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Chris,
If you play just fo ICM, you’ll be down to about two orbits’ (8 hands) worth of chips when the small blind blinds out, even without an ante. That puts you in a mighty tough spot. If you shove with the 8’s and everyone behind you folds, the small blind is getting huge odds to call (call 25 into a pot of 40). Expect to get called very widely and be facing at least one overcard. No way the SB can let you pick up the blinds here at his expense. Your shove becomes (at best) 25 to earn the 15 already in plus the SB’s 25.All that said, if you shove, the players behind you will recognize that the SB has to call and likely fold themselves unless they have a huge pair. So you’re unlikely to have to go against more than just the small blind.
The charts say shove, and I believe them. There is a large possibility that no one behind you or the BB has anything with which to give the SB a hard time, and this will be one of your few remaining opportunities with a decent hand to gather in chips. Time to shove and take advantage of everyone else’s hesitance on the bubble.
I think that you also have to consider that he could have broadway clubs and made the plays that he did. Certainly AcKc and likely QcJc would have played the same. Those hands being possible are the only ones against which I might like your jam, and they’re not enough of his range (even if you gave him other broadway clubs) to make the jam likely to succeed. It sucks to have to tippy-toe with such a huge equity hand, but with the range you put villain on, you’re too likely behind. I agree with John, call the turn and see what changes on the river.
One of the basic beginner plays to watch for is the speech. He offers reasons for his bet (saying that he thinks you’re only bluffing) and gives you a reason to think that he may be weak himself. This is the classic acting weak when strong. Beware the speech!
Pretty tough to make a good flush and have to consider folding. I read Chuck’s response before I saw the hand, and I have a harder time assigning realistic ranges when I can see villain’s hand. But what hand makes sense to shove on the river. Only quad nines, full houses and air. I can’t believe that villain would think he was shoving for value with anything less than a boat. Could I have gotten away form it? That would depend on my read of the opponent and the situation in the tournament (how many left, how close to money, etc.) After watching the hand a second time, calling a preflop raise, check calling the flop, checking the turn and shoving on the river is just not a typical bluffing line. I’d like to think I’d sniff this one out, but I could see his hand. I agree that betting the turn is the way to go. Villain’s turn call would make it easier to get away on the river.
I agree with Laurens that you may be giving villain too tight of a range. I think that jacks and tens are often there and maybe a few weaker hands considering that he is out of position. To answer your question, I think you should bet for value on the turn. You can get called by diamond draws, straight draws (admittedly not many) and all pairs. The turn hits a small part of your range (3 pairs of queens, maybe some AQ’s), so villain may well believe that you are on a draw or trying to steal the hand. You’re much more likely to get called on a bet here than on a river when villain can no longer improve or when a draw-completing card hits (jacks, sixes and diamonds would kill the action and any eight, nine or ten would probably shut him down and that’s half the deck).
I think a bluff on the river from villain is less likely that a call of your turn bet. You did lead out, call a three bet and call a flop bet. If he just has AK, he’ll likely check the river hoping for a free showdown.Zander,
I learned to play in Colorado and there were lots of things that made games illegal there. My license to practice would be yanked if I had gambling conviction, so I had to be very cautious. We put together home games that were legal, meaning 1) all money collected had to go back to players (none to house or even a charity), 2) the house (bar or restaurant) couldn’t make money off the game by increased sales, 3) the players had to have a relationship outside of poker (couldn’t just be a poker group. My games were a bunch of my clients.). It was tough, but there were enough games that I could generally play two or three times a week. The cops weren’t interested in busting friendly little games. So if there are local bingo games, then there are probably ways to tiptoe into home games. Worth a look!I don’t think your play was too nitty. You weren’t getting the correct pot odds to draw. Period. Villain in this hand is making one of my favorite mistakes to spot and play against. He’s betting too large at too many flops. You beat this guy over time by calling down with better than top pair (overpairs, two pair, sets), and should make a bunch of money doing it. The players I’ve seen with this leak tend to make large turn bets when draws miss and will fire again on the river if they don’t see a flush or obvious straight. I’ve even had them call a river raise with just top pair after I’ve called preflop,flop and turn bets. Those times are when you get paid back for folding many times when he takes a small pot by stacking him.
When a player is making this much of a mistake, let go of your GTO impulses and put on the exploitative pants.
Eric,
My guess is that you aren’t getting many answers because there isn’t enough information for readers to know what to tell you, e.g. how much experience you have, what other options there are (like online play, a meetup group, or finding a few players to take very small stakes seriously and start a game). Also, it seems to be the trend that players are joining sites online that offer instruction. Some of these offer teasers that are free.Personally, I don’t learn well from online sites. I need to have cards and chips and people in front of me. I started my own group of beginners and we’d have $5 tournaments followed by $5 buy-in cash games with 5 and 10 cent antes. Everyone took it seriously. There were dumb plays, but not because the stakes were small. It’s because we were beginners.
At some point, you have to go play with better players, and that means you’ll most likely lose for a bit. I called it paying for lessons. And yes, I read a lot of books.
So do you save for the WSOP? If so, then expect to run into better players and not do well. You’ll learn a lot, and the luck factor may even get you some good hours of play in. If you decide to play in the local games, discipline is the word of the day. Work on playing well, know that the variance will be large, and learn to beat the bad players. It’s tempting and exciting to play in a big event, but probably smarter to find a more sure way to climb the learning curve. Good luck!
David,
One other thing to consider is that not only do you know that you’re a newbie at the tables, the regs do, too. Many regs that stake out the smallest games have a fairly simple strategy: take money from the fish that over-play top pair top kicker or overpairs. I assume that when the regs play back at me, they have top-top/overpairs beaten, especially when the bets get bigger. It hurts, but I’ve saved a bunch of money folding in these situations when I’ve got what they hope I do.Jason,
I read through these hands trying to improve my own game. Not only do I think about the hand, but I try to pick apart the responders’ reasoning.
In this hand, I have to agree with Chuck. There are a few more hands that I considered since you said that villain was limp happy pre-flop. Things like KQ, KJ, QJ, J10, K10, Q10. The big question for me, then, becomes what can he be betting for value on the end that you actually beat? Because of the board texture and his nature of not bluffing, he has to have at least two pair to bet here, and you have the worst two pair hand he could be betting. It doesn’t sound like he’s a guy to bet KQ for a smaller two pair than yours. So you’re at the bottom of his range and would be calling hoping to only chop. I would expect calling to be a loser every time, mostly to trips that was considering a straight (his 30 second tank) and sometimes to a better two pair than yours.
You seemed pretty sure of your reads on this guy. If so, I think it has to be a fold. It sucks to flop good and have to fold later.Gabe,
You were getting 3.3 to 1 when you folded, a little less than optimal for flush draws. The guy behind was probably going to call, so the odds were probably there to make the call. Then there are implied odds, especially with two opponents in the hand. When the guy behind shoves, you would no longer be getting correct odds, so it would have been a fold then, which would have sucked after sticking in the $30.
I don’t think the fold was too nitty if you had a read that the pot was likely to get raised. Short of that, you probably should have lost the thirty bucks.
Okay, I’ll be one of those guys. First, I don’t know that I would have called villain’s raise to play against a clever opponent OOP. That said, you hit a miracle flop and even better turn.The only reasonable hands you are behind are K-10 and 10-8. It’s very unlikely that villain has a 9 or a boat. The small bets on a coordinated board with two opponents smack a lot harder of a draw than trip Q’s or J’s. It seems like you let his image and river bet size run you over. So…I would have happily called.
Sonny,
I like your hit and run strategy. There are two problems with it that I see. First, how do you deal with a session where you quickly lose a couple of buy-ins? Second, with many very short sessions where you play very differently than other people, your opponents will start to recognize you and know your style of play, adjusting their play to make yours less profitable. Sooner or later the guys at the next table will be as familiar with your game as the guys at the table you’re leaving. So hit and run is fine, but only for an infrequent strategy. After the hours playing start to build up, I’ll bet that you end up with a strategy like the rest of us. If you can beat the game you’re in, stay in it. If not, pick up. It may sound boring, but there’s a good reason that everybody does it.
Chuck,
A lot of voices already in this hand, so I’ll keep this short. You said that you improved on the turn, but you didn’t. Yes, you picked up the open ended straight draw, but now your flush draw only has one card to hit. The chances that your hand will improve to beat even a one-pair hand are about the same on the turn as they were on the flop. I think you have odds to call her flop raise and a quarter-pot sized bet on the turn. The check-raise of her turn bet was more than optimistic. She had already shown strength raising you and betting on the turn. There was no way she didn’t have odds to call a min check-raise, even without a made hand.
All said, you got the consensus that the play was not the best, and now probably see it more like the rest of us do. I know the feeling of wanting to win every hand and second-guessing later (If only I had…). The quicker you learn to recognize which hands you’re very likely to lose, the less you’ll lose on them. Have heart, this hand is not as bad as some of the mistakes I (still) make.
I guess this wasn’t so short after all.
Jake,
One other factor to consider in this hand is that by the time you bet the flop, you already had more than a third of your stack in. This leaves you with only one pot-sized bet at best, and with that stack-to-pot ratio, you (and your opponent) had little choice but to get it in and hope. Three betting pre-flop to a quarter of your stack will let you get away form really bad flops, but the next bet commits you. With the commitment there, it doesn’t matter whether you get it in on the turn or the or the river, nor who puts it in first. Even if you know that the villain’s three bet calling range is precisely aces and kings, you’re still 50/50 to win the pot at the end, and pot odds say call. The other possibilities he has (like the flush draw) make it a mandatory call. Knowing that your opponent is pot committed can help you to assign him a little bit larger range than if the stacks were deeper, and therefore make these pot-committed bets and calls easier.
