Posts Tagged ‘Session Review’

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

BB ($819.50)
Hero (SB) ($1000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 6♥, J♣
Hero bets $9.60, BB calls $5.60

Flop: ($20.80) 2♠, 5♣, 5♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($20.80) K♦ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($20.80) A♠ (2 players)
BB bets $12, Hero calls $12

Total pot: $44.80 | Rake: $0.50

Results:
Hero had 6♥, J♣ (one pair, fives).
BB had 8♦, 10♥ (one pair, fives).
Outcome: Hero won $44.30

With my line, it looks a lot like I have either A-high trying to showdown cheaply or air that I declined to bluff. In either case, I’m likely to bet the river. Thus, it doesn’t really make that much sense for Villain to bet if he paired the Ace, and it makes even less sense for him to try to value bet a K. There’s also not much point in bluffing if he has Q-high, so my Jack starts looking pretty good.

Of course this all falls apart if Villain realizes how FOS his river bet will look and expects me to call with J-high

We had an interesting discussion in last week’s Extracting Value seminar about slowplaying on wet boards (i.e. when there are a fair number of draws possible). It’s overall not a great idea, but I do advocate doing it with often with top set. Good hand readers don’t expect you to slowplay on such boards, and consequently they won’t give you credit for a big hand on future streets. Thus, I like to have a few strong hands in my checking range, and top set is usually a good candidate. Even if an opponent makes a flush or straight on the turn, top set has a lot of outs, and you usually aren’t missing out on a flop bet since it’s hard for an opponent to have a second best hand.

This isn’t the best example of a wet flop, but it is a good example of an opponent refusing to give me credit because I checked the flop:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 150/300 Blinds 40 Ante (5 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB (t13725)
Hero (UTG) (t6371)
MP (t9263)
Button (t14823)
SB (t15087)

Hero’s M: 9.80

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10♣, 10♦
Hero bets t750, 3 folds, BB calls t450

Flop: (t1850) 10♥, 5♥, 2♠ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks  Read the complete post...

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

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

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

Hero’s M: 100.00

Preflop: Hero is Button with J♦, J♠

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

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

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

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

Total pot: t1698

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

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

Edit: Changed seminar date.

On Monday, I posted a hand from the British Columbia Poker Championship in which I flopped top two pair in a three-way pot but saw heavy action in front me. It solicited a lot of interesting thoughts and comments. I’ll start by telling you what actually happened, and then I’ll get into my thoughts.

There was one detail I changed from the actual hand, and that had to do with the profile of Villain 2. He was actually not quite as good as I made him out to be in my post, which I think makes the hand a lot closer. I ended up cold calling his flop raise. Villain 1 folded, but Villain 2 quickly shoved a 2h turn, and I folded. I’d be more comfortable making this fold against a better hand reader, but I still don’t regret it.

Only a few people suggested exactly this line, but a lot of the commenters picked up on several of the crucial facets of this hand, most importantly that continuing to put money into the pot after V2′s raise is going to look extremely strong.

Those who didn’t pick up on this generally seemed to read too much into my description of V1 as “slightly more LAG”. This is a dangerous mistake, because many players rely on small displays of loose-aggressive behavior causing opponents to assume their ranges are much wider than they actually are in large pots.  Read the complete post...

Q: You were talking about a hand you played on Day 1 of the recent BCPC . You didn’t specifically say the blinds and stack sizes, but I can estimate them from your write-up and my guess is that the blinds were 100/200 (no ante?) with effective stacks about 11,500 (with you having him covered at about 15k). It was a limped pot and you had A9o in the small blind and the villain was in the cutoff. Flop was Jc 9c 4h and the villain led for 450 into a pot of 1,000. You raised to 1,650, he re-raised to 6,100 and you shoved. Your logic was that “you were very sure he was on a draw” because “nothing else made sense”.

My questions are:

1. Why couldn’t villain have had J9s (3 combos), or 44, 99, or even JJ (between 3 and 9 combos)? While monster draws are clearly a big part of his range, if you include these other possibilities where you are drawing very slim or dead, I think it may become a fold.  Read the complete post...

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

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

As always, please let me know what you think!

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

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

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

A nice fall day in Kits

Such a great day! Where to begin? My day actually started around 9:30. Emily was sick and needed some things from the grocery store, so I biked over to the Whole Foods (I told you we’re in the yuppy district!) before leaving for the casino. It was a beautiful morning. The sun is slow to rise this time of year in Vancouver, so the day still had an early morning freshness to it. The sky was clear but the ground wet from the previous day’s rain, so everything sparkled. Our place is on top of a hill, so I could see down past the red and gold trees to downtown and to the mountains beyond.

The lovely ride and crisp air put me in a good mood, and after dropping off the groceries, I walked off smiling to the bus stop. It’s so nice being able to play a live poker tournament but still sleep in your own home and just take public transportation to and from work like any other commuter. I could see the bus approaching from a block away and so sprinted for it, very nearly falling on my face in the process. I really thought it was a sure thing that I was going down face-first, don’t know how I managed to keep my feet. I made it, though, and as I boarded the bus I thought, “Hope that’s the only time I run bad all day.”  Read the complete post...