On Aggression

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
81

I’m not sure how to figure it… But I think it was a +EV move. But it was also risky. But even though I lost, I still like the play.

On the bubble, it’s virtually guaranteed that any small stack folds. I think the big stack also lays down all but the very top of their range, which is unfortunately what they held here. So I’m likely to be stealing a lot of the time here.

99 is a 72% favorite against any two cards. Callers here are a few pairs, maybe AK. It’s a coin flip against two unpaired overcards. I’m a 9% shot to hit a set, and if I do I’m 90% to win the hand. It’s too good a hand not to play, and my stack is not deep enough to not go all in pre. If I have more chips here, I can afford not to play.

82

The big stack opened to 2400, you raised another 1100 or so. I don’t think he lays down there ever.

1 Like
83

I was speaking in terms of before the action started, in a more generalized case. In that hand, true. Maybe I should have respected the open. On the other hand, they had been raising just about every hand, and every raise was so big that the small stacks couldn’t call, and at that point I was thinking they were raising very wide, and didn’t really put them on the hand they had. I was expecting to see them fold based on the expectation that they were raising J7 or K2s.

84

Well, that’s an important note ! If this is true, this call is even better. Even with a normal open-range you could shove here, but if that open-range is wider than we thought it was, then this is a clear shove, and a good one.

Plus, this means you got some virtual fold equity here. So yeah, even better. And if they raise/call with crap like K2s, all good too.

Also true, that basically means that your “equity” wouldn’t have been as good as in this scenario ; a fold OOP with 99 would be good, especially with these bubble conditions.
You could call in certain conditions too though…

1 Like
85

I’d previously folded a few playable hands (AJ, KJ, QJ) that I didn’t feel were solid enough to call a big raise with in previous orbits. I didn’t get to see what he was holding, but I had to assume based on the frequency that most of it was garbage. Maybe ragged broadways a lot of the time.

I have no regrets about shoving the 99s, it’s just SO TYPICAL of what happens to me when I open or raise lately, I always seem to pick a hand to shove when someone has a monster in their pocket.

86

BB is 100, 4 players left in the hand. I’m on KK in late position. Everyone limps, I bet pot. Everyone calls. An Ace hits the board on the flop. I bet, everyone folds but the big stack. I should have just folded pre.

87

I raise pre, get one caller, bad flop, I am trying to make a small feeler bet, intending to bet out 90, but instead the mouse slips or there’s lag or something messes up my bet and I bet almost 800 chips. Very aggressive, yes? No, opponent calls, of course I have to give them credit for trip 555s, and I have to give them 1/3 of my stack to start out the game.

88

AKs, I raise, and as if the punchline to a classic sitcom rerun I’ve seen a million times, the flop comes in low. I check, cursing, and the Button bets pot. I know they didn’t just call my raise pre on a 2 or a 3, so I call. A third three comes in on the Turn, and I super don’t believe he bet having a 3 in his hand now, so I shove. He calls, and I KO his KQ with my Ace kicker.

But ***ing seriously, any time I raise preflop more than 2BB, the flop comes in so low it’s like it’s trying to avoid radar detection.

89

Every @#(#($*&ing time I’m aggressive.

Dominating isn’t dominating when your opponent can just hit their bottom card. 66% favored and lose.

90

Is it considered “aggression” if you swear a lot after your big hand loses?

91

Only if you can find ways to sneak the curses past the censors. Then, it become “creative aggression,” and is praise-worthy.

1 Like
92

TT, big raise from early position, leaving some room to get away from it, but I decide to shove when another player lays in a huge 3!. He flips up KK, I flop a set of Tens, he Turns a set of Kings, I could have used a J to split on a broadway straight, but nooooooo.

Once again every hand I raise turns to absolute ****.

93

Just google push fold apps. A few I know of are SnapShove, Preflop+ and Jonathan Little has one called Float The Turn I think. They all do pretty much the same thing. Calculate EV based on ICM for spots in tournaments where you should profitably be shoving, calling shoves, re shoving over a shove or calling a re shove.

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94

I truly don’t meant to offend @puggywug but you may suffer from a bit of entitlement tilt. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. You have all those excel spread sheets readily available while you’re playing, maybe you should take a look at them sometimes after you lose a hand. I know you posted one semi recently where you had run something like 20 tournaments and finished in the money 14 times with like 4 first, 2 second and 8 thirds. This while posting a ROI of something like 50%, which is pretty huge by the way for 9 seat SnG’s. You must run a bit better than you let on in the forums and maybe would benefit from reminding yourself of that.

Look for hands to post that can have some educational value for you or the readers. TT < KK all in pre for 13 bb’s effective is a standard spot. You should just shove TT here pre and you should never be looking to induce with it nor should you be looking to open/fold to 3!. This is a hand you just go with.

4 Likes
95

Ok, I see !
Thanks.

96

No offense taken, it’s absolutely true! I’m aware of this, and went through it a lot a few months back. Last night was one of those nights that would have triggered me to go on a slide. I exited early yet again from the Foals MTT, 18th/27, AQ beat by AT, and had two SNG where I went out 8th when I was on AA, and TT, losing AAKK to KKK and TTT to KKK. I can accept TT loses and I can accept the others as well, but in each situation I did feel entitled to the pot as I should have been the favorite in each hand and had my opponent come from behind. It pissed me off, so I shut down for the day and will come back today and play my game and hopefully do better. I’d been running 50% ITM through yesterday this week, and now I’m something like 7-9. Still profitable and still very good.

But I know better is possible, I’m not getting the top of the Astral Pegasus leaderboard, although I contend for it week after week. Maybe in time I will see 60% or 70% ITM, but probably not regularly. And if I do, I’d guess it would mean time to seek tougher players to get me to the next level. I guess it remains to be seen but if today finishes out my First 20, I’ll be near the top of the board again. If last night had gone as it “should” have, I’d be looking for a 230K+ First 20 finish, and very likely 1st place. As it is I may end up with 190-215K, which is not bad, except for when you want 1st place on the weekly leaderboard. I’m still doing a lot better than players who I respect, though, so I have to keep things in perspective. Getting angry at losses doesn’t help my game any. But this time, I’m not doubting my strategy, I feel like I know what I’m doing, and I am making good decisions most of the time, and I’m playing a strong game.

1 Like
97

Posting bad beats is like asking a guy if he wants to see your wedding photos. We have our own we don’t want to look at.

Posting hands you played poorly is just negative reinforcement. Learn from them and move on. Posting them to “vent” is like making 3 copies of a document before you shred it. Writing it up in a persistent forum isn’t venting, at least in my opinion.

Post some hands you think you played well. The outcome isn’t important, the process is. I’ll bet you might get some commetns that will make you play these hands even better in the future.

4 Likes
98

I put bad beats and poorly played hsnds in the Ridiculous Hands thread… It’s a combination of venting, shaming, asking what people think. Mostly venting. But I’ve been posting there less frequently lately, which is a good thing.

I can appreciate that it might get old to read every hand. I think of it as a sports follies reel, but even when it’s entertaining, sometimes it is a bit much.

In this thread, I’ve been posting examples of aggression (mostly mine) in different situations. A lot of them working out poorly for me. I’m partly doing that because I can’t believe I can miss boards and see disaster flops so frequently when I open with supposedly good cards. It borders on ridiculous.

I’m wondering what I can do about it. Opening smaller and even limping some hands where a small raise is pointless seems to be a good idea. I used to be more of a c-bet bluffer, but that stopped working for me a few months back, but maybe I can think about working it back into my game again.

Another thing I do a lot of is dump hands at the flop. Open raise, check/fold the flop, or open raise, c-bet the flop, check/fold the turn when villain aggression gets them to make a pot-size bet or shove in response to me faltering. This is somewhat costly, but it is a way to set up a villain to bet big on me, thinking I’m soft, when I just checked the nuts. Setups like that take time to develop, and sometimes the trap never happens.

As far as posting more examples of well played hsnds, I did post this hand from yesterday.

I’m not sure if it’s a good play or not. I think my read on the Button not calling my preflop open with a 2 or a 3 in his hand makes it a good play. But if I made this play thinking “dammit I’m not folding AKs I don’t care what’s on the board!” then it’s a bad play with a good outcome.

What’s your opinion?

I had another hand, I think I posted it somewhere but I couldn’t find it, where I limped J5s from the SB, villain raised 2BB pre, I called, flopped bottom pair, 5s, checked the flop, villain air bluffed a pot sized bet, I think about it and the pot’s only about 350, my stack is healthy, and I have a pair, so I call, Turn pairs my jack, I make a small bet, villain shoves, I call, ruining the big stack’s game, getting about 15-16K pot out of it. Villain had a high Jack, but not two pair.

Was that a good play for me? Pretty good. Great outcome. But I think more of a blunder on the big stack’s part than great play by me.

99

Why would you check the flop there with possible flush and straight draws on the board? Why call the flop and not check-raise? Why lead the turn? You were drawing pretty thin against any pair. Sorry, I just don’t understand the line you took there or what you were trying to do.

100

I checked because I didn’t have any hand yet.

I really didn’t like the flop. I did not consider a back door straight as worth playing. And I figured if I did try to bet this flop as a c-bet, it would not be given any credit, and either I’d be looking at a raise, or check-folding the Turn, so I didn’t want to put any more in.

True, Button could have been on a pocket pair of some kind, i don’t know for sure why I didn’t give that possibility credit. If that had been the case, I would have been just about dead. But I was correct in reading the bet as a position bluff. It was a pretty reckless move, really. I don’t know why villain opted to call when I shoved the Turn with 333s on the board. That was really silly.

In a few ways, this was not a good play to make, betting huge on an unmade hand, and maybe I was just lucky, but I think having the read and being able to play a nothing hand for a big pot takes some skill. Maybe it was only luck, though. I certainly didn’t have any control over the the river, he could have hit something and knocked me down. Would’ve served me right, too.