Poker talk - Specifically Hold'em - Hands and or strategy

[figmentofmyass]

hand #1:
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?

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 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:

Dealt to Hero [Qs Qh]
Villain 1 raises to 500.00
Hero raises to 1734.00
Villain 2 raises to 24354.00 and is all-in
Villain 1 calls 11493.00 and is all-in
Hero folds [Qs Qh]
Uncalled bet (12361.00) returned to Villain 2
*** FLOP *** [2s 4s 7s]
Main pot 26240.00
*** TURN *** [2s 4s 7s] [4c]
Main pot 26240.00
*** RIVER *** [2s 4s 7s 4c] [As]
Main pot 26240.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot 26240.00
Villain 2 shows [Kh Ac] (two pair, Aces and Fours [As Ac 4s 4c Kh])
Villain 1 shows [9c 9s] (a flush, Ace high [As 9s 7s 4s 2s])
Villain 1 collected 26240.00 from main pot

hand #2:

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.

great minds think alike, or fools never differ?

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:

Dealt to Hero [Kh 9h]
Hero raises to 1200.00
Villain calls 900.00

*** FLOP *** [3h Td 5h]
Main pot 3375.00
Villain checks
Hero bets 2531.00
Villain raises to 8859.00
Hero raises 19526.00 to 22057.00 and is all-in
Villain calls 3766.00 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (9432.00) returned to Hero
*** TURN *** [3h Td 5h] [7s]
Main pot 28625.00
*** RIVER *** [3h Td 5h 7s] [Qs]
Main pot 28625.00
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Main pot 28625.00
Villain shows [5s 3c] (two pair, Fives and Threes [5s 5h 3h 3c Qs])
Hero shows [Kh 9h] (a high card, King high [Kh Qs Td 9h 7s])
Villain collected 28625.00 from main pot

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....

[Steamtyme]

How my previous hands finished off. 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])

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)

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.

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)

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Hand 5:  Can you post pf action again?

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.

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

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.

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.....

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.

Hand 7:  Nothing else to do but call.
Edit:  That's just all IMHO.  I suck at this game.

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 couldn't get them in fast enough lol. With them not 3-betting me pf, I wasn't to concerned about overpairs.

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:

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.

great minds think alike, or fools never differ?
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....

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 

[figmentofmyass]

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:

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.

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.

great minds think alike, or fools never differ?
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....

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

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.

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.

[Steamtyme]

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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   . 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.

[leea-1334]

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!

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"  

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;)

[figmentofmyass]

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.

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 }

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

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.

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

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.

[figmentofmyass]

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?

Level 6 (65.00/130.00) 6-max
SB: Villain (3694.00)
UTG: Villain 2 (6189.00)
CO: Hero (2732.00)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 80.00
Dealt to Hero [9h Kh]
Villain 2 raises 260.00 to 260.00
Hero calls 260.00
Villain calls 195.00

*** FLOP *** [Jh 3h 2s]
Main pot 990.00
Villain bets 743.00
Villain 2 folds
Hero?

[Steamtyme]

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

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

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

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.

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?

Level 6 (65.00/130.00) 6-max
SB: Villain (3694.00)
UTG: Villain 2 (6189.00)
CO: Hero (2732.00)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 80.00
Dealt to Hero [9h Kh]
Villain 2 raises 260.00 to 260.00
Hero calls 260.00
Villain calls 195.00

*** FLOP *** [Jh 3h 2s]
Main pot 990.00
Villain bets 743.00
Villain 2 folds
Hero?

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.

[figmentofmyass]

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.

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.

Level 6 (65.00/130.00) 6-max
SB: Villain (3694.00)
UTG: Villain 2 (6189.00)
CO: Hero (2732.00)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Main pot 80.00
Dealt to Hero [9h Kh]
Villain 2 raises 260.00 to 260.00
Hero calls 260.00
Villain calls 195.00

*** FLOP *** [Jh 3h 2s]
Main pot 990.00
Villain bets 743.00
Villain 2 folds
Hero?

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.

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.

6 max is weird in that I always feel I can play looser with less people repping pure strength from EP.

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?

[Steamtyme]

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.

[wheelz1200]

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.

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.

[figmentofmyass]

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.

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 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.

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?

[Steamtyme]

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?

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'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?

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?

[figmentofmyass]

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?

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.

[figmentofmyass]

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.....

[Steamtyme]

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.

[figmentofmyass]

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.

[Steamtyme]

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.

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.

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!?

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.

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.

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.

[SophieMil996]

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?

[figmentofmyass]

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)

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.

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

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.