Should, would, Donk Bad beat out, but I'll take 3rd in 20k buy in 1.2 mil GTD

Poker Discussion
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Should, would, Donk Bad Beat out of probably would have won 20k buy in, 1.2 mil GTD.

I was just barely behind Chip leader, 2nd in chips. Had 1 mil chips, about a 33 bb stack.

It was 3 way. 500k limps 36k in button. SB chip leader completes SB. I raise to 5.5 bb with KJ suited. 500k DONK DONK CALLS with 93 suited.

FLOP:

xxK, 93 Donk had a flush draw.

I bet 1/3 of POT. Donk ok calls.

Turn K: I go all in. Donk DONK CHASE calls, and butlucks river, cripples stack down to about 425k.

And then got knocked out a few hands later.

Thats why tournaments are so hard to win: Because of DONKS.

Still got 165k for 3rd, got 965k total now. Cashed this tournament after cashing just 1 tournament out of 16 previous tournaments. I was Donk bad beat out of about 87% of them by Donks. The others, rest were a mix of lost flips, Donk slowplaying on extremely wet drawiy board, beating me out, a couple, few, semi some legit beats, trainwrecks, coolers, etc.

Bout darn time got DONK MONKEYS off of back.

This is why have good bankroll management.

Despite the about 16+ buy in bad run, still winning, cashing, ahead, etc.

Just goes to show that skillful play wins, cashes, ahead, in the end, long term.

Its not ONLY luck. Its not rigged, etc.

Just got to keep Grinding.

Also overcoming, cashing, etc, despite the crazyness, is, can be fun.

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Ok I can’t bite my tongue anymore.

Tournaments should not be HARDER to win because players are bad. That, by definition, doesn’t make sense.

It may be true that because players are bad, we need to ADJUST our baseline strategy, find more exploits, etc.

But if you’re losing “because” other players are making mistakes, you must also be making mistakes. Otherwise, you wouldn’t lose to inferior play.

I admit I also talk like this sometimes, but it’s a bad habit and I’m trying to stop :slight_smile:

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For instance, knowing that the “donks” will show up with more hands and chase draws, we can size up pre and on the flop.

I use 1/3 cbet sizing against relatively competent players. If I’m in a pot with a “donk” I often go much bigger, because they will still call with much worse.

Betting 1/3 pot when your opponent would call 3/4 pot with the same weak hand is essentially a mistake; we missed value.

I think playing more GTO is still fine because it’s GTO and by definition always at least fine. But big exploits are surely the way to maximize results in Replay MTTs. I’m quite confident of this by now, having played thousands of them this year alone.

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Like I will just shove KK/AA over mutiple limpers in a lot of spots, even when that means I’m raising 200bb into a 5bb pot. I don’t do this with any other hands, making me extremely exploitable.

It doesn’t matter bc someone will call with 99 or AQ enough of the time that I’m printing money with this unbalanced exploit play.

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When blinds are 10k/20k +, and when a 500k 93 suited DONK limper stack limps in. Raising 5.5 x bb preflop, is SIZING up preflop. If it was early tourney, then 5.5 is not sizing up. Also one would expect 5.5 x to be calleed at the beginning of tourney. One does not expect 5.5 x to be called when down to 3, at end of tourney, as by then the Donks are usually gone, or have stopped Donking by then to try to win, etc. If it was lower stakes, but 20k buy in is not Donk stakes at end of tourny. If I was loose, crazy, maniacally agressive, bad player, etc, then maybe 5.5 x prefop wouldnt be enough.

5.5 x preflop was the RIGHT sizing preflop. It SHOULD have been too big for a call, but not impossible to get a call, as dont want a 100% fold chance. Thats rightly assuming that DONK would limp fold, and wouldnt limp call 5.5 x with something like 93 suited, with his 500k stack size at that stage of tourny.

Also I had seen that the player was the type of player to limp monster hands on button, instead of raising.

It wasnt likely DONK was limping 99 to AA, but if he was, in case he was, dont want to raise 6.5 to 7.5 to 8.5 to 10 to 13 x bb, and give that many chips to short stack, if have 99 to AA, if limping 99 to AA.

5.5 is big enough that either it should either force a fold, or only lose 5.5 to 99 to AA.

Postflop the reason for 1/3 flop sizing, was that when board is wet and drawy, your best chance to extract value, and make draw pay too much, and to protect hand from draw or to force a fold, etc, is that when draw is about 33%, they will call all in, wont fold, etc. But if you bet 1/4, to 1/3, then go BIG(shoved, putting him all in to call, about 3/5th pot effective stack size for him), as he was only 16% to win, and probably fold, or might fold, and should fold.

If I bet bigger on the flop, then I either get nothing(I had a semi tight image), or he probably goes all in, or calls anyways, and then is pot committed, wont fold turn.

At least with the 1/3 flop sizing, at least there is the chance that might call and then might fold the turn. If I bet the flop big I either get nothing or no chance of a fold.

Also if 1/3 is called, and the flush comes in on turn, then only lose 1/3, as oppsed to getting bigger bet called on flop and losing more to a river flush because of a BIG flop call.

I played it right.

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If it wasnt for DONKS CONSTANTLY BUTLUCKING, then would win more. Its possible to make a mistake, not adust, play bad, and make it easier ro be DONKED by a DONK.

That does DID not apply to me, as I played it RIGHT, as I explained in other reply to you.

If that Donk either had not Donked, or not been there as a Donk, etc, I likely would have finished top 1,2, so yes when one is good enough, and has enough of a skill edge, that they can likely outplay, win, etc, then the last thing they want is a crazy DONK creating HIGHER VARIANCE chance of getting DONK BAD BEAT crippled.

I would rather have to outplay a FISH, REC, REG REC, etc, player that is not a donk, that I have a edge over, and because of that have LESS VARIANCE.

Overall having a few, some Donks in MTT’s is good. But too many DONKS can be, is usually semi bad, too high varance. Sometimes having Donk can raise VARIANCE high in a bad way.

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You played it fine, but you also didn’t play it they way you describe. You made a pot sized raise pre, which in this case is 4bb, and you bet half pot on the flop.

It would have been a fine to play it either way, so I get don’t why you always post these elaborate hand histories where most of the details are wrong. You make some very good points at the end of your first post that risk being overlooked by the hand history commentary, which serves even less purpose when the actual hand played out differently.

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Like I said, it was END, END, END OF 20K BUY IN 139 PLAYER TOURNAMENT, There is a reasonable expectation that not a CRAZY DONK. From what I observed, he played like a semi fish semi Donk, semi reg, etc, but not a crazy outright DONK

If this had been earlier, then yeah 5.5 might not be big enough.

But 99.99% of time 5.5 was big enough LATE tourney, as it only got 0,1 caller at most, unless had A2 to AK, KT suited to KQ, JT suited QT suited, QJ, pocket 33+, almost everything else folded.

I had a semi tight to between semi tight to semi moderate IMAGE.

And from my observation I hadnt observed the other player playing like a DONK, and I was at the same table for 3 tables(1 the Final Table, and 2 other tables)

He appeared to be a SEMI FISH NON DONK, NON SEMI CRAZY DONK.

Reasonable expectation, and observation that 5.5 SHOULD BE, IS big enough at END, END of 20k buy in 139 player, 1.2 mil GTD tournament.

No reason to think that 5.5 not big enough.

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I thought it was 5.5 pre, I must have either slightly mis remembered or miscalculated, etc.

Postflop, I thought, apparently slightly misremembered it as 1/3 pot.

I dont know how you accessed hand history, as on my android smart phone, I dont see a way to get Hand History.

Ok so I stand corrected as far as details, but as you pointed out, it was still right at 4 x, as that was about 1/4, 1/5 of 500k stack to call on junk, and still reasonable to expect a fold preflop, or to get a call and have great possible playability postflop, with KJ suited, or only lose 4x to 99 to AA limp.

Postflop tho 1/2 still ok, 1/3, and then all in would have been better.

How do I get access to Hand History?

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Why is it that when I click on the Reply icon at the bottom of a person’s post, that it soes not attach, or quote, etc, the person that replying to, but instead just post, and can make it unclear, whether just posting, or whether replying, and if multiple people posting, who your replying to?.

I guess I’ll have to mention who I am replying to.

All my post, except for the last one were replying to Younguru.

Thanks Younguru for posting. Its good to have somebody challenge, make you explain the reason for play, etc, for one’s own benefit, and the benefit of others, that want to discuss, see reasoning, maybe learn from it, maybe help the person giving reasoning, if their reasoning off, etc.

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Lihuie, thanks for correcting the details.

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Another detail I got wrong, misremembered, at least I think I may have mis remembered, got wrong. I think the blinds were 18k/36k, but whatever they were whether 10k/20k, or 18k/36k, they were high enough, end of tournament, that a 4x to 5.5 x preflop raise should put enough pressure on a 500k stack limping in on button.

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I think the biggest takeaway/most accurate part of your analysis is that “donks” (as you use the term, I take it to mean “wildly loose players who will put a lot of chips in the pot when behind, often with unpredictable ranges”) raise the variance. A good player can be easier to play against because they are making fewer mistakes/doing less random crap, which makes it easier to know “where you’re at” based on their actions.

Like if TheSilent1 raises me, I have a decent idea of what hands he’s doing that with, and I can use the removal my hand provides to further narrow that range and inform my decision. If a “donk” raises you are always left wondering if they have a hand that actually should be raising, or if they’re just doing something weird and semi-random. That certainly can create its own kind of difficulty.

I guess I am more critical of the tone of your post(s) than the content. For me, I find it’s counterproductive to think along the lines of “if it wasn’t for all these bad players making bad plays, I would win more.” I try to focus on what exactly the bad players are doing wrong, and evaluate how I can exploit that to my advantage. If I start complaining to myself, I end up making emotional decisions in spots where I feel I “deserve to win,” often disregarding the more objective data that the action and configuration is showing me.

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To wit: I feel very uncertain about how to play my premium pocket pairs post-flop lately, because I have a lot of encounters with both of the following scenarios:

A) I raise big preflop, get one caller. The flop is dry and disconnected. They check, I bet a reasonable cbet size, they go all in. I call and beat some crappy top pair.

B) same as above but when I call they show me some random two pair and I lose.

Now, this shouldn’t actually change my strategy too much. A) will surely happen a lot more than B), so I should just mostly go with my hand in this spot and trust my range advantage to make the play +EV in the long run. But in the short run, encountering B) can be very frustrating. It takes some mental fortitude not to incorrectly adjust my play in an effort to avoid B).

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I have learned to either not play when, if complain about a Donk, bad beat, etc. And if in a situation late in a tournament where cant stop playing because of big blind size, then I have learned the discipline, control to still make the right plays, etc, or if I do have it effect me, it is very extremely small effect.

A Donk Bad Beat, if anything makes me Bear Down, focus, play even better, think “I will still play right, win despite the DONK bad beat, because I am still the better player, and still will play right, and still probably last longer then the DONK”

And USUALLY thats what happens.

Bad things happen. And the bad things can be annoying, causing complaining, etc. But even if annoyed, complaining, etc, can still deal with the Bad thing, etc, appropiately(like continuing to stay focused, disciplined, playing right in poker), which applies in both poker, life, etc.

If I couldnt handle, deal, cope, etc, with Bad Things happening then I would not win at poker over the long term, etc.

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No problem. Like you said here, it doesn’t matter - there’s really nothing you can do in this hand. Some of the others you’ve posted though, the details were slightly off to but in ways that did make a difference.

If you look at someones profile on Replay (not their forum profile, although that will have a link to the Replay one), you should see their latest cash game hands. Selecting “View latest Hands” will show you the last 200 hands that they played, including tournaments.

If you want to look at your own hands, you can just select Hands from under your profile pick and it should take you straight there.

I think it’s often worth taking a look at hands that seemed like bad beats, because often on reflection the opponents play isn’t as bad as it felt at the time. If you’re anything like me and hate losing to bad plays more than anything else in poker, then looking for reasons why their play might be good is helpful.

If you reply to the last post made, the UI doesn’t make that obvious (but the person you’re replying to will be able to tell). If you want to quote something specific, just select that text and then hit the quote button that should appear, and it will start a reply, or add that quote to the current reply.

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Younguru, I know that GTO, exploitative wise, that your right to play your big hands that way, and that A will happen more then B.

Now maybe you might already do what I am about to suggest. I would suggest watching the player to try to see if they are a NIT, that can fold to, avoid B.

Example. Between early to mid tournament in a tournament(not the 1.2 mil), I min raised QJ suited from MP 1, and got called by 2 players, 1 loose, 1 a NIT.

I flopped Jxx, a very safe seeming board. I cbetted half pot, and semi looser player reraised, and NIT reraised all in, loose player called all in. So even tho I had very good pot odds to call, I folded, because I knew I was beat.

If I had just done what you advocate to do in A, then B would have happened.

Now like you, Im normally not folding, in the situation you describe and if B happens, it happens. But if I am up against the ultimate nit, then I will fold in your scenario, and avoid B.

I later cashed that tourny because of that fold I made. Thats why its important to observe and have the discipline to fold, but not overfold at same time.

As far as changing play based on B, I guess I am to disciplined, or too stubborn to let myself change the right way to play. I’m like "I know the right play is X, so I will continue to do X no matter how many times B happens, if B happens

Now if B starts happening a lot, I start examining to see if I am making the wrong play, and adjust by watching even more extremely carefully to make sure that its not nits, that I am ending up in B, and that players really are just value owning themselves, overplaying, etc, so that I am not wrongfully by playing wrong ending up in B.

But yeah it takes discipline, mental fortitude, etc.

Its not easy, but almost anybody can learn in time to have the discipline, mental fortitude, etc.

That doesnt I mean I am perfect at that, as I have lots of room for improvement, but I am slowly getting better at that, and that also why I try to avoid, dont play if B starts affecting me, etc.

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Thanks Lihuie

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Lihuie you sound a little like the Poker Coach I had. Me(LONG LONG TIME AGO): “How am I playing bad, I was Bad beat?”. Poker Coach: " Because you shouldnt have even been in the hand in the first place, because it was both a marginal, ok hand in late position, but not a good hand in middle position. If you will just open fold those kind of hands in bad position, situation, more often, then you wont get bad beat by worse hands, etc. So even tho a fish, donk bad beat you with a worse hand, you could, should have avoided it by folding preflop."

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I was actually coming at it from the other way, ie looking at your opponents actions and asking Is 93s really that bad?

I don’t like the limp with it, but 3 handed you need to be playing a lot of hands. I haven’t checked, but I suspect we get to open this on the button. Once they have limped - they’re kind of in a spot where they’d have to defend a similar range as if they were in the big blind. 93 wouldn’t make it against a 4bb iso, but it might against a smaller raise. Once they get to the flop, they should probably just shove, but there aren’t any great options.

Like in your story it’s really just a series of small mistakes that have snowballed into an increasingly bad situation. There isn’t a single play that’s absolutely terrible in isolation. The value in looking at your opponents play this way, is you get to find similar hands that would be in your range and consider how you’d play them. eg What if they had 98s here instead?