Lost my confidence. 2 hands

[emptypockets]

Two questions. Probably easy to answer. Please comment my play, flame me and laugh at me as well if you want to.

Party MTT 10,000 guaranteed.

Hand 1:
Blinds 150/300

I have $5500 which is a little above the average stack.
I get [ Ad Ks ] in EP and raise to $900.
Folded to SB, $9000, who calls.

Flop comes [ 7s, Tc, 5h ]

Villain checks.
I make a continuation bet of $750.
Villain raises $3500.
I fold.

Should I have bet more or just checked here?


Hand 2:


Level 6 Stakes 150/300

I´m a little short stacked with $3500, big stack at the table has $16000
and four players are around my stacksize.

I get [Ad Qh] under the gun.

I minraise $300. Folded to SB, with $1430, who raises an additional $375.
I call so I won´t be totally committed if the flop looks too scary.

Flop comes [ Jd, Qs, 5h ]

Villain bets $150. I call because a minraise on the flop after a reraise preflop seems
suspicious. What would the shortstack do here if the flop totally missed him?

Turn is [ 9s ]

Villain checks.
I raise $300. I don´t think the turnplay is all that wrong, but should I have reraised on the flop?

River is [ Ts ]

Villain pushes in his last $230.
I call.

[grandgnu]

[ QUOTE ]
Two questions. Probably easy to answer. Please comment my play, flame me and laugh at me as well if you want to.

Party MTT 10,000 guaranteed.

Hand 1:
Blinds 150/300

I have $5500 which is a little above the average stack.
I get [ Ad Ks ] in EP and raise to $900.
Folded to SB, $9000, who calls.

Flop comes [ 7s, Tc, 5h ]

Villain checks.
I make a continuation bet of $750.
Villain raises $3500.
I fold.

Should I have bet more or just checked here?

[/ QUOTE ]

You're in EP, so a raise should be respected (provided your opponents are thinking opponents)

He has more chips than you do, AND he called out of position, which means one of three things:

1. He's a donk who doesn't understand how to play

2. He has a monster that he's decided to slow-play

3. He has a speculative hand that he's willing to defend with, but not willing to re-raise with (let's say.....pocket 9's through pocket Jacks?)

There is around 2100 in the pot pre-flop and he checks, you bet 750 (weak bet) and he re-raises. Your fold is correct, but he might've hit a set and planned to check-raise you if you had bet more anyway.

[ QUOTE ]



Hand 2:


Level 6 Stakes 150/300

I´m a little short stacked with $3500, big stack at the table has $16000
and four players are around my stacksize.

I get [Ad Qh] under the gun.

I minraise $300. Folded to SB, with $1430, who raises an additional $375.
I call so I won´t be totally committed if the flop looks too scary.

Flop comes [ Jd, Qs, 5h ]

Villain bets $150. I call because a minraise on the flop after a reraise preflop seems
suspicious. What would the shortstack do here if the flop totally missed him?

Turn is [ 9s ]

Villain checks.
I raise $300. I don´t think the turnplay is all that wrong, but should I have reraised on the flop?

River is [ Ts ]

Villain pushes in his last $230.
I call.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your first problem is the min-raise. EXTREMELY donkish move, I see it all the time online. You have 3500 chips with blinds at 150/300. You can't afford to be min-raising. You're almost in push or fold mode given your stack and the blinds.

The other short-stack who has half your stack proceeds to min-raise your raise, which pot-commits him based on his stack size. I would've pushed him all-in at this point. I might've pushed all-in from UTG with only 3500 chips.

Once you hit the Queen on that flop, against his remaining chip stack, it's an easy push, you can't fold here.

He either had K/K or A/K, so either you outflopped him and he rivered you, or he had you beat the whole way, even after you hit your Queen. Either way, the betting was terrible on your part.

[emptypockets]

I agree with your reasoning, so I thank you for your time and hope this will be the first step to put me back on the right track.

[TheBlueMonster]

[ QUOTE ]
I thank you for your time and hope this will be the first step to put me back on the right track.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's nice to see a polite response to a post. I see the concept of civility has not been lost.

[Huckle]

Hand 1:

The problem with this hand is the flop, since he just called an early position raise from the small blind, I think the chances of him having a medium pocket pair is pretty good. With three medium/low cards he could have his set already, and since there are no flush draw/high cards that might have hit you, I would feel pretty safe with that flop if I was in his seat with pocket 8's or 9's.

I think he would bet here to protect just a pocket pair, since he would be afraid of you getting an ace/king on the turn, so I think the good thing to do on the flop is just to just check behind. If you catch an ace and he still bets, fold, if he checks, check behind.

I would probably go into check/fold mode here, maybe call a small bet if I would catch an ace.

Side note: I think a proper continuation bet here would be maybe 1500-1600, unless you've been betting small with strong hands before, I would take this as a sign of weakness.

Hand 2:

You're not showing enough strength here either. The preflop minraise is not enough, 7-800 might be more reasonable.

When the flop comes, the only thing you should be afraid of is pocket aces or kings. With a good preflop bet you'd already have made him all-in or folded, but if you didn't before, here is where you bet the rest of his chips.

If he had the aces or kings, he will push preflop or after the flop, but with a short stack here, he could do it with any pair, AJ, maybe AT if he's loose enough.

With a bigger preflop bet, if he just calls, you pretty much have to get the rest of the chips in, if he does go all-in preflop, it will probably be a coinflip, so it's up to you.

[grandgnu]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with your reasoning, so I thank you for your time and hope this will be the first step to put me back on the right track.

[/ QUOTE ]

Glad to be of assistance. I recommend Harrington On Hold 'Em Volumes I & II, which should help improve your understanding of situations like these. Best of luck to you.