0:30 Hello & Welcome
54:53 Strategy

Part One is now live, and the rest should be going up over the course of the next week or so.

If you’re not yet a Tournament Poker Edge member, let this be your impetus to sign up!

Timestamps

0:30 hello
9:35 strat
51:43 extra strat

Strategy

Hand 1 – 3/5 NL

Couple of limps, CO raises to $25, BN calls, Hero calls Ah 6h in the SB, one MP limper calls.

Ac 2h Ks. Checks to CO who bets $55, BN folds, Hero calls, MP calls.

8h ($280 in pot). Checks to CO, CO bets $125, Hero calls, MP calls.

8d ($655 in pot). Checks to CO who bets $285. Hero?

Hand 2 – Tournament, effective stacks 35bb

CO opens 2.5bb, Hero calls 9d 8d in the SB.

9s 5h 4d (8.5b in pot). Checks to CO, who bets 9bb. Hero calls.

5s (26.5bb in pot). Both check.

Js (26.5bb in pot). Check, CO shoves, Hero?

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
34:19 – strat

Strategy

Hand 1

Hand 2

Hero opens to $35 with 8d 7d UTG, called by MP and BB.

Flop ($105) AQ6dd. BB checks, Hero bets $50, BB calls.

Turn ($205) 2c. BB checks, Hero bets $200, B calls.

River ($605) 9h. BB checks, Hero shoves ~$900.

My interview with Christian Soto provided all of that at a critical moment, coming just hours after one of the more frustrating poker experiences of the year. By chance, we’d been seated next to each other late on Day 2 of the WPT Main Event at Maryland Live! After crushing for much of the day, I made a critical mistake and lost more than I should have with AK vs AA, which resulted in a smaller cash than I’d anticipated. Talking through and laughing about the day’s events with Christian was great fun and great medicine, and judging from the audience response, it seems to have made for a great listen as well.

Happy new year everyone! Thanks for spending some of 2017 with us, and we look forward to sharing more great poker stories with you in the year to come.

If you aren’t familiar with Carlos, you can hear his full story starting with our first interview on Episode 39. You can follow Carlos on twitter @HipHop101Trivia and watch him stream live on Twitch.

Timestamps

0:30 Carlos Welch
32:40 Carloose Welch (strategy)

Strategy

8-handed NLHE tournament online, blinds 400/800/80. UTG (29K) limps, SB (5K) completes, Hero (35K) raises to 2400 with Ks Jc, UTG calls, SB folds.

Flop (6240) 7c 4s 2d. Hero bets 3120, Villain calls.

Turn (12480) 9s. Hero bets 5240, Villain calls.

River (24960) 8h. Hero shoves 17K effective, Villain folds.

The only WCOOP event I played was the $500 6-max. Not much to report, but here’s a fun little spot where I bet think most people just never bluff (note that I block 76ss):

PokerStars – 300/600 Ante 75 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 140.41 BB
UTG: 85.44 BB (VPIP: 27.00, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 3.57, Hands: 100)
MP: 71.6 BB (VPIP: 33.22, PFR: 23.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.87, Hands: 286)
CO: 43.07 BB (VPIP: 19.23, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 9.43, Hands: 235)
BTN: 59.06 BB (VPIP: 28.09, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 10.21, Hands: 569)
SB: 74.94 BB (VPIP: 20.46, PFR: 13.99, 3Bet Preflop: 6.71, Hands: 394)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 9s 7s
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.11 BB, SB calls 1.61 BB, Hero calls 1.11 BB

Flop : (7.09 BB, 3 players) 6c 6h 6d
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 3.07 BB, SB calls 3.07 BB, Hero raises to 7.97 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 16.32 BB

I ended up busting on a much larger bluff. Not to say this is necessarily good, but I don’t think the results really speak to it being bad, as this is surely near the top of Villain’s range and not a hand I need him to fold in order for the bluff to be profitable:

PokerStars – 800/1600 Ante 200 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 52.33 BB
UTG: 74.37 BB (VPIP: 33.14, PFR: 21.30, 3Bet Preflop: 8.43, Hands: 170)
MP: 77.28 BB (VPIP: 35.69, PFR: 25.22, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 356)
CO: 61.25 BB (VPIP: 35.10, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 5.62, Hands: 209)
BTN: 35.57 BB (VPIP: 27.16, PFR: 18.67, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 82)
SB: 33.4 BB (VPIP: 22.56, PFR: 14.69, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 464)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 3s 2s
fold, fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.2 BB, SB calls 1.7 BB, Hero calls 1.2 BB

Flop : (7.35 BB, 3 players) Kh 5h 5d
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn : (7.35 BB, 3 players) 4s
SB checks, Hero bets 7.35 BB, BTN calls 7.35 BB, fold

River : (22.05 BB, 2 players) 8d
Hero bets 42.65 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 25.89 BB and is all-in

Hero shows 3s 2s (One Pair, Fives)
(Pre 41%, Flop 2%, Turn 9%)

BTN shows 5c 6h (Three of a Kind, Fives)
(Pre 59%, Flop 98%, Turn 91%)

BTN wins 73.83 BB

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 183.45 BB
UTG: 165.5 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
UTG+1: 129.36 BB (VPIP: 25.42, PFR: 19.64, 3Bet Preflop: 10.71, Hands: 60)
MP: 145.31 BB (VPIP: 18.34, PFR: 14.11, 3Bet Preflop: 8.91, Hands: 574)
MP+1: 158.17 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 44)
MP+2: 142.54 BB (VPIP: 5.26, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
CO: 115.69 BB (VPIP: 17.36, PFR: 10.95, 3Bet Preflop: 6.61, Hands: 481)
BTN: 131.73 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 15.91, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 44)
SB: 70.86 BB (VPIP: 31.25, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 48)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Kh Kc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, CO raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero raises to 12.35 BB, CO calls 9.35 BB

Flop : (26.35 BB, 2 players) Jd Qh 8d
Hero bets 13.17 BB, CO calls 13.17 BB

Turn : (52.7 BB, 2 players) Tc
Hero bets 26.35 BB, CO calls 26.35 BB

River : (105.39 BB, 2 players) Ks
Hero bets 131.45 BB and is all-in, CO calls 63.69 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Kh Kc (Three of a Kind, Kings)
(Pre 67%, Flop 55%, Turn 77%)

CO shows Ad 3d (Straight, Ace High)
(Pre 33%, Flop 45%, Turn 23%)

CO wins 232.77 BB

Villain was a world-class player, and I hated this spot from the flop.

My plan after the turn was actually to barrel off as a bluff, as I think I have way more AK in my range than Villain, and although KK could be good, it often won’t be and will be tough to showdown when it is.

Then I had to change course again on the river. In the moment I decided that I didn’t want to check-fold for a good deal less than a pot-sized bet, so I might as well shove for thin value. I remember thinking “just about the only Ace he can have is Ax of diamonds”. But in retrospect there are a good number of those, and Villain has some 9x as well which means he probably doesn’t need to call with hands I beat. So yeah, in retrospect I think I should have check-folded.

As for the $109, I ultimately busted in 54th. Here’s a Day 2 hand I’m pretty happy about:

PokerStars – 50000/100000 Ante 12500 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 33.51 BB (VPIP: 19.06, PFR: 12.85, 3Bet Preflop: 3.79, Hands: 322)
MP: 20.39 BB (VPIP: 9.18, PFR: 7.37, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 98)
CO: 30.9 BB (VPIP: 29.58, PFR: 26.47, 3Bet Preflop: 15.00, Hands: 72)
BTN: 23.72 BB (VPIP: 23.26, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 8.24, Hands: 219)
SB: 36.51 BB (VPIP: 16.39, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.41, Hands: 61)
Hero (BB): 14.88 BB
UTG: 14.22 BB (VPIP: 28.83, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 2.17, Hands: 112)

7 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.37 BB) Hero has 7d 4s
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, MP calls 2 BB, CO calls 2 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 1 BB

Flop : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Tc 9h 6c
Hero checks, UTG checks, MP checks, CO checks

Turn : (9.37 BB, 4 players) Td
Hero bets 2.81 BB, fold, fold, fold

Hero wins 9.37 BB

Pretty nice to increase stack by about 2/3 with no hand and very little risk!

I also ended up running quite deep in the Big $109 again (I came 3rd last week) but ultimately busted in 18th.

Saturday started early. Usually I deal with that by late registering, but the 7AM event was a progressive knock-out, and although Stars allows late registration in those, it’s a financial disaster to do so. So I figured I would play that and then see how I felt for the afternoon event.

It got off to a rough start. A guy put in a crazy amount with 22 against my AK, which wasn’t the end of the world since I covered him, but his pair held up so instead of getting his bounty I got short-stacked. I managed to make a recovery though (it’s easy to get your money in good as a short stack in a bounty event, because everyone else has incentive to call you very light) and after this extremely fun hand I had more chips than anyone else in the tournament (also on Boom if you’d rather watch the replay):

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+2: 69.55 BB (VPIP: 19.40, PFR: 10.61, 3Bet Preflop: 2.86, Hands: 67)
CO: 88.92 BB (VPIP: 13.75, PFR: 7.50, 3Bet Preflop: 2.56, Hands: 81)
BTN: 17.37 BB (VPIP: 17.69, PFR: 4.65, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 131)
SB: 22.61 BB (VPIP: 26.74, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 16.28, Hands: 87)
Hero (BB): 166.42 BB
UTG: 85.05 BB (VPIP: 19.64, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 57)
UTG+1: 54.64 BB (VPIP: 17.95, PFR: 10.26, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 39)
MP: 51.98 BB (VPIP: 31.34, PFR: 19.08, 3Bet Preflop: 9.23, Hands: 136)
MP+1: 129.68 BB (VPIP: 17.61, PFR: 13.81, 3Bet Preflop: 10.48, Hands: 517)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has 7c 9d
fold, fold, MP raises to 2.3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.3 BB

Flop : (6.27 BB, 2 players) Ts 9c Th
Hero checks, MP bets 2.32 BB, Hero raises to 5.59 BB, MP calls 3.27 BB

Turn : (17.46 BB, 2 players) 8h
Hero checks, MP bets 6.36 BB, Hero raises to 15.41 BB, MP calls 9.05 BB

River : (48.28 BB, 2 players) 4s
Hero checks, MP bets 28.55 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 28.55 BB

MP shows Js Kc (One Pair, Tens)
(Pre 65%, Flop 38%, Turn 23%)

Hero shows 7c 9d (Two Pair, Tens and Nines)
(Pre 35%, Flop 62%, Turn 77%)

Hero wins 105.38 BB

I’m not too pleased with the hand I busted on. I do think I should have gone broke given how the board ran out, but it would have been better to call the flop and get all in on this turn.

PokerStars – 6000/12000 Ante 1500 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 6.98 BB (VPIP: 22.16, PFR: 13.23, 3Bet Preflop: 9.18, Hands: 194)
Hero (BTN): 31.1 BB
SB: 75.19 BB (VPIP: 27.27, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 11)
BB: 135.17 BB (VPIP: 18.84, PFR: 13.43, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 73)
UTG: 165.89 BB (VPIP: 31.67, PFR: 17.65, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 242)
UTG+1: 44.35 BB (VPIP: 19.67, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 10.24, Hands: 606)
MP: 25.96 BB (VPIP: 16.70, PFR: 11.94, 3Bet Preflop: 5.09, Hands: 504)
MP+1: 35.16 BB (VPIP: 21.00, PFR: 16.26, 3Bet Preflop: 10.31, Hands: 501)
MP+2: 37.86 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 9)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Ac Js
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.4 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2.4 BB, fold, BB calls 1.4 BB

Flop : (8.82 BB, 3 players) Tc Jc 9d
BB checks, MP+1 checks, Hero bets 2.65 BB, BB raises to 6.58 BB, fold, Hero raises to 28.58 BB and is all-in, BB calls 21.99 BB

Turn : (65.98 BB, 2 players) 2d

River : (65.98 BB, 2 players) 2c

BB shows 9c Qc (Flush, Queen High)
(Pre 40%, Flop 62%, Turn 43%)

Hero shows Ac Js (Two Pair, Jacks and Twos)
(Pre 60%, Flop 38%, Turn 57%)

BB wins 65.98 BB

I didn’t do anything too interesting in the $215 rebuy, but here’s a hand I screwed up:

PokerStars – 300/600 Ante 75 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 83.23 BB (VPIP: 33.46, PFR: 20.31, 3Bet Preflop: 6.56, Hands: 267)
CO: 51.64 BB (VPIP: 22.86, PFR: 22.86, 3Bet Preflop: 17.65, Hands: 35)
BTN: 49.94 BB (VPIP: 15.11, PFR: 8.73, 3Bet Preflop: 1.79, Hands: 140)
SB: 79.96 BB (VPIP: 20.26, PFR: 14.66, 3Bet Preflop: 6.86, Hands: 545)
Hero (BB): 96.56 BB
UTG: 37.1 BB (VPIP: 20.21, PFR: 12.43, 3Bet Preflop: 5.75, Hands: 189)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has 7s 8h
fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 0.5 BB, Hero raises to 3.7 BB, SB raises to 13 BB, Hero calls 9.3 BB

Flop : (26.75 BB, 2 players) 9d 4d Td
SB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

Turn : (50.75 BB, 2 players) 6d
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (50.75 BB, 2 players) 7c
SB bets 15.73 BB, Hero calls 15.73 BB

SB shows Jc Jd (Flush, Jack High)
(Pre 82%, Flop 85%, Turn 100%)

Hero mucks 7s 8h (Straight, Ten High)
(Pre 18%, Flop 15%, Turn 0%)

SB wins 82.22 BB

I think I played the turn right, and maybe the flop? But pre-flop, I probably screwed up twice, and the river should probably be a fold. #TheyAlwaysHaveIt

PokerStars – 100/200 Ante 25 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 223.49 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 15)
BTN: 256.49 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
SB: 250.62 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
Hero (BB): 251.25 BB
UTG: 247.62 BB (VPIP: 14.15, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 205)

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has 4c 4h
UTG raises to 2.5 BB, fold, BTN calls 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 1.5 BB

Flop : (8.62 BB, 3 players) Kc 4d 5d
Hero checks, UTG bets 4.14 BB, BTN calls 4.14 BB, Hero raises to 25.18 BB, fold, BTN calls 21.04 BB

Turn : (63.13 BB, 2 players) Kd
Hero bets 18.94 BB, BTN raises to 57 BB, Hero calls 38.06 BB

River : (177.13 BB, 2 players) Qs
Hero checks, BTN bets 171.68 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 166.44 BB and is all-in

BTN shows 5s 5h (Full House, Fives full of Kings)
(Pre 81%, Flop 96%, Turn 98%)

Hero shows 4c 4h (Full House, Fours full of Kings)
(Pre 19%, Flop 4%, Turn 2%)

BTN wins 510.01 BB

Honestly, I’m not at all sure this was a good river call. I do think it’s just a bluff-catcher, and although the 4s are somewhat relevant blockers, this is probably a spot where most people underbluff enough and my remaining chips valuable enough for me to fold.

It all worked out in the end though, because I took a few hours off (I hadn’t registered anything else yet) and then put in an afternoon session instead, which culminated in my taking 3rd out of nearly 1000 runners in the Big $109. That will almost certainly become a video on Tournament Poker Edge so I don’t want to give away too much, but here are two fun hands from the last two tables:

PokerStars – 2500/5000 Ante 625 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 17.34 BB (VPIP: 21.60, PFR: 15.87, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 705)
BB: 69.56 BB (VPIP: 26.88, PFR: 20.24, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 93)
UTG: 49.33 BB (VPIP: 45.45, PFR: 36.36, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 11)
UTG+1: 23.91 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 15.38, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 13)
Hero (MP): 18.75 BB
MP+1: 33.19 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 15.79, Hands: 56)
MP+2: 8.21 BB (VPIP: 22.35, PFR: 14.32, 3Bet Preflop: 8.12, Hands: 427)
CO: 76.27 BB (VPIP: 15.45, PFR: 9.62, 3Bet Preflop: 5.13, Hands: 110)
BTN: 31 BB (VPIP: 21.48, PFR: 16.00, 3Bet Preflop: 12.28, Hands: 257)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has Qs Kh
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 7s 2h 5s
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 2c
BB checks, Hero checks

River : (6.18 BB, 2 players) 6h
BB bets 4 BB, Hero calls 4 BB

BB shows 4s Ks (One Pair, Twos)
(Pre 29%, Flop 46%, Turn 32%)

Hero shows Qs Kh (One Pair, Twos)
(Pre 71%, Flop 54%, Turn 68%)

Hero wins 14.18 BB

Villain was active in the chat box, which made it even more fun.

This was with 11 players remaining. Villain timed down to 0 before folding. Was quite the sweat:

PokerStars – 6000/12000 Ante 1500 NL – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 14.71 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 18.75, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 33)
UTG: 36.57 BB (VPIP: 20.49, PFR: 15.05, 3Bet Preflop: 8.39, Hands: 701)
CO: 65.94 BB (VPIP: 18.41, PFR: 15.04, 3Bet Preflop: 9.80, Hands: 357)
BTN: 50.35 BB (VPIP: 22.90, PFR: 16.75, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 434)
Hero (SB): 34.54 BB

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.12 BB) Hero has 8c Kc
fold, fold, BTN raises to 2.1 BB, Hero raises to 6.48 BB, fold, BTN calls 4.38 BB

Flop : (14.59 BB, 2 players) 7s Ts 5d
Hero checks, BTN checks

Turn : (14.59 BB, 2 players) 6c
Hero checks, BTN bets 7 BB, Hero raises to 27.94 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 28.59 BB

PS Nothing to write home about in the $1050 PKO. Collected one bounty.

My plan was not to double buy (that is, to rebuy 10K chips for $215 rather than 20K chips for $430), because the add-on buys 20K chips for $215, which means that buying that extra 10K during the rebuy period is quite expensive. Your initial chips are expensive too, of course, but you can’t add on if you don’t have chips!

Eventually, though, I convinced myself that the players on my right had enough chips and were playing badly enough that I wanted to have more to invest against them. I’m not sure that was the right decision, but it paid off:

PokerStars – 125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 91.93 BB (VPIP: 18.84, PFR: 11.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.90, Hands: 69)
Hero (BTN): 80.09 BB
SB: 157.66 BB (VPIP: 18.92, PFR: 15.09, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 113)
BB: 177.09 BB (VPIP: 47.00, PFR: 27.00, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 100)
UTG: 40.52 BB (VPIP: 9.09, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 22)
UTG+1: 43.26 BB (VPIP: 22.97, PFR: 10.64, 3Bet Preflop: 5.03, Hands: 359)
MP: 36.4 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 7.04, 3Bet Preflop: 5.41, Hands: 144)
MP+1: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.11, PFR: 12.20, 3Bet Preflop: 6.86, Hands: 246)
MP+2: 104.4 BB (VPIP: 38.16, PFR: 18.42, 3Bet Preflop: 9.38, Hands: 76)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has 3s 3h
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.5 BB, MP+2 calls 2.5 BB, fold, Hero calls 2.5 BB, fold, fold

Flop : (10.08 BB, 3 players) 5h Qs 3c
MP+1 bets 5 BB, MP+2 calls 5 BB, Hero raises to 21.55 BB, fold, MP+2 raises to 101.78 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 55.92 BB and is all-in

Turn : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Jd

River : (170.02 BB, 2 players) Qh

MP+2 shows Kd Qc (Three of a Kind, Queens)
(Pre 48%, Flop 2%, Turn 0%)

Hero shows 3s 3h (Full House, Threes full of Queens)
(Pre 52%, Flop 98%, Turn 100%)

Hero wins 170.02 BB

I won more big pots with 66 vs 64 on 764dd (frankly that Villain overplayed his hand as well – I flatted his flop check-raise, and he overbet jammed a Qd turn!), and then a really big one getting QQ all in against AK and holding. After winning that huge flip – note this for when I start whining about losing flips – I was in second place overall. Eventually, though, I just blew up:

PokerStars – 1250/2500 Ante 325 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+1: 43.44 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 9.09, Hands: 65)
Hero (MP+2): 119.24 BB
CO: 10.53 BB (VPIP: 15.00, PFR: 11.76, 3Bet Preflop: 5.65, Hands: 301)
BTN: 23.3 BB (VPIP: 20.27, PFR: 13.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.72, Hands: 376)
SB: 43.79 BB (VPIP: 14.68, PFR: 9.67, 3Bet Preflop: 2.27, Hands: 542)
BB: 25.05 BB (VPIP: 17.35, PFR: 9.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 98)
UTG: 81.7 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 21)
UTG+1: 40.24 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 13.14, 3Bet Preflop: 5.22, Hands: 288)
MP: 31.2 BB (VPIP: 23.56, PFR: 17.00, 3Bet Preflop: 7.89, Hands: 452)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.67 BB) Hero has Ts 9d
fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, SB calls 1.78 BB, fold

Flop : (6.73 BB, 2 players) 9s 5h Ad
SB checks, Hero bets 2.02 BB, SB calls 2.02 BB

Turn : (10.77 BB, 2 players) 3d
SB bets 6.68 BB, Hero calls 6.68 BB

River : (24.12 BB, 2 players) 6h
SB bets 6.03 BB, Hero raises to 108.14 BB and is all-in, SB calls 26.66 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Ts 9d (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 43%, Flop 18%, Turn 5%)

SB shows 3s As (Two Pair, Aces and Threes)
(Pre 57%, Flop 82%, Turn 95%)

SB wins 89.5 BB

This isn’t even typically a hand I’d open from this seat, but the BB was quite tight. I just got it into my head from the flop that I was going to three barrels, which I think is a fine plan holding the 9 blocker, but I refused to re-evaluate after Villain took the lead on the turn.

Frankly, his bet is bad. All he has to do is check and call and he gets my stack when he’s going to get my stack. Donking on a card that really doesn’t change the board – even though it did improve his hand – throws up a red flat that ought to enable me to change course and fold, though I stubbornly ignored it. So that was frustrating.

After that it was pretty uneventful, with not too many opportunities presenting themselves and me slowly blinding down as we neared the bubble. I open jammed AK, got called by TT, and that was that.

I did manage a cash in the $530, though even that got a bit dicey. I got off to a bad start thanks to more stubbornness:

PokerStars – 200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 160.07 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 26.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
UTG+1: 14.47 BB (VPIP: 25.31, PFR: 14.88, 3Bet Preflop: 4.02, Hands: 748)
MP: 259.15 BB (VPIP: 22.88, PFR: 15.52, 3Bet Preflop: 3.17, Hands: 119)
Hero (MP+1): 129.48 BB
MP+2: 79.47 BB (VPIP: 11.04, PFR: 8.18, 3Bet Preflop: 4.23, Hands: 163)
CO: 121.62 BB (VPIP: 26.23, PFR: 11.67, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 61)
BTN: 143.79 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 36)
SB: 123.99 BB (VPIP: 20.80, PFR: 17.03, 3Bet Preflop: 8.27, Hands: 330)
BB: 121.79 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.62 BB) Hero has 8d 8c
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.79 BB

Flop : (7.2 BB, 2 players) 5h 2h 3c
BB checks, Hero bets 2.16 BB, BB raises to 6.1 BB, Hero calls 3.94 BB

Turn : (19.4 BB, 2 players) Ah
BB bets 6.94 BB, Hero raises to 23.59 BB, BB calls 16.64 BB

River : (66.58 BB, 2 players) Qs
BB checks, Hero bets 43.94 BB, BB calls 43.94 BB

Hero shows 8d 8c (One Pair, Eights)
(Pre 82%, Flop 9%, Turn 6%)

BB shows 3d 3h (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 18%, Flop 91%, Turn 94%)

BB wins 154.46 BB

This Villain was fishy enough that I think I can just fold flop. I told myself it could be a protection raise, and then the turn presented an irresistible bluffing spot. I still don’t regret firing away at turn and river, but I do think I should have folded the flop. Recognizing and exploitively folding against obviously strong lines from weak players is something I used to be more diligent about. I need to regain that discipline.

After that, it was standard stuff. I won some all ins, ran up a large stack, then lost a flip as the bubble approached. That left with me about 25bbs which I nursed until we were in the money. I found a spot to open jam about 10bb with Kh 9h from MP and was horrified when a player who’d been quite tight snap called from the HJ. I guess he was ready to gamble now that he’d cashed, though, because he had Qs Ts. The flop was all clubs and missed both of us. The turn was the Qc, but then the river was a fifth club so we ended up chopping. What a roller coaster!

The very next hand an early position player jammed 4bb, I reshoved AJo, someone else shoved, and then the BB, who was extremely short, called off the rest with his AJs. He actually made a flush to win the main pot, but I couldn’t outrun 88 for the much larger sidepot, so I finished with a min cash.

Still, I’ve cashed two of the eight WCOOP events I’ve played so far, and both felt like they could easily have been deeper runs (as did a few of the non-cashes). There’s a lot I’m doing that I’m really happy about – just got to find some discipline and some (more) rungood!

Edit: Taking today off. Was going to play the $1000 6-max shootout, but it’s capped at 216 runners and will probably be a tough field. The $215 8-game always sounds fun, but I think a day off will be more fun than (probably) busting early or (best case scenario) playing Razz until 2AM.

PokerStars – 500/1000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 48.94 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 23.81, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
SB: 122.09 BB (VPIP: 23.81, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 21)
Hero (BB): 45.3 BB
UTG: 178.14 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 9.52, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
MP: 33.32 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)
CO: 215.82 BB (VPIP: 47.62, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 21)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Js As 4d Qs
fold, fold, CO raises to 3.5 BB, fold, SB calls 3 BB, Hero calls 2.5 BB

Flop : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 4h 9d Tc
SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (10.5 BB, 3 players) 5h
SB checks, Hero bets 10.5 BB, CO calls 10.5 BB, fold

River : (31.5 BB, 2 players) Jd
Hero checks, CO bets 31.5 BB, Hero calls 31.3 BB and is all-in

CO shows Kh 7s Ks 3h (One Pair, Kings)
(Pre 57%, Flop 43%, Turn 68%)

Hero shows Js As 4d Qs (Two Pair, Jacks and Fours)
(Pre 43%, Flop 57%, Turn 33%)

Hero wins 94.1 BB

I made the money, surprising no one more than myself, and ultimately busted with dignity, holding a pair and a wrap against top two pair that turned a boat. I had to run the equity afterwards, but I got it in with about 62%, so can’t feel bad about that:

PokerStars – 8000/16000 PL Hi (6 max) – Omaha Hi – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 35.37 BB (VPIP: 31.82, PFR: 4.55, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 22)
Hero (CO): 46.58 BB
BTN: 72.41 BB (VPIP: 29.69, PFR: 14.06, 3Bet Preflop: 4.00, Hands: 128)
SB: 40.05 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 30)
BB: 65.48 BB (VPIP: 30.56, PFR: 17.36, 3Bet Preflop: 1.96, Hands: 147)
UTG: 43.88 BB (VPIP: 42.55, PFR: 21.28, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 47)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 4h 3d 6d 7c
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.79 BB, BTN calls 2.79 BB, SB calls 2.29 BB, fold

Flop : (9.37 BB, 3 players) 6h 5c Qd
SB checks, Hero bets 6.18 BB, BTN raises to 27.92 BB, fold, Hero raises to 43.79 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 15.86 BB

Turn : (96.94 BB, 2 players) 6c

River : (96.94 BB, 2 players) Ah

Hero shows 4h 3d 6d 7c (Three of a Kind, Sixes)
(Pre 44%, Flop 61%, Turn 0%)

BTN shows Kd As Qs 6s (Full House, Sixes full of Aces)
(Pre 56%, Flop 39%, Turn 100%)

BTN wins 96.94 BB

Although in retrospect maybe this just isn’t a good open from the CO? Like I said, undoubtedly lots of small mistakes.

I got trounced in the $1K in an interesting spot:

PokerStars – 175/350 Ante 45 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 178.74 BB (VPIP: 22.60, PFR: 15.46, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 209)
UTG: 237.43 BB (VPIP: 20.20, PFR: 13.07, 3Bet Preflop: 5.60, Hands: 307)
Hero (UTG+1): 147.77 BB
MP: 121.09 BB (VPIP: 27.81, PFR: 18.67, 3Bet Preflop: 14.07, Hands: 608)
MP+1: 117.71 BB (VPIP: 22.44, PFR: 15.81, 3Bet Preflop: 9.48, Hands: 259)
MP+2: 240.61 BB (VPIP: 9.82, PFR: 5.94, 3Bet Preflop: 1.89, Hands: 226)
CO: 64.04 BB (VPIP: 23.45, PFR: 16.25, 3Bet Preflop: 7.44, Hands: 293)
BTN: 135.27 BB (VPIP: 22.26, PFR: 18.96, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 276)
SB: 141.29 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 13)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.66 BB) Hero has Ah 8h
fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, BTN calls 2.28 BB, SB calls 1.78 BB, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (10.28 BB, 4 players) 8d 2c 7h
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 6.78 BB, fold, SB raises to 21 BB, fold, Hero calls 14.22 BB

Turn : (52.28 BB, 2 players) 7c
SB bets 35 BB, Hero raises to 124.36 BB and is all-in, SB calls 82.88 BB and is all-in

River : (288.03 BB, 2 players) 6h

SB shows 7s As (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 36%, Flop 8%, Turn 95%)

Hero shows Ah 8h (Two Pair, Eights and Sevens)
(Pre 64%, Flop 92%, Turn 5%)

SB wins 288.03 BB

Of course it looks bad that Villain hit a two-outer, but I think he played the hand well, and there are other ways for him to win besides binking. I like my flop defend. It’s a nasty spot, but I think given how often I’ll hold overpairs in this same spot, I should continue with this hand (which blocks 88 and 87s) and mostly dump those.

I thought of the turn as a better card than it probably was. Of course it makes sets/two-pair less likely, but I didn’t really consider that 7x would be a likely flop bluffing hand for Villain because he wants to block 77 and 87s. In retrospect, folding or even calling turn might well be better than sticking it in, even with a bounty on the Villain (which really isn’t likely to come into play, come to think of it).

I had a tricky spot in the $500 that I’m still not sure about:

PokerStars – 400/800 Ante 100 NL (8 max) – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 143.26 BB (VPIP: 21.55, PFR: 19.25, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 232)
UTG+1: 49.15 BB (VPIP: 22.62, PFR: 13.41, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 84)
MP: 79.88 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.00, 3Bet Preflop: 6.85, Hands: 668)
Hero (MP+1): 58.58 BB
CO: 62.9 BB (VPIP: 25.84, PFR: 21.32, 3Bet Preflop: 12.16, Hands: 332)
BTN: 86.71 BB (VPIP: 15.91, PFR: 10.13, 3Bet Preflop: 2.21, Hands: 398)
SB: 19.67 BB (VPIP: 21.78, PFR: 16.28, 3Bet Preflop: 9.55, Hands: 487)
BB: 68.82 BB (VPIP: 16.36, PFR: 12.79, 3Bet Preflop: 7.27, Hands: 276)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has 6d 5d
fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2.28 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1.28 BB

Flop : (6.06 BB, 2 players) 4c 7d 9c
BB checks, Hero bets 4 BB, BB raises to 13.61 BB, Hero calls 9.61 BB

Turn : (33.28 BB, 2 players) 9s
BB bets 17 BB, Hero calls 17 BB

River : (67.28 BB, 2 players) Kd
BB bets 35.8 BB and is all-in, fold

BB wins 67.28 BB

It feels bad to call off so much with 6-high, but I still struggle to see a better option. The flop bet and call seem pretty clear-cut. Turn is tricky. Of course I could be in bad shape vs a 9, but I could also be very live against a flush draw, and if Villain doesn’t have the flush draw then I may get the opportunity to rep it if it comes in. I don’t think jamming the turn is any good, but I could certainly be convinced that it’s a fold.

I lost the rest with AK to 99 all in pre, nothing too exciting there.

I considered taking today off, but it’s dreary outside, so I’ll likely play the $215 rebuy.

Strategy

Hand 1

I’m in MP with 9c9d, a stack of $5.56 and raise to 15c, it folds around to the SB with a stack of $5.96 who 3bet to 35c. It folds back to me and I make an easy call.

** Dealing Flop ** [ 7s, 5s, 6h ] Pot: 0.75c.
Villain bets [ $0.36 USD ]
hero calls [ $0.36 USD ]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 2d ] Pot: $1.47
Villain bets [ $0.70 USD ]
hero calls [ $0.70 USD ]

** Dealing River ** [ Jh ] Pot: $2.87
Villain bets [ $1 USD ]

Hand 2

I had 77 utg and limped.  It limped around all the way to the button who just flatted.

Five players to the flop of k 7 4 rainbow.  I checked checked all the way to button who bet 12. I just called 12.  The cutoff also called.

The turn brings a 6 diamonds.  2 diamonds on the board.

I check.  Check on cutoff and the button bets 35.  I wait 30 seconds and then reraise to 100.

Cutoff hymns and haws and I put him in 75d and he calls after 1 minute or more.  The button calls instantly.

River brings j diamonds.  I check quickly and the c/o quickly moves all in for 210.

The button calls immediately for less – like 60.

Hand 3

1/2 game in Arizona. Hero has $350 effective, and is the big stack at the table. Both usual suspects limp, and hero checks his option from the BB with Ad 6s.

The flop comes all diamonds. T72. I bet $10, and one of the more laggy players three bets me to $25. The other one folds. I call.

Turn is the Jh. I check. Villain leads for $30. I call.

River comes JD, pairing the board but also giving me the nut flush. I lead for $25, Opponent clicks back pretty quickly, making it $50.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
8:14 – Strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

We’re on the bubble, with 20 players remaining and 18 to be paid. Blinds are 1500/3000, and I raise to 6000 UTG (7-handed) with Tc 8c. The only player at the table to have me covered 3-bets to 12K from HJ, and I call.

Flop (34K) Ks 9h 7h. I check, he bets 15K, I raise to 45K, he calls.

Turn (124K) 4h. I bet 45K, he calls.

River (214K) Qc.

Hand 2

$1/$2 NLHE, seven-handed, $300 effective stacks.

UTG+1 opens to $15. CO and BN call, Hero calls Qh 6h in the BB.

Flop ($55) Q97r. Hero checks, UTG1 bets $20, CO and BN fold, Hero calls.

Turn ($95) 6. Hero bets $35, UTG1 raises to $100, Hero shoves.

Hand 3

$2/$5 Spread Limit O/8 with a $100 Max Bet, 9-handed, $250 effective stacks.

Hero limps AA92 UTG, several calls, Button raises to $40. Folds to Hero…

I suspect, though, that even if we were to give the Hero a slightly stronger holding, such as QQ, many people would still be reluctant to shove. Why is this?

I believe the overriding cause to be classic loss aversion: at some level; most human brains are more concerned about not-losing than they are about winning. Even when we can expect to win at a favorable, very profitable frequency, our guts may very well tell us to be careful.

Does that sound like you? Did you find the article helpful? Please let me know in the comments!

And don’t miss Carlos Welch’s great piece on How to Develop and Use Reads!

Strategy this week comes to us from Nate’s recent play in a Foxwoods $1K!

Links

Coaching Carlos

Tournament Poker Edge

NYC Live Event with Just Hands Poker

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
11:38 – Strategy From Nate at Foxwoods
41:41 – Interview: Angela Bassa

Strategy

Hand 1

Blinds 150/300/25. Effective stacks 30K.

Hero limps QQ UTG, UTG1 raises to 1200, UTG2 calls BB raises it 3800, Hero calls, UTG1 folds, UTG2 calls.

Flop J97tt. BB bets 7K, Hero?

Hand 2

Blinds 600/1200/200. Effective stack 72K.

Villain opens HJ to 2800, Hero calls JTo on CO, Button calls, SB calls.

Flop (11K) 9h 5c 2h. Check, check, Hero bets 5300, folds back to HJ who calls.

Turn (22.5K) 8s. HJ checks, Hero?

Blinds are 2000/4000/500. Villain is in the BB. He’s a decidedly recreational player and seems VERY level 1/level 2 thinking. That is to, he doesn’t seem to consider his own ranges or what he’s representing. I’ve already seen him get caught in one non-sensical river bluff.

I’d been the most active player at the table, though that wasn’t saying much. Most of my pre-flop raises had been minimum, but in this case I chose a larger size because the BB had a lot of chips and seemed to inclined to defend his BB for that reason. My plan was to raise his BB less aggressively, and to use a larger size when doing so.

I begin the hand with about 120K, Villain covers by a lot (probably one of the chip leaders in the tournament).

Folds to me on the Button with Kd Qs. I raise to 10K. SB folds, BB quickly calls. “You don’t even want to think about folding?” I ask him.

“I thought about it,” he said.

“Did you even look at your cards?”

“Nope. I didn’t think you looked at yours.” This was just banter. I knew he’d looked at his cards, and he knew that I knew.

Flop (26,500 in pot) 7s 7c 4d. Villain very quickly bets 10K. I read this as a very Level 2 sort of play, where he just saw a board that was tough to hit and a player with a wide range and figured he could just bet whatever and I would have to fold if I didn’t have a pair. I think he’s looking for a fold basically always, but that doesn’t rule out his having better hands than mine. This is a shitty line to take with Ace-high, but certainly one that I see from people who are excessively concerned about protection and think too much about whether or not they have a “made hand”.

I called, thinking there was a good chance that I had the best hand. Raising is quite possibly better, though I think there’s a case for letting him put more weak money into the pot before doing so.

Turn (46,500) Ts. Villain bets 15K. I read this as weak, which I still think is correct, but in retrospect it’s weak in a different way. When he bets 1/3 pot, he doesn’t really expect me to fold anything I called the flop with, he just doesn’t want to be raised. This could be a blocking bet from a better hand than mine (Ace-high or small pair) or a set-my-own-price bet with a draw. Either way, I think this should just be a jam. It’s not that much more than a pot-sized raise, and even if it does seem suspect (it’s not really how I’d play many strong hands, though he probably won’t realize that anyway), what’s he going to do, hero it off with A3?

River (76,500) 6s. Villain bets 45K. I’d seen him bluff the river before by grabbing a stack of chips and slamming it down in front of him, one of those strong-means-weak tells that’s so blatant that you wonder whether it isn’t a reverse tell. Combined with the fact that I wasn’t giving his earlier bets much credit, I still didn’t believe him.

The trouble was that I wasn’t sure how many of his bluffs I could beat. Though it would be a terrible bet, I don’t even think it’s impossible that he’s just bluffing with a gutter that rivered a pair because he doesn’t want to check and face a bet (though maybe he’d use more of a blocking sizing for that). But if he got this far with Ace high, I think it’s plausible he fires like this. He sees flop with a LOT of combos of Ax so even if the chance of him playing it this way isn’t high, that still adds up to a fair number of combos.

I decided to jam the river for about 85K total to get him off of all of those “accidental value bets”. He groaned, which was a bad sign, because it meant that he thought he had the best hand when he bet, then reluctantly called with 8s 5s for a flush.

Again, I realize that this seems insane in a vacuum and is in fact legitimately not good, particularly with the last of my chips in a very soft tournament. However, I do think it’s an interesting case of considering all of the options on the table, even if that did lead to a bad decision in this case.

The first half of my conversation with Matt is available here.

If you didn’t donate during the campaign, please enjoy the video and then donate whatever you feel it was worth to you. Thanks!

Edit: Courtesy of Carlos Welch, here are links to the TV footage of the hands we discuss:

Hand 1
https://youtu.be/Cbwe7cP2jQI?t=2393

Hand 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2qhk6Xuq0k

Also please note that there’s a typo in the video for Hand 2. The flop was actually 844 with two diamonds.

When you three-bet, you’re gearing up to play a big pot, so you ought to come strapped. That doesn’t have to mean Aces, but it should mean a hand with a reasonable chance of winning the pot if you go to the flop. In most cases, the stronger your hand, the higher the Expected Value (EV) of your three-bet will be.

It does not follow from this that you should therefore three-bet a strictly linear range, starting from Aces and working your way down. The complication is that many hands that will have a high EV when they three-bet will also have a high EV when they call. Your job is to decide, when you have a reasonably good hand, whether it will play better as a three-bet or a call in this particular situation.

How do you decide when to three-bet? Was this article helpful to you?

Chase sticks around for a special strategy segment featuring a 10/25 NLHE hand in which Andrew was also involved!

You can follow @Chase_Bianchi on Twitter and rail him on Twitch!

Andrew would appreciate, and is offering prizes for, donations to the Bay Area Urban Debate League.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
13:36 – chase

Strategy

Utg opens 75, main opponent calls HJ, AlphaNit calls BU, we call 65cc in sb, BB calls.
5 way flop($375) 8d 6h 4c checks to villain he bets 175, AlphaNit calls, we call, 2 folds.
3 way turn($900) 7d. We check, villain bets 350, AlphaNit fold, we call.
HU river 7x. We check, villain bets 475 with 1500 behind. Hero?

My Day 1A table draw was quite tough, I think, given the field. Not a lot went right for me, and I busted just a few hours in.

Day 1B went much better. My starting table was amazing, I was playing six-handed with five pretty weak players and a stack that was in play from the start of the tournament and whose owner never showed up to claim it. By the end of the day, it was blinded off, contributing probably $500 in equity to me!

Despite getting into a number of good spots, I didn’t come out ahead after the first two hours of play. It was only after two better players showed up at the table that I claimed a few big pots.

I didn’t recognize the player who landed on my immediate left, but he fit the stereotype of a twenty-something grinder. He was kind of reserved and aloof and played as though he thought he everyone else was clueless (which, to be fair, several of the others basically were). This also resulted, however, in him doing some extremely exploitable things against me that cost him two large pots.

In the first, blinds are 100/200, effective stacks 40K, and the BB is the dead stack. UTG is a really obviously amateurish player who fumbles his chips and tries to raise to 300 but has to make it 400 and is blatantly not too strong here. However, I also know that this guy doesn’t like to fold to 3-bets and will even make some wild 4-bets, so I’d rather just call him with my T9dd. Problem is I’ve got this kid on my left who I’m pretty sure is going to 3-bet if I just call. So I figure fine, let him do it, we’ll play poker, and I call. Sure enough the kids makes it 2000, UTG calls, and so do I.

Flop is K32 with one diamond. We check to the kid who bets 3000, UTG folds, and I call. I can’t rep any strong hands yet, as I wouldn’t check-raise if I had a monster, but I still don’t think he has anything, and I’m going to find a bluff somewhere if I don’t pair up.

Turn is a 5, which is great because now I can bet into him, which is what I’d actually want to do with a lot of strong hands to keep from taking a free card with Ax. I bet 4000, and he quickly raises to 12K which is just extremely implausible. I mean, I don’t think he’s playing Kx this way, so either he has two-pair or better (even then I’d expect more of an act) or he’s full of it.

Still, it wasn’t easy to force myself to move in for 35K here. I didn’t relish sticking in 200 BBs with T-high no draw, but I really had a lot of confidence that this was going to work. He tanked for a while, during which I had more trouble than usual keeping a good poker face because I kept thinking about how stupid I was going to feel if he called. He eventually, folded, though, after which I felt like a genius.

A while later, at 300/600, there was now another good player at the table, and he opened to 1500 from UTG2. I just called with JJ in the SB, and kid from before raised to 5500 from the BB. This time I was sure he was strong. He wasn’t going out of his way to pick fights with the two best players at the table, especially when he had the option of just calling and seeing a cheap flop. Still, I wasn’t going to fold Jacks, so I called.

The flop came 983ss. I checked, he bet 7K (half the pot), and I called. The turn was a 5, I checked, and he bet 14K, leaving about 60K behind. There was some chance he was barreling AK, but that seemed unlikely, and he definitely didn’t have worse for value. In all likelihood, Jacks were no good. However, I also didn’t think he would have re-raised any smaller pairs or suited connectors when he could so easily call them, so really he couldn’t have better than one pair, while I had lots of sets, two-pairs, and straights in my range. This actually makes it a pretty bad idea for him to bet the turn, unless he just assumes I’m not capable of bluff raising him, because opening himself up to a bluff raise is a disaster. So, I went for it. Again, he tanked a long time, and this time he folded QQ face up!

I came into Day 2 with about twice the average in chips, but with 40% of the field remaining, we were still a ways from the money. A few hours later, my table broke, and I still had roughly the chips with which I’d started the day.

With blinds of 1500/3000/500, a player in middle position opened to 6500. I raised to 16500 with QQ on the button, and he pretty quickly ripped it in for 140K. I wasn’t thrilled, but I called it off with QQ and lost to AA, busting in about 100th place, with 63 paying. I’m not sure it was a good call – Nate and I discuss it a bit on the upcoming podcast.

DP1: A6o is a tough hand to play, even when only a single opponent with a random hand remains. Raising denies the BB some equity and reduces the likelihood that you’ll have to play out of position after the flop, but it also sets you up to get blown out by a 3-bet or to play out of position against a stronger range in a raised pot. With antes in the pot, I think you have too much value to fold, but both calling and raising are reasonable options.

DP2: QJo is generally a good enough hand to raise for value into a small blind limp, especially because most people will raise the hands that dominate you and call some dominated hands. I’m not sure why I didn’t raise at the time, and I probably should have.

DP3: A few commenters seem to suggest that Villain can just bet the flop with any two cards because Hero will often “miss”, and against weaker opponents that may be true. However, better players are aware of the relative difficulty of making a pair and will defend appropriately to a flop bet, including by calling with strong unpaired hands and by bluff-raising. That’s not to say that Villain should never bluff, but he should expect only his better bluffing candidates to be profitable. Turning a hand with this much showdown value into a bluff is a mistake, as it is surely a profitable check and call.

You might object that since I called with worse, we can think of Villain’s bet as a value bet. However, overall he will not be ahead of my calling range, and many of my worse hands (though probably not this one) will often bluff him out on future streets anyway.

DP4: This is a clear call. Villain could easily be bluffing, and I ought to beat all of his bluffs plus have reasonable equity even against many of his value bets. Things get a bit dicier if he’s betting his Aces, but even then I suspect that I have enough equity to call.

As for raising, many of the same arguments apply as with Villain’s limp: the hand has too much value to turn into a bluff, at the moment anyway. On runouts that improve my weaker flop calls, I may end up bluffing with this, as it would then be the bottom of my range.

DP5: Villain’s flop bet, along with this turn card, killed any showdown value his hand had, so now it is a bluffing candidate along with the rest of the air he ought to have bet on the flop. However, Villain ought to have other bluffs with better equity available to him and probably ought to give up on this one.

Essentially, he’s got an Ed Miller pyramid problem here. His flop betting range was too wide, and now on the turn he’s going to hold too many weak hands and will have to get rid of them somehow. He can either keep bluffing, which will make my bluff-catches very profitable, of he can just check and fold, which with this hand at least is the better option.

DP6: An easy call. Villain may not be value betting worse, but even so, I have a very solid bluff-catcher. The hand is too strong to raise as a bluff and not strong enough to raise for value.

DP7: Another pyramid problem. Once again, if Villain is getting to the river with too much air and bluffing with all of it, then my bluff catches will be very profitable. This is certainly a board that favors his range, but that doesn’t mean that he’s guaranteed a profitable bluff when he doesn’t have any blockers to my calling range.

DP8: This is a clear call, though not a super-profitable one (unless Villain is bluffing too much, which this one, in retrospect, seems to have been), as I block JT and KQ or other turned two-pairs. Many players won’t go for a third street of value with top pair, at least not for this size, but even against those who do, I expect this to be a profitable call.

PokerWilo asked about my plan for future streets. While it will depend heavily on the runout, I think there’s an underlying assumption to address here, which is that I need to be able to call future barrels. This would be true if we had reason to believe that Villain would always or usually barrel off after betting the flop, and in retrospect it seems like this one might.

However, that’s not information that I had at the time. All I knew is that Villain might keep betting, and he might not. That means that, no matter the turn card, I need to have some bluff-catchers that fold to further bets and some that do not. That way, I punish (or at least do not reward) both players who give up too often and those who barrel too often. On many turn cards, QJ will be in my folding range, but on this one, it’s in my calling range. In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with having a range of hands that will call once and fold to further action – in fact, it’s correct.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

The Game: $200 6-max WCOOP Event (Sunday Warm-Up Replacement). Blinds 1600/3200/400. Villain has 145K, Hero has 175K.

Reads/History: Assume each player knows the other to be a successful and experienced tournament player.

Decision Point 1: Villain open-limps As 6d in the small blind.

DP 2: Hero checks Qc Js in the big blind.

Flop (8800 in pot): Kc 8c 3s

DP3: Villain bets 3200.

DP4: Hero calls.

Turn (15200 in pot): Qd.

DP5: Villain bets 7750.

DP6: Hero calls.

River (30700 in pot): 9h

DP 7: Villain bets 22950.

DP8: Hero calls.

Leave a comment about any decision point(s) you find surprising or mistaken, and I’ll share my thoughts later in the week.

One additional note that may be helpful: try to think not just about whether Villain should bluff at all in these spots (he should) or whether Hero should ever call with less than the nuts (he should) but rather whether these specific hands are good for those purposes on each street.

Billy’s latest adventure is stand-up comedy. You can check out his work on Facebook and Instagram.

Timestamps

0:30 -hello
3:20 -2NL flopped FD
27:17 -billy

Strategy

2NL 6 max on ACR. Effective stacks $2.60.

I am UTG with KcJc and open $0.06. Villain calls on Button.

Flop comes 8c 2c 5. I bet $0.06 into $0.15. Villain raises to $0.22. I re-raise to $0.82, which leaves the villain to call $0.60 for a pot of $1.79. This raise also leaves me a pot sized bet behind.

Turn is 5c, making the board 8c2c5s 5c. I check and the villain checks behind.

River Ks, making the board 8c2c5s 5c Ks. Hero?

I’m currently in Maryland visiting family and have been to Maryland Live a few times. It’s been quite busy; even when I arrived around 4 yesterday there was already a long list for 5/10 and 10/25 and no open tables to start a new game. So, I ended up playing 2/5 for a while.

Maryland Live’s poker room has two stories, and I was in a 2/5 game upstairs, which is annoying because when they call you for another game you have to go downstairs to lock up a seat (or try to get a floor’s attention upstairs, but that’s hard to do). This will become relevant in a moment.

There’s also a bit of history that’s relevant to the hand in question. Just a few hands prior, Players A and B had limped and called a raise from me. We all checked an Axx flop. On a turn Q, Player A bet, B called, and I folded. The river went bet-call again, Player A had A8o, and Player B flashed a Q.

The Hand

Player A ($600) is in the BB. UTG1 ($350) limps, Player B ($950) limps in MP, and I ($1200) make it $25 with Kh Ts on the CO. The BB (Player A), and both limpers call.

Flop (~$100) Ac Qh 6h. Everyone checks.

Turn 9c. Player A bets $60, and the other two call. I raise to $260. I am way less capped than anyone else here, as I can plausibly represent sets and AQ, and judging from prior history these guys are capable of showing up with a ton of weak hands after this action. The biggest risk IMO is that UTG1 has an Ace and just goes with it, as I’ve bet basically his entire stack, but his turn call didn’t seem too confident.

Only Player B calls, leaving about a pot-sized bet in the stacks. Although I was (obviously) bluffing when I raised the turn, I now think there’s a good chance I’m ahead and he’s on some sort of draw. Still, I’ll probably jam a lot of rivers if checked to, just to be safe.

River (~$740) 2h. Villain thinks for a while, moving a lot while he does so. He changes posture a few times, leans his head on his hand, etc. Then he bets $375, a bit over half his stack.

As soon as I saw the river, my first thought was that I should call a shove. The Kh is a very significant blocker to his value range, and I’d expect him to have either a flush or a busted draw if he shoves. I suppose there’s an outside chance I get owned by Kc Jc or a pair with a club draw, but even with that risk it seems like a profitable call.

However, I also have a habit of stationing too much, especially against smaller stakes players who tend to be really risk averse in big pots and to bluff at less-than-optimal frequencies. His body language seemed confident, as generally people who are bluffing will try to avoid looking uncertain or drawing attention to themselves.

Results

As I was pondering this, I heard them announce “ABC for 5/10, second call.” I must have missed the first call, which is another annoying thing about playing upstairs: it’s a bit harder to hear announcements. That frazzled me a bit, as I didn’t want to take up too much time and miss my spot in the 5/10, so I just folded. Villain proudly tabled 8c 3c, and I just barely had time to tell him “Nice hand” as I rushed downstairs to lock up my seat.

It’s not actually a big deal, but man, that would have been such a fun hero call to make. At least I got some “blog equity” out of it anyway.

In the meantime, my latest poker strategy article, “They’re More Afraid of You,” is now appearing in 2+2 Magazine. It’s about using fear to your advantage in poker, but with a particular focus on the WSOP Tag Team event that Nate and I played:

no player wants to be the one to lose all of the team’s chips, especially not in a “boneheaded” way. I mean, if you get Aces cracked, your teammates will understand, but if you call off all of your chips hoping to catch a bluff and get shown a set, how do you explain that to the rest of the team?

Enjoy!

Blinds 25/50

MP opens to 150, Villain calls in CO, I call 66 on the Button, and BB calls.

Flop (625) Js 8d 6h Two checks, the CO bets 325, I raise to 800, two folds, and he calls.

Turn (2225) 3s. He checks, I bet 1500, he thinks a bit and calls

River (5225) Qd. He looks at my stack, then puts me all in for 4500. Admittedly, 66 is basically the nuts here, as I can’t see anyone good just check-calling 1500 on the turn with T9. Even spades probably plays better as a raise, especially given his incentive to get all in against me and put my bounty in play.

I was pretty sure I was going to call, but I took my time anyway, and I guess that made him assume that his QJ was good. I do think that especially in a bounty, where he has so much to gain by stacking me, he does make sense for him to shove the river, but it’s not a play a lot of people will make it, and I do try to think it through before making or calling large bets.

There were two other interesting spots, both at the 75/150/25 level. In the first, the HJ, who seemed just a touch too active but not overall a bad player, opened to 400, and I called with Qs Ts on my BB. He had a little over 7K behind, and I had about 11K.

Flop (1125) Qh 9c 7h. I considered donking here but ultimately checked. He bet 550, and I called.

Turn (2225) 5d. I checked, he bet 1500, I shoved, and he called with Ah 6h and hit the Th on the river.

In the second, the UTG player (at a 10-handed table) opened to 375, and I called with Ac Jh in the BB. I had about 3300 behind, and he had more than 30K, enough to still cover the entire table even if he doubled me.

Flop (1075) Kc Tc 5d. I actually bet 600, planning to fold to a raise. Even with his stack, this player seemed extremely passive and cautious, so I thought he would overfold and also shove much less often than he should. My hand is a decent one for betting because it’s equity is not so bad against a calling range but poor enough against a shoving range that I don’t lose a lot by folding. Plus I can jam turned clubs. However, the hand isn’t strong enough to check-call or check-raise, which means I usually just lose my equity if I check. Anyway, Villain called.

Turn (2275) Ah. Given Villain’s passivity, as well as the bounty factor, I just shoved. He reluctantly called Kc Q and my hand held up for a double.

I did a little GTORB analysis on both of these hands, and although that can’t take into consideration the very important bounty factor, it did reveal some slightly interesting stuff. Most notably, both of these players have such significant range advantages that I should very rarely (in practice, probably just never) donk bet in either spot.

I also wasn’t sure what GTORB would suggest for Villain’s Ah 6h. On the one hand, it’s obviously a huge draw, but on the other, with stacks being what they are, I thought Hero might often shove, putting Villain in a tough spot with a big draw.

Turns out that GTORB has Villain betting all of his A6 on the turn, with or without a heart draw, and always folding to a raise (though Villain’s call may not be wrong, as the bounty gives me incentive to raise a wider range, possibly including some dominated draws). And the Hero actually only check-raises about 10% (QT strictly prefers calling, though again, bounty may well change that). I guess it’s significant that the Hero generally raises his flopped monsters, and this is not a turn card that creates a lot of new monster hands (this is why A6 is a good betting hand, because it blocks 86), which means that Hero is pretty capped and the Villain can bet draws with abandon.

Tomorrow, I’ll most likely play the Venetian $1600.

Blinds were still 25/50, and I opened to 150 with Kc Qc in the HJ. The CO, SB, and BB all called.

The flop came 975 with two clubs, and the blinds checked. I certainly wouldn’t just c-bet arbitrarily into three opponents here, but with two overs and a flush draw, it’s an easy bet. I bet 450, and only the CO called.

The 2h turned, and on such a blank card, I think he’s more or less capped out at one pair, maybe TT or JJ at best and almost always weaker than that, so it’s a great spot for me to bombs away. I bet 1500, and he quickly called. The fact that he didn’t even consider raising made me even more certain that the didn’t have two-pair or a set.

So, I didn’t have to sweat a full house on the 9c river. I also didn’t think he’d call the turn with bare flush draws, at least not so quickly, so the only better hands in his range figured to bet Ac 8c and Ac 6c. I expected him to have T9 and 98 more frequently, and be unable to fold trips. I bet 4000, and he called with Ac 8c.

Nothing of great interest happened after that. I got a double up with AQ by convincing my opponent to spaz with 77 on a Q9xxx board.

Once I was down to 20 blinds, I wasn’t getting any shoving spots. Mostly my cards were bad, but also there was a guy with a big stack on my right who’d decided that he should play more than half the hands he was dealt. I’m honestly not sure he was joking/posturing when he wondered out loud whether he should call my 11BB UTG shove blind (I had AJo, and he folded).

A few hands later he opened to 1100 on the button, which it was really hard for me to imagine him folding a button, so I had a pretty easy shove for 5K or so with 22 in the SB. He called with A4o to bust me.

After the tournament I went and hung out with Carlos for a bit at the Tournament Poker Edge booth, then decided to check out the cash game scene at the Rio.

It truly does seem to get worse there every year. Now there are no chip runners (which, I realize, may not be their fault, but it sucks either way), which means that when they open a new game it takes a long time to start because people have to go wait in line at the cage, buy chips, then take them to the table, and of course no one wants to sit at the table waiting for others to show up, and certainly not come over from an already-running game to get the new one started, so it’s just a slow process and I can only imagine that the most impulsive (ie most desirable to have at your table) players are not sticking around for all that.

My first table was pretty boring, everyone seemed decent enough and the average stack was less than $2K, which is quite small for an uncapped $5/$10.

I was about to quit when my table change came through and I landed at a new table where my $6500 made me just the third largest stack! Had there been chip runners, I would have added on, but as it was I decided just to make do with 650 big blinds.

It was a fun game, nobody spewing but nobody playing particularly good deep-stacked poker, and I was winning solidly. Then, literally the hand before I was going to quit:

I open 22 to $40 UTG (believe we were 7-handed at the time), and four people call. The flop comes K72r. I bet $150, and only the button called. I had about $7500 at the time, and she covered me.

The turn was another K. I checked, figuring a check-raise could get more money in against a K and also give her a chance to bluff/protection bet weaker hands. She checked behind.

The river card was something small (not a 2!), and with $500 in the pot, I threw out a $1K chip. Overbetting was not unprecedented for me, and none of those hands had yet gone to showdown.

She asked if that was a $500 chip, the dealer told her it was $1000, and then she nodded and said, “All in.” Faced with calling $6K to win $8500, I really don’t think is a tough fold at all. I’m uncapped, which means I have both nut hands and better bluff-catchers, not that I would expect to see many bluffs here anyway.

Even though that basically wiped out my profit for the night, I quit feeling pretty good about myself. Among other things, I probably would have lost my ass if she’d bet the turn!

For some crazy reason the Monster Stack is not a re-entry, so I’m just going to play cash tonight, probably at Bellagio, and then hit up the $1K Turbo WSOP event tomorrow morning.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
5:45 strategy
46:24 christian

Strategy

$5/10 at Bellagio

Pre-flop:
UTG+1 raised to $15 (sic). I was hijack $800 stack holding AcQs. I called. Cutoff $2500 stack called. Button $1500 stack called. Small blind folded. Big blind $7000 stack called.

4 callers $75 pot

Flop:
AsKsQx
Checked to me, I bet $50. Villain called. Big blind called. Original raiser folded.

$225 pot

Turn: 7x
big blind checked, I bet $150, villain called and big blind folded.

$525 pot

River Tx:
I checked. Villain shoved.

Timestamps

0:30 hello and welcome
11:30 strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

2/5 game at the Aria. I have a stack of about 1400. Villain covers.

Villain raises from UTG+1 to 20, gets two callers. I have pocket aces in the BB. I raise to 85. Villain calls, callers fold.

Pot is now about $205. Flop 345 rainbow. Both players check.

Turn 2. I check, Villain bets $150, I call.

Pot is $505. River Q. I check, Villain bets $330.

Hand 2

$2/$5 live game. Villain has $500, Hero coves. Hero raises to $25 with AQss. Tilted guy re raises to $100. Hero calls.

Flop is Q74 two diamonds.  There is $200 in the pot and he leads out for a pot sized $200 bet. Hero calls.

Turn is 7h. Villain shoves $200, Hero calls.

Contrary to the fancy image seen here, The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 8 is actually available only as an e-book. It’s on sale now in the Kindle Store, and EPUB, Kindle, and PDF versions will be available on Nitcast.com shortly.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
10:59 – strat
32:05 – andrew moreno

Strategy

MP limps, the button makes it $5, and I raise to $16.5. MP calls and the button folds.

Flop is A79 with the 7 and 9 of spades. I bet $22 and he calls. The pot is $82, and he has $80 behind.

The turn is a blank (low non-spade) and I shove.

You can read and see more of Kristy on Twitter, her website, her YouTube channel, or her Under Armour Facebook page.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
17:28 – strategy
39:22 – kristy arnett

Strategy

This is from a NLHE home cash game. The blinds are $0.50/$1.00. I have about $500 and would guess Villain had just slightly less.

The hand starts 10-handed and villain opens from under the gun to $4. I am next to act, and look down to see 7-7 and just call.

A few others players call so we’re 5 to the flop of JJ7 rainbow. Villain leads out and bets $15. I call, everyone else folds, so it’s just the two of us to the turn and we have a pot of approximately $51.

The turn is a J. Villain now bets $30. I call, so now we have $111 in the pot and effective stacks of ~$350 each.

The river was a 7. Villain bets $50.

If you haven’t yet read Volume One, well, there’s no reason you’d have to to make sense of this book, but why haven’t you?!

Edit: How did I forget to link Matt’s excellent blog? He writes a lot about poker and his life at thevoicewithin.me.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
6:49 – strategy
25:21 – matt berkey

Strategy

This hand is from a WSOPc Main Event and takes place at the 300/600/75 level. I have a stack of about 55,000 and Anthony Gregg covers me.

In this hand we are in the big blind We are holding the ace of spades 10 of diamonds. Anthony great opens with a raise to 1200 utg1 it folds back around to me and I decided to call.

The flop comes 4104 with two spades. I check, he bets 2000, I call.

The turn is the 6d. He bets 3300 and I call.

The river is the 7 of spades, for a final board of 410467. I bet 5500, and to my surprise he shoves!

Collin is also the author or co-author of three poker books (Heads-Up No-Limit Hold ‘Em, Sit-and-Go Strategy, and The Math of Hold ‘Em) as well as co-author, with his wife Katie Dozier, of The Superuser. He produces instructional videos for CardRunners. You can follow him on Twitter @teammoshman.

We’ve also got a special treat for you in the strategy segment. Brian Koppelman, whom we interviewed on Episode 149, is back to talk strategy, specifically how to play against a deep-stacked maniac.

Enjoy!

Timestamps

0:30 H&W
23:58 – BK
39:22 – CM

Blinds are 50/100, Villain has about 20K (starting stack), and I have about 25K. Only six players (including both blinds) have claimed their seats so far. I have black Aces first to act and open to 300.

Villain calls from the SB, and everyone else folds.

Flop (700 in pot) Jc 8c 6h. Villain checks.

Turn (700 in pot) 6d. Villain bets 400. Hero?

I once again suspect that at equilibrium, the Expected Values of raising and calling will be quite similar for all of Hero’s strong hands. This is because these hands have relatively static value versus Villain’s likely betting range. If you have some exploitable read on Villain, you should employ it. In this case, I’d consider his river bluffing tendencies the most important read. Against overly passive opponents, raising now is probably best, and against overly aggressive ones, calling is probably best. Without such a read, though, it can be tough to tease out the best play, because it’s going to be a small difference, with good arguments on each side. Of course that also means that it won’t matter terribly much what you choose, but I nevertheless think that the exercise of finding the best option is both good practice and intrinsically interesting.

Several commenters argued the merits of calling versus raising in a vacuum quite well. It’s striking, though, that none of these arguments is really specific to the exact hand Hero holds. They would apply just as well to any hand Hero wants to play for value. Now, it’s certainly possible that one option might just be strictly better than the other for value, but I think that would imply some exploitability on Villain’s part, and I’d be more comfortable with such a solution if we could pinpoint what precisely it is we’re exploiting and why we feel comfortable with that read.

In cases like these, I find it helpful to imagine that I will call with some strong hands and raise with others. This enables me to rephrase the question, not as “Is calling strictly better than raising?” but rather, “Is there anything about my hand that would make it better than similar hands for calling or raising?”

Consider the arguments in favor of raising. Dave says, “If villain has a semi-bluff, he seems very likely to call a turn raise since hero could be bluffing and his hand could improve.” I agree that against Villain’s draws, raising is probably somewhat better than calling, as it more or less guarantees that we get a second bet into the pot (or fold out a good bit of equity), whereas on the river Villain may or may not bluff when he misses but will certainly put a bet in when he hits. However, the Ac in our hand significantly reduces the likelihood that Villain holds a draw.

Relatedly, Dave worries that “we have to guess at his bluffing frequency on a good number of draw-completing rivers”. That’s not quite true, though. The Ac is a very significant blocker, which means that bluff-catching with that card in your hand will be +EV even against an opponent with an optimal river bluffing frequency. We know the Ac is in our hand, but he doesn’t know that we know that. This means that on club rivers, we have an information advantage that can be exploited. Although these may not be the best river cards in the deck, they are cards on which Hero can in fact expect to put money into the pot with an edge.

Mark points out that, “Hands opponent is betting for value, particularly Jacks may be scared off by a lot of cards, such as possible flushes, straights, or overcards. This makes up a huge portion of the deck.” Here, again, we have significant blockers. Aces are not good cards for getting value from Jx, and the Ac would be especially bad. When we know that the river is less likely than usual to be an Ace, that becomes an argument in favor of calling with this hand and raising some different value hand, such as 7h 6h, which does not block so many scare card rivers.

As Mark points out, hands like 76 are also more desirable for raising than AA “as they block the portion of opponent’s range that are beating both AA and [trips with a bad kicker]”.

If the decision is otherwise close, we can break the tie by considering the relevance of the exact cards we hold. In this case, they argue for a call, which is what I did.

The next decision point is here.

I was responsible for one of the eliminations that burst the bubble. Blinds were 5K/10K/500, and the small blind open jammed something like 85K into my big blind, where I held 99. I called and busted him to the delight of my tablemates, some of whom also seemed a bit surprised by my call. Although I wasn’t thrilled, mostly because of how tight I thought he might be shoving on the bubble, I did have him covered with enough left to last me more than an orbit, so I was confident I could fold into the money even if I lost. As it turned out, he had Q2s, which of course if he’s jamming that wide it’s a very profitable call.

I picked up another big pot jamming my 20BBs into a 4x open from UTG and a UTG+1 call. Given that it was a ten-handed table, I expected the original raise to show extreme strength, but I’d also seen enough nitty folds to believe that I might actually get him off of some pairs or even another AK. A player in MP took two minutes to fold his hand because he hadn’t realized the action was on him, and yet somehow this still hadn’t given UTG enough time to think because he then tanked for at least two minutes before I called the clock on him. He ended up showing JJ to the player on his right before folding, and UTG+1 folded as well, so I increased my stack by about 50% without a showdown.

A phrase I hear a lot is “I don’t want to flip at this stage of the tournament.” Well, I don’t want to flip either, but I also don’t want to give away 2.5 BB (a rough estimate of my edge assuming I were to get all in with AK vs a pocket pair in the preceding hand) plus fold equity when I’ve only got 20 to begin with. It never ceases to amaze me how many people enter tournaments, the furthest thing from a sure thing poker has to offer, and proceed to demand near-certainty before they’ll take a significant risk. A lot of run good went into my winning this tournament, but the biggest skill edge I had consisted in the willingness to take these risks as well as the wherewithal to exploit opponents who wouldn’t.

The next time I got AK, I was in the BB. A player in MP opened, I jammed, and he ended up calling it off with KJo (he had me well covered, not that that makes it a good call), and I held.

This all goes to show the importance of having a solid theoretical understanding of concepts like expected value and game theory rather than just playing by feel. I can promise you there were plenty of situations where it felt “icky” to stick my stack in with AK or to min-raise as a bluff off of a 17 BB stack, but I was able to override my natural risk aversion because I understood the math well enough to know that these simply had to be profitable moves.

This also kept me from getting frustrated when these moves didn’t work out. For example, the players on my immediate left were making no secret of the fact that they were just waiting for strong hands and were not going to bluff. Consequently, I was min-raising any two if I got the opportunity to open from the button, even when I only had 14 or 15 BBs. Once, the BB called this raise and bet out on an Ace-high flop that missed me entirely. I folded, and he showed me AQ, which, far from tilting me, made me feel even better about my open with 83o, even though it had cost me about 15% of my stack.

It seemed like what most of these guys wanted was just for everyone to get out of the way so they wouldn’t get drawn out on when they had a monster. I was happy to oblige them in exchange for far more than my share of the pots where no one had much of a hand.

Predictably, the nits on my left were eventually replaced with (slightly) better players, and I did open fold T4o on the button and Q2s in the CO when I had a barely 10 BB stack. That same orbit, I picked up A4o with six players to act behind me. My push/fold game is a little rusty but I believe this is a fold at equilibrium. In this case, though, I believed everyone would be tight enough with their calling to make it a good shove, and it got through.

The very next hand I picked up A5s, which again would most likely be an equilibrium fold now that my stack was larger, but which I think was a clear shove given the opponents. I ended up getting called and sucking out on 77, to the shock of much of the table. I distinctly overheard someone mutter “What is he doing?” The general consensus seemed to be that I was simply reckless, which again reflects completely the wrong approach to late game tournament play, especially in an event as top heavy as this one was. Believe it or not, there were people openly sweating $600 prize increases with thousands already locked up and $125K up top. Short effective stacks make aggressive stealing a high variance proposition, but they don’t make it less correct.

I was also the player to burst the final table bubble, calling a 10BB shove from the SB with 22 and beating her QJs. There was once again some shock expressed at this call, which one onlooker described as “Spartan”.

The Final Table

One of the many ways I ran well was with regard to the seat draw at the final table. Contrary to what I reported on Twitter, I entered as the chip leader. The next biggest stack was clear across the table from me, and the best of my opponents, a guy named Stuart who had I think the fourth largest stack, was on my immediate right. There was an accomplished tournament player with a resteal stack on my immediate left, so that kept me in line initially, but other than that things were laid out pretty ideally for me.

We were required to step away from the final table to use phones, and even when I wasn’t involved in the pot I wanted to pay close attention, so I wasn’t able to take notes as I had during the rest of the tournament. Apologies in advance: details going forward will be a bit more spotty.

That said, I don’t think I contested a single pot in the first orbit and a half, so when the action finally folded to me in the CO, I couldn’t resist opening K5o. The aforementioned player on my left moved all in, and I had to fold. I don’t know what I had, but it was a good spot for him to shove almost anything, so I redoubled my resolve not to get too far out of line pre-flop, especially in obvious spots.

The next pot I opened was with As 9c UTG, once we were nine-handed. I got three calls and a Js 8h 3s flop and checked, fully intending to give up. However, the action checked to an amateur on the button who’d been openly bragging about his big laydowns and overbetting and then showing his big hands. He bet 200K, about the half the pot, and I went into the tank.

I have a habit of always considering my options when the action is on me, even when the right play seems automatic. In doing so, it occurred to me that a small check-raise might garner an absurd amount of respect from this player, even though it would be a strange line inconsistent with how I’d play many if any strong hands. I had him covered and there were several shorter stacks out there. My biggest fear, really, was that one of the other players in the pot would sniff out what I was up to and shove. However, I thought that was probably giving them too much credit, and besides they’d have to sweat the button actually waking up with a hand and busting them, whereas my check-raise could risk very little. I made it 450K, and everyone folded. The button gave me a bit of sweat but ultimately told me he was folding JT.

I was already pulling well ahead of the next biggest stack when I opened QTo in early position, mostly because the same amateur player was in the big blind. The other big stack called on the button, and the BB called as well. The flop came JTT and I bet 200K into 500K. I like this sizing in a vacuum, but for expoitive reasons I think 300K would have been better. Anyway, the button called and the BB folded.

The turn was an 8, and with an SPR of roughly 2, I found myself in an awkward spot. I doubted that I could get two more bets out of worse. I hadn’t observed much of this player’s behavior, but in this tournament in general I’d seen a lot of big “protection” bets from marginal hands that just wanted to take the pot down, so I figured I’d give him a chance to do something like that. I checked, he bet 450K, and I put him all in for about three times that. He tanked for a long time and reluctantly folded.

That gave me a commanding chip lead, close to half the chips in play at an eight-handed table. What set me back was a bad beat from the aforementioned amateur the next time he was in the BB. I opened with AJo, a medium stack called in middle position, and the BB, now short stacked, called. The flop came A96 with two diamonds, and he open shoved for about the size of the pot. Of course I called, and to my surprise, MP called as well.

That worried me a bit, but ultimately I just couldn’t see him playing AQ or AK this way pre-flop, nor two-pair or better on the flop. So, I jammed the turn, and after a long tank he folded what he told me was A6. The BB had a flush draw that got there on the river, so that set me back.

To make matters worse, Stuart, by far the toughest of the remaining players, doubled through the same guy by getting it in 77 vs AA and spiking a 7.

On the plus side, this created a new dynamic. I still had him covered, but he was the second largest stack, and given that he was also the second best player, he had a lot of incentive not to tangle with me. I started leaning hard on his BB.

Somewhere in there, I picked up AA in the SB when someone open shoved in front of me, but the board ran out a straight and I chopped with his AQ. The crowd erupted, but I knew enough to treat this as completely irrelevant. I don’t even consider it bad luck. The action would have gone down exactly the same if he’d had AA and I’d had AQ. If you insist on thinking in terms of luck, you can say that I was lucky to cooler him pre-flop and he was lucky to escape with half. You’re looking for excuses to feel sorry for yourself if consider this an unlucky outcome.

Speaking of luck, I busted the player who’d entered the final table second in chips when I opened KJ and got a QT9 flop. I can’t fault him for jamming over my flop bet with an A5s that flopped a flush draw, but I don’t think calling my pre-flop raise with it was such a good idea.

That left the player on my left as one of the shortest remaining stacks, which actually made it tougher for me to put pressure on him, as he had less to lose. I still planned to jam on him pretty aggressively given the opportunity, but I twice got hands so bad that I had to give him walks. The third time it folded to me in the SB, I jammed about 10BBs with J8o and he woke up with AKo to double through me.

Heads Up

Meanwhile, Stuart was busy winning a flip against one of the weakest remaining players plus a couple of medium-sized pots against me, putting the two of us virtually even. Thankfully, I busted the other two remaining players and entered heads up with something like 60% of the chips in play.

A few people suggested a chop both at the start of the final table and when we got to five- and four-handed, but neither Stuart nor I was interested at the time. First place paid about twice second, a difference of nearly $60,000, and I might have considered chopping a portion of that if Stuart had suggested it. That said, I did expect to have a sizable edge, as even many otherwise good players lack heads up experience, so I wasn’t all that eager to chop. I figured I’d let Stuart be the one to bring it up, as that would give me an edge in negotiating, but he never did.

The match was over almost before it began. On the third hand, I three-bet him with AQs, he jammed K2o, and my hand held up.

I have a bit more to say about the aftermath of victory, but this post is plenty long enough already, so I’ll save that for tomorrow.

Gamble Gamble

It worked out well that we were going to skip this week, because I was busy winning the $1000 Battle of the Bay tournament at Lucky Chances last night! This annual event is the premier tournament at what is now my local casino, so although I’ve been playing cash there exclusively, I decided to make an exception for this.

I played Day 1A on Saturday and got off to a very nice start but eventually lost most of my chips with QT vs 99 on a J9x flop. The guy min check-raised the flop, took about forty seconds to call my shove (nitroll, not slowroll), then bragged to the guy sitting next to him that he knew I would shove because I was too aggressive and that’s why he raised me.

A few hands later I shoved my last 4.5 BBs with 73o on the button. This one was debated a bit on Twitter, and I agree that it’s not a shove in a vacuum, but I crunched some numbers on SB/BB calling ranges and feel good about jamming any two there. I beat the BB’s K4s, and he muttered something about “nice catch”, to which I responded, “Is this your first time playing poker, sir?”

This is really out of character for me, and I’m ashamed to tell you about it. In my defense, I wasn’t feeling well, but I also think tournaments, especially live tournaments, bring this out in me. I’m trying to play fewer of them for that reason.

To paraphrase Tommy Angelo, the pleasure/pain ratio is all out of whack in a tournament. I can shrug off a loss of a couple thousand dollars at a $5/$10 game with literally no problem. I’m not just putting on a stoic front, it truly doesn’t affect me, at least not until it happens a few sessions in a row. But there’s something about a tournament, the “one-and-done” nature of it I think, encourages that kind of emotional investment that, at least in my opinion, is really undesirable.

The pleasure I get from playing cash, especially a deep-stacked cash game, is akin to the pleasure of solving a puzzle. I enjoy the challenge of trying to construct the perfect ranges for a given spot, there’s a much stronger correlation (though far from 1:1, of course) between the quality of my decisions and the outcome of a given hand or session, and during and after the experience I feel stimulated intellectually.

The appeal that tournaments hold for me has a lot more in common with gambling. There’s certainly nothing more exciting in poker than getting deep in a big tournament, but ultimately it feels like I’m just chasing a high when I play them. That said, there are some really high-value tournaments out there, too good to pass up, and this was one of them.

Sunday Funday

I was sorely tempted not to re-enter on Sunday. As I mentioned, I was (still am, in fact – staying up late last night didn’t help) under the weather, and the tournament started at 9:30 AM. On top of that, I really had not enjoyed my play on Saturday at all. Ten-handed poker with shallow effective stacks and small antes (e.g. 200/400/25) is almost entirely devoid of strategic depth. It’s mostly just a game of waiting for cards. That’s not to say there’s no edge there, just that the edge doesn’t come from anything interesting. I don’t find it stimulating, I find it annoying and boring, which of course undermines the patience that is paramount in such a structure.

So, I nearly didn’t return on Sunday. One of the factors that put me over the top was that I really wanted to meet Neil Blumenfield, who is apparently a regular at Lucky Chances tournaments though he and I have yet to cross paths in person. He wasn’t there on Saturday, so I figured he would surely play Sunday.

He didn’t, but I did, and first place was a fine consolation prize. I got off to a good start, winning some big pots in the first level and winning a big one with 55 vs AJ and 54 on a J54 flop. I eventually got involved in a three-way all in that ended with my KK losing to QQ, and then it was back to grinding a short stack for me.

For all my disparagement of short-stacked poker, it turns out there are some big edges to be had when your opponents aren’t accustomed or adapting properly to it. The thing about a flagship tournament like this is that it’s a major event for a lot of the people playing it. They either won a satellite or ponied up the $1000 as a one-time splurge, and they’re risk averse in a way that you simply can’t afford to be when you’re grinding a 20BB stack. This enabled me to pick up a few pots I had no business winning and stay afloat despite dry spells and bad beats/coolers.

Triple Barreling Off a 20BB Stack

The best example was towards the end of the day, when our table was eight-handed. Blinds must have been 1200/2400, and the player on my right open limped off of a stack of 55K or so. There was nothing suspicious about this – even at this late stage, plenty of people were limping. I made the questionable decision to limp behind with 8s 7s and 48K in the hijack. I’m still not sure this is good, but I believed I could get away with it because everyone was so passive with regard to raising pre-flop, and I expected a big post-flop edge to compensate for the times I would have to fold to a raise (and, of course, the fact that I was putting in 5% of my stack with 8-high and no chance of winning pre-flop).

The action folded to the SB, who completed. The BB checked, so four of us saw a Qh 7c 3h flop. When everyone checked to me, I bet 4500, about 1/3 of the pot. This was primarily a protection bet, though it was already in the back of my mind that it might also become the first leg of a three barrel bluff.

The small blind and the MP limper both called, and the turn brought an offsuit 9. They checked to me again. In a heads up pot, I would have considered checking and trying to show my hand down, but with two people calling there was little chance my 7 was good. It might sound ridiculous to talk about running someone off of top pair with 20 BB effective stacks, but it seemed very plausible to me at the time. That’s how scared everyone was playing. They were all terrified to slowplay with a flush draw on the board, so their calls could only indicate a lack of confidence or an extremely strong hand, to which my 7 was a significant blocker. I bet 11K, still a small fraction of the pot, but I wanted to be sure to leave myself a meaningful river bet. They both called.

The river was an off-suit A (I would have given up a heart). They both checked, I jammed my last 30K or so, and they both folded. And that’s how you triple barrel off of a 20 BB stack in a multi-way pot.

Another Cheap Steal

The other fun one from Day One began with me opening 22 from the CO. The button and SB called. I don’t remember the level, but there was about 26K in the pot on the flop, which came AJ5. We checked it around. The turn was a 4, and the SB bet 6K, hardly a show of confidence. I also thought it was quite unlikely that the button was slowplaying anything. Everyone had been playing so straight-forwardly that I expected to get way too much credit for a monster, simply because no one else in the tournament seemed willing to take a line like this as a bluff, so I raised to 22K, and they both quickly folded, the SB flashing KJ as he did so.

After that I was card- and spot- dead for the rest of the night and ended up squeaking into the money with 123K and blinds about to go to 5K/10K. That’s not as bad as it sounds, as the average was about 200K, and only 43 players remained, with 40 to be paid. Still, my aspirations for Day 2 were not much higher than surviving the bubble and collecting enough of a prize to cover train fare, meals, and my two buy-ins.

I wasn’t alone in this regard. Another player, who actually had far more chips than I did and ultimately bubbled the final table, opened the pot on one of the last hands of the night. After he won, his wife scolded him from the rail, “Don’t play anything until you’re in the money!”

Pick up your copy today at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get PDF, EPUB, and Kindle versions) or in the Kindle Store (Kindle version only).

Strategy

Hand 1

2-4 PLO8 on Bovada. 4-handed.

I open to $12 with (AT)J7–I’m using Bill Chen’s notation where suited cards go in parentheses.

Only the BB calls. He’s playing $200ish, and I cover.

Flop KQ8 rainbow. BB checks; I bet half the pot ($13).

Turn pairs the 8 and puts up a flush draw (I have the 7 of the suit). BB checks.

Hand 2

1-2 NLHE 6max on Bovada. I have 220.98 (after posting BB). Folds to button who raises to $6. SB Calls
I raise to $24 (pot) with AA. Button calls

Flop ($54 in pot) Jh Qd 8s
I bet $54 and the button jams and covers me. So $307 in the pot and I have 145 giving me almost exactly 2:1.

Hand 3

PokerStars – $1000+$50|8000/16000 Ante 2000 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 61.6 BB (VPIP: 26.46, PFR: 18.59, 3Bet Preflop: 11.72, Hands: 359)
CO: 60.1 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 27.50, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 40)
BTN: 90.5 BB (VPIP: 19.22, PFR: 15.56, 3Bet Preflop: 6.07, Hands: 591)
SB: 61.46 BB (VPIP: 19.31, PFR: 15.97, 3Bet Preflop: 10.32, Hands: 295)
Hero (BB): 63.17 BB

5 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.13 BB) Hero has 9c Jc
UTG raises to 2.19 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.19 BB

Flop : (5.51 BB, 2 players) Jd 3c Ks
Hero checks, UTG bets 2.41 BB, Hero calls 2.41 BB

Turn : (10.33 BB, 2 players) Ac
Hero checks, UTG checks

River : (10.33 BB, 2 players) 7s
Hero checks, UTG bets 4.65 BB, Hero?

Timestamps

0:30  Hello and welcome
14:24  Strategy

Pre-Flop

I’m increasingly convinced that this is a fold after all. A very rough estimate is that I have about 15% equity against the Villains’ ranges and need to realize about 80% of that to make money on the call. The fact that I got a well-above-average flop and still can’t find an especially profitable option is telling, as is the fact, pointed out by many, that even if my hand improves the implied odds are not that great.

Results

I’ll start with the results, because my own play is one of the lines I want to consider and dismiss. I raised to $600, Villain 1 called, and Villain 2 folded. The turn was an off-suit J, and we both checked. The river was an offsuit 9, and while I considered shoving, I decided not to do so for exploitive reasons. Villain 1 checked behind and won with QQ.

Bomb the Flop?

While my in-game thought process was admittedly sloppy, I don’t think that, “Someone clearly has top pair or better and they’ve see you bluff before, so don’t ever raise without a set” is the best way to approach the problem either. We’re quite deep, and even for the looser UTG1 player, putting in eleven times the pot with one pair when five people saw the flop is not going to be an automatic decision. If I’m going to raise sets/two pair here, then I should have a bluffing range as well.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that this hand belongs in that range, though. As Jeff G. astutely points out, “Given that hero is calling with 7h2h preflop, I think it’s a safe assumption that hero has every combo of set(9 combos), suited two pair(7), and flush draw(55!! minus any combos we 3bet pre, if any) in his range. So we definitely want to have a check/raise range in this spot however we can easily go overboard if we’re not selective in which draws to use to balance our value hands.”

He argues for using nut flush draws for this purpose, and I think that’s partially right. As deep as we are, nut draws are disproportionately valuable, and the Ace will frequently be live. However, it does block some of the weaker hands in UTG’s range, such as AK and AQ, that he might c-bet even for this sizing into this many people. Getting a fold from him on the flop is one of the best case scenarios, so blocking his most obvious folding hands isn’t great.

You also don’t want your bluffing range to be too dependent on a single card (the Ah, in this case), because a blocker-conscious opponent can use that information to his advantage. In other words, some players are actually savvy enough to call down more often with black Aces than with red Aces because the red Aces block some likely bluffing hands. So, I think there’s a case for raising at least some non-nut draws.

Other good candidates will be gutshots, both with and without flush draws. You have to be especially careful not to go overboard with the bare gutshots, but it’s important to look ahead to the scenario where Hero check-raises and a heart peals off. Many of you correctly anticipate that it will be hard to get paid with a low flush in this scenario, and the corollary to that is that you want to give yourself some bluffs in that scenario, as Matt argues in his very good comment. If your flop raising range is only flush draws and two-pair or better, then what’s your bluffing range on the Qh turn?

The bottom line is that although this is a good spot to raise some big draws, the fact that none of my outs are nutted makes this an unideal candidate for inviting such a large pot, and I have better bluffing candidates. So I want to at least rule out the play that I made, which was raising to $600, as a good option.

Fold the Flop?

Matt also says, “I don’t think folding right away is an option. Running some equities, I think we can expect to have in the neighborhood of 28% equity against both ranges; so although we should expect both Vs to be quite strong I think we most likely have enough immediate equity to continue.”

Chris C, however, argues that, “if we’re calling then we’re calling to improve to the best hand (since I don’t think bluffing is likely to be profitable here). But the strong ranges of the villains (each of which contains sets and lots of better flush draws, all of which leave us in terrible shape) means that we often *can’t* catch up to the better hand, and that we can never be confident about it even when we do. If we end up playing a big pot then we likely lose, and if we hit but then try and keep the pot as small as possible – well, that doesn’t seem too good either.”

I’m on Matt’s side, and I think Chris is conflating some disparate scenarios. Even if Hero has difficulty putting in stacks or even two big bets as a favorite on favorable turns, he should very profitably be able to put in one. That is, if a heart turns, check-calling one bet should be profitable, and calling a second might be a more-or-less neutral-EV proposition (which also means I won’t often face the second – it’s not common that 7h 2h is behind on a heart turn). If the turn is a heart and there is no bet, I can confidently value bet the river.

The prospects are even more favorable on 7 and 2 turns. I can confidently call at least one and often two bets on these turns, can bet the river if the turn checks around, etc. Because of the good immediate odds I’m getting, I don’t need hefty implied odds when I improve. I just need to have the best hand most of the time, which I will. In that case, either I won’t often end up playing a big pot, or I’ll often be ahead when I play a big pot. It can’t be the case that I’ll routinely face multiple big bets after improving my hand and also not be able to call those bets profitably – it just isn’t that easy to be ahead of 72 on a J622 board.

I think there’s a strong case for calling, but there’s one other interesting line that one of you hinted at but no one suggested (nor did it occur to me at the time).

Small Raise?

A big part of the reason why I don’t like bombing the flop is that it sets up an easy and obvious strategy for an opponent holding an overpair or a Jack, which is to call the raise, fold if a heart comes, and call down otherwise. I was somewhat lucky that the turn was a scary enough card for my opponent that he gave me a free river, because I don’t think I could have profitably bet or check-called any turn that didn’t improve my hand. That’s in part because, given how low the SPR was at that point, most players facing a turn bet from a draw-heavy range will correctly shove rather than call if they continue to a bet.

Raising a small amount on the flop in order to deter a turn raise and give me room for a meaningful river shove is an interesting idea, though. Also, as James points out, “Both players calling your raise doesn’t change your equity in the hand (let’s say it’s 40% in the 3-way pot) vs you just calling.” I don’t think this was the point he was getting at, but in fact raising and getting called in two spots is better for me than just calling – I am 40% to win and getting 2:1 on my money. This is the kind of spot that an experienced limit player would probably recognize more quickly, because it’s common to raise hands with less than 50% equity in multiway pots in those games, but it comes up far less often in NLHE. Here, though, if I can’t fold out both players, my next preference is to fold neither. The result I got, and the one I think I’ll commonly get, was the worst.

Leo suggests raising “to something like $420…. The plan is to barrel off here on bricks, targeting overpairs, top pairs, and better flush draws that have paired up.” That would have been an interesting option, and I wish I’d considered it. Maybe next time!

Thanks again everyone.

Villain 2 is loose, especially in small pots. He’s definitely too stubborn post-flop, but that doesn’t mean he shovels three hundred blinds into the pot every time he makes top pair.

Both players have seen me show down some big bluffs, but both have also expressed regret about hands where they’ve stacked off to me as well.

Villain 1 opens $35 UTG, Villain 2 calls UTG1, there are two more calls, and I call 7h 2h in the BB. Just to pre-empt some questions, this isn’t a trivial pre-flop call, and it’s fine to fold here if you aren’t particularly confident in your post-flop game, but it’s a call I’m comfortable making.

Flop ($168 in pot) Jh 6h 2s. I check, Villain 1 bets $135, Villain 2 calls, the other two players fold, and the action is on me.

What’s your play and why? Leave your thoughts and preferred play here, and I’ll do my best to respond throughout the week and post results on Thursday. If you don’t fold, be sure to consider your play on future streets as well, especially if your hand does not improve.

In this volume, you’ll find essays covering the following topics:

Navigating the Early Stages of a Tournament
Balance
Playing Your Image
Catching Bluffs
(Not) Talking at the Table
The Tournament Mindset

You can buy The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 5 at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get Kindle, PDF, or EPUB versions) or in Kindle form on Amazon.

You certainly don’t need to have read the earlier volumes to make sense of this one, but if you need to get caught up, the first four books are available as a bundle at a discounted rate!

The table was, perhaps not quite as good as the previous day’s, but pretty spectacular. I made good use of one live tell, but mishandled another.

You Raise, I Call

At the 25/50 level, I looked down at 22 and was reaching for raising chips when I noticed the player on my left loading up. I grabbed just two green chips and called. He raised to 250, and I called. The flop came 843 and we both checked, so I immediately put him on whiffed overcards. The turn brought a 2, and I bet 200. This probably should have been more, but I really didn’t want to let him off the hook if he just had a gutshot, and I thought the smaller size might even keep in a hand like KQ. The river was a 9, I bet 400, and he called so quickly that I regretted not betting more, but at the time it seemed like a reasonable amount to expect an unimproved AQ to call.

Calling Chips

There was another pot where I can’t even remember what I had, but whatever it was, I was betting the river for value. I grabbed two yellow chips, planning to declare, “Twelve hundred”, but as I did so my opponent very clearly grabbed calling chips. I quickly changed course and said, “Fifteen hundred,” but he tanked for a long time before folding. What I should have realized is that he knew I could see him grabbing chips and it was actually a “strong-means-weak” tell meant to deter me from betting.

Blocking Bet?

The two significant pots that I lost were both to that same player.

At 75/150, I opened to 450 with As Kc on the Button, and the BB called. The flop came Ah 8h 3h, and he checked and called 500. He checked and called 1000 on a Qd turn, after a long tank.

The river was the 2h, and he threw out 1000 without much hesitation. At this point I was getting nearly 5:1 and convinced myself he could be block betting a worse Ace, but I don’t think that’s consistent with his thinking so long on the turn. I called, and he showed me 7c 6h.

Lucky Turn

I opened to 400 with ATo at the 100/200 level. Villain called, as did the CO, Button, and BB. I was pretty tempted just to give up, but the Q52 was a little too good, so I bet 700 into 2100. Villain called, and everyone else folded.

I had about a pot-sized bet behind, and was thinking Ks and Js would be great for shoving, but then a 3 popped off and I realized I had more backdoor straight draws than I’d consciously realized (though this was probably part of the reason the flop struck me as too good to give up). I stacked up my chips to jam, and Villain once again reached for his chips. Remembering what this meant the last time, I carried through on my shove, but he practically beat me into the pot. “I got very lucky,” he told me, turning over 33 for a turned set.

“Indeed you did,” I said, a little more snippily than I intended. On to the next one.

Another Lucky Turn

My cash session started off with more of the same. After scoping out five tables at two different venues, I settled into a 5/10 game at Bellagio. There were a few young guys who seemed like serious players, but only one of them seemed to rise above the level of “mediocre reg”, and there were a few soft spots as well.

I limped UTG with 22, two players limped behind, and then one of the seemingly mediocre regs made it $40 on the Button. The seemingly good reg on the BB called. Thinking that the Button would have raised bigger with a premium hand, I re-raised to $160. The action folded to him, and he called quickly. The BB called as well.

The flop came 6c 3c 3s. The BB checked, I bet $200 into a pot of about $500, the Button called with about $500 behind (this is why my flop sizing was small), and the BB folded.

I was ready to be done with it, but the turn was an offsuit Ace. Intriguing. I checked, and Villain checked behind. The river was a Q. I threw five black chips into the pot.

“So sick,” Villain said. “I know you got there. Ugh, I did not want to see a Queen.” Huh, that’s not what I wanted him to be afraid of. “Fuck it, I call,” he said, turning over Ac Kc. I showed him my twos, tossed him $500, and mentally demoted him from “mediocre reg” to “wannabe”.

Bad Donk

I played this one pretty badly to be honest, but because it turns out I was winning until the river, I’m allowed to feel sorry for myself, right?

UTG opened for $30, Wannabe called on the Button, and I called with 43o on the BB.

Flop ($95) 864r. I bet $70, UTG folded, Button quickly called.

Turn ($235) 2. I really need to just cut my losses here, but the gutshot was just too tempting to keep me from firing again. I bet $170, and Button called with no hesitation.

River ($575) A. This is probably a decent card to follow through, but he seemed in no mood to fold, so I finally gave it up. He proudly tabled A5o.

I planned to leave pretty soon and decided not to top my stack off from $1250 to the $1500 cap. Of course a few hands later I flopped the nuts and doubled through someone who probably would have paid off another $250 considering he put me all in for $500 more when I bet $500 on the river.

Pot Odds

I finally got my revenge, plus a good laugh, on what turned out to be my last hand of the session (I was waiting for dealer change because it was a time rake #nitcast). UTG, a weak player who’d been raising too much from all positions, opened for $40. UTG1, who seemed like a good pro, called. I made it $140 with As Js UTG2. Wannabe cold called from the SB, UTG called, and UTG1 called.

Flop ($575) 2s 3c 7h. Checked to me, I bet $300, SB called, the other two folded.

Turn ($1175) Ac. He checked. I briefly considered trying to get my value now, but I actually thought AK was a real possibility for SB, so I decided to check back and fold to a big river bet or value bet if he checked.

River ($1175) 2d. He checked. I thought about betting pot but settled on $700.

Wannabe groaned. “I told myself the bigger you bet, the more I was going to call you. You bet the pot. That means you have either Aces or nothing.” Wow, it was hard to keep a poker face after that little monologue. But he wasn’t done yet. “How much is in the pot?” he asked the dealer.

“I can’t tell you that,” she said.

“You can spread it out, right?” he said. She spread the pot. “Eleven hundred,” he muttered to himself. “That means I only have to be right half the time.” Again, I suppressed a smile. Finally, he gave up the facade and copped to his true logic: “Fuck it, I call.”

I don’t think any of the Millionaire Maker hands were terribly interesting (though some were humorous), so here’s one from cash. UTG is the spot at the table, which isn’t to say he’s terrible by any means, but he’s got a huge amount of money in front of him and is a little too eager to stick it into the pot. BB seems to be a very talented player, not sure what either of them thinks of me. BB has 9K, I have 10K, UTG covers us both. One player is away, so game is eight-handed.

UTG opens for $75, I call UTG1, and BB calls.

Flop ($235 in pot) Ah 8s 3c. Checks around.

Turn ($235 in pot) Qd. BB bets $150, UTG folds, I raise to $625.

What should my raising range look like? What should BB call with? What should he 3-bet?

My starting table was pretty great, full of the most ideal sort of recreational players. There was one guy who was a little better than the rest but thought he was a lot better and wouldn’t shut up about how unlucky he was getting and how well he was playing. It got so bad that he was bragging to people in the middle of hands about how he was reading them. When one of the Bubbas three-bet him, he said, “Well, I know you don’t have AK, because you just call with that.” The Bubba was clearly rattled by this and said, out loud, that he’d have to change up the way he played.

Other than that kind of thing, random dumb poker talk from bad players doesn’t really tilt me the way it does a lot of pros. I sometimes even find it endearing.

What does bug me is the near-compulsive need to make lame comments and jokes any time a remotely attractive woman walks past or the subject of sex is mentioned. My current theory is that most poker players – most people, really – want nothing more than to fit in, make no waves, and be unobjectionable. Sports and (heterosexual) sex talk are the least controversial subjects you can broach at the poker table, and so making the easy joke or obvious pun is a way to affirm your normality and ensure that you’ll get a chuckle or grunt of agreement. Also most of these guys have no filter or impulse control, which is a big part of what makes them so bad at poker.

After that I got some tough tables. Dan O’Brien was at one along with three guys I didn’t recognize but who all seemed to know him and each other. That had to be one of the worst tables in the room.

Then that table broke and I ended up Calvin Anderson and someone else really good whom I feel like I should’ve been able to identify but couldn’t put my finger on it. Obviously there was still a ton of easy money in the tournament, and although I had access to some of those players, I think I could have run a lot better on table draws.

Anyway, interesting hands:

You Were in the Right Ballpark

Villain open limps the hijack, SB completes, I check 63o in the BB. Flop 9d 5h 4d. Checks to HJ, he bets 100, SB folds, I raise to 400, HJ calls. Turn 8d I bet 600, he says “Well, I put you on the flush draw”, flashes a 9, and folds.

All That For a Chop?

I’d had AK twice before against Villain. Once I raised his limp, checked back the flop, and folded to a turn bet. Once I’d three-bet him, checked back the flop, and folded to a turn bet.

Villain limps UTG for 150. I make it 600 UTG2 with Ah Kc. Action folds back to him, and he calls. Flop 822 with two hearts. We both check. Turn 8, he checks, I bet 400 into 2000, he raises to 1500, I call. River 4 he puts me all in for 4500, I call, he has As Ts which is about the worst hand he could possibly play that way.

More Bluffing

Villain limps UTG1, someone else limps, SB completes, I check 54o. Flop Tc 8c 6h checks around. Turn 3d, SB checks, I pot it for 600, UTG1 calls, others fold. Turn Kd I bet 800 to get him off busted draws, he folds.

Bad Fold

Blinds 150/300/25. Very good players UTG1 opens to 700, folds to me in BB, I call with K2s. Flop AKKr. I check and call 800. Turn Q. I check and call 1600. River T. I check and fold when he puts me all in for about 5500. My thinking at the time was that it would be hard for him to get to the river with enough bluffing hands given that he opened UTG1 at a 10-handed table. However, there are so few nut combos when I block the K (I don’t think he’s jamming a J for value, though I could be wrong about that, and if I am calling is a lot less good) that even just giving him T9s and 98s is probably enough for me to call. He later showed up with K3s after opening middle position, so he was clearly getting out of line pre-flop, which also makes my assumption less good, though I didn’t have that info at the time. This is definitely a good board for him to go three barrels with air, it’s just a question of how often he’ll have it.

Facing a Donk Bet

I opened 2.5x from the CO with As Tc, a good player in the small blind called, and the big blind folded. Flop came 7s 9h Js. Villan donked about half pot, I raised 3.5x, he folded.

Making a Donk Bet

Blinds 100/200 button opened to 450 SB called and I called Ks Ts in the BB. Flop Qs 9d 8d SB checked I bet 900 button folded SB called. Turn 5, SB checks, I bet 1800 with 4500 behind, he folded. Plan was to jam most rivers if he called.

Donking a Set

I opened 44 UTG, Button made a small 3bet, I called. Flop K94r I bet 4500 into 6700 he called. Turn was an T, I checked, he jammed his last 15K, I called and beat his KQ. In this case I doubt it much mattered what I did, but I think this is an interesting spot to donk bet. The thing is that when he doesn’t have K it’s pretty hard for me to get stacks in if I check. I can’t rep a big draw by check-raising, he’ll check behind a lot of turns if I check-call, etc. I think a donk is quite likely to get called or raised by hands like AQ, AJ, QJ, JT, QQ, JJ, TT. Then even if the turn goes check-check I can still jam the river for pot.

River Bluff

Blinds 500/1000/100. Button opens to 2200, I make it 6000 with KQo, he calls. Flop 952r, I bet 6500 which is about half-pot, he min-raises, I call. Turn is a 4 and checks through. River is an 8, I put him all in for 37K (there’s about 52K in the pot), and he calls with TT and not much hesitation. I was actually surprised he was that strong, and I may well be able to get him off of smaller pairs and/or Ace-high (if he takes this line) often enough for this to be profitable even without him folding TT.

Pre-flop is actually the part I’m most ambivalent about. We’re a bit deep (nearly 60bb) for three-betting KQo. Quite possible it’s better to just call. I like the flop bet, and I like calling flop getting 7:1 (easily the right odds when he has underpairs, especially if he lets me see a free river), and I think KQ is close enough to the bottom of my range to jam as a bluff. Value range is going to be JJ+, sets, and perhaps two-pair if I have them in my preflop range.

I Haz Blocker!

Blinds 800/1600/200. Good player UTG (has been talking to Bryn Kenney about playing EPTs etc) opens to 3200. Weak player on CO calls off of a 35K stack. From some players that would be strength, but from him it’s weakness. I was already thinking this was a good spot to squeeze and then I found dem rockets on the button. I made it 11K, UTG eyed my stack and then called without much deliberation. CO folded.

Flop Kc Qc Th. Not exactly ideal for AA, but I had the Ac. He checked, and I checked back.

Turn 4c. He bet half pot, and I called.

River was an offsuit 7. He bet 32K into 57K.

When I put the details down in black and white like this, it looks like a pretty straight-forward call. The thing is that Villain was shaking as he put the money into the pot and seemed pretty amped up generally, not worried but excited. It was a pretty strong physical tell, and of course in retrospect I wish I’d listened to it. It was just so hard to put him on a flush given that I was looking at the A, the K, and Q, and he’d raise-called from UTG. But, he had the 9c 8c.

Busto

Blinds 1000/2000/300. Same Villain opened to 4000 from the button. SB (same weak player who called in the previous hand) called, and I called 8h 7d from a 40K stack. Flop T64 with two hearts. Checks to Villain, he bets 5800, SB folds, and I jam for a little over pot.

To be honest this might be a little tilty. I mean, it can’t be too bad, but I don’t think how often Villain is bet-folding this texture, he probably checks back a lot of broadway-type hands and any draws that aren’t strong enough to bet-call. Calling could actually be better for me. Board ran out dry and I lost to a set of 4s.

Leo Wolpert, who also cashed this tournament, convinced me to play the Millionaire Maker tomorrow, so that’s where I’ll be at 10AM.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & welcome & happiness & poker
18:19 Strategy

Strategy

Hand 1

PokerStars – $1000+$50|30/60 Ante 5 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (BB): 104.08 BB
UTG: 15.88 BB (VPIP: 17.20, PFR: 12.09, 3Bet Preflop: 5.56, Hands: 93)
UTG+1: 75.53 BB (VPIP: 23.19, PFR: 14.49, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 70)
MP: 66.27 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 11.43, 3Bet Preflop: 6.67, Hands: 70)
MP+1: 24.83 BB (VPIP: 19.48, PFR: 10.67, 3Bet Preflop: 6.06, Hands: 78)
MP+2: 130.37 BB (VPIP: 23.19, PFR: 13.04, 3Bet Preflop: 6.25, Hands: 70)
CO: 83.53 BB (VPIP: 27.54, PFR: 17.39, 3Bet Preflop: 3.45, Hands: 69)
BTN: 129.33 BB (VPIP: 21.74, PFR: 15.94, 3Bet Preflop: 6.45, Hands: 69)
SB: 138.13 BB (VPIP: 38.24, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 68)

9 players post ante of 0.08 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Kh Th
UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, MP calls 2 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 2 BB, fold, SB calls 1.5 BB, Hero raises to 8 BB, fold, fold, CO calls 6 BB, SB calls 6 BB

Flop : (28.75 BB, 3 players) 2s 6d Ad
SB checks, Hero bets 14.37 BB, fold, SB calls 14.37 BB

Turn : (57.48 BB, 2 players) 4c
SB checks, Hero checks

River : (57.48 BB, 2 players) 9c
SB bets 16 BB, fold

SB wins 57.48 BB

Hand 2

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 58.33 BB
BB: 66.68 BB (VPIP: 76.81, PFR: 44.93, 3Bet Preflop: 17.65, Hands: 72)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ah Ks
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB raises to 5.5 BB, Hero raises to 12.49 BB, BB calls 6.99 BB

Flop : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 9h 4h 3c
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 3h
BB bets 15.25 BB, Hero calls 15.25 BB

River : (55.48 BB, 2 players) 6d
BB bets 38.94 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 30.59 BB and is all-in

BB shows 8d 5d (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 40%, Flop 23%, Turn 9%)

Hero shows Ah Ks (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 60%, Flop 77%, Turn 91%)

Hero wins 116.65 BB

Of course you have to accept more of that when you play in tougher tournaments, and yesterday’s 6-max shootout and today’s 4-max both featured tough fields. Furthermore, because they were short-handed, there were a lot more spots where it both my opponent and I began with wide ranges, which introduces more variance and more opportunities for coolers and bluff coolers.

The 4-max met my expectations in the sense that there were a lot of accomplished tournament players, but many of them were (IMO) playing overly aggressive. For whatever reason, even many very good players approach 4-max more aggressively than they do a ring game table in which the first five players have folded, though strategically they ought to be the same (or even a bit tighter in 4-max, during ante levels).

What was frustrating was that players with extremely wide ranges kept making monster hands against me:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|15/30 NL (4 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 170.33 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
Hero (BB): 157.83 BB
CO: 315.47 BB (VPIP: 41.67, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 13)
BTN: 167.67 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 50.00, Hands: 3)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Tc 7s
fold, fold, SB raises to 2.4 BB, Hero calls 1.4 BB

Flop : (4.8 BB, 2 players) 5s 8c 5c
SB bets 2.4 BB, Hero calls 2.4 BB

Turn : (9.6 BB, 2 players) Ts
SB checks, Hero bets 9.6 BB, SB raises to 24 BB, Hero calls 14.4 BB

River : (57.6 BB, 2 players) Ac
SB bets 36 BB, Hero calls 36 BB

SB shows 8s 5d (Full House, Fives full of Eights)
(Pre 37%, Flop 99%, Turn 95%)

Hero mucks Tc 7s (Two Pair, Tens and Fives)
(Pre 63%, Flop 1%, Turn 5%)

SB wins 129.6 BB

My entire play in this hand is premised on the assumption that Villain’s range is wider than it should be, which given that he shows up with 85o seems like a reasonable assumption. So I float the flop with backdoors and, in all likelihood, two live cards.

On the turn, he’s either giving up or bluff-catching (or trapping, though only a very small portion of his range is strong enough for that), which is why I’m going for a big value bet. The raise is worrisome, but my pot-sized bet is a bit “out of rhythm” and may induce some spazziness (as I said, the 4-max was full of over-aggressive play), so I think my hand is too good to fold. The river is not as bad as it looks, because I don’t think Villain will value bet a bare 5, especially not for a big bet, and I can’t imagine Villain taking this line with all of his flush draws on the turn. It may, however, look like a very good card for Villain to fire again if he was bluffing the turn. Believe it or not, I feel pretty good about my line on this one.

I feel a little less good about this next one:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|20/40 NL (4 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 115.55 BB (VPIP: 35.71, PFR: 21.43, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 14)
Hero (BTN): 152.6 BB
SB: 316.28 BB (VPIP: 43.18, PFR: 27.27, 3Bet Preflop: 11.76, Hands: 46)
BB: 149.05 BB (VPIP: 62.86, PFR: 22.86, 3Bet Preflop: 5.88, Hands: 36)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ks 8h
fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, fold, BB calls 2 BB

Flop : (6.5 BB, 2 players) 3c 3h 8c
BB checks, Hero bets 3.25 BB, BB raises to 10.5 BB, Hero calls 7.25 BB

Turn : (27.5 BB, 2 players) 4d
BB bets 20 BB, Hero calls 20 BB

River : (67.5 BB, 2 players) 6h
BB bets 47.5 BB, Hero calls 47.5 BB

BB shows Jd 3d (Three of a Kind, Threes)
(Pre 41%, Flop 91%, Turn 95%)

Hero mucks Ks 8h (Two Pair, Eights and Threes)
(Pre 59%, Flop 9%, Turn 5%)

BB wins 162.5 BB

I half-pot my entire range on this flop, which makes this hand quite close to the top. Really, even from the button, I don’t have much 3x in my range. Clubs miss on the turn and Villain may have picked up a gutshot or just be firing again, so I call again. River is where I think a fold is possible. Villain was a weaker player, and although spazzing isn’t out of the question for him, and this probably is one of the best bluff-catchers in my range as it blocks 88 (which, say, KK would not), it might be best just to make an exploitive fold. It definitely “felt” like he had it, though I’m less inclined to rely on that kind of feeling when I’ve been running bad because of “monsters under the bed” syndrome.

This last one is the best example of running into a tough spot because of the field. It was against Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger:

PokerStars – $2000+$100|25/50 NL (4 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 154.36 BB (VPIP: 40.38, PFR: 30.77, 3Bet Preflop: 19.05, Hands: 55)
Hero (CO): 61.64 BB
BTN: 188.34 BB (VPIP: 45.78, PFR: 31.33, 3Bet Preflop: 15.63, Hands: 87)
SB: 182.44 BB (VPIP: 45.95, PFR: 21.62, 3Bet Preflop: 5.71, Hands: 77)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8s 9s
Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4.5 BB, 2 players) Qc 4h 7s
BB checks, Hero bets 2.24 BB, BB calls 2.24 BB

Turn : (8.98 BB, 2 players) 5s
BB checks, Hero bets 6.72 BB, BB calls 6.72 BB

River : (22.42 BB, 2 players) 2s
BB checks, Hero bets 16.8 BB, BB raises to 66.64 BB, fold

BB wins 56.02 BB

Against most people I’d consider this a, not exactly easy, but definitely correct fold. I can only beat a bluff, and while two spades makes for a pretty good bluff-catchers, a lot of people are just never bluffing here. Does Lichtenberger fall into that category? I probably shouldn’t assume so. The more I think about it, the more I think my range can include at least sets and 86, so even though this is one of the worst flushes I can have, I might just have to suck it up and call. I want to emphasize, though, that this is only a gross spot because of who the Villain is. I really think it’s a clear fold otherwise, crazy as that may seem.

I busted with AJs vs 99 in the blinds, so I guess I got what I asked for in that regard.

The Variable Level Times was a neat format. Stacks started extremely deep – 25,000 BBs, to be precise – but blinds went up every 3 minutes at first. Over time, the blind increases got less frequent. There was a LOT of craziness in those early levels. People were really not adjusting well to the deep stacks and playing all kinds of junky hands out of position. Unfortunately I didn’t get much opportunity to take advantage, but the mistakes were plain to see.

I made a pretty big fold with a flush in this one as well:

PokerStars – $665+$35|600/1200 Ante 150 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

CO: 28.35 BB (VPIP: 23.53, PFR: 23.53, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 17)
BTN: 74.15 BB (VPIP: 31.62, PFR: 16.24, 3Bet Preflop: 6.52, Hands: 120)
SB: 109.83 BB (VPIP: 35.88, PFR: 23.08, 3Bet Preflop: 15.09, Hands: 132)
BB: 38.83 BB (VPIP: 28.57, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 33.33, Hands: 14)
UTG: 22.73 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 20.39, 3Bet Preflop: 2.22, Hands: 106)
Hero (MP): 82.32 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Qc Js
fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, CO raises to 4.5 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 2.5 BB

Flop : (11.25 BB, 2 players) Kc Tc 2c
Hero checks, CO checks

Turn : (11.25 BB, 2 players) 7c
Hero checks, CO bets 5.5 BB, Hero calls 5.5 BB

River : (22.25 BB, 2 players) 5h
Hero checks, CO bets 18.23 BB and is all-in, fold

CO wins 22.25 BB

For better or worse, if Villain had bet the flop, we could have gotten all in. His range for 3-betting and then checking the flop has a LOT of Ax in it, though, and not a whole lot else. Among other things, this is a very plausible line for AcK, AcQ, and AcA. If he were going to bluff, I think he’d most likely just bet the flop. This isn’t exactly a fluke turn card. It’s irrelevant that I have the Queen when he shoves. He’s either got the nuts or a bluff, and I’m proud of myself for laying this one down.

I busted this one on a coin flip as well, AK < 77.

I’m not going to skip a Sunday, so I’ll be starting at 8AM Pacific in the Warm-Up. There’s a good chance I’ll take Monday off, though, unless I”m not able to because of a Day Two!

I won Round One of the $700 in dramatic fashion:

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 58.33 BB
BB: 66.68 BB (VPIP: 76.81, PFR: 44.93, 3Bet Preflop: 17.65, Hands: 72)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Ah Ks
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB raises to 5.5 BB, Hero raises to 12.49 BB, BB calls 6.99 BB

Flop : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 9h 4h 3c
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (24.98 BB, 2 players) 3h
BB bets 15.25 BB, Hero calls 15.25 BB

River : (55.48 BB, 2 players) 6d
BB bets 38.94 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 30.59 BB and is all-in

BB shows 8d 5d (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 40%, Flop 23%, Turn 9%)

Hero shows Ah Ks (One Pair, Threes)
(Pre 60%, Flop 77%, Turn 91%)

Hero wins 116.65 BB

Unfortunately in Round 2 I went down to a bad beat and a cooler:

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 71.3 BB
BB: 53.7 BB (VPIP: 78.26, PFR: 53.62, 3Bet Preflop: 14.71, Hands: 70)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 7h 9c
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4 BB, 2 players) Kh 7s 4d
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB raises to 6.8 BB, Hero calls 4.8 BB

Turn : (17.6 BB, 2 players) 7c
BB bets 10.55 BB, Hero calls 10.55 BB

River : (38.7 BB, 2 players) Js
BB bets 34.35 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 34.35 BB

BB shows 4s 4h (Full House, Fours full of Sevens)
(Pre 51%, Flop 98%, Turn 84%)

Hero shows 7h 9c (Three of a Kind, Sevens)
(Pre 49%, Flop 2%, Turn 16%)

BB wins 107.4 BB

PokerStars – $665+$35|40/80 NL (2 max) – Holdem – 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

Hero (SB): 98.35 BB
BB: 26.65 BB (VPIP: 76.92, PFR: 53.85, 3Bet Preflop: 15.63, Hands: 66)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Qc Qh
Hero raises to 2 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4 BB, 2 players) 2c 7s Js
BB checks, Hero bets 2 BB, BB calls 2 BB

Turn : (8 BB, 2 players) Kh
BB checks, Hero bets 6 BB, BB raises to 22.65 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 16.65 BB

River : (53.3 BB, 2 players) 9h

BB shows Tc Qs (Straight, King High)
(Pre 11%, Flop 9%, Turn 18%)

Hero shows Qc Qh (One Pair, Queens)
(Pre 89%, Flop 91%, Turn 82%)

BB wins 53.3 BB

I got to take a few minutes off before the rebuy events started. I got off to a good start in the $700, then ran into this spot:

PokerStars – $665+$35|200/400 Ante 50 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 37.5 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 9.76, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
MP+1: 12.62 BB (VPIP: 21.31, PFR: 21.67, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 61)
MP+2: 13.15 BB (VPIP: 12.77, PFR: 9.09, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 47)
CO: 18.98 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.26, Hands: 42)
Hero (BTN): 64.76 BB
SB: 48.04 BB (VPIP: 19.05, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 42)
BB: 43.54 BB (VPIP: 26.19, PFR: 19.05, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 42)
UTG: 23.57 BB (VPIP: 18.52, PFR: 12.77, 3Bet Preflop: 3.45, Hands: 189)
UTG+1: 14.23 BB (VPIP: 21.43, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 5.00, Hands: 42)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Ad Qc
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, SB raises to 5.95 BB, fold, Hero raises to 13.89 BB, SB raises to 47.92 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 34.03 BB

Flop : (97.96 BB, 2 players) 6h 9d Tc

Turn : (97.96 BB, 2 players) Kh

River : (97.96 BB, 2 players) 9s

SB shows Ac Kd (Two Pair, Kings and Nines)
(Pre 75%, Flop 84%, Turn 91%)

Hero shows Ad Qc (One Pair, Nines)
(Pre 25%, Flop 16%, Turn 9%)

SB wins 97.96 BB

Getting it in pre is on the thin side, but I don’t see how else to play it. I guess flatting the 3-bet is an option, but even for 50 bigs AQ is a pretty big hand button vs SB.

I got the last of my money in good, but I’m still not sure I played it optimally:

PokerStars – $665+$35|250/500 Ante 60 NL – Holdem – 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

SB: 31.23 BB (VPIP: 19.75, PFR: 19.23, 3Bet Preflop: 3.23, Hands: 81)
BB: 19.08 BB (VPIP: 11.67, PFR: 8.77, 3Bet Preflop: 3.85, Hands: 60)
UTG: 14.72 BB (VPIP: 14.55, PFR: 12.73, 3Bet Preflop: 4.17, Hands: 55)
Hero (UTG+1): 16.51 BB
MP: 99.18 BB (VPIP: 21.82, PFR: 18.52, 3Bet Preflop: 8.70, Hands: 55)
MP+1: 24.02 BB (VPIP: 25.45, PFR: 16.36, 3Bet Preflop: 7.69, Hands: 55)
CO: 4.48 BB (VPIP: 17.82, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 202)
BTN: 11.89 BB (VPIP: 21.82, PFR: 16.98, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 55)

8 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.46 BB) Hero has Ah Ks
fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.46 BB, 2 players) 5h 2h 9c
BB checks, Hero bets 1.8 BB, BB raises to 15.5 BB, Hero calls 12.59 BB and is all-in

Turn : (34.24 BB, 2 players) 7h

River : (34.24 BB, 2 players) 6c

BB shows Th 6h (Flush, Ten High)
(Pre 37%, Flop 49%, Turn 84%)

Hero shows Ah Ks (High Card, Ace)
(Pre 63%, Flop 51%, Turn 16%)

BB wins 34.24 BB

Arguably just shoving pre is better. I do have a raise-fold range from this stack size, though, and I definitely do get three-bet when I open in spots like this. I could also see checking or jamming flop, too. I mean, it’s not like I WANT action from Th 6h.

I’ll be playing again tomorrow starting at 11AM Pacific with the $2000 Super Tuesday replacement. I usually tweet interesting hands while I’m playing, so if you aren’t already, you might want to follow @thinkingpoker.

Carlos’ “Fight for Poker” video is well worth watching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRu_8K-zY9c

Timestamps

3:09 – hello and welcome; carlos welch
50:30 – strategy time

Strategy

*** Starting Chips ***
Dealer: 7486
Small Blind: 3831
Big Blind: 4693
UTG: 10095
UTG+1: 4670
UTG+2: 4710
UTG+3: 3164
UTG+4 [ME]: 5777
UTG+5: 5649

*** Hero Cards ***
Hero Cards: Kc,Qc

*** Blinds/Antes ***
Small Blind Posts: 75
Big Blind Posts: 150

*** Hand Action ***
UTG Folds
UTG+1 Folds
UTG+2 Folds
UTG+3 Folds
UTG+4 [ME] Raises 300
UTG+5 Call 300
Dealer Folds
Small Blind Folds
Big Blind Folds

*** Flop ***
Flop: [Jc,2h,5h]

UTG+4 [ME] Bets 412
UTG+5 Raises 999
UTG+4 [ME] All-in 5065
UTG+5 Folds AsTc

I was playing a particularly nitty $5/$10/$20 game where pretty much everyone except me was quite reluctant to lose whatever they had on the table. Naturally, I’d been leaning on them, especially the player on my right, even harder than usual. I’d also been catching kind of well, so there were a few pots where I actually had the goods but didn’t go to showdown,which probably made me seem even more aggressive than I was.

Villain open limps the CO, I limp behind with As 8h on the Button, SB folds, BB completes, and the straddle checks.

Flop ($80 in pot) Qs 8d 3s. Checks to me, I bet $20, BB calls, straddle folds, CO raises to $80, I call, BB folds. This is a tricky spot because although CO’s line is pretty suspect and I block several of the strongest hands he’s representing, it’s also a kinda odd spot for him to bluff. Then again, the underbet can induce some weird stuff, especially in a player who’s already annoyed. Plus backdoor nut draw!

Turn ($260 in pot) 8s. That’s the best card in the deck for me, unless it isn’t. Villain checks, and so do I.

River ($260 in pot) Ts. Villain bets $175. I raise to $375. He seems to waffle between calling and folding, counts at another $200, then suddenly grabs more chips and makes it $700 to go. I try to talk to him a bit, don’t pick up much but he definitely doesn’t seem uncomfortable. I fold.

There’s a lot going for a fold here, especially when you realize that if this is a bluff, it would probably be the first time in this guy’s life that he ever three-bet bluff the river. Then again, I have a tendency to bring that out in people!

I’m fine with folding the As here. But the As with a hugely significant blocker, getting better than 2.5:1? Against a player who is visibly annoyed with me? Think I shoulda called this one, but it’s closer than it seems when you just look at the hand details.

For what it’s worth, I did consider jamming as well, as 33 is the hand I’m most likely to lose to if I call, but Q8 and even QQ aren’t out of the question for Villain, and frankly I don’t think he was in the mood to fold a full house to me.

The hand took a long time on the river, so when it’s over there was a lot of speculation about what we had. Someone claimed we both had nothing, someone else insisted we both had big hands. I said something along the lines of, “I folded a big hand. Not a lot of people are good enough to bluff there,” but that didn’t get any kind of reaction from Villain. I have to imagine he would have been sorely tempted to show a bluff at that point (he still had his cards), but he also didn’t muck and then insist he was bluffing, which would be a plausible reaction if he weren’t bluffing, so who’s to say?

If I could have my cards back, I’d call. You?

UTG2 opens to $60, gets four calls, I call with 85s in the BB.

Flop A85r (no backdoor for me), checks to the second caller, who bets $170. I call, everyone else folds.

Turn A. We both check.

River 4.

At this point I’m almost certain he has a bare Ace, and 85 is the absolute worst hand I could have. In fact, my range otherwise consists only of Ax, straights, and flopped sets. In one sense, that makes it an easy bluff with 85, and I shouldn’t even really bet that much as Villain has an easy fold with most Ax (not that he should be betting that on the flop anyway, but this guy would). Then again, LOL at some live player, even a nit (which this guy is) folding trips for one bet on the river. $525 down the drain.

Don’t take the wrong lesson from this. There are plenty of situations where you should be thinking about how you’d play different parts of your range and actively thinking about your best bluffing candidates, using the strength of your range to determine whether you can value bet or what sizing to use, etc. Those are situations where you aren’t sure what your opponent will do with a specific hand, or you aren’t sure what he has. This just wasn’t one of those situations.

The game is $5/$10 with $2500 effective stacks. Hero is widely perceived as tough but a bit too stubborn/bluffy.

HJ is a straight-forward, experienced recreational type. He’s TAG-ish with his pre-flop hand selection, continuation bets too much, and rarely barrels the turn with either a made hand or a bluff. Unless he has a huge hand, he usually c-bets the flop, check-calls or check-folds the turn depending on whether he has anything, and then check-decides on the river . If the turn checks through, he’s capable of both bluffing and value betting rivers.

The blinds are also recreational players, though more loose and passive than HJ. Their standards for calling pre-flop and on the flop are pretty low, but they tighten up a bit as the bets get bigger.

HJ opens for $40. Hero is on the Button with 7d 4d. What’s your play and why? Posts your suggestions in the comments section below. I’ll do my best to respond throughout the week, and I’ll post my own thoughts along with results on Friday.

Ruud says, “Generally I find Villain has the goods when he bombs the river like this.”

Pepito agrees, “unless he contemptuously views you as a bad, nitty player, what adept villain expects Kx to fold given that particular run out and action? river looks like soul-owning thin value from AK and/or KQ, or fat value from 2P, straights, and flushes.”

Mike argues exactly the opposite: “if he’s a good player, he will know he can try to rep something strong considering both a flush draw and straight draw got there.”

I think this is as telling a demonstration as you’re going to get of the value of guessing at the meaning of Villain’s bet. A “good player” shouldn’t be so easy to pigeonhole as definitely bluffing or definitely value betting, just as he shouldn’t feel confident about whether or not I’m going to call a river bet, so let’s dig a little deeper.

The Knowns (or Strongly Suspecteds)

1. Villain is raising exploitably many hands pre-flop and consequently will see the flop with an overly wide range. That means he’ll see the flop with a lot of weak hands. As long as we don’t fold exploitably often, he can’t show a profit by bluffing with them, so one way or the other our strongest hands will win the pot on any given run out – either Villain gives up frequently and lets us win at showdown, which also benefits some of our more medium-strength hands that aren’t going to call multiple barrels, or he bluffs frequently, meaning that we win the pot less often when we have the best hand but win larger pots with our bluff-catching range.

2. This is a particularly bad river for our hand and a good one for many of the draws Villain could have.

The Unknowns

1. Villain’s value betting strategy. Would he bet AK or AA for value here? If so, would he use this sizing? Multiple bet sizes, particularly on the river, is not necessarily an exploitable strategy, so let’s not rule out the possibility that this bet is more polarized than a $250 would be, but less polarized than a shove would be.

2. Villain’s turn barreling strategy. Does he bluff only/primarily draws? Because his range is more polarized than mine, he has room to make a larger bet with a range that includes more bluffs, and I think his sizing is likely a mistake on the turn, one that forces him either to give up with a lot of his weak hands or offer me appealing odds to call against a bluff-heavy range.

3. Villain’s river bluffing strategy. There are three options here: (a) He does his best to bet in a balanced way, though the number of bluffs available to him may be limited because of his turn sizing and the exact river card that came; (b) He bluffs too much, which requires him to also have bluffed too much on the turn; (c) A large bet means he is weighted towards value hands, which is a common tendency among non-elite players.

Against strategy (c), we do best by folding. Against (b), we’d prefer to call, and against (a) we’re either close to indifferent or prefer folding, depending on whether his turn bluffing strategy enables him to bluff the river adequately. The fact that we prefer folding in a lot of these hypotheticals does seem to argue for a fold, as does the fact that calling against (b) is probably less good than calling against (c) is bad, because (c) contains few if any bluffs, whereas (b) contains all value hands in addition to a lot of bluffs.

There’s another factor to consider, though. Given that Villain bet the turn and river, it’s somewhat more likely that he is playing overly bluffy strategy (b). In other words, because strategy (b) bets more often than the other strategies do (it’s easier to have air than a strong hand, not to mention that (b) bets both), if we thought that all three strategies were equally likely before we saw any action, seeing two bets should incline us towards calling.

Although Villain seems uncommonly good, there are still more players in the 5/10 NLHE pool who play strategy (c) than those who play (b). Bayes’ Theorem cuts us both ways.

Reading Hero’s Range

Although my pre-flop range is somewhat narrow and well-defined as “too good to fold but not a good candidate for three-betting”, the small bets on the flop and turn mean that I haven’t folded too much of it. Pocket pairs, Kx, AJ, AT, sets, and perhaps some 6x and 7x (though I probably three-bet those pre) all call the flop. The AJ and AT get bluff-raised or ditched on the turn, and sets raise, which means that the pocket pairs and Kx both go to the river. I probably don’t make any flushes or straights on the river.

To make Villain indifferent to bluffing, I’d need to call about half the time. The chance of Villain playing AK or KK this way makes KJ a slightly better bluff-catcher than the pocket pairs, though they really aren’t very different.

I’d much rather have the Js for bluff-catching than the Ks. Some of Villain’s Ks Xs might actually check the turn, so I think the blocking value of Ks is not what it seems.

It’s also possible that this river is so good for Villain’s range that I can’t profitably bluff-catch at all, at least not against this sizing. If his large bet prevents him from balancing with sufficient bluffs, I can exploit him by folding all of my bluff-catchers, which is probably what I should have done. In game, I didn’t appreciate the significance of the small turn bet in terms of potentially limiting Villain’s ability to bluff, especially on this river.

Results

I called. Villain had 98o for a rivered straight, which suggests his pre-flop range was even weaker than I expected.

Seeing that hand makes me like my river call even less, though it also makes me dislike folding pre-flop even more than I already did.

Props to Bryan Gour for considering a raise. I did think about that in game, and I agree that the Ks blocker is perfect for it, but I don’t know that I’d ever raise her for value, so I chose not to do it as a bluff either.

Told Ya So

“This is why I would have raised pre-flop…” To be honest, I was expecting more comments like Zachinacubicle’s than I got.

I’ve already talked about three-betting vs calling pre-flop, and while I’ll admit that as Villain’s pre-flop range gets wider, three-betting gets more appealing, I still prefer calling even knowing that Villain may be raising half the deck. After all, KJo is only a very small favorite against that range, and will not play well out of position. The only reason to three-bet this would be if you expect Villain to fold exploitably often, and that doesn’t seem to be his bag.

It’s important to recognize that this was a really bad river, perhaps the worst in the deck, and Hero still ended up with a close decision. Not all run outs will be this bad, and considering that even a bet on this worst case scenario river produced a close-to-break-even spot for the Hero suggests that this hand is really not so hard to play out of position.

If you are in the “Bah, I don’t care about game theory, people are so easy to exploit!” camp, that’s a fine attitude when it comes to calling or folding the river, at least if you think you have a handle on how Villain can be exploited. But if you’re folding pre-flop because you fear post-flop decisions, then learning to defend your equity by checking and calling in an unexploitable way is valuable for you. Calling and then bluff-catching in a balanced way is simply more profitable than folding pre-flop (and than three-betting pre-flop, unless Villain folds too often).

Contrary to Greg’s assertion, you don’t have to “guess” at Villain’s bluffing frequency. You simply have to call often enough that his bluffing frequency doesn’t matter.

Brian has a slightly different criticism of the call: “You play a limited number of hands live and recreational players make enormous mistakes with deep stacks. Setting up dynamics with almost zero EV vs the best players is a waste of your most precious resource – time playing against the recreational players.”

There’s something to this, but I think the argument cuts both ways. By passing on a profitable call here, you are giving your chief nemesis an opportunity to play against the recreational player, and in fact a very profitable opportunity to exploit that player. Not to mention that calling does still give you a chance to see a flop against that player. This is actually a concept that Nate and I discuss in our WSOP Premium Podcasts.

Edit: I meant to add that it’s quite easy to construct scenarios in three-bet pots that will make you wish you called, much as this particular scenario might make you wish you three-bet. Example: you three-bet pre-flop and get this flop. You either bet and get called, or check and call. On the turn you check and call. You’re in at least as bad of a spot now as I was in this hand, and you’ve put a good deal more money into the pot even before you contemplate calling a river bet.

Timestamps

0:30 hello
6:07 strategy
41:11 Danielle Andersen

Strategy

I have AsKc in SB
Me: $170 in SB
OMR: $500 in MP
Reg: $700 in CO

OMR opens to $15
Reg calls.
I 3B to $45.
Both players call.

Pot $132 (after rake) Flop 2c 4s 8d
I bet $50, OMR folds, Reg calls.

Pot $232. Turn: 2c 4s 8d 3c.

I check, Reg shoves $75

UTG is a typical splashy recreational player, with lots of limping and calling pre-flop followed by lots of checking and folding post-flop. He has about $800 in his stack.

HJ is the best of the competition by a long shot. He definitely knows how to take advantage of different types of players by isolating, barreling, floating, squeezing, etc., and he’s definitely made some plays like these against me in good spots. I don’t have enough experience with him to say whether he’s actually balancing against me or whether he’s playing more of a Level 2, “This guy opens a lot so I’m just going to three-bet him with any two” sort of strategy. He’s definitely unbalanced, in a good way, against the less tough competition. I’m playing about $2500, and he covers.

UTG limps for $10. Three players fold, then HJ raises to $40. Hero calls from the BB with Ks Jd. UTG calls.

Flop Kc 7s 6d ($118 in pot). Hero checks, UTG checks, HJ bets $65, Hero calls, UTG folds.

Turn 2s ($248 in pot). Hero checks, HJ bets $125, Hero calls.

River Ts ($498 in pot). Hero checks, HJ bets $400, Hero?

I think the flop and turn play is pretty uncontroversial, but if you have questions, I’m happy to address them.

Post your thoughts and preferred action on the river, and I’ll post my own thoughts as well as the results towards the end of next week.

I’m actually a bit dismayed by how many people are hurrying to label this player a fish and assume he’s going to be some huge mark after the flop. In fact, the way I described him was a splashy, “with lots of limping and calling pre-flop followed by lots of checking and folding post-flop.” There’s not tremendous value in dragging him into the pot. In fact, I’d probably rather he folded to the raise, as he’ll be getting 3:1 and closing the action with presumably a very playable hand. Short stacked or no, I’m not going to be looking to my stack in against him whenever I flop top pair.

Reverse Implied Odds?

Pretty much every commenter expressed some discomfort with playing KJo from out of position, and rightfully so. This is a hand I’d usually fold from the BB against a player in this position. My strong suspicion, however, is that he is raising more hands than his position warrants, and this presents an opportunity to exploit him by playing some additional hands myself.

The mere fact that KJ could be behind when it flops top pair does not make it a “reverse implied odds hand,” as Notam calls it. It’s true that it will rarely be more than a bluff-catcher, but top pair with a good kicker is generally a very good bluff-catcher. Calling bets is not generally going to be a money-losing proposition when we flop top pair, despite the presence of dominating hands in Villain’s range, because we know (or are comfotable assuming, anyway) that he will see the flop with an overly wide range. Thus, he will have only two options: rarely bet when a K or J flops, enabling us to get loads of cheap showdowns and only rarely pay off value bets, or bluff a lot at these boards, which means we’ll actually have positive implied odds on such boards. In the event that the board runs out in a way that calling is no longer profitable, we can always fold. There is never a point when we’ll be compelled to make a -EV call.

Let’s not forget that KJ probably dominates some hands in Villain’s range as well. He surely raises QJs, JTs, and KTs in this spot, and possibly some of their offsuit cousins as well.

Three-Betting vs Calling

Cromi007 says, “I like an absurd raise here, something like 200-240+.” There’s a reason why that size is absurd. Although a huge raise will indeed win the pot quite frequently, it needs to win the pot quite frequently, because it risks several times what is in the pot. Even if we take it down 75% of the time, we’ll be in such bad shape when we don’t get folds that it will likely overwhelm that fold equity. Three wins of $60 accompanied by a loss of $200 is not an appealing proposition.

Stuart says, “I don’t mind 3betting small ($90) to take control of the hand and maybe even set up a big 5-bet to win the hand pre.” This raise has the opposite problem. Instead of offering our opponent a lot of trivial folds, it offers him a lot of trivial calls. Three-betting does not magically put you in control of the hand. You’ll still be out of position, there will still be lots of money behind, and unless you have some reason to think Villain will fold excessively much either to the 3-bet or the c-bet (my description of him suggests neither), then there’s no reason to expect this to be a profitable play.

All of the information we’re responding to here is public. In other words, Villain probably realizes that UTG is going to give up too much, and will expect us to realize that as well, and will recognize that we don’t have to have a monster to 3-bet him (or 5-bet him, for that matter). It’s not enough to say, “He’s got a wide range, let’s raise in a really unbalanced way!” There’s plenty of room for him to punish that sort of imbalance, and everything we know about him suggests he’s capable of it.

What’s lacking from all of the comments advocating a three-bet is a justification for why this hand in particular is good for a three-bet. The fact that these arguments could just as well apply to 72o are a strong hint that what they’re proposing is an unbalanced play.

The fact is that KJo will not play well in a 3-bet pot. We don’t want to flop a marginal hand in a 3-bet pot, because in a 3-bet pot we want to be bluffing and value betting. KJo will not often make a good bluffing hand, and it will even more rarely make a good value betting hand. It’s going to flop mostly bluff-catchers, and that means that we want to keep Villain’s range as wide as possible and the pot as small as possible.

All of that said, I don’t think folding is terrible here by any means, especially if you aren’t confident in your post-flop ability. I think, however, that simply calling now and then playing a balanced post-flop strategy will show a profit, which should be a lesson to all those who say, “I don’t need game theory in the games I play.” Playing a bluff-catcher out of position against a wide range is one of the times that I find it most handy to be able to fall back on what I’ve learned about unexploitable play.

Results

I called, and UTG called. As you might have guessed, there’s another decision in this hand, which I’ll present momentarily in a separate post.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

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2009 wasn’t my best year in the Main Event – in fact it was one of my worst – but understanding the agony of defeat is even more important to appreciating the WSOP experience than is understanding the thrill of victory. As always, I take you inside of my head, to see both the strategy and the emotion, the excitement and the disappointment, the great plays and the mistakes and the we’ll-never-knows.

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UTG is a typical splashy recreational player, with lots of limping and calling pre-flop followed by lots of checking and folding post-flop. He has about $800 in his stack.

HJ is the best of the competition by a long shot. He definitely knows how to take advantage of different types of players by isolating, barreling, floating, squeezing, etc., and he’s definitely made some plays like these against me in good spots. I don’t have enough experience with him to say whether he’s actually balancing against me or whether he’s playing more of a Level 2, “This guy opens a lot so I’m just going to three-bet him with any two” sort of strategy. He’s definitely unbalanced, in a good way, against the less tough competition. I’m playing about $2500, and he covers.

UTG limps for $10. Three players fold, then HJ raises to $40. Action folds to Hero in the BB with KJo.

What’s your play and why? Comment below with your thoughts and preferred play, and I’ll be back on Friday with my own thoughts and action.

You can follow Gavin on Twitter @nhgg and read his column in Cardplayer Magazine.

Timestamps

:30 hello
7:57 fat harry potter
23:05 GG

Strategy

The reason I find it interesting is that it reminds me of an important conclusion from Mathematics of Poker that I’d forgotten about entirely until I reread that book. In “Playing Accurately, Part I: Cards Exposed Situations”, Chen and Ankenman demonstrate that there are situations where a player with an obvious (exposed, in their hypothetical) draw actually does better by raising all-in on the flop, knowing he’ll put the rest of his money in from behind (though with sufficient pot odds) rather than calling and giving his opponent the opportunity to bet him out on a blank turn or check-fold when the draw comes in.

Of course there are any number of reasons why that may not be applicable to this hand. It presumes an opponent who will correctly bet the turn when ahead and correctly check-fold when behind. If, as Eddie argues, Villain can be expected to run a big bluff on cards that complete Hero’s draw, then there is more room to outplay him on future streets.

On Calling

I think many commenters are overestimating how easy it will be to outplay Villain on a blank turn, though. Shoving over a turn bet works only if Villain has a lot of air in his range, as he probably isn’t bet-folding a Q or a 9 or a better draw. Calling in hopes of getting there on the river probably requires decent implied odds to be better than getting it in on the flop even if Villain never folds.

I’m not at all sure what would be the best play if Villain checked a blank. I suppose I would opt for a smallish bet of perhaps 1/3 pot, but getting check-shoved is such a disaster that I don’t feel too great about that plan.

I don’t think the best play is particularly clear if the turn is a J or a T, either. Some people seem to want to call down on blank rivers, and I can see why, but Pepito also makes a good point that “villains of these sorts tend to thin hero calling rather than triple barreling with air (particularly in a 3b pot where hero has called a check raise and a second barrel).”

On Shoving

Pepito also asserts that, “shoveling 4.5K into 1.2K pot against a callbox seems terrible– particularly with position.” Having already explained why I don’t see a lot of ways to capitalize on my position, I’ll now address the “callbox” argument.

The tricky thing here is that this hand actually blurs the line between a value bet and a bluff. On the hand, it certainly feels icky to stick in a lot of money with Jack-high against a player who’s shown a willingness to call down extremely light. But what, really, can his looseness do to hurt us?

No one is check-raise-folding the hands that have us in truly bad shape, which would be nut flush draws, two pairs, and sets. I wouldn’t really expect Qx to take this line either – people might check-raise-call it, or they might not check-raise it, but I don’t see it getting check-raise-folded.

So what can Villain’s looseness add to his calling range, and how can that hurt us? All he can do is start calling with really weak hands, and Hero is a pretty big favorite against those, as Sean F. points out. Hero has 63.5% equity against 9d 8d and 76% against 8s 7s.

There’s a lot of talk about not wanting to put your stack in “on a flip”, but that’s a misleading way of framing the situation. What you really need to consider is not just the end result – how much equity do you have when the money goes in – but rather how can your actions manipulate the situation to give you more or less EV.

Regardless of your flop action, there are a lot of scenarios where you end up playing big pots against the top of his range. Against the bottom of his range, you’re a solid favorite, and raising the flop can only lead to good things. Villain can either forfeit a significant amount of equity by folding, or he can put his money in from behind and lose the ability to play well on future streets (he might continue bluffing a spade with air, but will he bet/stack off with 98?).

A lot of the value in calling comes from inducing bluffs. Maybe we get to shove over a bet on a blank turn, and maybe we induce some big bluffs when we hit.

Results

Raising less than all in still leaves open the possibility of inducing a bluff. If Villain check-raises the flop with more than just pairs and draws, then there’s a real chance he’ll four-bet-fold some of that air. He’s shown a propensity for this sort of play in wide range situations before.

That last point was the deciding factor for me. I three-bet the flop $1300, Villain made it $3100, I shoved, and he did some thinking (about what, I’m not sure – whatever it was presumably should have happened before he four-bet) and then called with what turned out to be Ad Kd. That was an outcome I hadn’t anticipated, but again I’m a 65% favorite in the case where Villain decides to make a really loose call, which means that getting it in on the flop is better for me than shoving over the check-raise and having Villain fold (though I would have preferred a fold to the five-bet).

The board ran out blank, and Villain collected a massive pot with Ace-high while the table collectively gawked. I warned you this was a bad beat post!

Ed’s previous appearances on Episode 25 and Episode 71 are among the best strategy discussions the show has seen and are well worth checking out!

Timestamps

:30 hello
3:39 strat
24:53 EM

Strategy

PokerStars – $0.50 Ante $0.10 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

SB: 202 BB (VPIP: 67.16, PFR: 49.25, 3Bet Preflop: 32.26, Hands: 72)
BB: 214.74 BB (VPIP: 42.27, PFR: 25.71, 3Bet Preflop: 6.80, Hands: 1,191)
CO: 197.16 BB (VPIP: 32.68, PFR: 14.35, 3Bet Preflop: 5.68, Hands: 1,172)
Hero (BTN): 323.84 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB, 4 players post ante of 0.2 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.3 BB) Hero has A 7

fold, Hero raises to 3 BB, SB calls 2.5 BB, fold

Flop: (7.8 BB, 2 players) 7 3 5
SB checks, Hero bets 4.82 BB, SB calls 4.82 BB

Turn: (17.44 BB, 2 players) 7
SB checks, Hero checks

River: (17.44 BB, 2 players) 3
SB bets 48 BB, Hero raises to 108 BB, SB raises to 193.98 BB and is all-in, Hero calls 85.98 BB

One example, he bet-called 99 vs a huge check-shove on Qh Th 5d and won vs Ah Kh. Exploitively, it may be a correct call because that player probably does have a draw there all the time, but winning in spots like that has definitely emboldened him.

His strategy probably OK against the weaker regs, but I’ve been punishing him for it. That’s not to say I’ve never backed down when he floated or raised me in spots where I suspected he was unbalanced, but but we’ve tangled a fair bit in spots where we both had wide ranges and the money has on balance flown to me.

Hero is in the straddle with about $4800. Action folds to Villain in SB, who opens for $60. BB folds, Hero makes it $160 with Js Ts, Villain calls.

Flop ($323 in pot) Qs 9s 6d. Villain checks, Hero bets $200, Villain raises to $500, Hero?

Please comment below with your thoughts and preferred action. If you want to do anything other than shove, you should also consider your plan should you see the following turn cards:

1) 3s

2) 3h

3) Td

I’ll respond to comments throughout the week and post my own thoughts as well as results on Friday.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
3:24 – strategy: getting value & showing bluffs
34:54 – interview: carlos in florida

You’re at a 9-handed $2/$5 NLHE table with $600 effective stacks. UTG is very loose, especially pre-flop, and the whole table is salivating over him. UTG+2 is tight-aggressive bordering on nitty.

UTG limps for $5. UTG+2 raises to $20, and the action folds to Hero in the CO with Qs Ts. Hero raises to $50, UTG waffles a bit and then calls, and UTG+2 quickly puts in another $30.

Flop ($151 in pot after rake) Ks 8d 6d. UTG and UTG +2 both check without much hesitation. Hero bets $75, UTG folds, and UTG +2 calls.

Turn ($301 in pot) Jd. UTG2 checks, $475 remain in the effective stacks. Hero?

Leave a comment below with your thoughts and preferred action. I’ll do my best to respond to comments over the next few days and will post the next decision point on Monday.

Pre-Flop Ranges

Don’t get too bogged down in trying to assign exact ranges to each opponent. It’s mostly guesswork, and I don’t think precision will greatly influence the correct play in most situations anyway. Do recognize, though, that the absence of a four-bet greatly reduces the likelihood of either of these players holding KK, AA, or AK. I’m less comfortable making assumptions about what AQ, QQ, or anything weaker would do, but I’m not too worried about running into an overpair here.

UTG’s range is surely wider than it should be (then again, who knows what a range for limping UTG and then cold calling a 3-bet “should” look like), but it may be stronger than you think. Even loose players usually have some standards for cold calling 3-bets.

I doubt UTG2 has much of a folding range considering the odds he’s getting once the action is back on him.

Hero’s range probably looks stronger than it is, because this was an exploitive three-bet. If it weren’t for the reads and sizing tell Hero acted on, he wouldn’t be three-betting this wide, and presumably the other players don’t recognize those features of the situation and so will give Hero more credit than he deserves. So although Hero may in fact have the most air-heavy range of the three, I still want to play the hand aggressively.

Bet Sizing and Barreling

We’re only on the flop, but with an SPR of less than four, we have to think about whether and how to put stacks into play. There are a lot of arguments for planning to fire multiple barrels at this pot. As I argued above, both Villains likely have a lot of medium strength hands but very few hands they’ll be comfortable playing for stacks. Their ranges consist mostly of good but not great bluff-catchers, and they’re likely to overestimate Hero’s strength. That along with Hero’s backdoor draws all argues for barreling a lot of runouts.

There was a lot of agreement about betting the flop, but not much consensus on sizing. Commenters advocated anywhere from $80 to $140, and a lot of people seemed to be just throwing out a number without a lot of justification for it.

This is why it’s so important to think ahead and think about your entire range. You need to decide whether you’re going to try to bet flop and shove turn with your strongest hands, or whether you’d rather break the betting over three streets. Then you need to construct a bluffing range that at least balances those bets, though in this case I’d want to be weighted towards bluffs anyway.

This is a relatively static flop. A few specific turns will do a lot to improve formerly weak hands, but most of the time the strongest hands on the flop will still be among the strongest hands on the river. That argues for more, smaller bets.

In Mathematics of Poker, Chen and Ankenman demonstrate that in a completely static game with no raising, the optimal strategy is to bet the same fraction of the pot on each street such that your last bet is all-in. Those conditions don’t quite hold here, but they are close enough to make this strategy worth following in my opinion.

I set up a spreadsheet to help me solve this, and it turns that if force ourselves to bet in increments of $5, the closest we can get is to bet $75 on the flop. This assumes we bet and get a single caller, which is a far more likely outcome than getting two calls. If the latter happens, we’ll just cross the bridge when we come to it.

Counter-Arguments

My suspicion is that some people will be uncomfortable with this sizing because it seems small and thus could be perceived as weak. But how, really, can our opponents respond to that? They can either check-raise bluff or they can call light.

We can protect against the possibility of excessive check-raise bluffing simply by having appropriate calling and re-bluffing ranges. It’s not a reason to bluff less often or with a larger size, just a reason to defend more after betting.

As for calling light, I agree that quite possibly neither player will fold a pair or a draw to the flop bet. It’s true that a larger size will get you more folds, but then again it needs to get more folds, because it risks more.

It’s not obvious to me that getting called by 99 on the flop is such a bad thing. Not only does Hero have pretty decent equity against that hand, but it’s a hand that’s not likely to go to the felt unimproved, so as long as aggressive barreling is in the works, Hero may actually prefer for 99 to call rather than fold.

The latest and greatest volume in my Thinking Poker Diaries is now available at nitcast.com or in the Amazon Kindle Store. This third volume in the series follows the same format as the first two, interspersing anecdotes from the tournament with strategy essays that discuss topics that came up during my play. Longer than the first two volumes combined, this one tells the story of my 35th place finish in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Timestamps

:30 – Hello & Welcome; Planning and Goal Setting
34:42 – Strategy

UTG opens to $40, MP calls, I call with 4c 2c in the BB.

Flop ($125 in pot) 9c 5s 3h. I check, UTG bets $75, MP folds, I raise to $275, UTG makes it $640, I call.

Turn ($1405 in pot) 4h. I bet $800, UTG calls.

River ($3005 in pot) As. I shove for ~$3000, UTG calls with 99.

Pre-flop isn’t exactly standard, but MP was the weakest player at the table (overly loose, sizing tells, etc.), and although UTG seemed like a pretty decent player, I knew that he wasn’t one of the best regs, because even though I don’t play at Maryland Live that often I do know who the best pros there are.

I love my hand on this flop. As deep as we are, I’m more excited to have hit this than to have hit bottom set. The only hands I’d rather hold are top set, 76 with a backdoor, or 64 with a backdoor, in that order. This is a very easy check-raise. If you’re not clear on why, put yourself in UTG’s shoes and imagine how you’d feel about playing for stacks with anything less than 55 (which may not even be in his UTG range).

To be honest, I was skeptical of Villain’s three-bet. I’d actually won another pot recently at the must move table (Villain was already in the main game so wasn’t around to see this) by min-4-bet bluffing against another reg in a very similar spot. I can’t see him doing this with the intention to get stacks in unless he has a set or a big draw, and many players won’t take this line with those hands anyway. Because I had such a good draw, though, I decided to peel and pull the trigger on a later street.

The turn is a great card for my purposes, because it completes the most obvious draw. I can’t definitively exclude 76s from Villain’s range, but I had my doubts as to whether he’d open it pre and whether he’d three-bet the flop. I think he should do both, but even many pretty good mid-stakes live pros are too nitty about that sort of thing.

My biggest mistake here is the sizing. I planned to shove any river that didn’t pair the board (maybe not hearts either, just because he might not expect me to jam non-flushes for value although I would), and consequently I should have set up sizing so that I was betting more similar percentages of the pot on both streets. I think $1000 into $1400 on the turn and then $2800 into $3400 on the river would have worked out better.

Frankly, I think his river call is pretty bad. Most of my semi-bluffs have gotten there, and on this run-out I’m not shoving a lower set for value. This is what happens when you just think about “bluffs” generically rather than considering which exact hands your opponent would bluff with.

I was initially excited not only to win the pot but also to have a player sitting two seats to my right who still had me covered! As tempting as the prospect of winning a $20K pot was, he proved pretty nitty and it was getting late, so after an hour of unsuccessfully trying to provoke a confrontation with him, I cashed out and called it a night.

“Antonio Esfandiari, who was providing commentary for ESPN while the hand went down, said “He put his opponent on a hand and played accordingly. That’s how you win at no-limit hold ’em.”

I respectfully disagree. What does it mean to “play accordingly” when you have TT and you put your opponent on QQ?  If you know he will fold, then bluffing would be correct. If you know he won’t fold, then giving up and checking and/or folding would be correct. What if you don’t know what he’ll do?

The fact that Newhouse was attempting to bluff Tonking off of hands barely better than his own, and even moreso the fact that Tonking called, indicate that someone made a theoretical mistake at some point in the hand.”

I not only analyze the hand in depth but also make some broader points about how and when to use game theory in tournament situations where ICM considerations have a huge influence on the correct play. Given the scope of the article, it’s going to be spread over two issues, so the one that’s out now is Part 1.

Best Strategy

Nate and I talk strategy on just about every episode, but of course the show is at its very best strategy-wise when the game’s top players share their wisdom.

Ben Sulsky – It was a great privilege to talk about game theory (and philosophy) with a player who is blazing new frontiers in poker strategy.

Mike McDonald – Our conversation with Mike was great in a lot of ways, but among other things he was generous enough to share some deep thoughts on tournament strategy, including the underappreciated “hero check”.

Fascinating Stories

My favorite guests are not only great players (sometimes they aren’t players at all) but also fascinating people who open up about their struggles, their successes, and unique poker careers.

John the Lawyer – A long career in big live games, including a lot of private games, is bound to produce some great stories, and John tells them well. If you overlooked this episode because you didn’t recognize the name, go back and listen. There’s some solid strategy discussion in here as well.

Dara O’Kearney – Going pro later in life gave Dara a unique perspective on the poker world, and his Irish blood gives him the ability to share his thoughts with both humor and deep insight into many facets of the game, including staking.

Terrence Chan – Terrence not only shares stories from his poker and mixed martial arts careers but also gives some insight into the state of regulated online poker in Nevada. This interview is particularly interesting in light of what happened with Ultimate Poker just a few months later.

Ari Engel – Ari reveals that the life of the circuit grinder isn’t always a glamorous one. Even one of the most successful player on the WSOP circuit has to live a nitcast-approved lifestyle to keep his dream alive.

Alex Fitzgerald – Alex is brutally honest about the highs and lows of his career, including his struggle with drugs and his new life in Costa Rica.

Just Plain Fun

Nate and I rarely have as much fun as when we get to catch up with some of the great friends we’ve made through the podcast, and when we’re having the most fun, that’s usually when the show is the most fun to listen to.

Live From Las Vegas featuring Carlos Welch – One of the perks of our relationship with PokerNews was the opportunity to record together in person (a rare treat in itself) from the halls of the World Series of Poker. Carlos Welch joins us for this entertaining episode that includes a lot of strategy discussion from non-hold ’em games.

Episode 100 – This is one for the fans. In this double-length episode, two of our most popular guests, Carlos Welch and Gareth Chantler, turn the tables and interview Nate and me about our lives and poker careers.

Strategy

UTG+2 limps. Hero raises to $25 with Tc 7c in MP2. SB calls, BB folds, limper calls.

Flop ($80) is Jc 9c X. Two checks, Hero bets $30, SB folds, UTG2 calls.

Turn ($140) Jc 9c X 8h. Check, Hero bets $65, UTG2 raises to $140, Hero calls.

River ($420) Jc 9c X 8h Qx. UTG2 bets $175, Hero calls.

If you don’t have the first book yet, now is the time to pick it up. It’s on sale for just $0.99 at www.nitcast.com through the end of the weekend!

To bask in more of Matt’s podcasting prowess, check out the Interpreter Magazine Podcast that he cohosts. You can also follow Matt on Twitter.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome
1:45 Strategy: Deepstacked NLHE for Advanced Players
37:39 Interview:  Matt Sienkiewicz

This question actually comes from the Tournament Poker Edge forums, but I decided to answer it here as it references the Thinking Poker Premium Podcasts.

Q: In episode three, at around the 10 minute mark, you describe how open raise sizes should be a function of the pot size, which in turn means a function of the ante and blind sizes. Then you offer an answer to the question “why do we therefore tend to sometimes 2.5-3x in the very early stages and tend towards minraise at the later stages?” and the answer is that stack sizes come into play, meaning that at the later stages, even though the pot is nice and huge, everyone tends to have significantly less BB in their stack to work with/everyone must protect their stacks more. This makes sense, and you do continue to say that if stack sizes were not hugely different once antes are introduced, you would still open raise with sizing as a function of pot and ante sizes. Do I have this all correct?

If so, my question is – is this a good example of what you describe:

Merge has a structure of “deepstack” turbos where you start at 15/30 and stacks of 5000. By the time you hit 50/100 blinds there is a 10 chip ante and that’s like 20-25 minutes into the game, so lots of players have 50BB stacks. At this stage, would you opt not to open raise to 200-220 and rather go for something like 250 or even 300 in certain positions?

A. Good question. My own thoughts and strategy here are still in flux, and in fact have changed somewhat since recording this series. I don’t think that anything we say in those podcasts is wrong, but there’s a factor we didn’t explicitly consider which is that smaller raises enable you to raise more hands profitably. Especially at a table where I expect a significant post-flop edge, I prefer being able to VPIP more hands, even if means that my opponents can do the same because my raise offers them better odds. So of late I’ve been minraising even with deep stacks.

Ultimately, though, I don’t think it matters that much when stacks are deep. The difference between putting 2 vs 3 BBs in the pot out of a 150BB stack just isn’t that significant, especially if you adjust your ranges accordingly. In other words, your range for 2xing should be wider than your range for 2.5xing which should be wider than your range for 3xing. My assumption/belief/premise is that with smaller raises your EV is lower with your strongest hands, but this can be more than compensated through the EV gained by turning hands that would have to be folded if you used a larger raise size into a +EV opens.

When stacks are shallow, the pre-flop action matters a lot more, and probably you are making a mistake if you aren’t making small raises, especially in situations where people will often shove over your raises. Even there, though, it’s probably still not as big of a deal as people think.

Min-raises ought to be called and 3-bet more often than larger raises. If your opponents don’t respond in this way (and many don’t IMO, especially from the BB), that is all the more reason to use small raises. But if you are continuing to play a very TAG pre-flop strategy, then yes with antes and stacks deep enough that most pots don’t end with someone all in pre-flop you probably want to use a larger raise size than you would with antes and a 25BB average stack size.

If you’d like to hear a better player than I weigh in on this topic, it’s something we discussed with Mike McDonald when he was on the podcast.

Do you have a question for the Thinking Poker Mailbag? Please leave it as a comment below!

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For just $2.99, you can purchase The Thinking Poker Diaries, Volume 1 directly from me (you’ll get an EPUB, a PDF, and a Kindle file) or from Amazon (Kindle file only).

There’s a substantial preview available on Amazon, but for a better idea of what to expect, here’s the Table of Contents:

Introduction
How I Became A Poker Player
Introduction to the WSOP
Day One
Three-Betting Light
Day Two
The Bubble
Day Three
Playing a Short Stack
Day Four
More Stories! More Strategy! More Poker!

For those who do read it, please star & review on Amazon and recommend to your friends. I deliberately made the book very inexpensive because I’m more interested in reaching a wide audience than in maximizing my profit.

I’d also be very appreciate for any constructive criticism, as I plan to do a lot more of these and would love to see them improve with each volume.

Thanks!

Andrw

It’s often correct to fold a weak flush draw to a bet and a raise, but this tough player had really been hammering on the weaker spots at the table, raising every limp, etc. The pre-flop raiser had nearly $5,000 in front of him and was quite unlikely to go to the felt with any hand that he would raise in early position. I knew this, and I strongly suspected that the button did as well. He and I had a little over $7,500 remaining in our stacks, and I had just enough of a hand to put him to the test.

As always, I’m eager for any feedback or suggestions for topics you’d like to see covered in a future article.

The Main got off to a good start. I felt much more confident playing with the 300 – 400BB stacks than most of my opponents, and I was really leaning on my position to take down pots. That set me up for this spot:

PokerStars – $5000+$200|30/60 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG+1: 404.28 BB (VPIP: 13.33, PFR: 8.89, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 45)
MP: 321.18 BB (VPIP: 12.00, PFR: 6.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50)
MP+1: 336.22 BB (VPIP: 38.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 50)
Hero (MP+2): 329 BB
CO: 292.92 BB (VPIP: 22.45, PFR: 20.41, 3Bet Preflop: 4.35, Hands: 50)
BTN: 333.02 BB (VPIP: 17.65, PFR: 3.92, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 51)
SB: 300.98 BB (VPIP: 18.37, PFR: 12.24, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 49)
BB: 456.18 BB (VPIP: 18.37, PFR: 12.24, 3Bet Preflop: 12.00, Hands: 49)
UTG: 240.8 BB (VPIP: 20.14, PFR: 17.96, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 292)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has Jd Jh
fold, fold, fold, MP+1 raises to 2.52 BB, Hero raises to 7.55 BB, CO calls 7.55 BB, fold, SB calls 7.05 BB, fold, MP+1 calls 5.03 BB

Flop : (31.2 BB, 4 players) Ts Js 8c
SB checks, MP+1 checks, Hero bets 18.5 BB, fold, SB raises to 48.5 BB, fold, Hero raises to 321.45 fold

Hero wins 128.2 BB

I’m not entirely sure that shoving is the best play here, but I like it. I don’t really see Villain being on a stone bluff, I don’t think he’s cold calling the 3bet with Q9s or 97s, and there’s only one combination of JTs out there, so I think he very likely has either a lower set or a draw. If he has TT, he may not expect me to just shove with a bigger hand, in which case he may call. I don’t want to just call, because so many turns will be tough for me to play, I don’t think a smaller raise will induce him to shove a combo draw, and honestly getting him to fold a hand like Ks Qs or As Qs is not such a bad outcome for me.

He tanked for a really long time before folding. I think if it weren’t so early in such a major tournament he probably would have called.

Not long after that, I played two significant pots against the player on my left. The first was a small one but set up the second a bit:

PokerStars – $5000+$200|50/100 Ante 10 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 230.54 BB (VPIP: 16.90, PFR: 8.45, 3Bet Preflop: 2.94, Hands: 71)
MP+1: 170.58 BB (VPIP: 13.16, PFR: 6.58, 3Bet Preflop: 2.86, Hands: 76)
MP+2: 188.28 BB (VPIP: 30.26, PFR: 17.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 76)
Hero (CO): 243.53 BB
BTN: 180.28 BB (VPIP: 24.00, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 5.71, Hands: 76)
SB: 222.74 BB (VPIP: 23.38, PFR: 5.19, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 77)
BB: 194.5 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
UTG: 269.89 BB (VPIP: 21.33, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 75)
UTG+1: 163.1 BB (VPIP: 21.34, PFR: 18.71, 3Bet Preflop: 10.49, Hands: 318)

9 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.4 BB) Hero has Kc Qd
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, BTN calls 2 BB, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (7.4 BB, 3 players) Kd 2d 8c
BB checks, Hero bets 3.7 BB, BTN calls 3.7 BB, fold

Turn : (14.8 BB, 2 players) 4h
Hero bets 9.36 BB, BTN calls 9.36 BB

River : (33.52 BB, 2 players) 8d
Hero checks, BTN bets 24 BB, fold

BTN wins 33.52 BB

Then he got me good with:

PokerStars – $5000+$200|125/250 Ante 30 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP: 62.36 BB (VPIP: 22.09, PFR: 14.11, 3Bet Preflop: 2.74, Hands: 165)
MP+1: 62.81 BB (VPIP: 18.34, PFR: 9.47, 3Bet Preflop: 2.47, Hands: 170)
MP+2: 84.74 BB (VPIP: 27.98, PFR: 16.07, 3Bet Preflop: 5.06, Hands: 170)
Hero (CO): 93.22 BB
BTN: 139.29 BB (VPIP: 31.36, PFR: 18.93, 3Bet Preflop: 7.23, Hands: 170)
SB: 57.36 BB (VPIP: 23.53, PFR: 7.65, 3Bet Preflop: 1.15, Hands: 171)
BB: 53.99 BB (VPIP: 15.38, PFR: 6.73, 3Bet Preflop: 1.89, Hands: 104)
UTG: 115.56 BB (VPIP: 18.93, PFR: 10.65, 3Bet Preflop: 7.50, Hands: 169)
UTG+1: 76.04 BB (VPIP: 20.10, PFR: 17.08, 3Bet Preflop: 8.84, Hands: 412)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has Kc 9h
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, BTN calls 2 BB, SB calls 1.5 BB, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (9.08 BB, 4 players) 5c 3s Ks
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets 4.54 BB, BTN calls 4.54 BB, fold, fold

Turn : (18.16 BB, 2 players) 7c
Hero bets 9.11 BB, BTN calls 9.11 BB

River : (36.38 BB, 2 players) Kh
Hero checks, BTN bets 28 BB, Hero calls 28 BB

BTN shows Kd Js (Three of a Kind, Kings) (Pre 73%, Flop 86%, Turn 93%)
Hero mucks Kc 9h (Three of a Kind, Kings) (Pre 27%, Flop 14%, Turn 7%)
BTN wins 92.38 BB

That left me on a short stack, which is where I lingered for the next few hours. I didn’t get a lot of big hands or good shoving opportunities, but I was fortunate to win the first three times that I was all-in and called.

The two times that I did pick up big hands were at inconvenient times, with an awkward stack and a raise from an UTG player in front of me. When I had KK, the raiser called a small 3-bet and check-folded a rag flop. I felt like it was very obvious I had a huge hand, but I didn’t see any value in checking. The second time I had AK and the raiser called a small 3-bet and check-shoved a rag flop.

The hand I ultimately stacked off with warrants some discussion. Villain was not overly aggressive in general, but this wasn’t the first time he’d opened when I was in the BB, and many players will correctly open lighter with a short stack in the blind:

PokerStars – $5000+$200|400/800 Ante 100 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

MP+2: 49.8 BB (VPIP: 12.86, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 70)
CO: 25.35 BB (VPIP: 24.40, PFR: 21.84, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 211)
BTN: 84.78 BB (VPIP: 12.16, PFR: 10.81, 3Bet Preflop: 5.71, Hands: 74)
SB: 50.58 BB (VPIP: 40.00, PFR: 31.67, 3Bet Preflop: 11.54, Hands: 60)
Hero (BB): 14.63 BB
UTG: 25.1 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 10.91, 3Bet Preflop: 4.60, Hands: 165)
UTG+1: 220.18 BB (VPIP: 20.55, PFR: 10.96, 3Bet Preflop: 6.98, Hands: 74)
MP: 28.41 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 9.31, 3Bet Preflop: 4.03, Hands: 250)
MP+1: 112.6 BB (VPIP: 21.11, PFR: 17.53, 3Bet Preflop: 10.53, Hands: 200)

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has 5h Ah
UTG raises to 2.19 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls 1.69 BB, Hero calls 1.19 BB

Flop : (7.69 BB, 3 players) 5d 9h 7c
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG bets 3.09 BB, fold, Hero raises to 12.32 BB and is all-in, UTG calls 9.22 BB

Turn : (32.32 BB, 2 players) Kd

River : (32.32 BB, 2 players) 4c

Hero shows 5h Ah (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 34%, Flop 25%, Turn 11%)
UTG shows Qs Qd (One Pair, Queens) (Pre 66%, Flop 75%, Turn 89%)
UTG wins 32.32 BB

Against a calling range of {77+,76s,87s,98s,T9s}, I have 21.5% equity in a 32BB pot. When he folds, I win 11BB. If I did the algebra correctly, I need him to fold about 60% of the time.

That calling range is 3.5% of the deck, so I need him to show up with 9% when he bets flop. In a heads up pot, I’m sure he would. I don’t know how much the SB’s call will deter UTG from continuation betting with air, but it may well be enough to make shoving a bad idea.

This was from the $215 10-minute levels NLHE 6-max WCOOP event. Villain is Philipp “philbort” Gruissem. As many of you know I’m pretty stubborn about folding my BB to small pre-flop raises and also folding to smallish barrels once I get any piece of the board. When I see the flop with such a wide range, even a gutshot is in the top 2/3 of range, and then I turn a pair…. I still think it’s possible Villain has air, but I don’t know how likely it is that he’ll fire the river with that, so I chose instead to make what I’m sure was a very confusing shove for him. He tanked all the way down literally to the last second before calling with a hand that I doubt he was going to bet on the river. Although maybe he was, to be honest it is still very likely to be good, and a player as good as Philbort should be able to recognize and act on that.

PokerStars – $200+$15|500/1000 Ante 125 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

UTG: 59.04 BB
MP: 35.77 BB
CO: 27.02 BB
BTN: 29.05 BB
SB: 46.6 BB
Hero (BB): 83.28 BB

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Ts 9c
fold, MP raises to 2.25 BB, fold, fold, fold, Hero calls 1.25 BB

Flop : (5.75 BB, 2 players) Ks 5c Jc
Hero checks, MP bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

Turn : (11.75 BB, 2 players) 9d
Hero checks, MP bets 6 BB, Hero calls 6 BB

River : (23.75 BB, 2 players) 9h
Hero bets 71.91 BB and is all-in, MP calls 24.4 BB and is all-in

Hero shows Ts 9c (Three of a Kind, Nines) (Pre 34%, Flop 18%, Turn 11%)
MP shows Kh Qh (Two Pair, Kings and Nines) (Pre 66%, Flop 82%, Turn 89%)
Hero wins 72.54 BB

PokerStars – $200+$15|60/120 Ante 15 NL – Holdem – 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 17.19 BB
SB: 25.44 BB
BB: 69.54 BB
UTG: 143.37 BB
UTG+1: 68.83 BB
Hero (MP): 170.98 BB
MP+1: 67.21 BB
MP+2: 81.08 BB
CO: 120.99 BB

9 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.63 BB) Hero has Kh Ac
fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, MP+2 calls 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (7.63 BB, 3 players) Kc 7h 7c
BB checks, Hero bets 3.81 BB, fold, BB raises to 9.58 BB, Hero calls 5.78 BB

Turn : (26.79 BB, 2 players) 6c
BB bets 12 BB, Hero calls 12 BB

River : (50.79 BB, 2 players) Qs
BB bets 15.63 BB, Hero raises to 147.27 BB and is all-in, fold

Hero wins 82.04 BB

I had Villain covered by a lot, so my shove was actually for about 55 BB total, or 40 BB more to him.

PokerStars – $300+$20|600/1200 Ante 150 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BTN: 127.59 BB (VPIP: 26.58, PFR: 20.09, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 228)
SB: 66.01 BB (VPIP: 23.23, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 8.51, Hands: 100)
BB: 107.86 BB (VPIP: 36.81, PFR: 26.38, 3Bet Preflop: 27.40, Hands: 166)
UTG: 58.67 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 14.62, 3Bet Preflop: 11.54, Hands: 133)
Hero (MP): 105.67 BB
CO: 28.34 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 6)

6 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.25 BB) Hero has Ts As
fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (5.25 BB, 2 players) Jc 8h 5d
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn : (5.25 BB, 2 players) 2c
BB bets 10 BB, Hero calls 10 BB

River : (25.25 BB, 2 players) 5s
BB bets 50 BB, Hero calls 50 BB

BB shows Qc Ac (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 71%, Flop 86%, Turn 95%)
Hero mucks Ts As (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 29%, Flop 14%, Turn 5%)
BB wins 125.25 BB

This was a big pot. The amount that I lost was about the average stack at the time. Honestly, even if this is in his range, I still like my call. I think he just never has a value hand, and there are enough weaker draws that missed for me to come out ahead even if I lose or chop occasionally.

Also, even if I do occasionally call with worse, Villain’s bet is really bad, for basically the same reason that jamming 60BBs with AJo vs a 3BB button open is bad. His equity is very good vs my flop check back range but not good against my range for calling such a big turn bet.

Nevertheless, this was my 10th cash of the WCOOP, out of 25 tournaments played, so I feel good about that.

PokerStars – $200+$15|50/100 Ante 10 NL (4 max) – Holdem – 4 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 121.31 BB (VPIP: 44.32, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 14.29, Hands: 88)
Hero (CO): 78.18 BB
BTN: 146.22 BB (VPIP: 41.33, PFR: 28.19, 3Bet Preflop: 17.86, Hands: 156)
SB: 22.06 BB (VPIP: 46.36, PFR: 29.80, 3Bet Preflop: 1.75, Hands: 156)

4 players post ante of 0.1 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.9 BB) Hero has Qc Jd
Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop : (4.9 BB, 2 players) 5s 5h 2s
BB checks, Hero bets 2.45 BB, BB calls 2.45 BB

Turn : (9.8 BB, 2 players) 8d
BB checks, Hero checks

River : (9.8 BB, 2 players) Qs
BB checks, Hero bets 5.88 BB, BB raises to 19.88 BB, Hero calls 14 BB

BB shows Td As (One Pair, Fives) (Pre 58%, Flop 78%, Turn 86%)
Hero shows Qc Jd (Two Pair, Queens and Fives) (Pre 42%, Flop 22%, Turn 14%)
Hero wins 49.56 BB

To be honest I’m not sure whether the results corroborate my call or not. I’d expect him to bet anything without showdown value on the river, so for him to be bluffing, he has to be taking something that had some showdown value vs my turn check-back range and turning it into a bluff. On the other hand, I also think he’s unlikely to check a flush or trips (and certainly to check-raise trips). So I basically just decided that he’d be sufficiently weighted towards the bluffs. As it turns out, though, he had a pretty ideal bluffing hand, so it really doesn’t prove that he’ll be bluffing a lot in this spot.

Pre Flop: (t7500) Hero is SB with 8 T 2 A
UTG raises to t10000, 2 folds, Hero calls t7500, BB calls t5000

Flop: (t30000) K Q 2 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG bets t20000, Hero raises to t90000, BB folds, UTG raises to t148555 all in, Hero calls t44768 all in

Turn: (t299536) 9 (2 players – 2 are all in)

River: (t299536) 4 (2 players – 2 are all in)

As I was on his immediate left and he was trying to play every pot, we clashed a lot throughout the tournament. Early on he folded to my 3- and 4-bets or my c-bets, but eventually he shifted that dynamic by check-raising me twice on pretty dry flops. Both times I suspected that he had nothing but folded anyway as I was near the bottom of my range. If I’d gotten into a pissing contest with him, he may well have won. Instead I tried to keep 3-betting and barreling good ranges, and eventually it paid off.

This may seem like a very straight-forward hand, but I think when people know that they’re up against a very aggressive player who tries to win every pot, they’re tempted to get fancy when they turn the nuts and try to induce bluffs or something. I know I have that temptation, anyway. But that’s rarely the best way to play the nuts, and a line that polarizes your range can easily lead to stubborn call downs from these players.

One final points concerns the sizing. In The Mathematics of Poker, Chen and Ankenman prove that, “When the game is static and one player is clairvoyant, the optimal bet size is to make the pot grow by the same amount on each street, such that on the last street the entire stack has been bet” (p. 241). Although that doesn’t perfectly describe this situation, I think it’s a close enough extrapolation to make this half-pot, half-pot, half-pot sizing ideal:

PokerStars – $300+$20|50/100 Ante 10 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 3 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4: http://www.pokertracker.com

BB: 57.62 BB (VPIP: 39.64, PFR: 19.82, 3Bet Preflop: 6.12, Hands: 112)
BTN: 189.12 BB (VPIP: 44.03, PFR: 35.07, 3Bet Preflop: 16.98, Hands: 138)
Hero (SB): 53.26 BB

3 players post ante of 0.1 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.8 BB) Hero has Ac Jh
BTN raises to 2 BB, Hero raises to 6 BB, fold, BTN calls 4 BB

Flop : (13.3 BB, 2 players) 3c 7c Jc
Hero bets 6.65 BB, BTN calls 6.65 BB

Turn : (26.6 BB, 2 players) 6c
Hero bets 13.62 BB, BTN calls 13.62 BB

River : (53.84 BB, 2 players) 9d
Hero bets 26.89 BB and is all-in, BTN calls 26.89 BB

Hero shows Ac Jh (Flush, Ace High) (Pre 63%, Flop 87%, Turn 98%)
BTN shows 4c 5h (Flush, Jack High) (Pre 37%, Flop 13%, Turn 2%)
Hero wins 107.62 BB

I went on to defeat this player heads up and win my first table, only to flame out early on the second table for a min-cash.

So far I’ve played every WCOOP event, though that streak will end when I skip the NL Draw tournament tomorrow morning. I’ve cashed three of the six events I’ve played and two of the three that I registered on time. Those are streaks I’d like to keep alive!

Sowing these seeds of doubt and conveying the impression that you could have anything is an important part of making your opponents uncomfortable, and it’s most important vis-à-vis the player on your right. You don’t have to be combative, but resist the temptation to do the nice thing and tell them what you had. Even lying is less helpful for this purpose than saying nothing at all. Let the doubt eat away at them.

Here is the hand history discussed in the strategy segment:

1-2 NL table, 6-handed, effective stacks $300.

UTG calls, Hero calls UTG1 with Kc 6c, CO folds, BN raises to $12, everyone calls.

Flop ($55 in pot) KhJx5h. Everyone checks.

Turn ($55 in pot) KhJx5hTx. Checks to Hero, Hero bets $35, both blinds call.

River ($160 in pot) KhJx4hTxJh. SB checks, BB bets $25, Hero shoves $250.

In my eyes, the flop check-raise polarizes Villain’s range to the point where AK becomes a bluff-catcher. I didn’t expect to see worse Kx or pocket pairs raising. Villain won’t be ahead with these hands when called (he can beat some hands but is behind my range; Kx may be ahead if I fold and UTG3 calls, but it won’t be a huge favorite and that’s a somewhat rare outcome), and he’d be better served by using hands with less showdown value for his bluffs, as he has plenty of them.

The turn and river don’t do much to change this dynamic. Both players have busted flush draws in their ranges, some of which will contain the 9s, and neither is likely to have 99. Villain has more 9s combos, but this is because he also has more busted flush draw combos. Chris Clough explains this nicely:

“When he raises the flop, I’d expect it to be a 4 or a flush draw most of the time. And some of those flush draws will have the 9s in them. Given he was closing the action in the BB he could plausibly call with an extremely wide range here, perhaps anything from 9s6s upwards, which would give 6 possible combos that give him 9s full by the river. He could also have a 4 with a variety of other cards – possibly 2,3,4,5,6,7,Q,K,A, and maybe even one or two other suited combos – but I think even a conservative appraisal of his range must give him at least 20-30 combos with a 4. Plausible spade draws (excluding the 9s already accounted for) would be things like QJ, Q10, J10, 10-8, 8-7, 8-6, 7-6, 7-5, 7-4, 6-5, 5-3 – that’s 11 combos – although I’d say it’s highly doubtful he raises all of these on the flop.””

It’s worth thinking about my range for calling the check-raise as well. Especially with UTG3 sitting behind me, I can really only call with Kx+ and flush draws. So I’ve got suited connectors possibly as low as 65s at the bottom end of my range and KK or 44 at the top, I’m heavy on two-pair and flush draw hands, and I have relatively few combos of trips or better.

All of this means that later in the hand, I can’t bet AK expecting to be called by a lot of worse made hands. Villain shouldn’t have many in his range, and my range for getting to the river is not going to be heavy on hands that need to bluff, especially since many of my flush draws will be to the nuts and thus will have showdown value vs the hands Villain is most likely to fold.  There’s some value in betting to charge flush draws on the turn, but on the river the As in my hand eliminates one of the few worse hands I’d expect Villain to consider calling with after taking this line.

What Do Those Checks Mean?

The really critical question is whether Villain’s turn and river checks virtually eliminate full houses from his range, such that any check-raise would have to be weighted towards bluffs. Several commenters assume that this must be true simply because a turn and/or river bet is likely to be called by hands that may not value bet. There are two problems with this logic:

1. As Chris argued above, Villain has a LOT of 4x in his range for seeing the flop. Thus even if this is an odd line that he would take somewhat rarely, he has enough combos of 4x that they don’t become trivial.

2. If checking twice will lead Hero to bet-call exploitably often on the river, then Villain should check a 4 twice. I imagine that the optimal strategy is to bet most 4s on either the turn or river but check some of them, and I don’t think there is grounds to assume that Villain is betting his full houses exploitably often.

The Cost of Betting

Given the arguments above, there’s no sense in bet-folding this hand on the river. Most of the value in betting would come from snapping off a check-raise if Villain is overbluffing. If you’re confident that he will, then go ahead and bet-call.

I wasn’t so sure about that in game, so let’s see what it would take to make bet-calling correct if Villain check-raises a balanced range. As Gareth correctly points out, we can look at opening ourselves up to a check-raise as a cost of betting and then weigh it against the potential advantages.

Because it’s relatively difficult for me to have bluffs, I would want to bet a small amount on the river, let’s say $400. If Villain shoved $3600 total, I’d need to call $3200 to win $8200, so a balanced shoving range would include approximately 3 bluffs for every 8 value hands, and calling would be $0 EV for me.

Checking against that same range would see me win the pot 3 times out of 11, so betting against that range costs me $273 (3/11 of the $1000 pot) relative to checking. To make betting worthwhile, I’d have to more than make up that $273 from Villain’s calls. Thus, Villain’s calling-with-worse frequency (we’ll assume he never calls with better) needs to be x such $400x > $273. Solving for x, we see that Villain needs to call more than 68% of the time that he doesn’t fold. If Villain shoves 3 bluff combos and 8 value combos, he has to call with 24 combos of worse to make betting $400 better than checking.

Edit: Thanks to Nate Meyvis for pointing out an error here. Together we were able to work out the correct answer. Assume that Hero folds to a check-raise (if Villain is truly balanced, then EV of call = EV of fold). Then relative to checking, Hero loses $400 to 8 combos of full houses and $1400 to 3 combos of bluffs, which is $7400 Hero needs to make up in calls. $7400/$400 = 18.5, so Villain would have to call with at least 19 combos of lesser hands to justify betting.

For those doubting that Villain will show up with a full house very often on the river, the point is that he doesn’t need to. Halving these numbers such that Villain only checks 4 combos of 4x or 9x on the river still means that we have to find 12 nearly 10 combos of worse hands that check-raise the flop and check-call the river.

Results

I checked it back and Villain showed K5s, which is either an anomaly or an indication that I should value bet the river.

If it’s not an anomaly, then I think it’s a mistake. Some commenters argued that check-raising hands like this enables Villain to “set his own price” for getting to showdown if it leads to me not value betting river. Even if I am missing value with AK relative to betting three streets, Villain is putting in additional money against some of my weaker Kx that wouldn’t have bet more than one street against a check-call. Also by weakening his check-call range he makes my bluffs more profitable.

It’s worth noting that against a more straightforward opponent I would be less concerned about a river check-raise and thus more willing to value bet thinly.

Other Opinions

PokerSnowie takes my line 100% with this hand but does actually check-raise Villain’s hand 2%, so as an anomaly maybe it’s not so bad.

Chad, the Villain from this hand, posted it on Facebook where it garnered a few notable comments that I’ll reproduce here.

Christian Harder: ” Think you have to at least consider betting to protect your floats. Obvious caveat is what can he call you with. Ace high could talk himself into calling.” Christian later seemed to back off from this a bit when he realized I held the As.

Brian Hastings: “Think it’s a pretty easy check, not like we have many zero showdown value floats after raising UTG and bet calling flop 4 way…”