Posts Tagged ‘Poker Strategy’

Q: I have seen a french poker video in which 2 players discuss about a hand played by one of these player on a french online tournament (6max, buy in 100€).

This is the hand :
Blinds 250/500 ante 60.
Hero is the CO with AcTs.
utg folds.
utg +1 : folds.
CO (21 000):raises to 1000.
btn : folds.
SB: (53 000) : calls.
BB (34 000): calls.

pot: 3 180.

flop : QsJh4s

SB: bets 1400
BB: calls
CO : ?

All the debate is here. All we know about the SB and the BB is that they are categorized as fishs.
One commentator think the call can be EV+ and the other is not agree with that.
The two arguments for the call are :
1. SB shows some strength with his donk bet, the board hit his hand very often, so if the turn is a king (but not the spade one) the implied odds are huge and hero think he can stack off SB.
2. hero thinks that an ace on the turn can be a good out for him, because on a multiway pot, players play more tight and with the position hero can know very quickly if his ace is good.  Read the complete post...

I just published a review of Bennett Onika’s “Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory”. Here’s the short version:

This is why Onika’s lack of poker expertise is such a problem: it’s the only thing he’s really bringing to the table. You’d probably be better off learning memorization tricks from one of the original experts and then using your own judgment about how to apply them at the poker table. At least you wouldn’t have someone consistently pointing you in the wrong direction. I could go on and on about Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory‘s misguided poker advice, but frankly it got exhausting keeping track of the book’s many errors, and I gave up trying. Guess I need to improve my memory.

Have you read it? What did you think? I’m particularly curious to hear from anyone who’s actually done all the work the author recommends to train your memory, and how that worked for you.

Edit: Inserted link to the full review. Sorry for the oversight. It’s at http://www.thinkingpoker.net/poker-book-reviews/book-review-unleash-your-hidden-poker-memory/

This week’s “What’s Your Play?” is a little different, in that it’s the second in a series of three posts about the same hand. Rather than asking you to discuss a plan for the entire hand, I’m going to give you the action through the turn and then ask for your thoughts. Of course you may still choose to speak broadly about how possible future action influences your turn decision, but you won’t need to consider every possible river scenario, because next week we’ll find out what exactly happens and discuss that particular situation in-depth. Make sense? Here we go!

It’s early on Day 5 of the WSOP main event. We’re in the shallow money, with 574 players remaining out of 7319, and Hero’s table draw is a great one for such a late day in the tournament, featuring several pretty weak amateurs. Hero (me, in my late twenties with dark sunglasses and no logos on my clothing) begins the hand with a slightly below average stack of 500K. Blinds are at 4K/8K/1K.

One of the weak players, a guy about my age sitting on a stack of about 450K, raises to 20K in first position. I call with 2c 2h in middle position, and a middle-aged player new to the table and sitting on 600K calls in the big blind. The three of us see a 7s 4s 2d flop, and both of my opponents check relatively quickly.  Read the complete post...

Thanks to everyone who commented on Part One of this street-by-street “What’s Your Play?” series. Even if you didn’t, please check out the results of the flop action and feel free to chime in with your opinion on how to play the turn.

To my surprise, responses to this week’s hand were more unanimous than they’ve ever been, and you all wanted to do something other than what I did. I must say, though, that I’m not convinced. I chose to check, and I still believe that’s the best play.

What’s the Value Target?

JeanNoel asks the right question when he says, “What kind of hands will lose a big pot against a set ? I think that if hero doesn’t improve on the river, he will be happy to be called by an overpair, 2 pairs or top pair top kicker. It doesn’t reprent a lot of hands since the board is 7s 4s 2d.”

This is the crux of the problem: both the board and the action so far make it unlikely that anyone has the sort of hand we’d really like him to have, which is two-pair or one strong pair. UTG’s check almost certainly represents weakness – you just don’t see such players randomly checking vulnerable made hands after raising pre-flop, especially not in multi-way pots. In all likelihood he has unpaired overcards, and probably not a good draw, which I’d also expect him to bet. If we were heads up with UTG, I hope that a lot more people would advocate checking.  Read the complete post...

Q: I recently read Andrew Seidman’s response to a question about the key to become a winning poker player. His statement was simple and direct: “Don’t pay off.”

This advice hit me right in the face, given how frequently I look up a big river bet even when I’m pretty sure I’m beat. (What can I say? I’m naturally a curious person, and I’ve always been willing to pay to satisfy my curiosity. But it does get expensive in poker.) I still call on the river when I think there’s a reasonable chance my opponent is bluffing, but I’m very much trying to incorporate BalugaWhale’s advice into my game.

I’m wondering how important you think his advice is to becoming a winning player and how pervasive the instinct is for people to call. In addition to calculating the odds that villain is bluffing, do you use any techniques to discipline yourself against paying off?

A: You should always be suspicious of anything purporting to be “the key to become a winning poker player”. Virtually anyone’s play could be improved in many different places, any of which will help to make her more profitable (or less unprofitable).  Read the complete post...

This week’s What’s Your Play? is a little different, in that it’s the first in a series of three posts about the same hand. Rather than asking you to discuss a plan for the entire hand, I’m going to start the discussion with a flop decision. Of course you may still choose to speak broadly about how possible future action influences your flop decision, but you won’t need to consider every possible turn scenario, because next week we’ll find out what exactly happens on the turn and discuss that particular situation in-depth. Make sense? Here we go!

It’s early on Day 5 of the WSOP main event. We’re in the shallow money, with 574 players remaining out of 7319, and Hero’s table draw is a great one for such a late day in the tournament, featuring several pretty weak amateurs. Hero (me, in my late twenties with dark sunglasses and no logos on my clothing) begins the hand with a slightly below average stack of 500K. Blinds are at 4K/8K/1K.

One of the weak players, a guy about my age sitting on a stack of about 450K, raises to 20K in first position. I call with 2c 2h in middle position, and a middle-aged player new to the table and sitting on 600K calls in the big blind. The three of us see a 7s 4s 2d flop, and both of my opponents check relatively quickly. What’s your play and why?  Read the complete post...

Thanks to everyone who commented on What’s Your Plan? Boated Up in a Blind Battle. The most recent comment is also the one that most closely resembles my own opinions, so I’m going to start with what Rant2112 said:

“Most of Villain’s range on the turn consists of bluff catchers and bluffs. We don’t need to worry about optimizing against his value hands anyway because the chips will get in regardless.
Betting the turn, even small IMO, is going to fold out a lot of his bluffs.

Villain’s bluff catchers aren’t super strong. He’s not going to be comfortable paying off two decent-sized bets.

I think checking the turn is best so Villain bluffs more often. He’s going to bluff almost 100% of the time when he has a bluffing hand – he called the flop for a reason.

Against his bluff catchers we can bomb the river and hope to get looked up.

We should also bomb the river when the turn goes check, bet, call because Villain isn’t likely enough to bluff the river. We should just hope he picks up something he’s willing to call with.”  Read the complete post...

Q: Hero and Villian are chip leaders at the table, everyone else is in the 5-15bb range. Both are most active players at the table, Villian continuation bets approximately 65-70% of flops.

$400 +40 tournament
Final Table. 6 remaining
Blinds 1,200-2,400 w/300ante
Villian (57kstack) raises utg to 8k
Folds to Hero in sb
Hero has AKo and 52k stack.

What do you do?
Hero jams
Villian folds.

I thought for about a minute and jammed on the villian, I’m left wondering if there was a better way to extract more value such as flatting and check-shipping over his flop bet.
Another option would be raising to 20-22k and if called ship any flop.

A: I actually received this question before I published last week’s What’s Your Play?, but it seems an appropriate follow-up. In this case your hand is much too good to fold, even against the only player who could bust him at the final table. Given that we aren’t going to fold, though, we do have a strong interest in pursuing a low-risk line. It may sound counter-intuitive, but that means going all-in. Even if the other lines you suggest had a slightly higher cEV, which I doubt is the case, they increase your risk of elimination, which with 6 remaining at the final table is a $EV disaster.  Read the complete post...