this deeprun I made. The last few times I made a FT or close were very "slow" in terms of play. A lot of folding and waiting from a shortstack position. I didn't give much info prior to, but this is more a mindset review if anything. In the past I've definitely tilted off more than my fair share of potential finishes after a beat like this. Instead I kept my shit together and just waited for the next spot - the 3rd hand.

I do have a few spots in mind that I want some opinions on, I just haven't run into them lately. I like the idea of explaining my thinking prior to any input and will do that the next time I bring a hand in. On that note, now that I've told everyone this 1st 2 hands were the same guy. When I made the losing call boat over boat, I honestly sat there and said "no way this guy has AA again, 88 or 22 and I'm just unlucky".

i did get that impression but wasn't totally sure since somebody was added to the table on the second hand. it was one of the things (combined with the minraise from early position) that made me wonder if this was his standard open or the old "minraise with monsters to get callers" type thing. i've noticed some players still do this. my standard open is definitely bigger, especially from UTG or UTG+1.

Yeah the rest of the night he was 2BB always. I have seen a few people that seem to drop it down to a min raise or the limping in UTG/UTG+1 a lot more. The limp opens with or without callers still drive me crazy; I still generally raise it if I have a playable hand but it seems more often than not it turns into a 3-bet pot or a jam.

I've been playing with a larger open in early and late position, and the old 2.2 in mid and SB. I rarely mix it up based on hand strength.

Do not worry or blame yourself. Playing more aggressively with a weak hand is a common trait in most sports. I don't know if Poker can be considered as a sport or not, but it's my personal opinion that it should be considered a single player sport.

As long as you are paying attention to the player's position as in the orders in which they play, you have a chance against any odds, it's like you said, have patience. Don't be afraid to bluff when you are in position, but be ready to fold and take a loss if you believe they actually have it.

It's actually preferable to always show your hands that way, poker hands are best analyzed as well.

Actually the point of your observation is what is sought when analyzing hands, the poker player must have the ability to constantly analyze hands without the influence of the results influencing his objective analysis of the situation.

Thank you! I'm learning from you too! I personally feel like the Negreanu's Strategy, "call almost anything, waiting for a good hand, and then bluff the hell out of it when even the river card is not in your favour" is outdated. New times - new strategies.


So true! As I said above, in 2020 we have to get rid of old strategies and invent new ones. Villains, like viruses, they adapt. Old vaccines do not work any more. :)

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@tokeweed, @DarkDays and others who love to play poker, please consider joining #3 Bitcointalk Poker Series (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5258134.0), starting this Sunday!

Let's have fun, playing good poker, guys!

Lol

But you don't want to analyze a hand based on hindsight. Sitting on table you only know your hands at the start, and eventually the flop,turn and river. All the good poker players have charts they play off. They have a range off cards, the fold, call, or raise with. All depending on the position, stack, etc. Especially when playing online your information on your opponents is very limited. It's better to play based on a fixed system, and after a while you will notice if there are any flaws in your strategy and you lose money.

Experience is one of the best tool to make a strategy. It will also depend on your objectives for if one wishes to play safety or gamble hard and as the result it could mean a lot of losses or a a big chances of winning.

Aside from experience there is also one thing that could make one win in poker and that is when instinct is high or when luck is on your side. There are times like this for being lucky and always end up winning on cards being held.

However, there is no really best or good strategy to win poker except for being lucky. Poker players can assess wether they can win or not. So it is a hard thing to make poker as a means of living. It should not be that way how we look at gambling instead gambling should be a past time or to occupy oneself when gets bored.

This is true - albeit a little broad for where this thread has evolved to. Anyone studying now a days is essentially handed charts to begin their journey then the understanding of why and how they came to be. The Pro's are constantly adjusting them in small ways, based on reviewing their previous plays and spots to find any amount of edge they may be missing. I used my charts fairly religiously for a few months and then moved away from them, to play from memory and experience. I have plans to look into another course that follows a completely different vein of game theory but am holding off for one of 2 bankroll milestones.

Online you can actually wind up with a significant amount more information on an opponent there are free to use HUD's and some sies even have a built in HUD. This gives you information you would be hardpressed to figure out in your head live.

Experience is a necessity for anything. You can read and study all you want but if it can't be applied irl at best you can teach theory. Instinct is just an extension of experience/study/and practice. Luck is a bitch, and can be replaced with the word variance, and it hits both sides.

I wanted to clear that up because most of what you have written is inaccurate. There are definitely good strategies when it comes to poker, to think otherwise is crazy. The best in the world and even marginally profitable players use strategies some more in depth than others. There are a lot of people in the world who make a living playing poker, for each of them there are thousands who don't. Most of those are fun players who want to pop in and out and just enjoy seeing where the cards lay.

For everything in the world there are different ways to look at things. There is nothing wrong with someone treating poker like a job, they just have to train and develop the skills required. On that same vein there is nothing wrong with someone who wants to sit down and click buttons online or spew chips at a table if that's what they find fun.

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I haven't had much time to play or grab spots to bring to the thread lately, lots of work lately. I am hoping to grab a spot that bothers me quite a bit, in the meantime here is the jist of it.

Having second pair with a good kicker, when the top pair pairs on the board. I really don't like it at any point but more so when I get to the turn or river. I know this isn't ideal for format and hope to grab a spot when I'm off work. It's similar to a paired flop that make a pair with the odd card out.

I understand you, good point. I will take into account your good judgment.

But, as always everything is a balance, it is not necessary all the time to be upright in a type of analysis. For example, have you played poker looking at your opponent's cards? in case your answer is, NO! I invite you to try it.

We never have limited information, that is, when you learn to play with ranges, you stop having limited information, no matter if it is not a regular, you should never play without ranking a player, for example you mention important things:
You: The fold, call, or raise with. This is a lot of information, there is never limited information then (of course the most important, the opposite cards :) villain) at a poker table, in fact there is so much more in the online game than in person (Well, opinions, the important thing is to have equity in the opinions)

Hey! I don't question your point of view, on the contrary I learn from him, I just try to take your appreciation into my context.

Regards!

Here are a few spots I ran into this past weekend. The first is standalone - Just curious given table dynamics what peoples thoughts are Pre-flop. It seems standard to me, but that's why I want others to look at it.
Hand #2 Curious to know what peoples thoughts are in a spot you are instantly nutted for the most part. What are your thoughts pre-flop, and what do you do on the turn?
Hand #3 is immediately after #2 - I have several different questions here and will post it in stages to avoid results based thinking.
Then I have a special treat for anyone who thinks I run to lucky... it was grand.

Not going to lie I may need to take a minute to recoup a bit mentally. I played about 40 hours in 4 days last week. Was doing renos and when it got to hot to work on the house I played some big field tourneys and a few of my regulars. I'd say 70% of them I ran up 5X-7X starting stacks and would be 2-3.5X the average stacks. Did my best to keep in line. A couple of them turned into card dead nightmares, and others well went similar to the final 2 hands I'm showing, not quite as dramatic.

Hand #1 9 seated Level 15 Final Registration 600/1200 150 ante Hero CO [Th Td] Action folds to Hero Raises to 2880 Villain-1 [SB] calls Villain-2 [BB] Raises all-in to 33246         Action on hero what do you do? Stack sizes Seat 1: (46486.00) Seat 2:  (132341.00) Seat 3:  (80447.00) Seat 4: Hero [CO] (113290.00) Seat 5: (57715.00) Seat 6: Villain -1 [SB] (73837.00) Seat 7: Villain -2 [BB] (34596.00) Seat 8: (70180.00) Seat 9: (100933.00)

Hand #2 8-max Level 21 - 1000/2000 ante 240 7 seated Seat 4:(63325.00) UTG(+2) Seat 5:(103063.00) Villain LJ Seat 6:(39066.00) HJ Seat 8:(66939.00) CO Seat 1(206368.00) Hero BTN [4s 4h] Seat 2:(26568.00) SB Seat 3:(154833.00) BB Villain [LJ] opens to 4000 Folds to Hero [BTN]  Call *** FLOP *** [4d Ac Ad] Pot-12680.00     Villain bets 6340.00 Hero??

Hand #3 8 max Level 21 next hand full seats 1000/2000/240 Seat 7:(23656.00) UTG(+2) Seat 6:(38586.00) UTG(+1) Seat 8:(66459.00) LJ Seat 1:(220908.00) Hero HJ [9h Ac] Seat 2:(25088.00) CO Seat 3:(156273.00) BTN Seat 4:(60845.00) SB Seat 5:(92243.00) Villain BB Hero Opens to 4600 Folds to BB who calls *** FLOP *** [Ah 4c Jc] Pot 12120.00 Villain leads for 6060.00 Hero Calls I found this hand interesting at the time and am interested in a few different opinions So I'll start here thoughts on the open and call?? I am like top 4 of 140-160 left I think atm. 99 cash This is the same villain from the previous hand.

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These 2 speak for themselves hmmmmm.

Level 24 1750/3500 420 Seat 2:(58284.00) UTG(+1) Seat 3:(252696.00) UTG(+2) Seat 4:(96361.00) LJ Seat 5:(60325.00) HJ Seat 6:(142696.00) Villain-1 CO Seat 7:(107434.00) Seat 8:(55628.00) Villain-2 SB Seat 1:(284525.00) Hero BB [Ah Ad] Villain-1 opens to      7000 Villain-2 Jams all-in   55208 Hero Jams all-in Villain-1 calls and is all in Main Pot - 168984 Side pot - 174136 Villain-1 shows [Qh Qs] Villain-2 shows [3h 3c] Board runs out.... Oh wait yeah I'm like 4th at the moment within 20K of the chip leader and we are 100K+ away from the pack. Sorry I'll get on with it. [5h Jc Kd 8h] Yeah super pumped everything is amazing, nothing stopping this train gonna ship a biggie and river is [Qd]   Hold on I think I'm going to be sick.

Hand #4 Here is a spot that pretty much put the nail in the coffin. I did hold on for a while after but just couldn't generate a stack again. Finished 28th Blinds 3500/7000/840 Villain CO (99658) raises to 17500 Hero BTN   (244040) Jams all-in [Ad Kd] SB         (144560) Fold BB         (266500) Fold Villain calls and shows [Qd Qh] *** RIVER *** [7d 2h Ah Kh] [9h] That last hand I included the Stack sizes that matter, thoughts on my play there.

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Made the last hand #4 as it began to bother me. I commented this below and thought I'd bring it here for others that participate.

hand #1 seems like a decent spot to stack off, depending on your strategy. small chance you're dominated but usually not as most villains aren't shoving so huge w/ QQ-AA there. i think you're generally a 60/40 favorite, maybe better, against a typical range there.

hand #2---preflop i'm in position, can take the pot if i sense weakness postflop, plus set mining. hard to say what i'd do on the turn not knowing what you did postflop and what villain did on the turn. tbh i like to 3-bet postflop in spots like these because slow playing can generate big dangerous pots that are tough to play on turn/river against Ax.

hand #3---A9o is not my favorite opening hand, it's near the margins full ring, but i think the open and call are fine. i'm curious to see what he did on the turn.

Thanks for the input as always. I'll hold off on filling in any of the gaps atm in case anyone else wants to join in the discussion before I update which will likely be tomorrow. I will say this much as it shouldn't affect anybody's opinions.

Hand#1 - My thoughts were mostly centered on whether or not the SB could be trapping with the flat. Likely because it's a position I'm focusing more attention on. I've drastically cut back my SB 3-bets, not so much to trap but I found to many 3-bet pots to play out terribly from the SB unless I flop the nuts. I've also reduced my SB calls as I felt I was defending it to often. BB is essentially a cointoss if you don't know the guy, could have a BB special or just be trying to steal.

Hand#2 - I like the sounds of that. I won't get into what I did yet but I have run into spots like this where I wind up with the bottom boat for that reason AX hitting turn/river. I just can't decide if long run I'm losing more chips to them hitting the nuts with a slow play or by driving them off.

Curious what sizing would you go with for your 3-bet?

Hand #3 - yeah A9o has almost no open for me apart from SB, maybe BTN (rarely). The open was definitely more table dynamics and bubble pressure. I had most of the table covered many times over and people were playing tight.

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The last little hand I posted with Ad Kd, curious for your opinion on play here. My thoughts were that I didn't want the BB mixing in, they had been playing a lot of pots on the cheap and postflop could be a nightmare if I miss. CO hadn't been particularly active but with ~17 BB, I had the top of my range and figured I could likely re-steal.
In the end results based I could have called and jammed flop, but that only fits this hand. Even then I likely would have bet on the smaller side to keep them in.
Personally I think it's a solid play, but that's why I need outside opinions.

how often can you get someone to fold Ax there? how often will they give you action with no A if you call behind the flop?

re sizing, i approach it the same way i'd play against a flush draw. the odds are pretty similar. somewhere in the 3x-4x range seems good to extract value if he calls.


that's a fine way to play AK. it's a potential nightmare postflop, as you rightly point out. when we account for fold equity, it makes sense.

Do you beat yourself up because the player had the ridiculous hand?

Its not in your control. I lost a few AA now. Jammy bastards.

Not at all a "beat myself up" sort of spot, it wasn't my mistake that cost me chips just variance, that doesn't mean I didn't feel sick for a good little while after. This one stung more than others with the absolute beautiful spot it was... not to mention my position in the tournament. Generally I can shrug these off after a few minutes, but that one stung for quite some time.
There are a few positive takeaways from this though. I had played well enough that this wasn't my tournament life. Those hurt a bit more. I kept my composure mostly as I did manage to run my stack up again. Not to mention I got it in good... you just lose sometimes.

I would say the hardest part of a bad beat in a tournament is having to sit there and keep your shit together to try and comeback. Cash game you can just shut it down walk away get your calm. Tournament not so much... here's your next hand...suck it up buttercup. lol

To add to that I love the jammy bastards, just not this time  ;D

The thing about staying calm and get our shit back together isnt as easy as it seems, especially when you only have that small stack of chips while the players before your turn have those big stack of chips. Those with small stacks of chips will get pressured easily with few raise and that might makes it even harder to stay with our composure throughout the game. Imagine getting bullied by the rest of the table and your hands sucks  :P . It totally left bitter taste on my mouth

Not to mention that the game has progress quite long and there is some good amount of ante that you have paid, now your tiny stack of chips getting smaller  :P

i hate seeing any 9-K here. flying blind but you have to bet into him---why else would you flat call the flop?

lemme guess, he check-raised you? :)


hmmm, that kicker.....

any reads on this guy? have you seen him double/triple barrel before?

Psychology is important when it comes to joining and participating in certain poker tournament. You should have set of rules that you should always to follow in order to stay calm that can lead to create proper plan and strategy that you can able to use.  The pressure is real especially if you have only small stack of chips while the other players around you have towers of chips and there is psychological reason behind it where you think that your chips can easily be lost because it is outnumbered.

In my experience, most of my opponents in such cases starting to play very aggressive, with all-in at preflop. Or at least, those who will stay on the table  :D

If you left with amount of chips like x3-x4 BB there is really no way except all-in and hoping that your opponent will fail with his hand. In that cases i'm trying to fold if i don't have a strong hand (something like 9-9 at least).  If a dude has x10 BB, he getting more cautious and more vulnerable (from my own experience)  

I did bet into him 8600 into Main pot 25360.00

He folded. I would have been equally worried about any 5 coming off. I don't think I was getting anything from them on this hand. Pretty sure it was a bluff bet on the flop assuming I had missed the board.
So you may recall this was the same guy from Hand#2. This is the hand immediately after that.

Hard to say and maybe I just got lucky but his 1/2 pot betsizing seemed to be mid strength hands. Villain hadn't been overly active but I also hadn't seen a ton of his hands played go to showdown. They leaned on the aggression. While I'm not yet worried about KxTx, it's a possibility and there could be aggressively betting a draw. I try not to be to biased but it is also the BB, so I'm less inclined to think they are holding AK,AQ without a 3-bet pre, AJ/AT are my biggest concerns.

I called the turn

***CNTD Final*****
*** RIVER *** [Ah 4c Jc Qd] [5d] Pot-48480.00

Villain bets 24240.00
Hero ?? How do we end it??

So the triple barrel happened. Not loving life atm and seriously beginning to question the holdings I state above. The flush draw bricked, and apart from 2x3x getting there for the straight the board texture hasn't really changed from turn to river.  

I really only see 2 options here. The Flat or the Fold. The line has me confused and only makes sense to me if they flopped a set/2pair/straight, at this point even AK seems unlikely for what has me beat following this line. Even then I question their decision to lead out on the flop, so I'm left wondering if it's any number of other combos that I either beat or draws that missed.

I eventually put in the call, used up almost all my time bank thinking about it. Given what I've already said the betsizing also had me confused. I've shown a willingness to call. on the river they only have 70K to start and their bet of 24K into 48K seems a bit on the weak side. This spot nutted or bluff generally gets jammed on the river, maybe they are trying to induce me to put them in. That has been my instinct in the past, but isn't on the table in this spot.

Showdown is

Hero [9h Ac] (a pair of Aces [Ah Ac Qd Jc 9h])
Villain shows [Qc Tc] (a pair of Queens [Qd Qc Ah Jc Tc])

And now the line makes sense to some extent. I also think they made assumptions between last hand and this hand imo. They lead out with their flush draw, picked up equity on the turn and continued, then the river I'm guessing they turned their missed flush draw into a bluff but didn't size it accordingly; that or overvalued the second pair.

ah, i hadn't paid attention to the seat numbers, didn't realize it was the same villain.


nice one, interesting hand. the semi-bluff on the flush draw had obviously occurred to me but i didn't put too much thought into the turned straight draw or second pair possibilities.

what was the range you put him on when you called the river?

This is tough to answer. Mostly because it was the BB, I had a hard time coming up with a range, so it was more a process of elimination.
I sort of lumped in what could they have that beat me, and bets OOP. Maybe 44, nothing else made sense to lead with imo. I say this because if I hit either broadway card I'm going to continue so it could have been their way of ensuring the pot got bigger.
Then I looked at almost all suited clubs 45+, 9J+, AJ and below - The others I think 3-bet
Briefly I did wonder if they were attempting to value or bluff a pocket pair or combos of KQ.

Overall it was a weird hand. The board has 2 straight draws that could have gotten there. I leaned heavily on the fact that this was the BB, and that them leading out for 3 streets was just off. So either they were bluffing, or they flopped the nuts - I didn't see another option, with the line they took. So in the end my Ace and my Rag in hand I chose to battle.

Wow didn't realize it had been this long, crazy few months. I have one of those spots with second pair and the board pairs the top pair(possible trips), I had more equity than usual but think these are fun tough spots to figure out; unlike guessing top pair against flopped set  >:(. Second hand is a bit of a classic, strong pair flopping an overcard, facing pressure.

Hand#1 is near the bubble, Big stack is the BTN, and has nearly double anyone else at the table.

Hand#1 Level 24 (1750.00/3500.00) ante 420 9 seated Seat 3: Villain-2 BTN   (244887.00) Seat 4: Hero SB         (56784.00) Seat 5: Villain-3 BB    (48250.00) Seat 8: Villain-1 UTG+2 (82545.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Villain-1 UTG+2 raises to 8750.00 Villain-2 BTN calls 8750.00 Hero SB calls 7000.00  - [Th 9h] Villain-3 BB calls 5250.00 *** FLOP *** [Jh 6h Tc] Main pot 38780.00               Checksthrough to BTN Villain-2 BTN raises to 19390.00

Hand#2 Level 11 (300.00/600.00) ante 72 9 seated Seat 5: Villain HJ (26013.00) Seat 9: Hero SB (19112.00) *** HOLE CARDS *** Villain raises to 1500.00 Hero SB [Qh Qc] raises to 4560.00 Villain calls 3060.00 *** FLOP *** [3s Kd 4d] Main pot 10296.00 Action checks through seems standard on my part, thoughts?? *** TURN *** [3s Kd 4d] [6s] Main pot 10296.00

Side note. I've shifted my focus more to playing on SWC for a bit, so I might start bringing in more images.

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Something to potentially look forward to. I'm going to throw my hat in the ring for a few of the series tournaments on SWC this week. Last night I won a Big BTC 500chip satty for this Sunday. This was nice, as I previously bubbled like 3 of these at varying buy-ins essentially I likely could have entered twice by the time I was done losing all my attempts lol.
I do have to get better at reading the prize description though, I just saw Big BTC and assumed it would be a saved ticket, nah it was specific for this Sunday, then I remembered it's Thanksgiving lol, us damn Canadians. Either way we should be eating early and I've been home all week  so I think I'll be okay. I'm probably going to keep trying to target satellites for 5K(chips obviously lol) plus entries, that or attempt to sell some action never done that before but we'll see.

I would raise again before the turn card. Hero raised to 4560 kinda signals that he has a good hand so a check on the Flop would be weird and with a K on the board, it is better to raise at this point.

If Villain have a K and he would most likely call, that would be the signal to slow down on the turn. Villain could probably also have combination Ace with some low cards and aim for straight. Villain would most likely check on turn if he has the flush draw or straight draw but would be aggresive if he has K on his hand

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Atleast this is what I would do :P

any other reads on the big stack?

sometimes i like to raise out there......good equity, enough chips behind that you can opt to fold to a 3bet. as played, i like a CRAI but hey, i've been feeling splashy lately. can't tell if the big stack is just betting into weakness or actually has a hand, so fold equity is a tossup.


stack size makes postflop action tough here. i prefer a cbet on the flop (tough because you're almost stuck between donk betting and shoving) but like i said, been feeling splashy. :P


damn, another shitty change from SwC? satellite won tickets used to be good for like 2 years......

I just logged in and checked and mine is valid until 2022, was it a big btc ticket or a ticket to the big btc satellite?

No this was just my dumbass. I got so used to entering these satellites that I didn't bother to read the full prize description or title for that matter. Not a big deal it runs a bit latter than we were planning to eat, and it's just us at home this year no big gathering.

Funny little update busted my first bullet in the opening event tonight with my AA, against 33, they flopped a set and jammed  my raise on the turn when a K came off. No way I was folding, unfortunately. Second bullet not so hot but lots of time yet.

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Makes sense and seems like a solid gameplan so You'd go Bet,Chk,Bet, or Bet,Chk,Chk - What aggression from the Villain makes you fold this hand? Them betting the turn? or betting/raising the river??
I generally prefer to lead out in these spots as a bluff, or made hand with top pair/flopped set type hand to see where I'm at. Like you said there can be a lot of Ax, or draws that will fold out. Having been the preflop 3-better I don't think it's strange for me to lead out with a bet, but can sometimes scare people off the hands I can beat.

I definitely felt like I had to be more conscious with my chips given the size of the pot at this point. I am really concerned about this new Splashy behavior I'm hearing about, who is this guy  :P - If not for the K, A jam isn't bad - I know I've fallen for it with top pair if say a J was on the board.

Overall I figured this street I might lose value from a flush draw on 1 street, and could be giving them a free card to try and complete. I figured I would also get decent information from them if they just CHK back the flop - How could they not stab at that fat pot with all of their Kx. Given stack sizes there should still be plenty of time to get all the money in on favorable turns and rivers.

It was clear they were using their stack to put pressure on people around the Bubble. So I don't really have them on a made hand. One thing was that I had seen them call down fairly light in the past, and I'm not sure if my stack falls into that category.
Lol who is this splashy dude, really gonna mix up the series when you make it back in.
I elect to flat call the raise, only because it's the bubble. Not great but I would still have an 8BB stack or so to make the money and Jam a strong hand pre. They may also feel like things are getting trappy and pump the breaks; could just be wishful thinking.

Hand#1 *** TURN *** [Jh 6h Tc] [Js]   Main pot 77560.00 Hero jams all-in 28224.00 Villain folds

Hand#2 *** TURN *** [3s Kd 4d] [6s] Main pot 10296.00 Hero bets 2574.00 Villain calls 2574.00

the problem with that weak delayed cbet is that your only move now is to shove the river, and the villain likely feels pot committed if he has a made hand. that's why stack sizes made this one so tough.

i'm curious to see how this one turned out.

I agree, when betting 25% pot you kind of invite a lot of people to call. When being the pre flop raisers an continuation bet is standard these days. And bluffing on the turn or river should be much larger in my opinion. Bet sizing became such an important tool in the last years.