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April 30, 2015
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Hi guys,
I am currently participating in a live tournament series in my local casino that extends up to the end of this week which ends with a big tournament. This is a good series with most of the tournaments having 30 min levels and 10k chips to start with, and there are usually 250 runners in the single day tournaments and more than 500 in the big one. I will be posting some hands that I find interesting from those events starting today.. Here goes the first hand.
$350, 10k chips with 50-100 blinds (2nd level). 10 handed table.
Blinds posted 50 and 100
Villain (MP1) 23k: calls 100
HJ 10k: calls
Hero (D) (10k): 6
8 raise to 500
SB folds, BB, MP1 and HJ call 500
Reads on Villain: Typical LAG and positionally unaware. I saw him open so many times from everywhere and c-bet 14/15 times when checked to him or first to act. The one time he checked flop, a horrible player shoved turn when he caught a flush draw on the turn thinking it is a rebuy tournament and the villain had a set on the flop and got a lot of chips. He is the overwhelming chipleader at the table.
My line: When villain limped in MP1, I got annoyed and immediately decided if no surprising action after that, I will raise with any pair, suited connectors more than 34 suited, and any two broadway cards. I want to widen my opening range against LAG as I will get paid off on multiple streets if I hit, and since I have position, he will most definitely lead into me and I can even consider floating. 5x raise is because I wanted to make it 275+1BB for every limper, which made it 475. I threw in a 500 chip.
Flop: Q107 (Pot: 2050)
V: bets 1500
HJ folds
Hero: Calls 1500
BB folds
My line: This is the best flop I can ask for. Villain is most likely to bet the flop with anything. I will just flat and make a move if there is no 4th spade on the turn.
Turn: 2
(Pot: 5050)
V: Bets 4000
H: (~8k behind): All in
What do you guys think of the line? Since it is too early in the tournament, could the hero get away with not making such a high variance play and fold on the turn? May be even open-fold to get some tight image?
Possible errors I see in my play in this hand are:
1. Opening button with a so-so hand too early in the tournament.
2. Opting for a high variance shove on the turn.
Anything else you guys can spot and help me plug my weakness?
By the way, my write-up will give you a hint as to what the result of the hand was… MP1 had J5 and he was happy to accumulate more chips and send me packing.
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Why do you think the turn is a “high variance” shove? Given your description of V it seems pretty straight-forward. Think you are being extremely results-oriented here. I think limping or raising pre-flop are both fine. Doing it because you are annoyed at the V is not the best motive, though. Why does it annoy you when people play bad? They are giving you opportunities to exploit them (and FWIW, I do think your general plan is a good one, though I’d limp behind a few of the weaker hands you mention, such as 43s and small pairs).
Why do you keep mentioning that it was early in the tournament? What does that have to do with anything?
April 30, 2015
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Andrew,
Thanks a lot for your pro-analysis reply! It is never sufficient enough if I tell you that watching your videos has improved my game quite a bit. So, I always take your comments seriously.
A few things I want to clarify regarding the hand… I was “annoyed” as in, I am not going to allow him to get away with his raises all the time. Trust me, I was totally happy that I raised and got the flop I wanted. By saying “early in the game”, it is about my usual strategy. I always tend to be a little tighter towards the start until antes come into play, and start opening more of these kind of hands only during that time where I can usually get away with a 2.5x to 2.75x raise than a 5x that I have done here.
When I was thinking about the hand on the long drive back home, I felt that if he had a 2 pair or set, he bets bigger on the flop or shoves the turn. I should have put him on either AX hand or a made flush, as my brain can’t process him to have any other hand. I am being a little result-oriented because I was a little perplexed if I had made the wrong decisions that took me out of the tournament that I was preparing for a while. But from your analysis, looks like I haven’t made a ton of mistakes here. Thanks!
TPE Pro
December 6, 2012
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Thanks for the very kind words, navin, and for being patient with what now looks like a less-than-gentle reply on my part. It’s true that you should be somewhat tighter when there are no antes in the pot, but your position is worth more when you are deep, as are hands like 86s with the potential to make strong draws and made hands. This is absolutely a hand you should VPIP, and the only question is whether to bet or raise with it. It’s close, and I think raising is fine.
This isn’t the only time you mention early in the tournament though. “Since it is too early in the tournament, could the hero get away with not making such a high variance play and fold on the turn?” My concern is that you are just generally excessively concerned about not wanting to bust early in the tournament, which is a common but irrational hang-up. There’s no prize for bubbling instead of busting before the antes. In fact, I’d much rather do the latter. If I’m not going to cash, I’d rather finish early and go play something else.
The biggest gap I see in your logic is that you seem to go from assuming that V will fire almost anything for big bets, which is why you slowplay the hand on the flop, to considering that he must have 2p+ or a strong draw on the turn, and then you are just worrying over the sizing he would use with these various holdings. What happened to “Villain is most likely to bet the flop with anything”? Why can’t he have KJ or AQ or 98 or 76?
September 14, 2014
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I really don’t think this is a flop you really want to be slow playing, there’s a lot of action killers on the turn and you may lose value. I’d much rather fast play OTF , you’re both deep stacked as well so getting in your money in against so many worse hands then yours is pretty damm awesome!. My value target would be 77 and QT, doubt v is limping in pre with QQ and TT, so we can discount those.
TPE Pro
August 25, 2012
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I’m not a huge fan of using this hand as part of your iso-raising range preflop. You’re likely to get two calls and most of their ranges are going to dominate your 8 high. You can’t make many strong pairs with which to extract value and you’re unlikely to make too many strong draws. I’d rather limp behind with this one and raise some suited Aces/Kings instead.
On flop, I think you need to raise to get value. There’s no reason to slowplay when villain is telling you they have a hand – I strongly disagree that villain is ‘likely to bet the flop with anything’. Almost every time people make this assumption about their opponents in these donk-bet spots, they’re wrong. Villain has a hand here that he’s trying to protect, so raise and get value. There are lots of bad turns.
On turn there’s nothing more you can do, but I think the money should have gone in earlier. Either way you were getting stacked, though, so there’s not much about this hand that should cause you to spend too much time dwelling on it after the fact. Just make sure you focus on getting value from your strong hands. That’s the biggest leak in a huge number of recreational MTT players.
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