Random musings

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Heading to Vegas this weekend for my b-day. May the poker gods shine a light on to me.

Good luck man. Let me ask you about this hand I played nye.

Actually, two hands.

Was playing at the Lumiere in StL. About 1am. Pretty decent game. A couple guys drinking with lots of money and had been at the Blues/Blackhawks old timers game or whatever. Lot's of drunk kids coming in and out with $100 into the $1/3 game. One solid player to my left.

Anyway, I get KJo on the button. Bump it up to $10. Both blinds call and a guy in MP calls. Flop comes KJ10 two hearts. SB checks, BB pops it for $25 MP folds, and I raise to $75. SB folds and BB calls. The turn comes Qo. He checks and this is where I think I really messed up when I checked back. I was worried about BB holding the A, but no way a nut straight checks with two hearts on the board, right? Right?!?!

River comes A of hearts so the board has an ace high straight with 3 hearts. BB bombs it all in for about $125 into a ~$200 pot. I go into the tank and can't pull the trigger to call. Only thing that made sense was suited connectors. Call $10 preflop without closing the action. Donk bet the flop and call raise (leaving less than 3/4 pot sized bet let), check turn, bomb river when the hearts get there. I ask if he has 56h and apparently you can't do that. But he smiles and I muck. He shows me 67h. Don't know if I bombed the turn if he'd have folded. $125 to call and win ~$450 and he's got what about 20% to hit his flush. In hindsight that was the right play, I think. AK probably reraises flop along with AQ. AJ/A10 probably folds the raise on the flop, I think. Regardless, neither check the turn.

...

Another hand where I really, well, just got coolered and ended my night. I was up about $400 from a $300 buy in. Games getting bad as an angry guy had sat down to my right with ~$200 and wanted to chastise the dealer for bad cards. Anyway, I'm in SB and the action folds to the button angry man. He raises to $10. I look down at QQ and bump it to $30. BB who was agro over the past hour or so, raising everything I raise at least 3.5 times, bumps it to $100.

Button angrily calls, and I think for a little bit. No way he doesn't go all in with anything worth a damn. he's an idiot and probably has a small pp or broadway cards. Anything higher and he'd have shipped it.

I look at the guy to my left and he seems pretty comfortable, but I'd seem him slow down with KK a little bit before. I don't think he's going to play AA KK this way opting to call and keep everyone in or at most a min raise to induce.

So, I bomb it and ship about $700 in there wanting to get button out and not allow myself to fold if an A lands on the flop. Player to my left snap calls and the button goes on a rant and to match any poker outburst I'd personally seen. Eventually he asks if he can see both our hands afterwards and I didn't even say anything and the BB tells him he only shows if he wins, but he'd show if the guy called.

I'm not feeling so good anymore.

Button folds like I wanted and me and agro guy go heads up. Flop comes AJJ and button about [expletive] himself in disgust. Guess I don't have to worry about the J anymore, but the board runs out KK and the guy asks if I have a K. I say no and he flips over AQ. [expletive] brutal.

He ciphons off about $500 and I get up and leave.

Looking back on it, I don't know that I did anything wrong. I think shipping it was the right play to isolate the agro guy and taking the buttons dead money, but I'm open to comments.

[Freed Roger]

Heading to Vegas this weekend for my b-day. May the poker gods shine a light on to me.

hope this isn't bad mojo, aw what the heck

[MrCrowesGarden]

It pisses me off when people say "I need a vacation from my vacation."

That's not gonna happen to me.

My folks just moved a few months ago to Mississippi and I haven't seen them since October... longest I think I've gone without seeing them. Gonna soak up every last moment.

[heyzeus]

I've been a Vonnegut fanboy my entire life. I own and have read everything he ever published. In most cases multiple times.

So how did I just discover today that he wrote a kids' book in 1980?
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books ... 609807245/

Thanks to Amazon it's on its way to my house. I have two small secular humanists to bring up!

[Michael]

Heading to Vegas this weekend for my b-day. May the poker gods shine a light on to me.

Good luck man. Let me ask you about this hand I played nye.

Actually, two hands.

Was playing at the Lumiere in StL. About 1am. Pretty decent game. A couple guys drinking with lots of money and had been at the Blues/Blackhawks old timers game or whatever. Lot's of drunk kids coming in and out with $100 into the $1/3 game. One solid player to my left.

Anyway, I get KJo on the button. Bump it up to $10. Both blinds call and a guy in MP calls. Flop comes KJ10 two hearts. SB checks, BB pops it for $25 MP folds, and I raise to $75. SB folds and BB calls. The turn comes Qo. He checks and this is where I think I really messed up when I checked back. I was worried about BB holding the A, but no way a nut straight checks with two hearts on the board, right? Right?!?!

River comes A of hearts so the board has an ace high straight with 3 hearts. BB bombs it all in for about $125 into a ~$200 pot. I go into the tank and can't pull the trigger to call. Only thing that made sense was suited connectors. Call $10 preflop without closing the action. Donk bet the flop and call raise (leaving less than 3/4 pot sized bet let), check turn, bomb river when the hearts get there. I ask if he has 56h and apparently you can't do that. But he smiles and I muck. He shows me 67h. Don't know if I bombed the turn if he'd have folded. $125 to call and win ~$450 and he's got what about 20% to hit his flush. In hindsight that was the right play, I think. AK probably reraises flop along with AQ. AJ/A10 probably folds the raise on the flop, I think. Regardless, neither check the turn.

Assuming there was one limper I like your pre-flop raise size. I like the flop raise on the donk bet.

You can bet the turn, but if you get called you're most likely behind, unless it's a flush draw so I think the check is correct. If you get raised if you bet on the turn it's puke time. So a turn bet is basically a bluff, not a value bet. Here's the other thing - as you note if the villian is on a flush draw it has a 20% chance of coming in, which is unlikely. That means if the flush doesn't come in you can consider picking off a bluff on the river.

Now for the river - A fold sucks in that spot but you can only beat a bluff. I tend to believe small stakes players when they jam all in in this spot. Plus flatting the flop raise screams draw. Bluffs tend to be a smaller bet size, but even that is rare. The lowest limit players aren't very good at turning made hands in to bluffs.

I typed that up without reading the result. Now going to look...

tough hand.
...

Another hand where I really, well, just got coolered and ended my night. I was up about $400 from a $300 buy in. Games getting bad as an angry guy had sat down to my right with ~$200 and wanted to chastise the dealer for bad cards. Anyway, I'm in SB and the action folds to the button angry man. He raises to $10. I look down at QQ and bump it to $30. BB who was agro over the past hour or so, raising everything I raise at least 3.5 times, bumps it to $100.

Button angrily calls, and I think for a little bit. No way he doesn't go all in with anything worth a damn. he's an idiot and probably has a small pp or broadway cards. Anything higher and he'd have shipped it.

I look at the guy to my left and he seems pretty comfortable, but I'd seem him slow down with KK a little bit before. I don't think he's going to play AA KK this way opting to call and keep everyone in or at most a min raise to induce.

So, I bomb it and ship about $700 in there wanting to get button out and not allow myself to fold if an A lands on the flop. Player to my left snap calls and the button goes on a rant and to match any poker outburst I'd personally seen. Eventually he asks if he can see both our hands afterwards and I didn't even say anything and the BB tells him he only shows if he wins, but he'd show if the guy called.

I'm not feeling so good anymore.

Button folds like I wanted and me and agro guy go heads up. Flop comes AJJ and button about [expletive] himself in disgust. Guess I don't have to worry about the J anymore, but the board runs out KK and the guy asks if I have a K. I say no and he flips over AQ. [expletive] brutal.

He ciphons off about $500 and I get up and leave.

Looking back on it, I don't know that I did anything wrong. I think shipping it was the right play to isolate the agro guy and taking the buttons dead money, but I'm open to comments.

I saw the result on this one so no fun like before...

What we the pre flop stack depths for the BB? I like your 3 bet sizing.

Games getting bad as an angry guy had sat down to my right with ~$200 and wanted to chastise the dealer for bad cards.

Haha this guy can be great for the game.

I look at the guy to my left and he seems pretty comfortable, but I'd seem him slow down with KK a little bit before. I don't think he's going to play AA KK this way opting to call and keep everyone in or at most a min raise to induce.

Gonna have to disagree here. What he did was standard, although AQ is kinda light in these lower limit games for 4 bets. Anyway, I would have done the same thing. Maybe a little smaller like 8-90, but 100 isn't crazy or anything.

I need to know the BB sack to make sense of this. Was it around 500 dollars? If so that action was crazy.

[Michael]

Actually you were playing 1/3 so in that first hand your pre flop raise should have been more like 13. $10+3 for every limper

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Another hand where I really, well, just got coolered and ended my night. I was up about $400 from a $300 buy in. Games getting bad as an angry guy had sat down to my right with ~$200 and wanted to chastise the dealer for bad cards. Anyway, I'm in SB and the action folds to the button angry man. He raises to $10. I look down at QQ and bump it to $30. BB who was agro over the past hour or so, raising everything I raise at least 3.5 times, bumps it to $100.

Button angrily calls, and I think for a little bit. No way he doesn't go all in with anything worth a damn. he's an idiot and probably has a small pp or broadway cards. Anything higher and he'd have shipped it.

I look at the guy to my left and he seems pretty comfortable, but I'd seem him slow down with KK a little bit before. I don't think he's going to play AA KK this way opting to call and keep everyone in or at most a min raise to induce.

So, I bomb it and ship about $700 in there wanting to get button out and not allow myself to fold if an A lands on the flop. Player to my left snap calls and the button goes on a rant and to match any poker outburst I'd personally seen. Eventually he asks if he can see both our hands afterwards and I didn't even say anything and the BB tells him he only shows if he wins, but he'd show if the guy called.

I'm not feeling so good anymore.

Button folds like I wanted and me and agro guy go heads up. Flop comes AJJ and button about [expletive] himself in disgust. Guess I don't have to worry about the J anymore, but the board runs out KK and the guy asks if I have a K. I say no and he flips over AQ. [expletive] brutal.

He ciphons off about $500 and I get up and leave.

Looking back on it, I don't know that I did anything wrong. I think shipping it was the right play to isolate the agro guy and taking the buttons dead money, but I'm open to comments.

I saw the result on this one so no fun like before...

What we the pre flop stack depths for the BB? I like your 3 bet sizing.

Games getting bad as an angry guy had sat down to my right with ~$200 and wanted to chastise the dealer for bad cards.

Haha this guy can be great for the game.

I look at the guy to my left and he seems pretty comfortable, but I'd seem him slow down with KK a little bit before. I don't think he's going to play AA KK this way opting to call and keep everyone in or at most a min raise to induce.

Gonna have to disagree here. What he did was standard, although AQ is kinda light in these lower limit games for 4 bets. Anyway, I would have done the same thing. Maybe a little smaller like 8-90, but 100 isn't crazy or anything.

I need to know the BB sack to make sense of this. Was it around 500 dollars? If so that action was crazy.

Yeah, I was sitting on about $720. BB was ~$500 and Button was at maybe $225.

What BB did was standard for a normal player, I agree, well, AK is pretty standard though I'm not sure AQ looks so strong after an open and 3 bet. But, still okay. But, he'd done this multiple hands, multiple times very light. Dude certainly wasn't afraid to gamble and get it in (I think he had won a bigger pot around $400 by 3 betting 10-5 OFF and calling a 4-bet from a guy with AA then betting all the way through with a 5 on the flop and hitting a 10 on the river). There was a history, and I guess I should have mentioned this before, but I was waiting for a spot like this to snipe him. QQ isn't AA but with his aggression I really felt I had the best hand, which I did, but my read on how strong he actually was was pretty off. In my mind, he would do that with any suited A, lower pp, possibly even as a pure bluff. I think button knew this as well hence the call/fold. My read was spot on with the button.

I don't much like crazy guys like that and generally avoid even getting involved with them unless I know I'm either strong enough to get to the river or have a hand that can easily be discarded. Try to minimize my decision making a little bit, especially being out of position and definitely didn't want to call $100 and then fold to an overcard or scary flop of some sort. Better to just get rid of that and get it in when I think I'm better. Probably not the best approach, and would be considered a hole in my game if I played more often. But, I'm not going to ever be able to a guy that feels comfortable trying to play with guys like that and accepting the swings that come with it.

[Michael]

I agree AQ is light there. From a GTO persepctive if you thought he was a bluffer it's better to flat in that spot so the V can continue his bluff. By jamming you might let garbage off the hook. That said, I can't believe he called it off with AQ with 400 more behind. What a mega donk. You got your money in way good. Congrats.

Not sure if you saw this post.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I agree AQ is light there. From a GTO persepctive if you thought he was a bluffer it's better to flat in that spot so the V can continue his bluff. By jamming you might let garbage off the hook. That said, I can't believe he called it off with AQ with 400 more behind. What a mega donk. You got your money in way good. Congrats.

Not sure if you saw this post.

Thanks, yeah. Hey, at least it was close

[Michael]

I agree AQ is light there. From a GTO persepctive if you thought he was a bluffer it's better to flat in that spot so the V can continue his bluff. By jamming you might let garbage off the hook. That said, I can't believe he called it off with AQ with 400 more behind. What a mega donk. You got your money in way good. Congrats.

Not sure if you saw this post.

Thanks, yeah. Hey, at least it was close

I don't think you're playing bad at all.

From a GTO perspective it's key to vary your pre flop raise sizing based on the number of limpers. I typically do the following:

1/2 is 8+2 (1 limp, $10, 2 limpers $12, etc)
1/3 is 10+3
2/5 sometimes I do 15+5 but typically 20+5. I almost always stay consistant during the session
5/10 is 30+10

You can argue at 1/2 and 1/3 you should vary because no one is paying attenion and typically those players have no idea what is going on, but personally I like to be balanced so I don't level myself. My pre-flop raise sizing almost never has anything to do with my hand strength. The only time I might mix things up is when I have a great hand and there a super crazy drunk, etc.