I was dealt pocket tens, so I raised to 7BB, and the villain called. The flop came K-9-T, giving me a set. I went all-in so the villain wouldn’t have a chance to catch up, but he called with QJ and eventually hit his straight, so I lost the hand.
He flopped the straight. Not sure how many big blinds you had when you went all in on the flop, this matters. If you are short stacked then yeah that seems reasonable that you would put all your chips in with the set to get value from a worse hand like Kx. But if you have 50+ big blinds and you go all in, the only hands that are going to call you here is the exact hand that he had QJ. It’s unlucky for sure but you don’t have to shove here.
You were wrong to think that he eventually hit the straight. He flopped that straight.
You may have been wrong to open so large at 7bb. I'm guessing that this is a freeroll? How many limpers? What was your position?
You may have been wrong to jam that flop dpending on how deep your stack was. Pot is approx 15 or so bb, so at 20bb or less left behind you could jam that because you're starting to lose your playability on future streets, but at 40 or 50bb you're most likely only getting called by a set or a straight so you either don't get paid for your overpair or you felt yourself.
You may have been wrong to open so large at 7bb. I'm guessing that this is a freeroll? How many limpers? What was your position?
You may have been wrong to jam that flop dpending on how deep your stack was. Pot is approx 15 or so bb, so at 20bb or less left behind you could jam that because you're starting to lose your playability on future streets, but at 40 or 50bb you're most likely only getting called by a set or a straight so you either don't get paid for your overpair or you felt yourself.
That's poker and this was just a cooler... It's not always about right or wrong - sometimes you're 'supposed to lose' and this is one of this situations as a set is too strong, no matter how the flop looks like and/or how the actions were made* though I didn't like the way you thought about the hand - betting with a very strong hand, just to make your opponents fold is not a good approach long-term... Like other members said, you should just forget about the hand and move to the next hand/game - we can just try to make the best decisions in each spot and hope for a good outcome...
One thing to think about is maybe going half pot bet on the flop and this will accomplish a couple of things. If they totally miss and fold you pick up the 15 or so big blinds in the pot. If they just call that means something, like they are on the draw or they have a pair or whatever, but they didn’t raise back. If they do raise back then you can take this to mean that they just might have a better hand than you here and you can fold and still be in the tournament with plenty of chips.
If they were on the draw like a flush draw or the straight draw, you kind of want to keep them in. Betting half pot or full pot gives them a bad price for them to draw which is forcing them to make a mistake that you are now capitalizing on. Sure they will make the draw like 20% or less of the time but if you make them pay on the flop and again on the turn then most of the time you are winning a decent pot here. It’s when they raise and play back at you that should make you stop and think about what they have.
Pushing 56 big blinds when you don’t have the nuts is making them play perfectly. When they have it they call, when they don’t they fold and you get nothing more than the 15 big blinds in the middle. Betting smaller than all in here can get you more than the 15 most of the time.
Think about it, would you keep making that same play over and over again every time your in that spot? This is how we should think about poker, what is the best profitable way to play this spot, and do it over and over again.
It’s a tough lesson but it’s a learnable one. I’ve done the same thing in the past because my ego got in the way lol
If they were on the draw like a flush draw or the straight draw, you kind of want to keep them in. Betting half pot or full pot gives them a bad price for them to draw which is forcing them to make a mistake that you are now capitalizing on. Sure they will make the draw like 20% or less of the time but if you make them pay on the flop and again on the turn then most of the time you are winning a decent pot here. It’s when they raise and play back at you that should make you stop and think about what they have.
Pushing 56 big blinds when you don’t have the nuts is making them play perfectly. When they have it they call, when they don’t they fold and you get nothing more than the 15 big blinds in the middle. Betting smaller than all in here can get you more than the 15 most of the time.
Think about it, would you keep making that same play over and over again every time your in that spot? This is how we should think about poker, what is the best profitable way to play this spot, and do it over and over again.
It’s a tough lesson but it’s a learnable one. I’ve done the same thing in the past because my ego got in the way lol
Bitmaniac said:
I don't think that was a mistake. You flopped a set and had a very strong hand, while your opponent had a straight draw. Getting all the chips in was a reasonable decision in that situation. Unfortunately, this is where poker variance comes into play. Your opponent had a chance to improve, and this time the cards went his way. It can be frustrating to lose a big pot like that, especially when you played the hand correctly, but the result doesn't necessarily mean the decision was wrong. In the long run, situations like this are simply part of the game. You will win some and lose others, even when making the same decision. The important thing is to evaluate the quality of the decision, not just the result of that particular hand.
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Let's say you actually bet a reasonable amount instead of prematurely jamming all-in your pants, then you would likely either get raised or eventually jammed on by the river. Do you think you can fold your set at any point? If the answer is yes, then maybe you could have played better.
That’s a brutal runout, but I don’t think you did anything wrong by shoving the flop. You flopped a set and QJ has a monster draw so you want to get the money in while you are ahead. They are going to hit it sometimes man. 😂
The key is not to think about it as “I shoved and lost, so I played it wrong”. If you played that exact same hand a hundred times you would want QJ to call your shove every single time. You got the correct result, but it sucked this time. 🃏
The key is not to think about it as “I shoved and lost, so I played it wrong”. If you played that exact same hand a hundred times you would want QJ to call your shove every single time. You got the correct result, but it sucked this time. 🃏
Nameless14 said:
He didn't lose on the runout. He lost on the flop. You think that jamming 55bb while putting Villain on a draw will get called?? Only a complete punter would call that. Come on.
If we want a draw to call (we don't know the suits but the straight here are all guts) we need to bet something like half-pot. Also, we would love Kx to call, even KT K9. KT K9 MIGHT call 55bb shove, AA 99 probably would, but the rest of Kx should be folding. QQ JJ could even fold here. This bet folds out pretty much all of our value. Too big. Furthermore, KK and QJ are absolutely LOVING our bet here. This is a terrible bet. Even if we know that Villain is a wide punt calling station, we can bet pot, pot-and-a-half and go geometric in the later streets from there and give ourselves a chance to stop if we get an ugly card on the runout like a Q J or K and not felt. Even in this specific case where we are betting right into a flopped straight, if Villain snap calls flop and turn or even raises us, it gives us a chance to hear the alarm bells and possibly stop.
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Yes, you didn't play it well.Bitmaniac said:
BUT it is not because you have lost your stack. Considering you would have bet smaller and got raised, you would most probably went all in finally anyway. It is not easy to fold a set, and villian could raise with KQ, 2 pairs or even with a draw.
It was not correct play, mostly because you refused yourself a chance to win big. When we have a good hand and bet for value, we WANT villain to continue. If they have nothing they will fold no matter how much we bet. If they have something, like Kx or another pair or a draw, we WANT them to stay and pay us more. Lets say they have an OESD - they have 8 outs and so 32% equity - for them, the good price to call is around 1/3 pot. So, the proper bet should be lets say 50-70% pot - if they decide to stay, they pay us more than their equity and so we statistically earn money. Betting HUGE, as you did, they fold everything (except cards beating us, as in this case) and we earn nothing more.
I want to apologize for sounding harsh in my previous post.
Mario has this exactly right. This is a great lesson on bet sizing and also a perfect example of asking those questions: what hands better than us are folding and what hands worse than us are calling?
In any given hand, Villain has hands in his range that fall into 1 of 4 groups.
Group A: hands ahead of us that are not folding.
Group B: hands ahead of us that he should, could or at least might fold.
Group C: hands behind us that should, could or at least might call.
Group D: hands behind us that he is definitely folding.
By looking at board texture, Villain's line/story and Villain's tendencies, we put him on a range of hands and then sort those hands into the 4 groups.
If group A is large and group B is small or non-existent, we do not want to bluff.
If group B is fairly large and group A small, this is a bluff spot.
If group C is fairly large, or at least larger than group B, this is probably a value spot.
If group D is large and the other groups small or non-existent, then we are left with equity denial or just check it back due to reverse implied odds.
Now before we discuss that flop jam, let's look at the pre-flop. In a pro game a standard opening size is usually 2.25x bb. At low and micro stakes this is a little small. We probably want to use 2.5 or 3x. In a freeroll we are more likely to use 3x as a minimum open. Why larger at low stakes? Because players call way more at lower stakes so we need to bet a little bigger to get some folds pre-flop. Furthermore, the more limpers in the pot before we open, the larger we need to open raise. So we might use 2.5x plus an extra half-bb for each limper. Many profitable micro grinders even add 1 whole BB per limper.
So if we are in a freeroll on the BT with 3 limpers, we could conceivably open 6x or 7x. But we are not. We're in a target tournament which presumably has a decent stake buy-in, so as we can see 7x is HUGE! This is an error. Why? Because only strong hands will call and so-so hands will all fold. Now it's okay to open TT a little larger so long as our sizing doesn't tip off a smart player (and most Villains are dumb, just saying), since TT needs a little more protection given that it only has 2 outs to improve and hates overcards, but 7x is massive. What is calling? High pocket pairs, AK, maybe AQ, AJ, and some suited broadways.
So now that we have been called for 7bb and flopped a set on KT9 (we'll assume rainbow so we can ignore flushes and keep it simple) we look at how many hands are in ...
Group A: KK (3combos), QJ (4 combos suited if Villain is tighter or all 16 combos if he is loose).
Group B: nothing.
Group C: AA (6 combos), 99 (3 combos), AK (12 combos), Qx, Jx (multiple combos but many of them would not call 7x pre), KT (3 combos because we block it hard), K9 (9 combos), we'll include QQ and JJ in Qx and Jx because they are gut draws the same just with a couple more outs. We can add in 87s (4 combos) because it's the only open-ended draw (although very unlikely to call 7x pre).
Group D: some lower pocket pairs, probably not too many at 7x pre just depending how loose Villain is.
Looking at groups A and B there are no hands ahead of us that will fold so we cannot bluff.
Group C looks pretty good though, so this is a strong value situation. In particular due to the 7x pre we should target AA overpair, AK top-top, AQ or AJ gut draw. When sizing for value, we use the largest size that Villain will call. We might get away with something as large as pot here, but half-pot is probably fine, maybe 3/4-pot? Of course there are straight draws in our Villain's range but they are all gut draws (we will ignore 87, very doubtful to be there) so gut draws fold much easier. When making say and open-ended draw pay, we need to be bare minimum 40% pot, maybe 75%, but with a gut draw it's a lot less, so half-pot might even fold that out. But I think we are more likely to see AA AK here (due to the 7x pre) and get paid, so I'd probably start with half-pot. Remember that a gut draw has about 15% chance to complete with 2 cards to come. It's 85% (!!) in favor of 2nd set TT. There is not much equity to deny.
Instead we jam for 55b, or roughly 3.7 times pot!! So almost nothing in group C is calling. We're not getting paid! Furthermore, group B is empty so there is nothing better than us that will fold to this.
See why this bet is such an error? Villain either folds and we win 15bb (of which 7bb is ours) with 2nd set (we could have won quite a bit more), or we get called by KK or QJ and felt. NOTHING can go well with this bet unless Villain is a complete bum whale and calls us with a low pocket pair or K-rag!
Now, also look at the pot size. 15bb on the flop which is about 30% of our stack. We're very close to pot committed ourself here. If we bet 2/3rd pot or 10bb on flop and get called, the pot is now 35bb and our stack behind is only 45bb. That's getting worrisome. If we had opened 3x pre instead of 7x, the pot would be 6 or 7 bb and we are totally playable the rest of the way. And even then, if we wish to bet large for equity denial as we did (which I believe is a mistake in a pretty obvious value situation - but let's just say) we could bet something like 12bb and if we get snap-called or raised we can put the brakes on and still have just under 50bb.
In this particular hand, we were getting coolered by QJ, a group A hand. There is nothing that we can do to beat group A hands other than to get super lucky on the turn or river. These hands will not fold, so it is all about our poker senses and exercising caution. Often we are just going down in flames even when we play it well. Also, there is nothing we can do about group D hands. They are junk that is folding no matter what, so when we flop quads and no one will call, we just won't get paid. We did nothing wrong. It's the group B and group C hands that we face that will make the difference in our win rate. If we can get group B hands to fold and group C hands to call (mostly group C hands to call), we will be a winning player. That is the zen.
So the next time that we flop 2nd set on a connected board, think of all of the value hands worse than ours that could call, and bet to keep them around. Don't knee jerk to equity denial "... so the villain wouldn’t have a chance to catch up," especially on a gut draw.
Mario has this exactly right. This is a great lesson on bet sizing and also a perfect example of asking those questions: what hands better than us are folding and what hands worse than us are calling?
In any given hand, Villain has hands in his range that fall into 1 of 4 groups.
Group A: hands ahead of us that are not folding.
Group B: hands ahead of us that he should, could or at least might fold.
Group C: hands behind us that should, could or at least might call.
Group D: hands behind us that he is definitely folding.
By looking at board texture, Villain's line/story and Villain's tendencies, we put him on a range of hands and then sort those hands into the 4 groups.
If group A is large and group B is small or non-existent, we do not want to bluff.
If group B is fairly large and group A small, this is a bluff spot.
If group C is fairly large, or at least larger than group B, this is probably a value spot.
If group D is large and the other groups small or non-existent, then we are left with equity denial or just check it back due to reverse implied odds.
Now before we discuss that flop jam, let's look at the pre-flop. In a pro game a standard opening size is usually 2.25x bb. At low and micro stakes this is a little small. We probably want to use 2.5 or 3x. In a freeroll we are more likely to use 3x as a minimum open. Why larger at low stakes? Because players call way more at lower stakes so we need to bet a little bigger to get some folds pre-flop. Furthermore, the more limpers in the pot before we open, the larger we need to open raise. So we might use 2.5x plus an extra half-bb for each limper. Many profitable micro grinders even add 1 whole BB per limper.
So if we are in a freeroll on the BT with 3 limpers, we could conceivably open 6x or 7x. But we are not. We're in a target tournament which presumably has a decent stake buy-in, so as we can see 7x is HUGE! This is an error. Why? Because only strong hands will call and so-so hands will all fold. Now it's okay to open TT a little larger so long as our sizing doesn't tip off a smart player (and most Villains are dumb, just saying), since TT needs a little more protection given that it only has 2 outs to improve and hates overcards, but 7x is massive. What is calling? High pocket pairs, AK, maybe AQ, AJ, and some suited broadways.
So now that we have been called for 7bb and flopped a set on KT9 (we'll assume rainbow so we can ignore flushes and keep it simple) we look at how many hands are in ...
Group A: KK (3combos), QJ (4 combos suited if Villain is tighter or all 16 combos if he is loose).
Group B: nothing.
Group C: AA (6 combos), 99 (3 combos), AK (12 combos), Qx, Jx (multiple combos but many of them would not call 7x pre), KT (3 combos because we block it hard), K9 (9 combos), we'll include QQ and JJ in Qx and Jx because they are gut draws the same just with a couple more outs. We can add in 87s (4 combos) because it's the only open-ended draw (although very unlikely to call 7x pre).
Group D: some lower pocket pairs, probably not too many at 7x pre just depending how loose Villain is.
Looking at groups A and B there are no hands ahead of us that will fold so we cannot bluff.
Group C looks pretty good though, so this is a strong value situation. In particular due to the 7x pre we should target AA overpair, AK top-top, AQ or AJ gut draw. When sizing for value, we use the largest size that Villain will call. We might get away with something as large as pot here, but half-pot is probably fine, maybe 3/4-pot? Of course there are straight draws in our Villain's range but they are all gut draws (we will ignore 87, very doubtful to be there) so gut draws fold much easier. When making say and open-ended draw pay, we need to be bare minimum 40% pot, maybe 75%, but with a gut draw it's a lot less, so half-pot might even fold that out. But I think we are more likely to see AA AK here (due to the 7x pre) and get paid, so I'd probably start with half-pot. Remember that a gut draw has about 15% chance to complete with 2 cards to come. It's 85% (!!) in favor of 2nd set TT. There is not much equity to deny.
Instead we jam for 55b, or roughly 3.7 times pot!! So almost nothing in group C is calling. We're not getting paid! Furthermore, group B is empty so there is nothing better than us that will fold to this.
See why this bet is such an error? Villain either folds and we win 15bb (of which 7bb is ours) with 2nd set (we could have won quite a bit more), or we get called by KK or QJ and felt. NOTHING can go well with this bet unless Villain is a complete bum whale and calls us with a low pocket pair or K-rag!
Now, also look at the pot size. 15bb on the flop which is about 30% of our stack. We're very close to pot committed ourself here. If we bet 2/3rd pot or 10bb on flop and get called, the pot is now 35bb and our stack behind is only 45bb. That's getting worrisome. If we had opened 3x pre instead of 7x, the pot would be 6 or 7 bb and we are totally playable the rest of the way. And even then, if we wish to bet large for equity denial as we did (which I believe is a mistake in a pretty obvious value situation - but let's just say) we could bet something like 12bb and if we get snap-called or raised we can put the brakes on and still have just under 50bb.
In this particular hand, we were getting coolered by QJ, a group A hand. There is nothing that we can do to beat group A hands other than to get super lucky on the turn or river. These hands will not fold, so it is all about our poker senses and exercising caution. Often we are just going down in flames even when we play it well. Also, there is nothing we can do about group D hands. They are junk that is folding no matter what, so when we flop quads and no one will call, we just won't get paid. We did nothing wrong. It's the group B and group C hands that we face that will make the difference in our win rate. If we can get group B hands to fold and group C hands to call (mostly group C hands to call), we will be a winning player. That is the zen.
So the next time that we flop 2nd set on a connected board, think of all of the value hands worse than ours that could call, and bet to keep them around. Don't knee jerk to equity denial "... so the villain wouldn’t have a chance to catch up," especially on a gut draw.