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later stages of mini
The hand below is from the later stages of the mini and if I remember correctly the bubble had burst and was down to around 30. Villain had been playing reasonably solid so no reason to believe he doesn't have anything but a solid hand. He was playing a little on the tight passive side of things so I had stole his blinds raising from sb and db quite a few times. Although I had been quite aggressive stealing blinds etc I hadn't been caught or went to showdown with anything other than a good hand.
My question is really how to play the hand and more specifically bet sizing throughout given my weak kicker and poor position. I don't like my bet sizing on the turn here but what would be the best way to play this? If I was the villain I would have been very tempted to reraise on the turn because my bet looks weak or at least fire a shot on the river after I check.
Once I get the call on the flop should I just go to check call mode on the turn and river? or should I be value betting the river?
| Player | Action | Cards | Amount | Pot | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| xxxxx | Small blind | 1000.00 | 1000.00 | 95642.61 | |
| jdsallstar | Big blind | 2000.00 | 3000.00 | 38630.00 | |
| Your hole cards |
| ||||
| Villain | Raise | 4000.00 | 7000.00 | 30639.74 | |
| xxxxx | Fold | ||||
| xxxxx | Fold | ||||
| xxxxx | Fold | ||||
| xxxxx | Fold | ||||
| jdsallstar | Call | 2000.00 | 9000.00 | 36630.00 | |
| Flop | |||||
| |||||
| jdsallstar | Bet | 4000.00 | 13000.00 | 32630.00 | |
| Villain | Call | 4000.00 | 17000.00 | 26639.74 | |
| Turn | |||||
| |||||
| jdsallstar | Bet | 5000.00 | 22000.00 | 27630.00 | |
| Villain | Call | 5000.00 | 27000.00 | 21639.74 | |
| River | |||||
| |||||
| jdsallstar | Check | ||||
| Villain | Check | ||||
| jdsallstar | Show |
| |||
| Villain | Muck |
| |||
| jdsallstar | Win | Two Pairs, Aces and 9s | 27000.00 | 54630.00 | |
Comments
As played, why didn't you just check/call the flop allowing him to cbet all the hands he's missed the flop with?
Leading the flop leaves you in this awkward position you're in on the turn when you don't really love barrelling cos you have no idea if you're just value towning yourself, but you don't wanna check/fold and you also don't love life check/calling.
As played, we should have been betting the flop only cos we thought he'd call with worse so I think we have to barrel the turn. I probably check/call river depending on size just cos the paired board means we don't really have any kicker issues, AK/AQ are the only Ax that beat us.... well that and A9
If I check call the flop he nearly always cbets the flop leaving me having to call. I check again on the turn and he probably fires another bullet at me and I really don't love life then with no idea if he's cbetting to take it down or value betting. I thought at least by leading on the flop if I get a serious reraise at that point I'd know I'd likely be in trouble. The flat call on the flop left me lost on the turn.
Someone said on here before you should never bet to find out where you are but it's something I cant avoid doing because I don't know how to approach hands that doesn't leave me just stationing off my chips with hands such as this.
As played, if I barrel the turn and he flats again I'm assuming you check fold the river if the board hadn't paired? but with the 9 on the river it's a check and (sigh) call? and when we say barrel the turn are we talking a half pot bet (give or take)?
Reason for the call pre was that he had limit raised utg for past 4 out of 5 orbits or something so put him on a wider range than just big A-x of monster pairs. plus as I said he'd been tight passive so thought I could get him off a lot of hands and wanted to defend my blind a little.
Against a good player I definitely would have folded pre because I realise I'd have to play the hand very cautiously which could be exploited but given that I didn't rate the villain particularly highly (although didn't think he was terrible by any stretch) is it still a bad call/leak?
When I called pre my thinking was:
(a) hitting the ace could very easily give me the best hand
(b) I might flop a flush draw which I could peel a turn and possibly river quite cheap (based on nature of oppo)
(c) even if I miss completely given the right board texture I could put him off the hand
(d) having folded my last 4 big blinds to limit raises pre I wanted to put up a little bit of a defence to warn off future thieves lol.
(e) if I hit my ace and face serious action I would be able to lay it down because I was aware of the risk of being outkickered etc.
(f) We're getting near the end of the tourney - I want to build a stack and not play too passively.
Is my logic above dangerous/leaky? Would reraising pre flop ever be a good idea with this hand and this oppo?
The reason I ask about my logic is because I play mainly DYM's and would like to play more MTT's and so I realise I need a change in my mindset from uber tight for dyms to more dynamic style for MTT's. When and where to be more aggressive/less passive is the bit I need to figure out lol
This !
Can only think of 2 hands that he opens here that we beat pre flop, KQ and KJ.
Even those have />40% equity against us as well as position and the lead.
Playing oop is hard enough at the best of times, try to avoid it! Very easy fold pre here.
thanks everyone for the great advice! I'll definitely take this on board and I'll see how I fair in my next MTT outing lol prob the mini primo on sunday.
I definitely think I could achieve some positive results in these but I just need to get away a little from my dym mindset but not get too loose that I become spewy.
Any other tournaments anybody would like to suggest that would be good ones for me start out on (£500 BR) would also be welcome. I play in the evenings from say 8pm onwards.
Why is that? surely a bad call is a bad call regardless of stack size? Is it just a case of speculate to accumulate vs cant waste any chips from sub 20 bigs?
What stack size does it become acceptable to call with speculative hands? Just roughly I mean. are we talking +40 bigs?
oh and cheers for the congratulations for getting to the mini FT. I was lucky though when it got down to last 3/4 tables my table was very passive in general so I got away with a lot of steals. your table on the other hand looked like the complete opposite with the two big stacks throwing the chips around.
WP on getting to both final tables that night makes my 4th place look pathetic lol!!
You'll get a lot of experience really quickly playing different scenarios as you're putting money in to almost every pot & playing a much wider range of hands than usual. Or should be.
Think theres a few during the evening starting from 3 quid, turbos and non-turbos, loads of play in both.
So don't look at your hand and think "I have top-pair, no kicker, what do I do?", think about what your opponent will do if you bet or check, before asking what you want him to do.
If your opponent folds most of the hands that you beat and calls or raises with every hand that beats you, obviously you don't want to bet. If he calls with lots of weaker hands or folds lots of better hands, then obviously you do want to bet.
Bet for value or bet as a bluff. Know what you want your opponent to do before you bet.
Generally speaking I wouldn't encourage you to donk-bet. It's really tough to balance your donking range (You'll usually check to the raiser if you have a monster or if you've missed completely, so donking is always going to look like a marginal hand).
There are sometimes good reasons to donk-bet but they're usually in multi-way pots on wet flops with big made hands, etc... Try not to do anything just because you're afraid of being put to a difficult decision.
In Response to Re: later stages of mini:
Thanks Borin that makes a lot of sense.I wanted him to fold so I played the hand as a bluff in the end I suppose lol. Every scenario I can think of with this hand runs me into trouble i.e. donking and getting the call, check and getting cbet and it's all caused by the call preflop.
Out of interest same scenario but you have AJ and you face the limit raise in bb from utg how would proceed pre and on the flop (given same reads etc)? open for anyone who wants to answer.
Lets assume his range is all pairs 7's+, A10+ and KQ, KJ.
From what I've read above I think it's a flat pre, check call flop and then depending on the bet on the turn it's either check call or check fold - am I more on the money with this play? lol
I think we can lower the stacksize Harry suggests as needing to be jam/fold on here (Sky). For instance there are an absolute ton of people where I'd be happy raise/folding into them with say 15xBB and A9o just cos I know they're so tight and will never exploit us raise/folding and we will ALWAYS be in awful shape when we call.
Likewise I think jamming 20xBB is slightly too big without antes and the style of play from most people. We'll lose a ton of value from our massive hands cos we'll get looked up so rarely and with our weaker hands we'll be crushed when called when we could have just minraise/folded. Without antes especially I just don't think the risk/reward is there to jam 20xBB cos we just get a small addition to our stack when it works, and are crushed when called.
*Obv this is a generalisaton and we adapt to opponents but for the most part I think the above is true.
just fold pre