Polished Poker Vol. I Study Group

Figaroo2 said:

I'm 3Betting with many of these hands because unless they are rocks we know that our opponent’s range is often weak and especially so if they rarely 4bet (nuts only) . I don't like calling because we don’t have the implied odds that we do when the raise comes from EP or MP. Also why play without the initiative out of position?. It was cold calling from the blinds that was hurting my redline. I want to be more polarised from in position BUT & CO

Click to expand...

i watched a coaching video on this exact topic. the coach said many of his students made the "mistake" of 3betting just because "villain is opening really wide". it's not how wide villain is opening, but how wide he is calling 3bets that matters. say villain 3x on the button you have ATs in the big blind, you're way ahead of his opening range so it should be a really profitable flat so long as you are reasonably competent postflop. but if you 3bet villain is usually only calling with dominated hands (fish are the exception). so why bloat the pot OOP when you're priced in to call at a discount with a hand that crushes your opponent's range?

also once you move hands like ATs from your flatting range to your 3bet range it means there are less hands you can profitably 3bet bluff with without being exploitable to light 4bets. so hands like K9s, T8s that might have been profitable light 3bets you'll end up having to fold. the coach mentioned that you "want to be flatting with the widest range of hands that you can profitably flat with" and 3betting "the top of your folding range" and "hands which are too good to flat"

as you move up you'll definitely have to learn to do this so you might as well start now, even if it won't immediately be more +EV. 3betting linear from the BB just isn't the best long term solution. you might just need to gain some confidence playing out of position

Figaroo2 said:

We are turning our hand into a bluff here...I don't agree that we can't get better to fold here, if he originally paired the T or has JJ with a heart its a tough call. Its always tough calling a 3rd barrel on a monotone flop... But I do agree worse isn't calling that sizing, but hes fishy and loose you never know, I've been looked up with 77 in spots like this

Click to expand...

i see your reasoning but i don't like it because 1) we're trying to bluff into a fish who is likely a calling station and 2) we actually have some showdown value so i'd prefer to bluff hands that can't possibly expect to win

Figaroo2 said:

I don't like calling because we don’t have the implied odds that we do when the raise comes from EP or MP.

Click to expand...

i assume you're talking about medium pocket pairs? the small ones i would just fold, since they play terribly in both single raised and 3bet pots. a hand like 88 whilst it doesn't have much implied odds it plays reasonably well postflop even when it doesn't hit a set, and again it plays terribly when you bloat the pot by 3betting

mottotom27 said:

i see your reasoning but i don't like it because 1) we're trying to bluff into a fish who is likely a calling station and 2) we actually have some showdown value so I'd prefer to bluff hands that can't possibly expect to win

Click to expand...

The reason I posted this hand was because I wasn't sure about the 3rd barrel.
I'm still undecided.... John often talks about controlling the hand against fish by betting the sizing you want....maybe its just the river sizing that is wrong. Perhaps half pot and fold to a shove so if we do get looked up by better we lose less and half pot might encourage worse to call.
In my mind as I played this hand it was a bluff.

mottotom27 said:

i assume you're talking about medium pocket pairs? the small ones i would just fold, since they play terribly in both single raised and 3bet pots. a hand like 88 whilst it doesn't have much implied odds it plays reasonably well postflop even when it doesn't hit a set, and again it plays terribly when you bloat the pot by 3betting

Click to expand...

I'm only 3 betting players who open too much, fold to 3 bets too much and rarely 4 bet.
Im nearly always flatting my mid pairs 55-88 as I don't want to have to fold them to a 4 bet.
Hands like AT A9 don't flop well I still prefer to 3 bet those hands.

Figaroo2 said:

The reason I posted this hand was because I wasn't sure about the 3rd barrel.
I'm still undecided.... John often talks about controlling the hand against fish by betting the sizing you want....maybe its just the river sizing that is wrong. Perhaps half pot and fold to a shove so if we do get looked up by better we lose less and half pot might encourage worse to call.
In my mind as I played this hand it was a bluff.

Click to expand...

tbh i'm not certain about this one either. but yea if you're going to bet anything on the river then i'd bet smaller

Figaroo2 said:

I'm only 3 betting players who open too much, fold to 3 bets too much and rarely 4 bet.
Im nearly always flatting my mid pairs 55-88 as I don't want to have to fold them to a 4 bet.
Hands like AT A9 don't flop well I still prefer to 3 bet those hands.

Click to expand...

A9s is somewhat borderline for some people but ATs is i think a clearcut flat. vs a 40% opening range it has 60% equity, we dominate so much weaker stuff and we can flop a lot of equity including the nut flush draw 11% of the time. it's just way too strong of a hand vs a button opening range to want to turn it into a 3bet bluff.

also i bet you 3bet KJ too but this again is not good we dominate a lot of weaker kings when we just flat, we want to keep his range as wide as possible by flatting.

final point is you should be flatting the higher suited connectors typically like T9s and JTs since they flop much equity you can make value hands, semibluff etc. so it would be a shame to waste their potential by 3betting

just because you have been losing in the past with these strategies doesn't mean you should give up. ultimately you should be confident enough to have a reasonably wide and profitable flatting range from the big blind, but you need more experience in these blind spots postflop and it's something i'm working on too.

QQ awkard hand

poker stars, $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 8 Players

SB: $25 (100 bb)
BB: $25.60 (102.4 bb)
UTG+2: $25.92 (103.7 bb)
MP1: $19.59 (78.4 bb)
MP2: $38.55 (154.2 bb)
MP3: $26.74 (107 bb)
Hero (CO): $26.48 (105.9 bb)
BTN: $30.03 (120.1 bb) 16/10/15%agg in 123 hands (preflopping reg?)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q Q
4 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, BTN raises to $2.25, (3 bet from the button 15% This guy has weird stats, 18% wtsd, no fold to 4 bet, a couple of 5 bets..seems like one of Johns preflopping only reg who doesn't like to play post flop, I haven't come across that many)
2 folds, Hero calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.85) 5 6 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, (intending to CR) BTN bets $3, Hero raises to $6.50, BTN calls $3.50

Turn: ($17.85) 3 (2 players)
I was expecting him to fold or shove so I was a little surprised by the call, I don't want to see an overcard on the river...
Hero bets $17.73 and is all-in, BTN folds
I think this is too big though and gives him an easy fold....bet sizing here anyone??

Results: $17.85 pot ($0.80 rake)
Final Board: 5 6 3 3
Hero mucked Q Q and won $17.05 ($8.30 net)
BTN mucked and lost (-$8.75 net)

Figaroo2 said:

Poker Stars, $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 8 Players

SB: $25 (100 bb)
BB: $25.60 (102.4 bb)
UTG+2: $25.92 (103.7 bb)
MP1: $19.59 (78.4 bb)
MP2: $38.55 (154.2 bb)
MP3: $26.74 (107 bb)
Hero (CO): $26.48 (105.9 bb)
BTN: $30.03 (120.1 bb) 16/10/15%agg in 123 hands (preflopping reg?)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q

Q

4 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, BTN raises to $2.25, (3 bet from the button 15% This guy has weird stats, 18% wtsd, no fold to 4 bet, a couple of 5 bets..seems like one of Johns preflopping only reg who doesn't like to play post flop, I haven't come across that many)
2 folds, Hero calls $1.50

Flop: ($4.85) 5

6

3

(2 players)
Hero checks, (intending to CR) BTN bets $3, Hero raises to $6.50, BTN calls $3.50

Turn: ($17.85) 3

(2 players)
I was expecting him to fold or shove so I was a little surprised by the call, I don't want to see an overcard on the river...
Hero bets $17.73 and is all-in, BTN folds
I think this is too big though and gives him an easy fold....bet sizing here anyone??

Results: $17.85 pot ($0.80 rake)
Final Board: 5

6

3

3

Hero mucked Q

Q

and won $17.05 ($8.30 net)
BTN mucked and lost (-$8.75 net)

Click to expand...

tbh if i had AA no spade in villain's shoes i would have seriously have considered folding by the turn given how strong your line looks. seems like you're overplaying your hand a bit

mottotom27 said:

tbh if i had AA no spade in villain's shoes i would have seriously have considered folding by the turn given how strong your line looks. seems like you're overplaying your hand a bit

Click to expand...

You would assume Hero flopped a flush, right ?

RickAversion said:

You would assume Hero flopped a flush, right ?

Click to expand...

pretty much, doesn't really make sense for hero to raise flop and shove turn a pot size with a worse overpair. i don't like the idea of turning QQ into a bluff here, i think there are worse hands to do this with

mottotom27 said:

tbh if i had AA no spade in villain's shoes i would have seriously have considered folding by the turn given how strong your line looks. seems like you're overplaying your hand a bit

Click to expand...

I don't know about over playing ,,more like over-protecting and losing value.
If he has a 14% button 3bet range then more often than not i'm well in front here with my QQ. Only a very small part of that range KK AA and Ax suited beats me and probably shoves over my flop CR.
Perhaps the check raise could have been a bit larger, if I had made it around $8-9 then I'd have $14 to 15 behind shoving into a pot of $21-22 and the turn shove wouldn't look sooo big and he would have more invested and perhaps more likely to call on the turn if he has say AK with one of them a spade. I still think betting big on the turn is key in this hand as if he has a draw to the nut flush with 2 overs he might call it off. Once the river is dealt his decision is easy.

mottotom27 said:

pretty much, doesn't really make sense for hero to raise flop and shove turn a pot size with a worse overpair. i don't like the idea of turning QQ into a bluff here, i think there are worse hands to do this with

Click to expand...

This is a value shove!! not a bluff!!!?
There is a whole host of worse hands that might call here including any overpair with a spade, or Ace of spades + x ,,,as above I think its just the sizing of flop and asa result the turn that's wrong.

you stress the importance of his 14% button 3bet stat. generally people with 100 or so hands have only had about 7 opportunities to 3bet from the button, implying he's 3bet 1 out of 7 hands he's had a chance to. this is pretty meaningless so be careful about putting him on a "14% 3bet range", sample size is key! again 18% WTSD doesn't mean much over 100 hand samples. only his VPIP and PFR are even close to being accurate so use these stats instead to make assumptions about villain's likely range (compare to population tendencies of regs with similar stats).

i think the check raise itself isn't awful, but the small checkraise followed by a pot sized turn shove looks strong and polarised. you're taking a polarising line with a depolarised hand. competent villains are gonna look at your sizing and put you on trips+ or (semi)bluffs. but since the only semibluffs that make sense to be in your range on a monotone board are basically AK and AQ with the ace of spades, they should realise that hands like TT, JJ and even a hand as strong as AA (without a spade) aren't in that great shape vs your range. so i'm actually not confident that a reg is gonna stack off on the turn with much worse, and might even fold better. if i had TT/JJ/AK on the turn with or without a spade, i'd be folding to a shove. if i had AA without a spade i'd be in an uncomfortable spot, probably have to pay it off but your turn potsized shove is a bit offputting.

also if you checkraise and he shoves, is your plan to pay it off? my guess is you might not be in great shape then either. if he has JJ or TT then i don't expect him to 3bet the flop so his shoving range is gonna have a lot of AA or KK with a spade, flushes, some Ax with the ace of spades and you're not doing great vs that range.

but if you are going to checkraise this flop then make it enough so that on the turn you can comfortably shove. you gotta get into the habit of picturing the pot size and SPR on each street. a slightly bigger check raise to $8 means you can shove $15 into $21 on the turn which is a lot more comfortable.

Tilting...first hand leads to 2nd hand a few minutes later

Party, $4.55 Buy-in (5/10 blinds, 30 ante) No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 8 Players

SB: 3,720 (372 bb)
BB: 3,000 (300 bb)
UTG+2: 3,285 (328.5 bb)
MP1: 2,580 (258 bb)
Hero (MP2): 3,645 (364.5 bb)
MP3: 2,120 (212 bb)
CO: 6,127 (612.7 bb)
BTN: 2,610 (261 bb)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with A A
UTG+2 calls 10, MP1 folds, Hero raises to 30, 4 folds, BB raises to 200, UTG+2 calls 190, Hero raises to 760, BB calls 560, UTG+2 calls 560

Flop: (2,525) Q K 3 (3 players)
BB bets 2,210 and is all-in, UTG+2 calls 2,210, Hero tank folds not even waiting to see what i do....one of them has it more often than not right.... set of QQ or KK

Turn: (6,945) 2 (2 players, 1 is all-in)
River: (6,945) 7 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: 6,945 pot
Final Board: Q K 3 2 7
BB showed K J and won 6,945 (3,945 net)
UTG+2 showed T J and lost (-3,000 net)
Hero mucked A A and lost (-790 net)

Ok very unhappy, it not a freeroll ffsake.
BB thereafter was just shoving every hand either pre or on flop with anything so I called it off AT v 44 pre and he hits runner runner straight after an ace on the flop....steaming

Party, $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 7 Players

SB: $43.59 (174.4 bb)
BB: $55.15 (220.6 bb) 30/9/43 in 50 hands
MP1: $25 (100 bb)
MP2: $25.81 (103.2 bb)
MP3: $8.84 (35.4 bb)
CO: $5.54 (22.2 bb)
Hero (BTN): $25.64 (102.6 bb)

Preflop: Hero is BTN with K J
MP1 folds, MP2 raises to $0.50, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.50, SB calls $0.40, BB calls $0.25

Flop: ($2) K 9 2 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, MP2 checks, Hero bets $0.95, SB calls $0.95, BB calls $0.95, MP2 folds

Turn: ($4.85) J (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $3.45, SB calls $3.45, BB raises to $18.41, Hero raises to $24.19 and is all-in, SB folds, BB calls $5.78

River: ($56.68) 7 (2 players, 1 is all-in)

Results: $56.68 pot ($2.83 rake)
Final Board: K 9 2 J 7
SB mucked and lost (-$4.90 net)
BB showed T Q and won $53.85 ($28.21 net)
Hero mucked K J and lost (-$25.64 net)

I didn't even consider the possibility of a straight here, it just stinks of a semi bluff shove, but sets likely as well. I wasn't getting pushed off the hand by another loose fish
This is my worst hand for weeks. All in 1st 10 mins of starting. I willhave to be careful this evening. I think Im also starting to suffer from a bit of entitlement tilt, I'm working really hard on my game and not seeing the results I want

don't tilt first hand i mean it's a $5 party tournament i'm expecting a lot of loose crazy action at the start when all the fish are still in, i think their ranges are wider than sets and KQ on this board texture, we're pot committed here getting 3:1 (only need to win 25% to break even) although we will be behind sometimes, but we do have backdoor equity to the nuts.

second hand your flop bet size is too weak, you have the best hand most of the time so bet bigger for value and to charge the draws. you actually kinda priced the fish in with his gutshot.

it's a fish 30/9 this player type doesn't semibluff turns frequently. passive fish are highly imbalanced to value hands when they raise turns so i immediately give villain 2pair + when he raises.

so he can have K9s, 22, 99, KJ, QT and J9s, so we have surprisingly only around 20% equity vs that range. i guess if we add in J9o it becomes closer, but his massive raise size makes me discount some of the weaker two pair combos.

That AA fold in the tourney is really really bad. If someone had QQ or especially KK they would have shoved over your 4 bet. You never ever fold AA after putting 1/4 of your stack in pre flop unless you are on the bubble or some other crazy pay out by improving finishing position.

You could also have made a bigger 4 bet in my opinion.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

Thinker_145 said:

That AA fold in the tourney is really really bad. If someone had QQ or especially KK they would have shoved over your 4 bet. You never ever fold AA after putting 1/4 of your stack in pre flop unless you are on the bubble or some other crazy pay out by improving finishing position. You could also have made a bigger 4 bet in my opinion.

Click to expand...

I'm shaking my head in the utter disbelief at your comments,
If I'd known they were that crazy i'd have just 4 bet shoved. It was a $5 buy in and the first orbit, we have 300bb you have to credit them with some understanding of poker with that buy in and at that point in the game. Two of them have shoved all in, despite my obvious hand and I only have 1 pair on the flop.......QQ plays it exactly that way imo and either of them could have that hand....get a grip..... This hand was tilting for me not because of the way I played it.
There is a lesson for me here and that is not to post tilted.

Figaroo2 said:

I'm shaking my head in the utter disbelief at your comments,
If I'd known they were that crazy i'd have just 4 bet shoved. It was a $5 buy in and the first orbit, we have 300bb you have to credit them with some understanding of poker with that buy in and at that point in the game. Two of them have shoved all in, despite my obvious hand and I only have 1 pair on the flop.......QQ plays it exactly that way imo and either of them could have that hand....get a grip..... This hand was tilting for me not because of the way I played it.
There is a lesson for me here and that is not to post tilted.

Click to expand...

sorry but i have to agree with thinker on this one, you don't understand the nature of these low buyin tournaments. i've played a few and most fish are just looking to gamble right from the start. it's not like this is the wsop, fish don't know what 300bb even means so don't give them too much credit lol. i don't think KK or QQ plays like this, far more likely to just 5bet pre so i'm discounting some of those. stop fearing monsters under the bed!

and even if we put BOTH villains on an absurdly tight range of KQ, KK, QQ we're actually just 3% short of the right odds to call getting 3:1. once we put in a quarter of our stack, we're more or less pot committed no matter what. it's a snap call, and it's not even close

I am just giving my opinion man take it easy please.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk

As thinking players we should not be getting it in against fish early in tournaments unless we know we have a 70%+ edge. Our skill level means we can overcome the fish in regular smaller battles and pick them off when we have the nuts. If you resort to all in gambles early on you are playing into their hands.
On this flop we do not know where we stand, if we fold we still have over 200bb, still a massive amount of blinds....it is just plain wrong if you gamble with fish like this against the evidence of the betting. I've played many thousands of low value buy in tournaments and this is unusual action for a 5 buck tournament.

Figaroo2 said:

As thinking players we should not be getting it in against fish early in tournaments unless we know we have a 70%+ edge. Our skill level means we can overcome the fish in regular smaller battles and pick them off when we have the nuts. If you resort to all in gambles early on you are playing into their hands.
On this flop we do not know where we stand, if we fold we still have over 200bb, still a massive amount of blinds....it is just plain wrong if you gamble with fish like this against the evidence of the betting. I've played many thousands of low value buy in tournaments and this is unusual action for a 5 buck tournament.

Click to expand...

sure it's a gamble but it's definitely a +EV gamble, and if your goal is to win you should take any edge you can get. but i won't argue since you seem to be being quite defensive posting hands yet not listening to anyone's advice. when someone makes a suggestion of how to play a hand differently you rudely object, if you're not willing to take on people's advice then why post hands for feedback in the first place? it seems like you're still steaming but you gotta fix this tilt problem as it likely has a really big negative impact on your winrate

I've posted the AA hand into the tournament hand analysis forum to see other comment.

Figaroo2 said:

I've posted the AA hand into the tournament hand analysis forum to see other comment.

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting the AA hand. I think there's a good learning point here I hope you guys can take away from this. We're poker players trying to piece together incomplete information so you need to do your best detective work with sometimes very little information. Maybe I should make another "John A" theorm for this one? I'll call it slow = slow. lol

If someone is going to just call pre and disguise their hand with QQ/KK, they typically aren't going to then fast play it post flop when they flop big. Even though stack sizes are around pot, you'll still get a lot of checks. However, when stack does get close to pot, these are the rare times when that logic does differ. But we're still using our best available info based on the likelihood and making our decision.

Secondly, UTG+2, limp and calling a 4-bet looks like a total fish. You already have AA, it's doubtful they have either of these sets. It's much more likely they have some kind of draw based on the fishy play and call. There's a small chance they could have limp called those hands, but it's very small. If we had even some basic stats, which I'm sure we do, we're probably looking at a high VPIP out the gate.

So we're mostly concerned about BB, and we're likely looking at Kx, mainly AK which you crush, small percentage KQ/KJ. KQ he's probably checking most of the time also. It can't be an AcJc type hand since you have the Ac. So it's a pretty tight range. If I was going to weight the range, you're probably pretty far ahead with the price you're getting.

You're correct that you don't want to gamble too early, but sometimes in the right spot you'll need to, and getting a nice chip stack early can allow you to do a lot of things as the early stages fade out. In the heat of the moment, I know it's sometimes hard to think through these spots, but try and not think about whether you're beat or not when you face these situations. Just think about what your opponent is doing and their likely range, and then after that start trying to conclude whether you think you're ahead or not. I say that because early in my poker career I'd get in situations and immediately think, "crap, no way I'm ahead here.", and it would block me from really stopping and thinking the hand through.

That's my 2 cents my poker friends...

Bah... I missed the utg limp, which is why I only made it 30 to open. If id noticed id have made it 100-120, they will limp call up to 15-20bb this early and with the aces I would have bumped it up there.
That makes a big difference to the utg range and the hand as a whole. I thought in-game it was the SB 3 betting and the BB flat calling the 3 bet which totally alters the hand.
Yes in that case UTG he could have a much wider range and is getting implied odds to call just about any pair.. The BB (who I thought was the SB) is still a problem but there is enough AK and draws to call it off. I still wouldn't have been happy GII this early but it would have changed my thinking totally.
I want to swear...but in a way I'm actually much happier that I simply misread it and i can feel the weight lifting off my shoulders as I type.
Oh well there is a lesson here for not paying full attention. Apologies for my earlier bluntness but perhaps you can now understand why.

Figaroo2 said:

Bah... I missed the utg limp, which is why I only made it 30 to open. If id noticed id have made it 100-120, they will limp call up to 15-20bb this early and with the aces I would have bumped it up there.
That makes a big difference to the utg range and the hand as a whole. I thought in-game it was the SB 3 betting and the BB flat calling the 3 bet which totally alters the hand.
Yes in that case UTG he could have a much wider range and is getting implied odds to call just about any pair.. The BB (who I thought was the SB) is still a problem but there is enough AK and draws to call it off. I still wouldn't have been happy GII this early but it would have changed my thinking totally.
I want to swear...but in a way I'm actually much happier that I simply misread it and i can feel the weight lifting off my shoulders as I type.
Oh well there is a lesson here for not paying full attention. Apologies for my earlier bluntness but perhaps you can now understand why.

Click to expand...

Ya I mean he first limps UTG then calls a 3 bet then calls a 4 bet seems like someone who has no clue what they are doing. So our only worry is the BB who is simply never betting that big if he is beating you on the flop.

Sent from my XT1032 using Tapatalk