Posts Tagged ‘double barrel’

I’m confident putting Villain on a very tight range pre-flop, maybe even just AA and KK but possibly AK and QQ as well. Obviously this is a good flop for many of those hands but not for KK. Once he checks twice, KK becomes a big part of his range, and I think I can take him off of it.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 10/20 Blinds (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 (t3000)
MP2 (t2970)
MP3 (t2600)
CO (t2350)
Hero (Button) (t3000)
SB (t3440)
BB (t3000)
UTG (t3700)
UTG+1 (t2940)

Hero’s M: 100.00

Preflop: Hero is Button with J♦, J♠

5 folds, CO bets t40, Hero raises to t120, 1 fold, BB raises to t380, 1 fold, Hero calls t260

Flop: (t810) A♣, 8♦, Q♣ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t810) 5♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t444, BB calls t444

River: (t1698) 6♥ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t1273, 1 fold

Total pot: t1698

Results:
Hero didn’t show J♦, J♠ (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t1698

Want to learn to identify and take advantage of spots like this? Then sign up for the Big Bluffs seminar, to be held Tuesday November 22nd 6-8 PM Eastern.

Edit: Changed seminar date.

Yesterday’s inaugural Thinking Poker Tournament Seminar was a great success. I think all the participants got a lot out of it, and I learned a few things that I can do to make future seminars even better. So thinking of future seminars, the next one will be on Tuesday, November 15th, 6-8 PM Eastern. The topic will be Big Bluffs: Recognizing, Creating, and Taking Advantage of Good Spots.

These seminars are pre-scheduled, small-group discussions focused on the most common mistakes and skills gaps that I see in my NLHE tournament students. Each two-hour seminar costs $150 per person and is capped at five participants, to enable individualized attention and opportunities for everyone to ask questions and participate in discussions. The content is prepared and the discussion facilitated by me- it’s like an interactive poker video!

Participants will learn how to identify a capped range, how to set-up a multi-barrel bluff, how to choose the best hands for bluffing, and how to size bluffs for maximum profitability. In addition to the seminar itself, all participants receive a syllabus of recommended study materials to help prepare for the session and apply newly acquired skills in their future play.  Read the complete post...

If you’ve been enjoying my BCPC trip reports, be sure to check out my write-up from the WSOP Europe, now appearing in 2+2 Magazine:

Loose-aggressive play has become so common among the best players that many of them tend to assume that anyone who doesn’t open 50% of hands from the CO can’t be all that good. No American in the tournament is going to be bad, since we all had to travel quite a ways to play, but I think that playing the way I did gave the impression that I was merely competent and perhaps uncomfortable in deep-stacked spots. That’s a fine image to have as long as you know how to exploit it by stealing in spots they don’t expect.

As always, please let me know what you think!

I once final tabled a small-field, small buy-in PLO8 tournament at the PCA, but otherwise the final two tables was the closest I’d ever made it to a live final table. It was exciting to keep seeing (some of) the same people day after day, and to feel the envy of those who did not make it through.

Norm was the first to go. I heard him walking behind my seat on the way to the payout station, muttering about “Ace-Queen against Ace-King”, and that was the last I saw of him. We actually lost three more players in the first half hour, one of whom I eliminated with A4s > KQo.

There were more players than I realized still in the tournament with whom I had no experience. To my left was “Scott”, a hometown hero from Chilliwack with an Irish accent and an inexplicably large cheering section, all of whom were wearing matching “It Could Happen” jackets and shouting loudly whenever he won a pot. Scott eliminated one of the other early departures and was pretty obnoxious about it, getting nervous and calling for cards even as an overwhelming favorite and then celebrating vigorously when his hand held up.  Read the complete post...

Edit: Fixed the flop in the Vanessa Rousso hand, I didn´t river a full house obviously.

Busted third to last hand of the night, been going back and forth a lot for the last half hour about whether I like my call, but we´ll get to that in a second. Table draw was OK but my seat was rough, had the only two truly good players at the table both on my immediate left. One of them busted the other, which I was happy about until that seat was filled by Scott Seiver. Even in position, that guy is tough to play against.

I played what I think was a very good TAG game for most of the day and hovered between 90-120% of the average. With about half an hour to go, my table broke and I moved to a much softer table which unfortunately was next on the break order.

Third table was tougher than the second but softer than the first, though again my seat wasn´t great. To my left was a kid who exuded competence and was sitting on more than twice the average. I could tell from the way the table was responding to him and talking about him that he´d been very difficult to play against.  Read the complete post...

The conclusion of my 2011 WSOP main event trip report is now appearing in the October issue of 2+2 Magazine. We’re down to Day 6, and needless to say, things are starting to get tense:

“The last hand before a break, especially a dinner break, always means fireworks. Some people are eager to fold and get out of the room, which makes other people more inclined to steal, which makes other people more inclined to resteal. Ranges get wider and sometimes it just turns into a pissing match.

I was dealt 9′s in the CO, which are exactly the sort of medium-strength hand that can be tough to play with that sort of dynamic. The action folded to me, and I opened to 60K. Marc called on the Button, and the blinds folded.

We got a J62 flop with two hearts. I bet 85K, about half the pot, and he raised to 225K.”

Read on to find out how I navigated this and other dicey spots on my final two days in the tournament!

I suppose my main event was a fitting end to the series and a paradigmatic WCOOP experience. In the early stages I plundered the satellite qualifiers, going on an early rush that made me chipleader with 1400 players remaining. Over time the table got tougher and tougher, with 3-bet pots becoming the norm and 4-bets not uncommon. I went card dead for a few hours, with people coming over the top every time I tried to steal, except for the few times that I actually legitimate hands, when I either won the blinds or ended up having to make a big fold post-flop. I spent the last few hours of the day rocking a 20-40 BB stack and finding spots to pick up pots without showdown. Eventually I got into a coin flip, the first time I’d been all in for my tournament life, and won it to reach my high point for the tournament, which by that time was still just 75% of the average. Then it was back to card dead as I blinded down, finally getting all in with AK for my last 19 BBs. Villain had Aces, and I was eliminated with an hour to go in the day and about 10% of the remaining field needing to be eliminated before we made the money.  Read the complete post...

This was one of the more frustrating events I played, probably because it came on the tail end of so many other frustrations. I played for nearly 7.5 hours and finished in something like 140th place with 108 paying. This is the hand that I went out on:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 1000/2000 Blinds 250 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t183638)
BB (t37589)
UTG (t51714)
Hero (UTG+1) (t100357)
MP1 (t185740)
MP2 (t104500)
MP3 (t22619)
CO (t171688)
Button (t73031)

Hero’s M: 19.12

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A♠, K♠
1 fold, Hero bets t4000, 5 folds, SB raises to t10475, 1 fold, Hero calls t6475

Flop: (t25200) 5♠, J♠, 7♦ (2 players)
SB bets t10480, Hero calls t10480

Turn: (t46160) K♥ (2 players)
SB bets t19925, Hero calls t19925

River: (t86010) 9♦ (2 players)
SB bets t142508 (All-In), Hero calls t59227 (All-In)

Total pot: t204464

Results:
SB had K♣, J♦ (two pair, Kings and Jacks).
Hero had A♠, K♠ (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: SB won t204464

Villain is a very good player who ended up final tabling this tournament. He plays in high stakes tournaments and cash games as big as 50/100. He’d been very quiet up to this point, but I’m sure he’s capable of making moves, so if anything that probably makes him more likely to try something.  Read the complete post...