I look forward to reading comments from others in response to your question because honestly I don’t see any way to comment since no one but you knows what your hole cards were. Am I missing something?
Corrected post with the right link. Sorry about that.
Yes–that’s better. The only suggestion I can make is to not assume you have the best hand. There were other better hands possible, so you could have raised less or not at all. I’ll look forward to others’ comments, so I can learn too.
maybe a bigger reraise, but he still might have called. if 2 didn’t come on flop, you’ve taken it down on flop, but he got his 2 and that was that. as Jan said, lot of hands possible that beat you on flop AQ AK A,10, A,2, pocket 10’s, pocket 2’s, pocket A’s
I figured I was looking at a flush draw, and half-pot wasn’t enough to get the fold on the first street, so logically a pot-size bet that would put a small stack close to all in was correct.
I can fold a ton of hands if I just assume that someone could always have a set.
If I don’t bet top pair hard enough, I’m slow-playing it or giving a good price for draws, aren’t I?
you gotta realize this if free chips and people are gonna call no matter what you do on a online site. a real game for money and people not gonna call. even if bet top pair hard enough, they just gonna call all the way.
here is a example of what I mean anyone will call no matter what you do online vs a live game. basically I put this guy all in preflop. look what he called with. I don’t know why he called, maybe likes that hand, or maybe he wanted out of the tourney and got extremely lucky. now in a live game for real money, he is not going be calling there and even if he didn, very unlikely he would hit runner runners like that.
Yep, that’s the sort of stuff that I see regularly. I’m told it’s “variance” but it doesn’t seem to vary at all.
I didn’t put him on a flush draw. Since he was the one to raise preflop, I would assume he either has a pocket pair or an Ace. Once he called the flop, I would’ve assumed he had an Ace and I probably would’ve checked the turn to see what he did. If he bets big, I would probably have folded assuming he had at least 2 pair and was trying to keep you from getting a flush. If he was sneaky and checked, I might have bet big on the river trying to get him to think you made your flush 
That being said, your table image and his also have to be taken into account. Most people don’t call big bets from me, and I rarely get reraised by people who know me unless they have the nuts or close to it.
not much I could had done differently. I think no matter what I raised preflop with he would had called obviously and I think he still shoved trying to represent any kind of ace. I didn’t believe he had a Ace from preflop, unless he was slow playing. which was all a possibility. I just wanted to show you how can play a hand perfectly, players are just gonna call no matter what… I didn’t believe he had a Ace unless he slow played them, which he didn’t, but then gets runners to win the hand.
squeeze pre with AJ 3 handed at 40 bb’s
x/c flop… player dependant you can sometimes fold the turn but only when you know you’re v well enough that he wouldn’t bet an A high flop twice without a big A
You should never lead this flop (especially multiway), you’re bluffs are going to be gut shots and flush draws that will perform better as x/r imo. You shouldn’t have much very strong value outside of 22 as AA TT and AT should mostly be raising pre and A2s I think with the caller between is either raise or fold.
It’s more about your decision to lead here I think… when you bet out of flow into the pre flop aggressor in a 3 way pot you’re allowing him to play perfect against you. He’s going to stack you with every single value hand he has every time and he’s just going to get away with all of his bluffs and even most of his value that you’re ahead of by the river.
@dayman, you mean like this? Or what?
This happens all the time. I dominate someone with a premium hand like AQs, they call with a dominated hand like Q8s, and immediately turn the tables on me by pairing their bottom card while the board blanks me.
It is hard coded into the web site. I am completely convinced at this point of that.
This happens all the time.
The percentages for variance are inverted when I play any big pot.
It’s hard coded for sure, not into the site though. It’s hard coded into your brain. You’re an intelligent guy puggy, I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of studies that show how the human brain reacts to pain. It’s hard wired to remember that stuff so as to avoid it happening again. You don’t remember the million times you didn’t touch the hot burner on the stove but you remember the one time you touched it like it just happened. You’ve surely seen an interview with an elite athlete who’s won multiple championships but the one that was lost in defeat is the one that burns it’s way into their psyche. I can’t help you stop be results oriented, that’s something you have to be committed to and work out yourself. Mental Game of Poker is the book I would have you read and then read again but you have to read it, and then apply it and apply it again and again and again.
No I wouldn’t shove 30 bb’s over a min open with AQs. I would 3! a more reasonable sizing. If he’s calling like this though, it’s not horrible to do so as an exploit.
I keep doing it, expecting it to pay off eventually, but it doesn’t.
It’s like flipping a fair coin and having it get “stuck” coming up heads 20 times in a row, but every once in a while it will randomly come up tails, but it never comes close to equaling the number of times it is heads.
A couple of general observations.
First, in another thread you posted a chart of your win rates, which appear to be quite respectable. This demonstrates to me that whatever you are doing appears to be working in the long run and that it is indeed variance that explains any recent struggles. If the game was somehow fixed against you (inverted variance, as you suggest), how do you explain the fact that you have won so much? If this were true, your winning rate would be close to 0% and you would have no chips!
Second, perhaps some of the abnormal levels of variance you have been experiencing can be explained by types of games you are playing. You seem to prefer 3-max SNGs, which I would expect would have a higher amount of variance. In a three-handed elimination game, players will tend to open up their ranges, which makes strong hands (such as AQ suited) more vulnerable.
Good questions and observations, AKFolds.
I have been playing more 2-max and 3-max recently. The win rates I posted previously was primarily 9-max SNG. I do have a reasonably good win rate, and I do think that in general I play a reasonably good game.
The inverted variance I’m talking about is in a narrow subset of the hands I play. I’m not sure how to precisely define this, but broadly it is whenever I am involved in a large pot. I notice that a lot of the time when I have stronger starting cards and raise big into my caller, they will win at a rate greater than expected. It happens a variety of ways, but most often it’s me missing the board while they smash it. For example, I’ll raise AQ and they will call with AT, and hit the Ten. Or I’ll shove 99, flop a set they call with JX, and it fills a backdoor 7-J straight. Or maybe someone will shove 83o, I’ll call with KK, and they’ll make trip 333s.
I get that this will happen from time to time, and that’s fine, what is getting me so worked up is that for days on end it’ll happen every time, often ruining a game where I’d been crushing and was well on my way to winning chips. But sometimes it’s an early hand. The feeling is like I’m playing with a handicap, or a stacked deck.
I don’t literally think that the site is coded to be unfavorable to me specifically. But it makes me wonder if there’s something going on, like I’ve been blacklisted or perhaps players are able to see the cards face up. Not that I can prove it.
But why this seems to happen with big preflop raises and not any other type of hand feels suspicious.
I wish I could run analytics on my hand data to prove that I am wrong in how I’m feeling, and that these outcomes are within expectation of probability. If Replay had an API or just some way of downloading raw hand data in bulk, I’d be able to run some spreadsheets and test my theories.
To supplement my response to AKFolds, above, here’s a recent 3-Max I came in second, losing big with a lot of my strong hands.
I am not whining here, this is just material to support my case, to show you what I have been seeing.
I win the opening few hands:
Hand 620423076: A-high
Hand 620423311: Two Pair, made with 2nd pair Tens, Kings on the board
Hand 620423495: Top pair, Aces:
The other players win the next 6 hands, I drain down some, but I’m still looking good. Then I take the next two pots.
Hand 620424979: K3 flopping J3J, min bet takes the hand:
Hand 620425084: T9s, flopping an inside straight draw + backdoor flush draw, and all I get is a pair of 99s to showdown with, but it shows down good, and I win the pot.
Hand 620425981: The other two players take the next 5 hands, and then I finally get some decent starting cards, KQo, I raise 2BB, because who doesn’t raise KQ. OK, I’m in the small blind, guess I should be folding everything in the SB in a 3-max game, right?
Well, V has A4s and flops a nut flush, and I flop a Q-high flush draw. I pay off the shove and double up the made hand. Bad move. He’s the short stack, how can I not double him up? It is my sworn duty to double up every small stack every time they go all in. It’s only play money, right? This is fun!
I bounce right back, taking the next two hands to KO the first opponent, hitting a nice straight 3-7, and am looking good again.
Hand 620426174: Immediately after losing to the flush, I hit for two pair, TT88, on an all-in, my one lucky hand for the game.
Hand 620426249: Then I beat a flush draw with [high card K on a paired board, winning again with a pair of 77s.
Hand 620426674: The 3-7 Straight made with 74, a BB special.
Ten hands later, I lose the game: V is aggressive, good for V, he should be, and takes 6 of the next 9 hands; I have weak cards and flop nothing, so lose as cheaply as possible.
Hand 620427889: On the tenth hand, V’s T8s raises me preflop to 2BB, I have QQ, I raise back to 4BB, he calls. Flopping a set, QAK board, and I know immediately that the fix is in. He doesn’t have Aces or Kings, he’s up against bottom Set, but this flop is too wet to win with a set. But whatever, let’s just lean into it for comic effect, because we know we’re not winning this game no matter what cards we get dealt. The turn, expectedly, is the Jack, and now the only way my QQ is bad is if I’m up against AA, KK, or any random Ten. Well, guess what.
My negativity causes his hole card to transmutate into a Ten, am I right or am I right.
I suppose I could have shoved preflop, and either I get 200 chips out of V with my premium pocket pair, OR I would be willing to be that 2/3 of the time these players will call that shove with T8s, after raising it, and still wins the hand.
Conclusion: Fold QQ in the face of a 2BB raise, it’s not good enough to play heads up.
This starts my day -50k and I’m already on tilt, and expect to lose another 450-500k before midnight now.