Posts Tagged ‘bet sizing’

The second installment of my trip report from the main event of the 2010 World Series of Poker, covering Days 3 and 4, has just been published in the September issue of 2+2 Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

I came into Day 4 with a monster stack relative to the field. I had over 500,000 chips, when the average was about 180,000, ranking me 27th among the more than 1,200 players who remained. Day 4 was a particularly good day for this, as it was also the day that would separate the players who would win nothing from those who would take home at least $19,000. With 747 players to be paid, no one wanted to be eliminated in 748th place (or 762nd, for that matter), which meant that most people were playing more conservatively than usual.  Read the complete post...

Thanks for all your help so far in generating this list. Now that I’ve got a revised version of it, let me try to explain a bit more about what I’m going for here.

I believe that a bet or raise should always have an objective (or objectives), and that you should know your objective(s) before betting. This is crucial both to decide whether to bet at all and to size your bets appropriately. In theory, one ought to be able to write an equation for the value of a bet as a function of some combination of factors on this list.

For example, if I make a pot-sized shove with As Qd on an Qh Ts 5s flop in a heads up pot, I believe the value of that bet would be equal to

Value + Protection + Deception  Read the complete post...

Last week’s double float cost me about half my chips on the first hand of the $700 NAPT-Los Angeles satellite and was not so popular with the commenters. Here’s a similar bluff somewhat deeper in the same tournament this week. Our Villain is a slightly better target: I couldn’t tell you much about his playstyle, but overall I believe he’s a better player than last week’s Villain. I described the previous opponent as a 3rd tier Pocket Fiver, and this guy would be closer to top tier, maybe tier 1.5

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 250/500 Blinds 25 Ante (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP2 (t38150)
CO (t19145)
Button (t46070)
Hero (SB) (t15484)
BB (t40291)
UTG (t10654)
UTG+1 (t16138)
MP1 (t29062)

Hero’s M: 16.30

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, K
1 fold, UTG+1 bets t1250, 4 folds, Hero calls t1000, 1 fold  Read the complete post...

The problem: I’ve usually got the best hand, but I don’t think a bet is getting called by worse.

The solution: Bet small and call the check-raise.

The catch: They always have it.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (5 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) ($5810)
SB ($5107)
BB ($13717)
UTG ($10095)
MP ($5000)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K, Q
UTG bets $150, 1 fold, Hero calls $150, 2 folds

Flop: ($375) 9, 8, Q (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($375) K (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $123, UTG calls $123

River: ($621) 10 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $222, UTG raises to $1140, Hero calls $918

Total pot: $2901 | Rake: $2

Results:
Hero mucked K, Q (two pair, Kings and Queens).
UTG had J, Q (straight, King high).
Outcome: UTG won $2899  Read the complete post...

I had a solid Sunday today, no wins but made two deep runs. I took 2nd out of nearly 1000 runners in the Stars $150 6-max. The competition was surprisingly tough for a $150 tournament: I recognized three good players at my starting table, and the last few tables were downright tough. The competition was if anything over-aggressive, but there are worse mistakes to make. Speaking of over-aggressive:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 1500/3000 Blinds 375 Ante (6 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t64393)
UTG (t286807)
MP (t283047)
CO (t165436)
Button (t59865)
SB (t164471)

Hero’s M: 9.54

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 9
1 fold, MP bets t6600, CO calls t6600, 2 folds, Hero calls t3600

Flop: (t23550) 7, 5, 6 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP bets t10990, CO calls t10990, Hero raises to t57418 (All-In), MP raises to t276072 (All-In), CO calls t147471 (All-In)  Read the complete post...

I’ve been taking a beating in heads up games recently. There were one or two cases of bad game selection, but for the most part I don’t think I’ve playing or running all that badly. I’m losing to people against whom I’m pretty confident I have an edge, not because of bad luck or consistently bad play, but because I keep making like one big mistake per match. And the thing is, no matter how well you play 99% of your hands, you can’t afford to make a 100BB+ mistake, not even once. That just isn’t a handicap you can overcome.

Here was tonight’s. I was up about four buy-ins across on this guy across all the tables we were playing when this happened:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (2 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (SB) ($8949.50)
BB ($28887)  Read the complete post...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $4.00 BB (2 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1000)
Hero (SB) ($1807.80)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 10, 6
Hero bets $12, BB calls $8

Flop: ($25.60) 3, 5, 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $19, BB raises to $64, Hero calls $45

Turn: ($153.60) 4 (2 players)
BB bets $72, Hero raises to $211, BB calls $139

River: ($575.60) J (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1520 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: $575.60 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero didn’t show 10, 6 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won $575.10  Read the complete post...

Today was everything that Wednesday was not, namely fun and profitable. I had a very enjoyable table and showed a handsome profit to boot.

Early on I doubled up with Q’s vs. 9’s on a 4h 4s 3h 2h board. We both had a heart, so he was in real bad shape there.

Then after getting a kind of aggro image I opened to 1100 with Ad 9s UTG+1 at 200/400/25. Two loose guys on my left call and decent tourney player on button makes it 4400. I 4-bet him to 12K, and he called quite quickly. I was ready to be done with the hand, but I flopped Qd 6d 5d, so I had to go with it. I get 16K, and he quickly called again. The turn was 4s, and at this point even if I knew he had a pair I was basically committed to the pot, so I shoved my last 25K. He tanked for a long time and made what I think was a good call with JJ no diamond. Unfortunately for him I drilled the Jd on the river to double up again.  Read the complete post...