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Hand 34: We get 45TQ on the BTN and someone pot raises, we fold.
Hand 35: We get 569T in the CO and fold.
Hand 36: We get 2579 UTG and fold.
Hand 37: We get involved, will post this next...
Hand starting stack: 6,873
Situation: We are in the BB with Th Tc 4c Jc at 40/80 level and UTG (fairly active player with 14,162 chips) miniraises to 160, the BTN flat calls (active, aggresive player with 2745 chips) and everyone else folds and action is on us. I loosely flick the extra 80 chips in. We are not going to get hung up and are just peeling to see if we somehow hit a monster, the 80 chips is no big deal if we show discipline post flop. If we do hit then there is a potential bounty to get and a 14k+ stack offering us all the implied odds we could want.
The flop is 5c Td 3c and we have 'the nuts' with top set. This is a pretty scary flop though and partly the reason we could have folded preflop (to avoid such tricky set-ups).
To make matters even trickier we are OOP and action is on us so what do we do and what is the plan?
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
40.00
40.00
2230.00
markycash
Big blind
80.00
120.00
6793.75
Your hole cards
· 10h
· 10c
· 4c
· Jc
UTG
Raise
160.00
280.00
14002.50
CO
Fold
BTN
Call
160.00
440.00
2595.00
SB
Fold
markycash
Call
80.00
520.00
6713.75
Flop
· 5c
· 10d
· 3c
markycash
...
In the end we chopped with the shorty. Would have been ideal if we had chopped with the larger stack and snagged the bounty but it was what it was
FWIW, I really have bad vibes about that set of tens on the 10-5-3 flop. We don't have THAT many scoop cards, & there are an awful lot of cards to come that could beat us. ANY card 7 or lower (except a 5 or 3) would mean we gotta fold.
I think I'm check calling the flop here and hoping to avoid one the many bad turn cards, hopefully the board will pair and then we can bet out heavily on the next street to try and get value.
Interesting spot.
It is a tricky spot.
I will try and update this each morning with a new hand as I have been doing.
There have been so many great replies to this one which really helps the quality of the thread and makes doing this worthwhile, so thank you all. Hopefully it also allows anyone new to the game to see some of the pros and cons of different lines we may take with different hands.
I think this hand and a couple of the other marginal and OOP ones help to illustrate the problem we face even when we hit with these hands. It is just so much harder to extract value from our opponents. Having said that we need to find a balance because if we regularly want to run deep we cannot solely wait on premiums. In many tourneys we just will not be dealt enough premiums so have to be prepared to play some tougher hands too.
It can also help if we show up in pots with hands like this as when we do get premium hands our opponents may not give us credit for the strength of hand we actually have and could therefore be more likely to pay us off.
I understand why there are some of you advocating a leading bet here. If we are much shorter stacked then I may take a similar line here but I elected for a different approach for several reasons.
(a) As mentioned, our stack size. We are quite deep here so I am not looking for 'flippy' situations with stacks who have us covered. If someone has a hand like Ac 2c Kd Kh then we are only 29.67% to scoop and have no low potential as backup. That is also the type of hand which will often be looking us up here and not the strongest hand we could face. If we give opponent Ac 2c 4h Kh then we drop to only 21.10% to scoop.
(b) We probably do not have much fold equity against much of the range of hands that will be looking us up (people generally won't be folding nut-nut or wrap low & wheel draws) but rather more likely to throw the pot in our face and have us in a bit of a pickle.
(c) If we check then some of the hands we would prefer to play against (lower sets or even dry overpairs) may bet out into the pot.
(d) We are OOP so haven't been able to assess anyones intent thus far.
So as we are OOP, don't want to get a lot of equity in very marginally, would like to control the pot if possible and encourage betting from a range of hands we may do better against, we check.
The UTG original raiser player smashes the pot button and the player on the BTN calls. They have been fairly aggressive and active so we are certainly calling to see what happens on the turn. The BTN has also given us extra odds to be in the pot but the pot is quite inflated now.
The turn is the 4d which apart from putting a low out also puts low straights including a wheel out on the board. Our thinking at this point is that if the UTG or BTN player throw the pot at it again then we will fold and accept a minimal loss. We check but surprisingly both players check behind.
The river is the 2c and now all flushes and low draws have got there. I was surprised at the checks all round on the turn though but still think there is a decent chance we are being scooped. I decide to lead the river for pot control and put a weak bet of 160 chips into the 2080 chip pot. Now this may sound 'wrong' and weak but it gives us a bit more information and a cheap chance of a showdown at least. One caveat is that if we are always bet/folding to a reraise in this spot it is very exploitable for obvious reasons. There are however plenty of weak bet/calls in my range in this spot though. For example if I have a weak low and would 'prefer' to control the pot I may lead small to try and block action but will ultimately be calling if reraised. There are also scenarios I could be leading so small trying to induce a player to reraise so I think it is quite hard for opponents to figure out exactly what we are up to here.
We are called by both players. The UTG player has AA77 and the BTN has 2nd nut low. So we split the pot with the BTN player and pad our stack with a few more chips.
All in all I am relatively happy with how I played this very tricky hand OOP. We were never going to lose too many chips and our flop check even resulted in us getting some action and value out of the hand. The river bet also prevented the player with 2nd nut low who can be aggro from making a sizable bet on the river.
Happy to hear thoughts on the line taken whether in agreement or not.
Results below...
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
SB
Small blind
40.00
40.00
2230.00
markycash
Big blind
80.00
120.00
6793.75
Your hole cards
· 10h
· 10c
· 4c
· Jc
UTG
Raise
160.00
280.00
14002.50
CO
Fold
BTN
Call
160.00
440.00
2595.00
SB
Fold
markycash
Call
80.00
520.00
6713.75
Flop
· 5c
· 10d
· 3c
markycash
Check
UTG
Bet
520.00
1040.00
13482.50
BTN
Call
520.00
1560.00
2075.00
markycash
Call
520.00
2080.00
6193.75
Turn
· 4d
markycash
Check
UTG
Check
BTN
Check
River
· 2c
markycash
Bet
160.00
2240.00
6033.75
UTG
Call
160.00
2400.00
13322.50
BTN
Call
160.00
2560.00
1915.00
markycash
Show
· 10d
· 10c
· 4c
· Jc
UTG
Muck
· Ad
· 7c
· 7d
· Ah
BTN
Show
· 7s
· Qd
· 6h
· As
markycash
Win high
Flush to the Jack
1280.00
7313.75
BTN
Win low
6-low
1280.00
Hand: 38
Hand starting stack: 7,313 chips
Situation: We are in the BB with Ac Ah Kc 2d and the active and aggressive player in the cut-off position miniopens at 50/100 blind level, they have 3,195 chips. Action folds to us and we pot it to 650, they call and we see a flop of 2c 6h 8c. This is a bad flop for our low and we are OOP again. Action is on us, so as always...
What do we do and what is the plan?
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
markycash
Small blind
50.00
50.00
7263.75
BB
Big blind
100.00
150.00
13222.50
Your hole cards
· Ac
· Ah
· Kc
· 2d
UTG
Fold
CO
Raise
200.00
350.00
2995.00
BTN
Fold
markycash
Raise
650.00
1000.00
6613.75
BB
Fold
CO
Call
500.00
1500.00
2495.00
Flop
· 2c
· 6h
· 8c
markycash
?
?
?
?
Crikey.
I've absolutely no idea how either of those 2 hands (A-A-7-7 and 2nd nut low) were still in that pot at the river. The A-A-7-7 was particularly "optimistic"......
Extraordinary.
Haha yes, although as phantom alludes to there are plenty players who show up with these type of hands and much worse.
For me this is why I prefer to play fewer tables if possible these days. If we have the mindset of "I will do x, y or Z with a, b or c type hand", we miss out on a lot of value at the tables.
I like to watch what every player is up to at the table in OH8 and then we can adjust our ranges in accordance with the types of holdings that they are playing. It is such a simple point but a hard one to pull off if we have 7 or 8 short handed tables running.
I guess there is a balance to strike, an optimal number. In my case, it's almost certainly less than 6.
Team Play Every Hand, of course, can only play 1 table at a time because they are, self-evidently, in every hand, & busy, whereas on average I probably only play 1 hand every 10 or 15. (I doubt many winning players play more than 1 hand an orbit on average).
I would also say that if we are going to check/fold and give the initiative up in such spots, against players with this stack size then we would be better taking a different line preflop that did not involve 3 bet potting to isolate the shorter stack.
I can see Phantom's point here but ideally we also want to have a range of hands we will do this with so that our range is not polarised and we can get action from weaker hands when we do completely nail the flop.
Anyways we continue potting it and our opponent gets out the way on the flop and we add some extra chips to our stack.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
markycash
Small blind
50.00
50.00
7263.75
BB
Big blind
100.00
150.00
13222.50
Your hole cards
· A
· A
· K
· 2
UTG
Fold
CO
Raise
200.00
350.00
2995.00
BTN
Fold
markycash
Raise
650.00
1000.00
6613.75
BB
Fold
CO
Call
500.00
1500.00
2495.00
Flop
· 2
· 6
· 8
markycash
Bet
1500.00
3000.00
5113.75
CO
Fold
markycash
Muck
markycash
Win
1500.00
6613.75
markycash
Return
1500.00
0.00
8113.75
It isn't so bad against regs which is why you have no trouble giving me all sorts of grief at the tables, even if you are 7 tabling. As you have an idea of the stuff I get up to and quite correctly do not put up with it
If I remember correctly the most effective human brain working memory capacity is around 4 'chunks of information' at any given time (very generally speaking). When we go past this it starts to fall apart a bit (I am guessing 7-8 tables is past that). Unless we are Timmyrara or Alvez etc.
It is all about balance as you say. I remember Doug Polk saying he preferred the option of going up in stakes, rather than up in volume, for these sort of reasons. Obviously the stakes only go so high in the PLO8 DYM's so yup, we have to strike that balance.
I thought your chronicles of your live event exploits last year highlighted this very well. With the 1 table going you knew what every player was up to and even assigned them labels such as 'Mr FOS' etc
Hand 40: We miniraise to 200 @ 50/100 level with 379J to isolate a 2BB stack and try and get their bounty. Someone pot 3 bets us and we fold.
Hand 41: With shorty still at the table. The player who 3 bet us in the last hand mini opens to try and isolate them. We have A23Q and 3 bet them this time. Their turn to get out the way this time but we chop it with the shorty.
Hand 42: We lose 3 BB's with A277 on an tricky board from the BB.
Hand 43: We are in the blinds (unraised) with 24JQ and see a JQ6 rainbow 4 handed. We call a pot bet on flop and are 3 handed, seeing a 5c on turn, everyone checks. After a non flushy king lands on the river we take a small stab at it for 200 but are raised to 2200 and fold.
Hand 44: ATTT on the BTN, we fold.
Hand 45: 448Q in the cut off, we fold.
Hand 46: 789T UTG, we fold.
Hand 47: 389J in the BB, someone pots it, we fold.
We play hand 48 which I will post after I make breakfast
Hand starting stack: 6,958
Situation: A simple enough hand this but a situation all ploppers will have found themselves in at some point. We have a straight and the dastardly board pairs.
We have 8c As Qc 6c in the SB. One player who is new to the table and has 11k+ chips limps @50/100 blind level from the cut off and it folds around to us. We flick the 50 chips in and our aggro player in the BB with 15k chips checks behind.
We hit the nuts with a Ks Th Jd flop. What looks like a dream spot can soon turn ugly if the board pairs. We are OOP and the players could easily check behind if we check, therefore we lead out with a pot size bet of 300. This seems like a good time to get value before the texture of the board changes and we end up having to employ caution. Also plenty hands such as sets, 2 pairs, etc may call and some players may float here thinking "he wouldn't just pot lead with the nuts". Our aggro BB player comes along for the ride, calls 300, and we see a nice and safe 7c on the turn.
We continue with the line and go for more value versus the big stack aggro BB player and pot the turn for 900 and they call again.
The river pairs the board when the 7h falls.
We are OOP so what do we do? Room for more value? Do we check/call, check/fold, or something else?
What would you do and why?
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
markycash
Small blind
50.00
50.00
6908.75
BB
Big blind
100.00
150.00
14997.50
Your hole cards
· 8c
· As
· Qc
· 6c
UTG
Fold
CO
Call
100.00
250.00
11325.02
BTN
Fold
markycash
Call
50.00
300.00
6858.75
BB
Check
Flop
· Kh
· 10s
· Jd
markycash
Bet
300.00
600.00
6558.75
BB
Call
300.00
900.00
14697.50
CO
Fold
Turn
· 7c
markycash
Bet
900.00
1800.00
5658.75
BB
Call
900.00
2700.00
13797.50
River
· 7h
markycash
WWYD?
Hard not to see the logic in that. Are we check/calling even if our opponent bets 2700?
P.S. Most of our hands until now (maybe or maybe not including this) have been wins. I won't be cherry picking though and will have hands we lose. There just haven't been many significant loses thus far.
Also as the blinds get up some of our key decisions will need to be made earlier in the hands so hopefully things will get more interesting
I will hold off the results as usual until tomorrow morning and see if we get any takers for a different line or if we are unanimous.
I will need to take the dogs their walk anyway and then I will be free to play some poker and will probably fire up some PLO8 DYM's too