Posts Tagged ‘continuation bet’

I took plenty of notes for a full write-up, but for now I’ll just say that we started with 30K and I finished with 38.5K. I think the average is between 50 and 60, and blinds will be 500/1000/100 on Monday, so I’m in OK shape. I had two other PokerStars Team Online members at my table, first Bjorn Schneider on my left than Jorge Limon on my right. Other than Bjorn and a pretty good Dutch player my starting table was probably softer than average. By the end of the day we had Jorge and two other good high-stakes cash players, so it was pretty tough then.

I played a funny hand against one of them. Blinds were 400/800/100, and I opened to 2000 with K9s in the HJ. He called in the BB and check-called 2400 on a T55r flop. We both checked an 8 turn, then he bet 5600 on a T river. I wasn’t 100% sure he wouldn’t value bet an A, but I doubted it. I did think he was capable of floating out of position, and this was an ideal spot for it. So I called, and he showed A3 and seemed surprised to win the pot. “I was trying to bluff you off a chop” he told me. Lovely.  Read the complete post...

I was inundated with requests for reviews over the holidays, so I asked a friend if he’d be interested in taking one of them. Thus, the review for Nathan Williams’ Crushing the Micro-Stakes can be found on Gareth Chantler’s blog. If you read the comments here on Thinking Poker, you know that Gareth’s got a great poker mind and expresses himself well, so I think you’ll enjoy his review, and I assure you that you can trust his opinion.

While you’re there, check out some of Gareth’s other posts as well. Like mine, his blog is a nice mix of strategy content and anecdotes from his travels. Gareth, originally from Canada, is currently backpacking through South America while playing a mix of live and online poker. He’s got some fascinating and funny stories that are well worth the read.

To understand this week’s hand, you have to understand the psychology of a certain type of live player. I’m not the most experienced live player myself, but I do think I’m quite good at understanding what and how my opponents think, and I’ve encountered more than a few of these guys in my time.

They don’t appreciate the variance in poker, and their first goal is to not lose, even if it means a lower overall win rate (not that they think about it in exactly those terms). They hate losing big pots and assume that if they do they must have done something wrong. Usually that something was, in their minds, either overvaluing or failing to protect a good hand. They’ll attribute both of these supposed mistakes to “getting greedy”.

The objective of these players is really to make big hands more than induce to mistakes, balance their play, or anything like that. Some commenters  question whether Villain would limp-call 87s. This may be questionable strategically, but I think you will see it quite a bit from live nits, especially when deep. They aren’t going to raise with it because they want to see the flop cheaply, but they don’t consider it a trouble hand the way they might ATo or KJo or something.  Read the complete post...

Q: If you find time i want your opinion about a hand i played in a EPT side event with a pokerstars pro from Argentina (i don’t remember his name but he won the high roller event last year at EPT London i think)…
With 75/150 blinds and about 9000 effective stack he raised from UTG+1 to 400. Everybody folded to me in button with AJs.
I thought he had a wider than tight players open range so i called.
Flop: 4-T-T rainbow… he bet 650.. I called
Turn: J … he bet 1450 and I called
River: K and he moved all in ( he had more ) and I folded…
The question is are you find my calls to loose?
At flop i thought i call to see his turn reaction… At turn I lost from a Tx, 44, JJ-AA so i call again as i thought he bet with much more hands… But the river? Its obviously great bluffing card but also now i loose from many more hands in his range…  Read the complete post...

This week’s WYP is based on a hand I witnessed during a rare live cash session at the Hollywood Casino in Charles Town, West Virginia. Rare for me, that is- the Hollywood has a surprisingly large and active poker room.

Hero and Villain are both regulars at the casino but don’t have significant history together. Villain is a quiet Asian guy in his early 20′s. He always borders on nitty and is especially so today because he’s playing 5/10 rather than his usual 2/5. He’s up on the session and seems inclined to keep it that way.

Hero is a white 40-something small business owner. Villain probably perceives him as tighter and less creative than he is but also knows him to be a winner in the game. He still has roughly the $2000 he bought in for, and Villain covers.

Villain open limps for $10 in early position. Hero raises to $50 with Td Th two off the button, everyone else folds, and Villain calls.

Flop comes 9c 6c 2h. Villain checks and calls $80.

Turn is the Ts. Villain checks, Hero bets $200, and Villain raises to $700. He is suddenly jittery, bouncing a bit in his seat and hands shaking as he pushes out his raise. Pot is $1160, and Hero has about $1600 still in his stack. What’s your play?  Read the complete post...

One of my primary goals when coaching poker is to help my students think more creatively and situationally, to consider all of their options rather than just doing what they think is “standard”. They learn to find value in places they hadn’t thought to look for it by thinking through all aspects of a situation rather than focusing narrowly on their own holding. One common example of this is learning when and how to play unpaired hands for showdown value, usually but not always as bluff-catchers. Initially, many people are very uncomfortable calling with a hand like Ace-high. They might consider bluffing with it, but they usually have trouble recognizing opportunities to show it down as the best hand in all but the smallest pots.

I got an IM yesterday from a student who’s worked with me for a few months. He is originally from Paris, and though he now lives in Manhattan, he played this hand at a French casino while visiting his mother for the holidays. It couldn’t be a better example of what I’m trying to help my students achieve, and I am really proud both of this student and of the progress he has made:  Read the complete post...

Sorry again for the error in my original What’s Your Plan? post. It certainly wasn’t deliberate, but in a weird way it did help to highlight one of the central points of this exercise, which is the significance of Villain’s pre-flop stats and our general read on him.

Most high-volume MTT players are very predictable in the early stages of tournaments. This isn’t so much because they value their survival or because they don’t know how to play deep-stacked but simply because it is more profitable for them to play more games and more or less write off the early stages. They will accumulate a few chips if they get good cards, but if not they will wait until stacks get shorter and the antes kick in. This is where they really shine and where their decisions have a higher impact on their equity, so they choose to focus on tournaments that have already reached this stage and play more straightforwardly in the early levels of their other games.  Read the complete post...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (5 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t3023)
Hero (BB) (t3978)
UTG (t4344)
MP (t2230)
Button (t1910)

Hero’s M: 53.04

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q♥, K♠
1 fold, MP bets t100, 2 folds, Hero calls t50

Flop: (t225) Q♦, 8♦, 6♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP checks

Turn: (t225) A♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, MP bets t150

You can argue with the action up to this point if you want, but I’m prepared to dig in my heels. I’m most interested to know how you’re going to proceed from here, both on this street and on club, diamond, straightening, and blank rivers.

I leave Canada tomorrow morning. We’re flying into Las Vegas, camping for a few days in Death Valley, then flying to Maryland for the holidays. All that travel will likely delay my posting the results until Saturday or possibly even Sunday, but I’ll get them up when I can.

Until then, the action’s on you. What’s your plan?