Posts Tagged ‘short-handed’

Sorry for the recent lack of posts; it’s been a busy week. I don’t have a lot to say about this one, it’s just a fun hand that I played today:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $6.00 BB (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($618)
UTG ($884.80)
Hero (MP) ($1112)
CO ($673.35)
Button ($935.05)
SB ($603)

Preflop: Hero is MP with A♠, Q♣
1 fold, Hero bets $21, 1 fold, Button calls $21, 2 folds

Flop: ($51) 8♥, 8♦, 6♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $36.30, Button calls $36.30

Turn: ($123.60) 6♥ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $108, Hero calls $108

River: ($339.60) 3♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $389, Hero calls $389

Total pot: $1117.60 | Rake: $3

Results:
Button had J♥, 9♥ (two pair, eights and sixes).
Hero had A♠, Q♣ (two pair, eights and sixes).
Outcome: Hero won $1114.60

One nice side benefit of teaching is that forces the teacher to crystallize his own knowledge and learn concepts more thoroughly in the process. In my recent Big Bluffs seminar I talked about how people will usually bet a flush draw on the flop if they have one, which means that if the flop checks around and the turn is a flush card it’s a good time to make a healthy stab at the pot. I’d made similar plays before, but the seminar forced me to articulate the reasoning more precisely and in a way that could be applied in new situations. Consequently, I found this spot to steal the pot in today’s Saturday $300 tournament on PokerStars:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 300/600 Blinds 60 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t18593)
UTG+1 (t57136)
MP1 (t20999)
MP2 (t33621)
MP3 (t39979)
CO (t23378)
Button (t20626)
Hero (SB) (t31712)
BB (t17235)

Hero’s M: 22.02

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3♣, A♣
3 folds, MP2 calls t600, MP3 calls t600, 2 folds, Hero calls t300, BB checks

Flop: (t2940) 8♠, 5♦, 9♦ (4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, MP2 checks, MP3 checks

Turn: (t2940) Q♦ (4 players)
Hero bets t2805, 3 folds

Total pot: t2940

Results:
Hero didn’t show 3♣, A♣.
Outcome: Hero won t2940  Read the complete post...

I’m blown away by the number of responses Monday’s What’s Your Play? post received. It produced some great discussion that was instructive even for me, so a big thanks to all of you who commented. I know I didn’t interact with your comments as much as I usually do, but truthfully you all were doing such a good job of asking and answering your own questions that I didn’t feel it was necessary. Really this sort of reader interaction is a blogger’s dream!

Hero has four real options here, all of which were thoroughly analyzed in the comments: check-raise all-in, bet small to induce a raise, bet 75-125% of pot, or open shove for 200% of pot. I’ll offer my thoughts on each here, but I strongly encourage you to go back and skim the comments if you haven’t, because there’s a lot of good material in there that I’m not going to address specifically.

Bet 75-125% of Pot- As a theoretical matter, I believe that when you have the nuts you should generally take a line that maximizes your chances of playing a large pot, even if this results in winning less from the bottom of your opponent’s range. It’s a fundamental principle of poker: big hand, big pot. For that reason, I don’t like this line. This is a much better card for Hero’s range than for Villain’s and not one on which he’s likely to bluff or bluff-catch aggressively. Even very strong hands like sets may just call a bet of this size, which is of course a disaster for us, so this is my least favorite option.  Read the complete post...

The next installment in the Thinking Poker Tournament Seminar series will be on Saturday, December 3rd, Noon-2 PM Eastern. The topic will be Playing Out of Position: Value Betting, Bluffing, and Getting to Showdown. Virtually all of the toughest spots in poker arise from playing out of position, and good players assume that they can get away with playing almost anything when they have position. Learn to punish them by giving them what they don’t expect: tough, creative opposition, even from out of position!

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

Participants will learn how to defend their blinds against late and early position raisers, how to deal with post-flop aggression, and how to pull-off the ever-vexing donk bet. In addition to the seminar itself, all participants receive a syllabus of recommended study materials to help prepare for the session and apply newly acquired skills in their future play.  Read the complete post...

Villain is a decent player on the tight side of TAG, 18/15 pre-flop with a 33% Fold to Flop Continuation Bet over a sample of about 200 hands. Don’t have much idea how he views Hero.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2.00 BB (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($266.50)
Hero (UTG) ($206.40)
MP ($80)
CO ($200)
Button ($482.95)
SB ($261.25)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 10♠, K♠
Hero bets $6, 1 fold, CO calls $6, 3 folds

Flop: ($15) Q♣, 8♠, 4♦ (2 players)
Hero bets $9.65, CO calls $9.65

Turn: ($34.30) J♥ (2 players)
Hero bets $24.45, CO calls $24.45

River: ($83.20) A♠ (2 players)

What’s your play and why? Leave your thoughts in a comment and I’ll post again Friday morning with results and my own opinion.

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...

This is from the PokerStars $150 6-max Sunday tournament. People are often surprised by calls that I make out of the big blind when I’m getting very good odds. I don’t know how helpful it is when I say things like, “The more you feel that you have a skill edge, the more you can get away with calling,” because everyone thinks he has a skill edge and besides that’s a hard thing to quantify. This is an extreme example, but the point is that you’ve got to be capable of getting pretty creative in terms of stealing pots from out of position. I’m not saying to attack every pot- far from it- but you can’t just call hoping to showdown your fair share of winning hands cheaply.
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 162 Tournament, 60/120 Blinds 15 Ante (6 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t10373)
UTG (t9236)
MP (t5939)
CO (t6108)
Button (t8074)
SB (t4615)

Hero’s M: 38.42

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6♦, 3♦
3 folds, Button bets t280, 1 fold, Hero calls t160

Flop: (t710) 5♠, 5♥, 10♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: (t710) 4♣ (2 players)
Hero bets t472, Button calls t472

River: (t1654) A♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t550, Hero raises to t2444, 1 fold

Total pot: t2754  Read the complete post...