I was looking at my best hands, and came across this:
# Hand #515011310
So, I’m putting myself in my opponent’s seat, wondering if I have the discipline to fold here, and how much the double stack size would play into the decision.
Would you walk away from the King high straight flush?
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Nope, you would have my chips as well:) Two Great hands though!!
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No ones going anywhere with them hands.
Though if there were 3 or more players in the hand you could have a hard time calling, thinking of your hand.
ridiculous post, eh? No one walks away from a sf. I’d been playing holdem for less than a year at the time, and pretty much telegraphed every street. We all know how the low end of an open ender often ends up. with the cards he could see, I’m either holding the nuts, or 8s-, which I probably wouldn’t bet all-in with four community spades, and two larger spades out. It all seems obvious, now, but were I to play my opponents hand this morning, still not folding K high sf.
I did play this morning, and three hands stood out. there was the preflop shove by AA, KK, and 72. the cowboys rode off into the sunset, and the rockets never got off the ground. I was just a spectator, but totally unsurprised. 72 is going straight to the top of my range, right after AA and KK. No, wait…
I folded J2o, and would have hit quad jacks. The odd thing about that hand was the three people throwing large amounts of chips into the pot. I used to think I had made a mistake on hands like that, like opening J2o is smart poker strategy, or something. Or is it?
The hand that reminded me of this post was my elimination hand. I knew in the depths of my soul that the card that gave me the nut flush, filled his boat, but I called anyway. Have I no will? Have I not played both sides of the hand many times? Doesn’t matter. It’s the number of people who shove 2 pair, weak flushes, or pretty much anything in that spot. Since that deep soulful feeling isn’t 100%, I think I come out chip positive, calling that one.
HEY, DUDE, YOU GOT ELIMINATED.
Well, there is that.
The sf should be a trivial fold really. You have a lot of combos with the ace, and zero bluffs. I don’t think it would be a question if your opponent was holding the K and a sf was not possible, and this is actually the exact same situation. This is the perfect illustration that absolute hand strength doesn’t matter, only relative hand strength does.
That’s a mistake I keep making myself, and I’m sure I would have paid to see the royal if I had a sf, despite knowing better.
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It would have depended on how you’ve been playing at the table. I watch a lot of hands go down and actually pay attention when someone is bluffing and gets called. Then notice how often they are doing it. If they are betting a certain amount and you can actually tell that they are betting because they know they have the winning hand…this helps when times like this come up. If you make bets like this when your bluffing, it can be hard to catch it and if so would probably have my chips too.
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He had a great hand and could afford to call your shove. I would’ve done it, too.
It’s a rare hand, but it’s not a good hand when your facing an opponent that can only have a royal flush. What hands bet small on the flop and turn then 3x overbet jam the river except those that contain the ace of spades?
I would have called too, but that’s why I’m bad at poker, it doesn’t make the call good.
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My profile says 2018 as the time I joined Replay, but that was basically finding the site, burning through the chips they gave me, then forgetting all about it. When I stumbled across Replay a year later, my experience was still a few games against bots, and watching final tables on T.V. No memory of Replay. When my first royal occured, I was still trying to understand ranges, pot odds, ect. and my game included none of the carefully composed web of lies that it does today. That why the betting was so straight foward.
@STR8-2-D-TOP I agree, but my lack of experience may have been an asset there.
@H4wk3y3z table image. another concept I was trying to wrap my head around, back then. There are times when I’m betting with conviction because I really do think I have the the best hand, then it’s “surrender your chair, kid, ya got no future”.
@PaperBoy73 ‘afford’ being the key word here. I let stack size affect my choices sometimes, but not sure if I should, as least as much as I do.
@lihiue rare because it’s a sf. on the straight side, I’ve often lost when I filled the low end, but someone else filled the top, and beat others that did the same, and I filled the top. On the flush side, with 4 of a suit on the board, and all i know about any others from that suit is that mine is low, probable fold.
I appreciate the feedback. I was hoping for remarks on hero calls and folds, and got some. Also, I hear the phrase “I couldn’t walk away from the hand”. That hand shouldn’t exist, but it does,
I think I get bluffed a lot, and have busted my share, but I guess wrong a fair amount, too. Fold, and you’re working with coins you might of had. guess wrong, and you lose coin that you actually processed. Plus, guess wrong too much and it’s game over.
Still, feels pretty good when you survive the onslaught, and drag the pot home.
Welcome back, @waidus. I think you’ll fit right in. It’s pretty fun. See you soon.
I don’t know if I’d go so far as “trivial” but it’s definitely not a snap-call, which is what we see here
I make this mistake myself - you’re hoping for a certain card, that card comes, and then you face big action. You’re so psyched that you got there, you don’t even stop to assess the situation…
Same here!
For the record, I said it “should be trivial”. ie If you can forget about your absolute hand strength and ignore all the emotion and excuses you will give yourself to call and look at the spot objectively, it would be an easy fold. I’m not suggesting I’m capable of any of that in the moment.
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Especially with the amount of time you have on this site… I think for the biggest tournaments at least, there should be a time bank… having to make a decision for all your chips in a 5M buy-in event with only a matter of seconds to decide is rough
Preflop 3bet seems fairly mandatory so let’s skip to flop action.
This is a pretty hefty ICM spot as there’s literally 1 player who can knock us out, and he’s just open-shoved the flop. There are 8 left and 4 paid, with at least 4 stacks much more likely to bubble than ours.
That said, winning this pot would of course make us prohibitive favorites to win 1st place.
That said, folding costs us little and we are still well ahead of the field for 2nd place, with plenty of other opportunities (one hopes) to take the chip lead later.
That said, we have two overs and the nut flush draw in a configuration where villain likely holds 1 pair and all our outs are live.
AAAHHHHHH!
@lihiue @Yorunoame @_snowman @Excaliburns @_Rain @Comicguy feedback appreciated <3
FWIW my goal was definitely more to win 1st place than to cash/avoid bubbling
In a way, every situation is unique.
You certainly had plenty of outs.
I guess patience comes to mind first.
Then what’s trending at the moment.
Checking the notes on your opponent, I had no notes on this particular player.
Plenty on you! lol
Usually, I’m slowly working my way up the leaderboard.
But there are games when the mindset is different.
Wanting to get to a quick lead is always in play.
Of course, your read was right, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always win the hand.
Heck, it just happened to me.
#1185033627
Being aggressive is all part of it but so is luck.
You got to ask yourself questions, “Do you feel lucky”
“How’s your luck trending?”
“Do I need this now?”
“What could I be applying that I’m not in this situation?”
So, your opponent was in a position to apply significant pressure.
He did so and now your decision was quick, very quick, as if you mind was already made up.
Possibly, you simply ran out of patience.
Pivotal hand.
He finished 3rd in the money, and you finished 9th out of the money.
In the end, every situation is unique!
So, if the aftermath of the hand has you kicking yourself and questioning your fatal move,
then, obviously, it’s a strong indicator you made the wrong decision.
On the flipside, you walk away from it as it’s just another day at the office, then it was
a sound decision.
You could usually tell, as it goes down, if you’re playing well.
The mindset is the key indicator.
Not only do you need to get a read on your opponent, sometimes you need to get a
read on yourself!
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Take all of this with a grain of salt: I mostly stopped playing in tournaments 10 years ago, before ICM theory was really even much of a thing. I’m mostly just a cash game player, only worried about the EV of various choices.
With that disclaimer out of the way, what I understand as the main pillar for ICM is that chips won improves your “payout EV” less than chips lost decreases it. So chips won have less positive value than the negative value of chips lost.
This then forms the basis for all kinds of differences between cash game and tournament play, and one of those differences: the two big stacks typically avoid each other like the plague.
The YouTube video above shows a spot where a player in position just flats with KK, because the raise is coming from the other big stack. Both players are incentivized to keep the pot small.
So in this context, once you face the overbet, all of your outs are worth less than in a normal EV calculation, because each chip you win is worth less than each chip you lose.
But maybe we should roughly estimate what your EV is? Against 88 and most over pairs to the board you are actually a slight favorite. If the 8 of clubs is involved, you are 50% to 49%, and it is more like 53% if your opponents overpair doesn’t suck up one of your outs. But 77, 55 and 44 seem like they might be in range. There are certainly more combos of JJ-88 than 77, 55 and 44, but against 77, for example, your equity is only about 25%. Also, my experience is that a lot of tournament players do strange things, and so AA, KK and QQ might be in range as well, and while not as bad as the sets, these would also lower your equity if they are possible, though that might be offset by the possibility for an unreasonable volume of bluffs. Over all, I’d guess your equity is a bit over 40%, and that you are fairly indifferent from an EV perspective between calling and folding.
In short, if the EV is close, adding in ICM, I’d think it is supposed to be a fold.
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Good points all @Excaliburns and thanks for chiming in. Yes, I had already decided to call a shove upon seeing the flop—for me that doesn’t indicate impatience, just that in the moment I had decided to gamble. I’d already played a few hands with nbpudge, and felt pretty confident that he didn’t have a set (I think he would have given me more room to call or taken a different line), so I assessed the board as favorable enough to continue.
In hindsight I wondered if I should assess this configuration differently. I think it’s more an issue of “how do I want to be playing these situations” than “I got impatient this time”
@Yorunoame I do think it’s ultimately a fold for the reasons you mentioned. If I thought the rest of the FT had a pretty good edge on me I would like the play more, as it justifies taking more chances and just getting it in when we can where we think the odds are close to 50/50.
The whole ICM thing can start to feel like a game of chicken sometimes, because if other players know about it and know that you know about it, they can leverage that pressure to steal your EV in close spots. But in general, I think I try too hard to “not chicken out” and end up exposing my stack to too much risk in places where I don’t have to.