Selected HH for Review

[EasilyFound]

From $11 SNG on Party. Some hands I felt unsure about what the correct play was, whether to push or not or something else.

Thanks for looking.

Here goes:

***** Hand History for Game 2198513445 *****
50/100 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:35:21 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1465)
Seat 2: goldforest (600)
Seat 3: phpatman (2010)
Seat 5: Tommycholic (1295)
Seat 6: Fork5000 (580)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (1560)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (490)
phpatman posts small blind (25)
Tommycholic posts big blind (50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 6d, 6s ]
Fork5000 folds.
EasilyFound ????


***** Hand History for Game 2198571351 *****
200/400 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:45:18 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1550)
Seat 2: goldforest (800)
Seat 3: phpatman (2285)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2555)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (810)
goldforest posts small blind (100)
phpatman posts big blind (200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ Ac, 2c ]
EasilyFound ????


***** Hand History for Game 2198577205 *****
200/400 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:46:20 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1550)
Seat 2: goldforest (700)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (3055)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (810)
EasilyFound posts small blind (100)
jrf392002 posts big blind (200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 5c, 5s ]
StevieBeeee calls (200)
goldforest folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????


***** Hand History for Game 2198580146 *****
300/600 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:46:51 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (740)
Seat 2: goldforest (700)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2855)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1820)
jrf392002 posts small blind (150)
StevieBeeee posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ Js, Tc ]
goldforest folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????


***** Hand History for Game 2198610656 *****
400/800 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:52:10 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1530)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (3045)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1540)
StevieBeeee posts small blind (200)
phpatman posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ Td, Js ]
EasilyFound ????



***** Hand History for Game 2198616148 *****
400/800 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:53:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1930)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2645)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1540)
EasilyFound posts small blind (200)
jrf392002 posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 3s, Qd ]
StevieBeeee folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????


***** Hand History for Game 2198633542 *****
500/1000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:56:04 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1930)
Seat 3: phpatman (635)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2555)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (2880)
EasilyFound posts small blind (250)
jrf392002 posts big blind (500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 8s, Jd ]
StevieBeeee folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????

[DasLeben]

Hand 1: I limp along. You have a nice stack, with a hand that'd like to see a flop.

Hand 2: Fold. Your stack is big, and you don't need to be messing with this hand OOP.

Hand 3: Read on UTG? I dunno. Depends on him.

Hand 4: Push.

Hand 5: Push, yell "holla," and collect your t600.

Hand 6: Easy push.

Hand 7: I'd originally thought of folding this to donkish players, but with only 5BB, you should push this. He's not calling.

[adanthar]

1 - limp
2 - fold here, push for sure at a 100
3 - flop a set
4 - fold
5 - fold because it's a $11 and K8o will call (push in a 100)
6 - fold because it's a $11 and K8o will call (push in a 100)
7 - fold

[Scuba Chuck]

Haha. I find it humurous that there's such a big difference between lesbian and Adanthar. I seriously think there's a big flaw in understanding how to play the game on the lower levels. Try and think more about what your opponent is thinking. Psychology.

Here's a funny example. My wife wanted to play me headsup for fun. She knows the rules of Texas Hold'em. She is a great example of "it takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master." Well, needless to say, in the first game I'm losing. She's got me covered about 2:1 when I get to the following hand.

A little ways into it, I get pocket 6s. And thought I'd do something a little different, and I pushed. Well, surprisingly she calls me. She has J7o. After the hand, I asked her what her thought was as to why she called.

She said, "I thought you were bluffing." That's it! No follow up thought. There was no, "and J7o is a good enough hand" or some bs.

Anyway, I post because I am interested in the last hand. The best **bluff** is probably just a raise, and not a push.

[DasLeben]

Yeah jeez, that is weird. Usually there isn't such a huge difference like this. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

From my personal experience, I still think that hands 4-6 are pushes, with #4 being the closest one of the bunch. #7 is interesting, since ICM says that a push is correct even against looser players. I can see the value of a raise instead of a push here though.

However, hands 5 and 6 are clear pushes against reasonably tight players, as far as the math goes. Granted if they're going to call with something like K8, then these are folds. Honestly though, and I play these low buyins, I rarely see someone calling pushes with something as bad as K8 on the bubble when they have a healthy stack. Maybe it's because one of my biggest goals at an $11 is to conserve FE, I dunno. Granted I've been called by trash before (last night I had a guy call a push for his whole stack with 64s), but it's not as common as most people think.

I will say one thing though...My ROI shot up at these games a while back when I realized that I should sometimes pass up on +EV opportunities to conserve FE at this level. I'd push these hands above, but it all depends on my table image. If I've been caught pushing trash before, I'd be much more apt to fold.

[DasLeben]

As a quick note, after running the math, the Q3 hand is still very much a push, even against someone willing to call as low as K6+, Q8+. The JTo hand from the button becomes close, but it's still +EV. The JTo hand UTG can be -EV, but that's assuming that everyone will call you with trash, which I highly doubt.

The J8o hand is a push, but only if BB has decent calling standards (I used 44+, A7s+, A9o+, KJs+). As Scuba Chuck said, this might be worth a raise instead of a push.

[EasilyFound]

Funny how peopl's play differs depending on the buy-in. Let's see what happened for some of the hands. As you'll see, people's calling standards at the lower levels are lower than what had been posited earlier in this thread. The "what happened" follows at the end of the HH:

Hand #4:

***** Hand History for Game 2198580146 *****
300/600 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:46:51 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (740)
Seat 2: goldforest (700)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2855)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1820)
jrf392002 posts small blind (150)
StevieBeeee posts big blind (300)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ Js, Tc ]
goldforest folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????

Here, I raised to 900. Maybe that was a mistake. But that is what I did. Then, the BB called w/Th, 8h and sucked out on the river.

Hand #5:

***** Hand History for Game 2198610656 *****
400/800 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:52:10 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1530)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (3045)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1540)
StevieBeeee posts small blind (200)
phpatman posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ Td, Js ]
EasilyFound ????

This hand I folded.

Hand #6:

***** Hand History for Game 2198616148 *****
400/800 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:53:07 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1930)
Seat 3: phpatman (1885)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2645)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (1540)
EasilyFound posts small blind (200)
jrf392002 posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 3s, Qd ]
StevieBeeee folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????

This hand I raised to 1300. The BB pushed the rest of his chips in and I called. The BB called w/Js, Th and hit the flop, while I didn't.

Hand #7:

***** Hand History for Game 2198633542 *****
500/1000 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 13046073) - Sun Jun 12 22:56:04 EDT 2005
Table Table 39806 (Real Money) -- Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: StevieBeeee (1930)
Seat 3: phpatman (635)
Seat 7: EasilyFound (2555)
Seat 8: jrf392002 (2880)
EasilyFound posts small blind (250)
jrf392002 posts big blind (500)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to EasilyFound [ 8s, Jd ]
StevieBeeee folds.
phpatman folds.
EasilyFound ????

Having been sucked out twice, I just folded this hand. I suppose, in retrospect, that was a bad play. But having had two of my pushes called with lesser hands, I got gun shy.

Would you?

[DasLeben]

I'm going to retract what I said about people not calling very often 4-handed with things like K8o on the bubble. Perhaps I have selective memory, but I just honestly didn't recall the last time I was spite called with something like that.

So, I went through my previous tournaments and found a few instances where I'd been pushing a lot, and someone decided to take a stand with a bad hand when they really shouldn't have. It didn't happen a ton, but it happens with a decent enough frequency. However, most of my notes feature me being busted out by 77+, KT+.

However, that still doesn't mean that the pushes I made into these people were necessarily wrong, just like pushing Q3o from the SB with blinds 200/400 isn't wrong at all, even if you're spite called with Kx. The math works itself out.