Three hands from Party this morning...

[ElSapo]

Three hands from this morning. I’ll post the results below. I played about 100 hands early this morning and got squat for cards. The plus, and I felt like I was doing well because of this, I only ended up down about 5 BB through the run. In the first 60 hands I won one. So, while the results weren’t great I felt like I played reasonably well. Logged back into Party a while later and played these hands. I’d appreciate any comments. One I feel good about, one I felt foolish and another I just wasn’t sure. Results below…

1. Dealt TQh in the BB. Five callers to me and I check. Flop comes a nice T2Q with two clubs. I consider check-raising, or waiting until the turn to bet out, but then consider the possible draws and go ahead and bet out. Two callers and a raise, we all call. Four to the turn which brings the Ac. I check, and now one of the original callers bets out. One fold, one call and I call. I figure someone may have the flush, but the Ace also could have just given someone a pair. River is a blank, I check, bettor bets again and I call. Too passive once the flush card came? Check-raise the flop rather than bet out?

2. Dealt KK on the button. One limper and then an EP raise. MP calls two, I decide to vary things up and just call. Call it a variance play, a fear of AA or just a poor play. SB folds, BB comes in and original limper calls. Five to the flop. Flop comes 868, suits not important. BB checks, EP limper checks, EP raiser bets and MP raises. I think a moment and just call. BB calls and EP calls. Four to the turn which brings another 6. Checked to the raiser, who bets out, and I fold the kings. Another call and one fold. The river is another 6, so the board reads 86866. Original bettor bets out and all call.

3. In MP with Q9s. Folded to me and I raise. I don’t normally make raises like this, and most times I’ll actually muck this hand. Not sure why I raised, but it seemed right at the time. Table was fairly tight for the last few hands. I get one LP caller and the BB. Flop comes J59r, bet out and only the BB calls. Turn is the 7s, bet-call. River is 2c, bet-call.

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Results:

1. 23c takes it down with the tiniest flush possible. I don’t know there was much of anything I could have done here. If he’s gonna limp in with 23c, no raise will push him off once he makes that small flush I figure. Not that I knew what he had at the time…


2. Winner held KK. I felt a bit silly, to say the least. Other two callers had pocket 10s and 9s. I think not raising the flop and taking the lead may have cost me the hand, but the board was getting scary – and only got worse – and at the time I could simply think of more ways I was beat than ahead.


3. I take it down. BB had pocket 8s. It’s only recently I’ve been getting a feel for when to bet middle pair. For a long time I wouldn’t bet w/o top pair, unless the table seemed very weak. Maybe this is straightforward hand begun with a bad raise, but it felt right at the time.

[Lost Wages]

ElSapo,

Hand 1)
Betting the flop is fine here but once you are raised you have to 3-bet. What was your plan if a non-club came on the turn? Once the club does fall you have outs to call the turn bet and then you pretty much have to call to river too unless another club comes. Nothing you could have done to win this hand.

Hand 2)
Raise your right hand and solemnly swear that you will never just call a raise with KK on the button again /forums/images/icons/frown.gif. This hand is a perfect example of why not. I know it's tempting because it conceals the strength of your hand but concealing your strength is exactly why you lost this hand.

Hand 3)
Raising is fine if you read the table to be tight. Betting with 2nd pair heads-up and with position is OK too. Two options to consider in this situation are checking behind on the river and checking behind on the turn to induce a river bluff. However in this case you extracted the maximum.

Lost Wages

[Nottom]

Hand one: Betting out is fine but you should 3-bet when raised. I'd probably bet out on the turn as well, call a raise and up to fill up. On the river, I guess its player dependant whether to call here or not, I'd proabably make the crying call and hope to see AxJc or something.

Hand 2: I'm not a big fan of hiding my big hands pre-flop, I think you just end up costing yourself too much money not getting in the money while you know you have the best hand as well as letting hands with 6's and 8's see that juicy flop, but variance can be nice at times. I just don't think this was a good time, re-raise and knock out the blinds and hopefully the EP limper.

After the flop I think I would toss out another raise on the flop and see where it went from there. I think you need to take a lesson on how to play your kings from the guy in this hand /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

Hand 3: Looks fine except for the preflop raise, but its not awful as long as you don't get carried away with that sort of thing.

[Bob T.]

1) The flop is two tone, with a straight draw, you get raised in late position, and you call? PUNISH THE WEAK! Three bet. If a blank comes on the turn, what are you going to do, give the raiser a free card? Even if a straight or flush card comes on the turn, I would strongly consider betting. Your hand might be best, everyone might be afraid of the scare card, and even if you get raised, you still have 4 outs on the river.

You are right though, you aren't ever winning this hand. In the case that you were, you could have made a lot more money.

2 - Let's see, you got the second best possible starting hand, the best position, and you call? Hmmm, based on this, and hand 1, I think you have a problem with passive play. Then you fold your big overpair without ever making a raise? Ouch. If you raise, and someone reraises with this board, then maybe you can think your hand is no good. Or you three bet preflop, raise the flop, and they still keep firing, then you might be in trouble. But if you don't do anything, they might be thinking their pair of tens is the nuts. You need to make a play at some point in this hand. Folding isn't the play, unless you are going to do it preflop.

3 - I like your play on this hand, take away one of the demerits that you earned on the previous two hands(and you earned a lot on the second hand). Opening the pot in middle position, you can enter with a raise with a lot of hands. After you get a piece of the flop, especially shorthanded, keep firing until you meet resistance. You never know, you just might be ahead, and you might get paid off.

[marbles]

Resisted the urge to read the results.

Hand 1: As I'm sure many will attest, your lack of a 3-bet on the flop was criminal.

Hand 2: Cold call preflop was a poor play. Don't call it anything else. Flop coldcall was also pretty rough. You have no reason to believe the bettor or the raiser have an eight. The turn fold was not too bad, only because you had absolutely no information at that point. With the aforementioned raises, you would have been able to make a much more informed decision.

Hand 3: You talked yourself into playing this one. Q9s is not a good hand to make this play with. Now, if you were in the CO, maybe you could open-raise it at a tight table or limp it after many limpers. As for post-flop, it's player-specific. If the player is fairly passive, you can fold to his turn bet and not worry too much about it. Did you have any regrets about your preflop decision when he bet into you on the turn?

[ElSapo]

Calling with the kings has been pointed out as a monstrous move. Ok, I got it. Not raising the flop (from what I can see) was maybe worse? Combined, the two errors gave me no chance to take this down, as I had no information. Got that also.

For future reference...

I'm re-reading HEPFAP and I guess I read (or hallucinated) a part about varying play of big hands. On the other hand, I also think it mentioned doing this from EP (not, as I was, on the button). Obviously I don't understand the concept right now - if I did limp EP with KK would I be looking to reraise pre-flop or am I looking for that deception? Or do I misunderstand something and you simply don't do this...

Obviously, the results of this hand are abysmal and they're what have me thinking so much. I mean, if a king had appeared on the turn (ok, impossible given the hand, I know, but still) I probably would have patted myself on the back. Given that the button-call with KK is bad, why is it bad, and can you just limp from EP with the hand in some situations for deception and variance of play?

Thanks for all the comments thus far...

[marbles]

"I'm re-reading HEPFAP and I guess I read (or hallucinated) a part about varying play of big hands."

--Unless you are playing against opponents who are very strong and/or know you like a book, there's no reason to vary your play with KK. Given that these hands were played at Party, neither should apply.

[CrackerZack]

Wow. first 2 hands read like calling station.

1) 3-bet the flop, the raise for LP was perfect for you, it allows you to charge all draws (2 clubs, KJ, J9) the most possible. Who knows, maybe 23c folds (although if you play it from EP you're not folding for 2 bets on this flop). After the clubs/KJ came through I probably would've check-called also although I tend to have a problem with aggression and may have bet anyway.

2.) 3-bet pre-folp. Variance plays should only be short-handed with AA. This hand an Ace could kill your hand so jack it up and see if you can get them out now or on the flop. While paired board flops are a bit scary, the PF-raisers are making all the noise in this hand so I wouldn't be worried about an 8. The only hand to fear is AA many more hands are likely. and certainly don't fold.

3.) I like the play of this hand although I would probably fold pre-flop. You have two decent suited cards and have MP so if you feel like you're not getting too much action on your raises (which if I was playing against you and saw the first two hands, I'd probably muck nearly everything when you raised) this is a good candidate for it. After getting position and heads up and a piece of the flop, well played IMO.

Edit: "Variance plays should only be made heads up with AA." I realized upon re-reading that I said this, then advocated a variance play with Q9. I meant it as variance plays such as calling a raise instead of 3-betting or limping in pre-flop with hands that deserve a raise. Raising first in as a variance play is done for different reasons and obviously, very different types of hands.

[Bob T.]

There are three players in the pot already. Raising does at least three things.

You have a big pair. Unimproved pairs play best in shorthanded pots. You may eliminate one or both blinds with this raise to increase your chances of winning.

Second, there are already 3 players in this pot. You will win this hand a fair amount of the time. You might make as much as 1 theorhetical big bet with your raise here. There aren't that many things that you can do, that win you that much equity.

Third, you might get control of the hand, and/or information that might allow you to play the rest of the hand better.

I see a lot of slowplays like this, where players want to wait until the turn to try and capture big bets, but I think that that is frequently a mistake for two main reasons.

First, small bets are a lot easier to win then big bets. Players will call once they are in a pot, and a lot of players will routinely take one off on the flop, but when faced with a big bet, and especially a big bet and a raise, they will fold. So by playing fast preflop, and on the flop, you can capture a lot of small bets, and build a nice sized pots by building them with small bets.

Secondly, I think that by slowplaying anything less than a monster, especially against a field, you end up losing a lot of hands that you would have won. This morning, I limped in late position with a pair of Black threes and won the button. The flop came three spades. It was checked to me, and I bet, thinking that maybe everyone had no spades. Two players called. The turn was a red 3, and EP bet out. With ten outs to a full house, I called, and the river was the case 3. EP bet, and I raised, he called. Nut flush-no good. Then he starts berating me about how bad I play, and all I could think is, if you bet the flop, you win. But he got tricky, and lost the pot, instead of winning it. If you flop a set, or a straight on a rainbow board, you might be tempted to slowplay, but even with a rainbow board, 3/4 of the turn cards will put two of a suit on the board. Everyone hates the guys who play anytwo suited, and run you down, but if you play slow on the flop, and preflop, then you are giving them huge implied odds to play that kind of hand.

So if you play fast early in the hand, you will win bigger pots, and your hands will also tend to stand up more often.

[ResidentParanoid]

I agree *completely* with your idea, but I'm not sure about your example.

When flopping nut flush, isn't playing slow on the flop reasonable from EP? If the fourth spade comes on the turn, the flush may be able to charge 2 or more bets on the turn. In the example, the flush got the aggressive player on the button (you) to bet into him on the flop when you were way behind.

Now, if you play your straight or set slow and get run down by any-two-suited on a loose table for a flush, then your idea comes into play. Isn't flopped nut flush close enough to "monster" to merit slow play on the flop?

[SoBeDude]

In such a short-handed pot, checking the nut flush is not a bad play I think. In fact I think its the best time to do it. And especially when you think it'll induce a bluff or weak bet.

Just because bob hit perfect-miracle to win the hand doesn't mean the flush player's move was bad. It was just amazingly unlucky.

-Scott

[eMarkM]

I can't remember the section of HPFAP you're refering to, but I usually only vary play on big pairs when the pot is HU. E.g., I raise in EP w/ AA, LP 3 bets, comes back HU to me and I might only call with AA to set up a flop C/R. Here, deception can be useful. Multiway, I cap, everytime. You want to get every bet you can and you want them all calling. Deception mutliway is not as useful as you'll have to showdown the best hand in most cases.

Limp re-raise (LRR), IMO, is useful for varying your play from EP. I know many who disagree that this play should be used often. When a decent player open limps from EP and is never known to LRR, you can narrow down his hands to something like mid-pair, KJs, QJs, Axs and maybe a few others. Most others he'd raise or fold. When someone might LRR, he might have a big hand in this spot and it's more difficult to put them on a hand.

OTOH, if you LRR only with AA/KK/AK, it's easy to put you on a hand when you reraise. You have to then be willing to do it with AJs, ATs, even KQs to mix it up. This kind of variance in your play keeps the opponents guessing. It gives up some EV, so I only do it when known regulars are in the game that are familiar with how I play. Against strangers or calling stations, I play straightforward ABC.

[Bob T.]

My example might be a little extreme. On the hand in question, there were at least 4 limpers, we saw the flop 6 handed. I bet, and three of us saw the turn. If I hadn't bet, we would have seen the turn 6 handed. If the board pairs, people could have made a full house, or be on 4 to 10 outs to make one. A fourth spade could have come, and now noone is interested in seeing the river and small flushes won't give extra action. Personally, I think that flushes are a little too vulnerable to slowplay. I also think that a lot of players do slowplay them, so that playing them fast, might look like a flush draw, or top pair/two pair/set, that is trying to get 1 card draws out. I haven't done the math, but in my example, my opponent would have won an extra small bet, if he won, but he let me in to where I made a draw that was worth seeing the river with. He could have checkraised the flop, and made that small bet, but he decided to wait until the turn, where I had enough equity to draw to the river. Now he could win an extra big bet, and a small bet, but the big bet he really doesn't win, because I now have more equity in the pot than that.

If the pot is shorthanded I might slowplay a flush, but I think that straights and sets are better candidates, because people are naturally cautious when there are three suited cards on the board. In a multiway pot, actually my threshhold for slowplaying is a full house bigger than the board pair. So if there are a pair of 8s on the board, I might slowplay if the side card had hit my pair of 9s or better. When I have the underfull, any of my opponents might be drawing to 4 outs to beat me, and if you need four outs, I am not going to let you hit them for free.

Tommy Angelo has a great line, that I think cover's the situation, he said something like 'I bet when I don't have the goods so often, that I am certainly going to bet when I do have them.' In my opponents situation I would have bet if I had top pair flush draw/ top pair good kicker/ two pair/ set/ or just one card nut flush draw. Why wouldn't you bet when you have the flush, just to give all those other bets a little more threat?

[Louie Landale]

[1] Check raising from the blinds is mostly a function of the assertiveness of the late position players. If they are assertive you should already have decided to check the flop before you saw it. The next important thing is if the Early players are tight and there are a coupld big cards, then they are VERY likely to hit the flop and will bet. You can decide that before the flop also.

So I'm suggesting that check-raising is more about the opponents and less about what you have and what you flop.

Anyway, you should have 3-bet the flop unless you were cleverly going for the turn check-raise. The Ace, BTW, also completes the straight and can easily give someone else a bigger two-pair. Ac was clearly the WORST card you could catch.

Paying it off is a personal thing, but it sure doesn't look good from here.

[2] He pretty obviously has a big pair and not an 8 (he would have slow-played) or a 6 (he probably wouldn't have raised with it, and if he's the kind of player that WOULD raise with a 6 he's also the kind of player that would raise with lots of other stuff you can beat). Pretty bad fold.

So, you successfully fooled them about the strength of your hand but folded anyway. So fooling them cost you, not them. In this case, you should probably only try to fool the already assertive players into being even MORE assertive, figuring to pay them off. Trying to fool relatively passive players into betting more often is a disaster if you figure to fold vis-a-vis their old betting patterns. If raising turns them predictable (so you can confidently fold later) then do NOT slow play.

[3] yes, questionable pre-flop raise, otherwise pretty routine headsup. Notice that he should be rightfully supsicious about your hand since there is only a J on the flop. He is therefore (and rightfully) going to pay you off with lots of hands.

- Louie