the meaning of this forum is to make a specific hand situation and let the next persons analysis this hand and tell what action you would make and why. here the details:
i make in the topic a specific situation and people can analysis the situation. i also have an answer blurred below, it can be you disagree with the answer, but because some situations have multiple options the disagreeing is completely fine, the most important thing is that you thought about the situation and learn from it.
in each 5 posts (post 5,10,15,20 etc) you can answer but also make a new situation yourself, after that the analysis is all about that one. when you make a new situation use the same things as explained above. you can still answer about previous situations but you have to specificly quote them if you do.
look at the blue slide bar to the right of this forum to see when you can make a new situation if you want.
if a new situation is not made on the right post then stick to the previous one till the next 5 posts (when the new one should be made) the reason not to make another one after it is because it’s harder for the other people to find where the last situation is.
also if you make a hand, then try not to forget to add important information
there are no rules about the difficulty of the analysis hand
every analysis outside the question itself but is about the hand is optional but allowed
don’t read the blurred part before posting
so now the first situation, i’ll start with an easy one to get into it:
you are in a MTT, everyone has around average stack sizes, you are early in the tournament and the blinds are 50/100 and your stack is on 8000.
you are in the CO and look at QhQd. you decide to raise 3x the BB (300). the dealer and SB fold and the BB calls. you think the BB is a bit tight player but not really tight.
flop: Qs5h3c. the BB checks, you decide to slowplay and check.
turn: Ad. the BB bets 400. you still slowplay and just call.
river: 9s. the BB bets 1450, now it’s your turn what will you do and why?
answer: you have a monster and the only hands beating you are AA and 24. if he has 24 he would have folded preflop because he is tight, and if he had aces he would very likely be reraising (even if it’s just a little bit to get you calling or reraising). so you are almost fully sure you have the best hand by far. so reraising is the right thing to do (i would say about 3500, this way it’s very likely to let him call, if he don’t he would’nt anyway with 2900). the hand he probably have is a big ace.
I jump in my Delorean, fire up the flux capacitor, and travel back in time to the flop, where I bet half the pot. This will likely be taken as a standard C bet and probably get called.
When the ace hits the turn, I pause a few seconds before making a min bet to induce a raise. When he raises, I think about it for 1/3 of the clock before “reluctantly” calling.
I pause a few seconds on the river, then check. When he makes his bet, I would raise about 2x his bet, and hope he comes over the top.
I rarely slow play a set. I want to get as much money in the pot as possible and try to get my opponent pot committed. In this hand, I would be representing a hand like KQ in the hopes of getting his whole stack.
we are only beat by one exact hand if I’m reading this correctly we are only beat by 2 exact hands, Aces, but we are not getting called by worse ever. Aces and 2 4 are the only ones. 2 4 is out as he wouldn;t call that pre, but Aces is very very possible, but he also has lower sets a lot so we must consider that as they play it the same, so i think we reshove and hate it when we lose to Aces, but otherwise profit! This is a bluff a lot too so yea easy reshove for me.
Automatic re-raise, 2-3X. All 2 pr. combos possible and any set he might have (except A’s) are counterfeit, and he can’t have a set of Q’s. 2-4 are improbable for the 3X pre-flop call. Unless he is the slow play King (this is where player notes help) A’s are improbable as well. He would have bet on the flop hoping to catch any Q holder.
i was thinking about the fact that the idea was to make another hand situation every 5 posts, but the posts on the forum itself and the amount mentioned in the topic list are different by the amount of one. so this way it is unclear which 5 you should take, so to specify it the every 5 i meant is the one with the blue slide bar right of the topic.
thought about it because the 5th post is already made without a new situation. so now the first new one is allowed to make on post 10.
i will specify this in the topic too. apologies for the unclearness.
15k MTT blinds are 2000/4000+400 antes and I have 120000. Tournament situation I was 7/21 with the Top 18 cashing. Currently I was the 3rd biggest stack at the table, the only two that were deeper were the small blind and big blind in this hand. It’s folded to me on the button and I look down at Jc Tc. I decide to limp in as did the SB and the BB checks. Flop is 3d 9c Qc. The blinds both check and I bet half the pot. SB gets out and the BB raises 3x. I call without much thought. Turn is Ad and now BB checks again. Now I had a big choice, there’s a good chance he check raised me with air and is now giving up but I wasn’t entirely sure and decided to play things safe and get a free card. River was a 3s and he checked to me one more time. To summarize I have jack high but he had shown tremendous weakness, but so have I. Is it possible to bluff here? Any comments on the hand are appreciated, thanks.
In the hand I thought he had some queen rag and didn’t feel like bluffing due to the tournament situation so I checked behind and he showed me Jh Td for a chop :P.
This hand is kind of tricky. I would normally say you weren’t strong enough to go to showdown and almost had to bluff here, but you had a horrible hand to bluff with.
The fact that yoiu had J10 made it very unlikely that he had the same, even though this is what he ended up having, and the fact that you had 2 clubs made it unlikely that he flopped a flush draw. So what could he have that he would fold to a river bet?
If his hand contained a queen, or even a 9, he would have QQ33A or 9933A and probably wasn’t going anywhere. Same is true for any pocket pair. Since he checked from the BB, he could have anything there, including many combos that containd a 3. (though I wouldn’t expect most people to check the river with trip 3s)
Successful bluffs tell a story. Limping the button and checking the turn left you without a convincing story to tell. I don’t think a river bluff works often enough to be worth it there. Now,had you fired out a healthy bet on the turn, and followed it up with another barrel on the river, that’s a different story.
Right, I probably can’t bluff on the river. What do you think is a better play in general on the turn though, betting or checking? Or is it a matter of taste? Thanks again for your insights.
Well, I would probably have raised preflop, which would have set up a bluff on the turn. It’s hard to sell an ace on the turn if you limp the button when isolated against the blinds.
You said you had your opponent on a weak queen, which is reasonable considering your holdings and the way the hand played. You won’t get too far trying to represent the hand you put your opponent on.
Raising preflop makes AQ, A9, A3, or any Ax more believable. You might well have taken down a decent pot had you bet the turn.
I would usually have put him on a hand containing a random 9 since he checked the river, but he had already shown a willingness to check-raise, so who knows?
You really limited your options by not raising preflop. Having limped there, however, your line was semi-reasonable considering your stack and your position in the tournament at the time. It was better to cut your losses rather than face a possible check-raise on the river.
Yeah I wouldn’t check the flop either. In a two way pot he knows you are going to bet a wide part of your range especially in position and hope to take it down. Good answer by the way.
I know it’s standard to raise when it’s folded to you on the button. I forgot to mention that the players acting after me (SB,BB) were aggressive players. Therefore my plan was to limp, flop a strong hand (or draw) and win a big pot.
In this case it would depend on two things - how have you played your A’s up until that point and do you think the other player has been paying attention? From my play with you, I wouldn’t put you on an A because you hadn’t raised pre-flop. You’ve played your A’s strong when I’ve seen you so I’m taking the A out of the equation. However, if you hadn’t been playing that way prior to this hand in this game, or if you don’t think the player you were facing is all that observant, then you could have repped a weak A on the turn and fired the 2nd shell. That would have forced him to fold all draws and the weak Q you had him on.
So, I will disagree a bit with some of the others here that repping an A wasn’t believable. I have seen a ton of weak A’s limped from all over the map so far playing here. In fact, a weak A is probably the single most limped hand played here. Now the fact that you tend not to limp them could have cost you but only if the other player was strong enough to be concerned with anything other than his own cards. Since you knew he was aggressive, I assume you knew how strong a player he was as well. Do you think he had any read on your cards whatsoever or only on his own?
That is the real question here I think. If this was a player who only knows his own holdings, then you could have fired a decent bet on the turn and taken the pot in all likelihood. I wouldn’t have shoved my whole stack there in case he actually had a hand like 2 pairs but a decent bet had a very good chance of forcing the fold. Maybe a 1/2 pot or a little better size?
Additionally, and just from personal preference, I am not sure I would have called the check-raise if I had no intention of taking another stab at the pot on a scare card. I may have shut it down right there and moved on to the next hand. I don’t want to depend on outdrawing someone to take the pot and I know I’m not strong enough to get to showdown so if I call his raise, I know I have to fire again if an opportunity presents itself. That’s just me though.
Yeah, weak ace hands might limp the button, but would they call a check-raise on the flop? Ac3c might, any AcXc might, but that a pretty narrow range. I would expect A9 and AQ to raise pre.
If I had taken that line to the river, could I find a bluff? Yeah, I could, but only in one specific situation. If my opponent’s bank made it likely that he was just trying to hang on for the cash, I might fire on the river.
My read (which would have been wrong) would put him on a random Q or random 9. Since the tournament field was down to about 25%, I would give him credit for at least having some skills, so his check on the river would pretty much eliminate the random Q hands.
So at that point, I would have put him on a busted draw (even though my holdings made this far less likely) or a 9X type hand. The line taken would make it reasonable for me to have a random Q, and the board pairing on the end would thus make my kicker irrelevant… I would be repping QQ33A.
So yeah, I might bluff the end there.
I don’t play to cash, I play to win, and I get more aggressive near the bubble. I have enough chips that the 15k buyin is meaningless to me. I could find a 1/2 pot bluff on the river, and might even jam if I got raised. I’m willing to accept the high variance in order to win it all.
If I thought the other guy was just trying to cash and was otherwise good enough to fold 9933A there, yeah, game on.
All excellent points. I really do think it comes down to the read on the other player then doesn’t it? Whether you are reading his stack, his intentions, his strength as a player or his stickiness on draws, it is about him, and only to a lesser extent about the cards we hold.
I have seen a few players who will check raise draws and immediately shut it down if they don’t hit on the next street. If this was one of those players, then fire the next barrel because he will fold. 2 or 3 players come to mind who fit this profile, and no, their repertoire does not extend further than this 1 move. Yes, they can go pretty deep as 1-trick ponies if they get enough cheap chips early. Not saying that is the case but if this hand was against 1 of these players, then my decision would have been clear.
The more I thought about this hand, the more polarized I become in my approach to it. I am either folding to the check-raise (most likely at that stage) or prepared to fire at least 1 more street hard if the opportunity presented itself, The middle road of hoping to outdraw isn’t one I would take in most cases.
I don’t know stack size and position if he was unsuccessful after 2nd barrel and that would play into the decision for sure. I just don’t see the decision points exactly in the same places as you may. I am making the decisions on whether to call the check-raise or not and if so, whether to fire on the turn. If this hand gets to the river, I don’t see a great story for a bluff other than as a power move all-in on air, forcing the other player to make a tough decision. Regardless, seeing how different people play the same hand is always a good exercise.
Agreed it’s all about playing the player, and yeah, the reason I participate in this kind of thread is to get into the minds of people with different approaches to the game.
I don’t get that your decision point was the check raise on the flop though. At that point you have 15 outs twice, all to the nuts or near nuts. Yeah your flush draw could be vs AcXc or KcXc, but those are far less likely since you have 2 clubs. Folding there discredits your bets in the future, no way I’m folding.
I wouldn’t have taken that line in this hand, but if I had, his turn and river checks would have been like a big neon “KICK ME” sign on his back, and I do like to oblige.
I told the OP that he couldn’t bluff the river. That’s because he had his guy on a weak queen. This was reasonable up to the river, but his check there would tell me he was looking to take it to showdown on the cheap, so couldn’t have a queen.
By the way, I do realize this is easier to do after the fact. 15 seconds a street doesn’t give you a lot of time for analysis in the moment. I’m not being critical of the OP here… it was a tricky and interesting hand, and I’m enjoying the discussion.
For your own sake, do not try to get into my mind. Its crowded enough without one more voice in there
Without getting too deep into the weeds on how I approach this, my decision point has almost nothing to do with whether I make the hand or not. It has to do with whether I am going to make a play to take the pot on the next street or two. If I make the monster, then that’s wonderful. If I don’t improve, then there’s too much money in the pot to walk away from and I am not taking it to showdown with a J-high. So, my decision comes down to whether I want to invest not just the raise but the next bet that I will almost certainly have to make, whether I improve or not. I am thinking of how much of my current stack do I want to commit to this hand right now? If I am only marginally committed, the hand is gone and I’m on to the next. If I tell myself that I am taking this pot barring a nightmare turn card, then I’ll make the call there. The third option that was not discussed yet was whether it is viable to jam the re-raise right then and there. You have tons of outs even if he does make the call.
BTW - I do not agree that it takes away from future bet credibility, assuming these players even notice what I do from hand to hand. For all the BB knows, I limped in a small pair, made the c-bet to his check and folded the pair after being check-raised because of the over cards. Say I limped 4’s - 7’s and made a play for the pot. Reasonable thing to do but when faced with a check-raise, you are not continuing with those hands. No one knows the hand you mucked unless you tell them.
This would not have been my line entering the hand and I may have made either a stronger c-bet to discourage drawing hands or foregone the c-bet to see a free card on my drawing hand. Had I been checked to a 2nd time, I would have made a bet on the turn in position and rep the weak A, likely taking the pot at that point. However, I have now had a day to think this hand over and replay it in my head. I still don’t know the other players involved so I am doing a lot of guessing. I am not faulting anyone’s decision making here either. This type of 3-way pot is rough unless you flop a clear winner because you are going into the flop stone cold blind against 2 hands that could contain any 2 cards each. Blind on blind play is tricky enough. Add in another limper and the combinations of possibilities go up dramatically.
If I had 1 takeaway from this hand, it would be the furtherance of my strongly held belief that opening the action with a limp is rarely a good idea. This hand was too strong to limp from the button, IMO unless you were just hoping to improve on the cheap and take the pot on the merits. If that was the case, there was no need for the c-bet at all. You could have seen another free card and all you have invested is 1BB. I would try to take either the strong line or the passive line, not the middle. In my experience, the middle of the road is not the place you want to be for very long.
After another night of sleeping on it, I’m still not sure what I would have done. I agree that stack sizes would be helpful but I think the key element here is whether the other player was a known quantity or not.
In poker, there is no intend, only do - my idea of a way cooler Yoda
Thanks a lot Warlock and SPG for the excellent comments as usual. One thing I just wanted to add to close things out was that my opponent in the hand was extremely unpredictable… meaning if I fired on the turn there was a chance he would push all in and I would be an underdog vs any queen/ace and probably would have to fold considering the tournament position. That’s why I decided to check.
