Hand from UB 100+9 last night

[Rizen]

Here was a key hand from the UB 100+9 last night. I'm at work so I don't have the actual hand history, but I remember every detail of the hand. The blinds are 150/300, there are 32 players left, 20 get paid. The average stack is around 12k.

Relevant stacks: MP2(11000) Hero (8300)

Relevant reads: MP2 has been at the same table as me for 75-80 hands. Prior to this tournament I have never played with MP2, but Poker Tracker shows a VP$IP of 23% and a PFR% of 20%. I've watched this player raise a wide variety of hands from MP/LP when he's first to enter a pot. MP2 seems to play reasonable post-flop and hasn't had to show down many hands.

My table image: I've only played 2 of the last 20-25 hands, and I haven't shown down a hand in close to an hour. Both times I won. Once with a large PF raise with AKo and another time when I limped ont he button behind several limpers with QJs and made a half pot sized bet into a Q high flop. Other players reaction to me tends to make me believe my image is pretty tight and conservative, but both pots I took down I got comments from other players about how they 'should have called' or 'thought they had the best hand'. Not sure if that's anything but smoke, but potentially a few players may be wondering if they should look me up.

In this hand I'm in the BB, and the blinds are 150/300 with no antes. MP2 makes a standard opening raise to 900 and it's folded to me. I look down and see K /images/graemlins/club.gif9 /images/graemlins/club.gif.

Pre-Flop: Hero has a reasonable hand vs a player who will raise with a wide variety. There is 1350 already in the pot and it's 600 to call. I debated moving over the top here, but I felt any reasonable over the top raise pretty much committed me to the pot, and I wasn't sure I wanted to play K9s for all my chips. I decided to go ahead and flat call and see a flop with my hand.

Flop comes: T /images/graemlins/club.gifT /images/graemlins/spade.gifJ /images/graemlins/spade.gif

Pot is now 1950. Hero feels that this is a reasonable flop for him against a villian that potentially holds a wide variety of hands. I considered check-raising here, but villian had been making a lot of pot-sized continuation bets so any reasonable CR would commit me. I felt I had a decent shot of taking the pot down with a reasonable bet here, so I shot out 1200. Villian flat calls.

Turn card is a 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

Hero???

Comments on all streets please as well as turn action. I feel given my reads on MP2 that folding this PF would be a huge mistake, but besides that I feel I had a lot of different reasonable options here, and am curious what other 2p2ers would do.

-Rizen

[Black Aces 518]

I have a hard time putting you ahead of his range on the turn. It could be as bad as TJ or KQ or just AJ. It's possible he has 22-88, but the chances he has a higher pair than yours, trip tens or a straight are high. Also, even if he has something like AsQs, he still has 15 outs.

I'm check/folding.

[Rizen]

What about the other streets? Would you have done anything differently?

-Rizen

[J.Copperthite]

The problem w/ this type of player is the very fact that he raises a lot of hands. It is very easy for him to have a JT, QT, KT, AT, AJ, or a high pocket pair - even 28/20 players can pick up a monster. What I would do, however, is to fire out another 1200 bet to give him an opportunity to fold if you infact do have him beat. If he has A-K, you now have him beat, but are still in trouble if a J, Q, K, or A comes on the river. I just feel like this hand is not a great takeoff hand against this player and I would let it go preflop. But if I did decide to play it, I would bet the turn - checking then calling does not work because this does not give you any read. You get more info by seeing whether he calls or raises. A raise would be an automatic fold - even to a minimum raise. You want a solid hand against a maniac - K-9s is too speculative and easily dominated.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
The problem w/ this type of player is the very fact that he raises a lot of hands. It is very easy for him to have a JT, QT, KT, AT, AJ, or a high pocket pair - even 28/20 players can pick up a monster. What I would do, however, is to fire out another 1200 bet to give him an opportunity to fold if you infact do have him beat. If he has A-K, you now have him beat, but are still in trouble if a J, Q, K, or A comes on the river. I just feel like this hand is not a great takeoff hand against this player and I would let it go preflop. But if I did decide to play it, I would bet the turn - checking then calling does not work because this does not give you any read. You get more info by seeing whether he calls or raises. A raise would be an automatic fold - even to a minimum raise. You want a solid hand against a maniac - K-9s is too speculative and easily dominated.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you reason this out a bit more?? This player is not a maniac IMO. He raises a lot PF, but plays very reasonable post-flop. I personally think folding PF here against this particular player is a poor play, but I'd be willing to hear reasoning otherwise. Normally I would not play K9s post flop from a MP2 raiser with a standard opening raise, but against this particular player I felt it was +EV.

-Rizen

[J.Copperthite]

Hi Rizen,

I was referring to the 20% preflop raise stat by labelling him a maniac. I usually refer to this as a maniac because he plays a wide variety of hands for a raise. I guess he's not a maniac in the traditional sense (higher PFR and % of hands played would be higher as well), since he's 28/20 - it just means he raises most of the time he plays a hand. I just think its too hard to know where you are specifically by his flat-call on a T-T-J flop - he could be drawing, could think you're bluffing, has flopped a monster, etc. I can see the case for playing K-9s in this position - my style is different in that respect - I play fairly tight to a raise and K-9s is not a hand i'd like to play for extra chips out of position. But we know you played the hand of course. What did you do on the turn, and what did he do?

[schwza]

preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[Black Aces 518]

Rizen,

With your read, I don't hate the PF call. I don't love it, but I can see myself making that call. If that guy is raising 1 time in 5, you can't just fall down every time.

I like your reasoning and bet on the flop. I may have bet 1000 or so just to decrease the amount of times I have to make him fold to be profitable.

On the turn, I think any more $$ going in, and you can't really fold. I don't like betting another 1200-1500 and then folding to a raise. I just think that there are not that many hands that will raise preflop, and call the flop here that you are way ahead of.

[pokerstudAA]

K9s is not a hand I want to play OOP against someone who makes continuation bets and raised from middle position. If he has been getting out of line making preflop raises and trying to steal blinds then try to take it down preflop by raising to 2.8k - fold to an all-in.

You need to play very carefully in these situations or you can easily lose a large part of your stack. I think K9s appears better than it should in this situation - even against a loose raiser. Hero has shot 2100 into this pot (1/4 of his stack) by the turn, needs to act first, has a gut shot, and has no idea where he is in the hand. With a below average stack I might toss this preflop and wait for position.

The way the hand played I would be worried about betting the turn. Villain might be on a spade or straight draw, might have a pair of jacks, might have trip tens, might have absolutely nothing. You are not likely ahead of even a loose raises range at this point.

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my feeling pre-flop. In fact, I might have re-popped him if had a lot more chips as well, but given the size of my stack I felt a smooth call was the best play.

I didn't even consider this flop line. I'm honestly not sure how much I like it, but it was definitely a line of thinking that didn't occur to me here and probably should. Generally I don't like to call down unless I'm against a very agg post-flop player who I know would fire at this pot repeatedly with any two cards, and I find those are few and far between. That being said, I should have given some consideration at least to a check/call and perhaps try to take the pot on the turn if not the river.

-Rizen

[Rizen]

I'll put the turn action and hand results in a little later, I'm hoping to get a little more feedback here from a few people and I'd prefer there be no chance of it being results oriented. If you're really curious PM me and I'll send you the results before I post them in the thread.

-Rizen

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
K9s is not a hand I want to play OOP against someone who makes continuation bets and raised from middle position. If he has been getting out of line making preflop raises and trying to steal blinds then try to take it down preflop by raising to 2.8k - fold to an all-in.

You need to play very carefully in these situations or you can easily lose a large part of your stack. I think K9s appears better than it should in this situation - even against a loose raiser. Hero has shot 2100 into this pot (1/4 of his stack) by the turn, needs to act first, has a gut shot, and has no idea where he is in the hand. With a below average stack I might toss this preflop and wait for position.

The way the hand played I would be worried about betting the turn. Villain might be on a spade or straight draw, might have a pair of jacks, might have trip tens, might have absolutely nothing. You are not likely ahead of even a loose raises range at this point.

[/ QUOTE ]

One thing I've been curious about, does your PF decision making change at all if you hold, say, JTo instead of K9s? Obviously JTo would have hit this flop hard, but against this kind of player I will routinely see flop with hands like this out of the BB, and sometimes the CO or button if I'm fairly confident the blinds play tight. I understand the arguements about K9s being dominated a fair amount (and again, I wouldn't normally play this hand against a standard player), and a lot of players prefer calling here with 89s or T9o instead of a weak King or Ace. Those of you that are folding PF, what is your calling range and the kind of hands you want to call with?? To me, the fact that I hold K9s here isn't a huge issue, as I'm more calling because I feel I can take the pot away from the villian often enough post-flop to make this play profitable, but the K9s does give me a reasonable hand to fall back on.

-Rizen

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my feeling pre-flop. In fact, I might have re-popped him if had a lot more chips as well, but given the size of my stack I felt a smooth call was the best play.

I didn't even consider this flop line. I'm honestly not sure how much I like it, but it was definitely a line of thinking that didn't occur to me here and probably should. Generally I don't like to call down unless I'm against a very agg post-flop player who I know would fire at this pot repeatedly with any two cards, and I find those are few and far between. That being said, I should have given some consideration at least to a check/call and perhaps try to take the pot on the turn if not the river.

-Rizen

[/ QUOTE ]

i think you're misunderstanding what i'm saying. i'm saying to call the flop and then check the turn. if he bets, give up (not sure how you should play a K). if he's the kind of guy who will bet the flop and turn with 67 or 55 or some kind of missed hand, then congrats, he wins the pot. there's no way i'm going to call many streets with K high and hope it's good.

if he checks behind on the turn, assume he missed and pick up the pot on the river.

i know that this line is very effective against me, as i will fire one cbet very often, and then usually check the turn if i have nothing and bet the turn if i have a hand. yes, i realize this is kind of exploitable.

[JustPlayingSmart]

I think the preflop call is okay. I wouldn't make it all the time, but if I am concentrating hard this hand should have value against this opponent.

When the flop comes TTJ with 2 spades, I tend to shy away from trying to win the pot against a decent player. Opponents are very suspicious on this board because people love to bluff at paired boards. Your bet of 1200 really only succeeds against something that totally missed, like an A7 or A8. Your opponent will call or raise with such a wide variety of holdings on this flop that you are in an awkward turn position no matter what falls.

On the turn, the 9 obviously helped you, but does it make you confident enough to call a bet from villain? If not, then I think he takes the pot away from you here no matter what. You could bet here, but you'd probably have to bet 2k of your 6k, and that seems like it's really going to make things awkward if villain does anything but fold.

I think after you call preflop, you should decide whether you are going to go all the way with this hand or not. If you show weakness, I think villain will use his position to take the pot away from you. This may be an argument to not playing this hand when you miss against an opponent with a wide range, since you won't be able to define his hand very well.

[Dave D]

[ QUOTE ]
Here was a key hand from the UB 100+9 last night. I'm at work so I don't have the actual hand history, but I remember every detail of the hand. The blinds are 150/300, there are 32 players left, 20 get paid. The average stack is around 12k.

Relevant stacks: MP2(11000) Hero (8300)

Relevant reads: MP2 has been at the same table as me for 75-80 hands. Prior to this tournament I have never played with MP2, but Poker Tracker shows a VP$IP of 23% and a PFR% of 20%. I've watched this player raise a wide variety of hands from MP/LP when he's first to enter a pot. MP2 seems to play reasonable post-flop and hasn't had to show down many hands.

My table image: I've only played 2 of the last 20-25 hands, and I haven't shown down a hand in close to an hour. Both times I won. Once with a large PF raise with AKo and another time when I limped ont he button behind several limpers with QJs and made a half pot sized bet into a Q high flop. Other players reaction to me tends to make me believe my image is pretty tight and conservative, but both pots I took down I got comments from other players about how they 'should have called' or 'thought they had the best hand'. Not sure if that's anything but smoke, but potentially a few players may be wondering if they should look me up.

In this hand I'm in the BB, and the blinds are 150/300 with no antes. MP2 makes a standard opening raise to 900 and it's folded to me. I look down and see K /images/graemlins/club.gif9 /images/graemlins/club.gif.

Pre-Flop: Hero has a reasonable hand vs a player who will raise with a wide variety. There is 1350 already in the pot and it's 600 to call. I debated moving over the top here, but I felt any reasonable over the top raise pretty much committed me to the pot, and I wasn't sure I wanted to play K9s for all my chips. I decided to go ahead and flat call and see a flop with my hand.

Flop comes: T /images/graemlins/club.gifT /images/graemlins/spade.gifJ /images/graemlins/spade.gif

Pot is now 1950. Hero feels that this is a reasonable flop for him against a villian that potentially holds a wide variety of hands. I considered check-raising here, but villian had been making a lot of pot-sized continuation bets so any reasonable CR would commit me. I felt I had a decent shot of taking the pot down with a reasonable bet here, so I shot out 1200. Villian flat calls.

Turn card is a 9 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif

Hero???

Comments on all streets please as well as turn action. I feel given my reads on MP2 that folding this PF would be a huge mistake, but besides that I feel I had a lot of different reasonable options here, and am curious what other 2p2ers would do.

-Rizen

[/ QUOTE ]


I haven't read responses, so I'll try to give my first impressions of what I see in this hand.

I guess I don't mind the PF call, 2:1 isn't a huge pot, but K9s is definatly a drawing hand here. So basically you want to play a drawing hand, OOP, against only one person. I guess you can do this, personally I think I'd just fold, but whatever.

I think the KEY with this situation is to NOT allow yourself to get attached. I mean, you have to tell yourself that it's a crappy hand, and even if the flop starts to look tasty you have to be capable for folding. This is a PRIME example of how easy it is to get sucked in once you play a hand, and you can't let that happen.

On the flop, I love this flop bet. Basically, if villian was raising to steal PF, you put him to the test, and evaluate the situation from there. You bet about 2/3 the pot too, which definatly shows strength. The flop has a ton of draws, straights, flushes, and even AJ likes this flop. I think villian only calls you if he hit a piece of the flop. I think in the late part of a 100+9 (thought I don't have much experiance at this level) you have to give villian credit for some brains, and *not* assume he's a donk.

Therefore

When villian calls you, I am pretty much done with this hand. That turn I think is likely to hurt you as much as it helps you. I would not bet again. I might call a small bet, and a small bet on the river, unless of course the queen comes. If he bets any more than 1/3 the pot or something on the turn, you can fold easily.


One other thing. Check/raising this flop would be the worst thing you could do. There was a discussion on here sometime back about people check raising too much, and giving villians odds to call without meaning to. Basically, you really don't want to c/r this flop, because villian is going to call you because he's probably getting odds . I guess the exception is a check/push, but I wouldn't try that here with basically no draw.

[Rizen]

I checked, villian bet 2000, I thought about it a little bit then folded. Villian showed JTo.

The flop call scared me a lot. This player was a reasonable player post-flop (and really even pre-flop, the table was tight, so raising a lot of hands was probably appropriate). The fact that he flat called that flop scared me to death. It was coordinated enough I think any thinking player would have raised me with a pair of Jacks, and I wouldn't be surprised to get flop raised by KQ/AQ/AK here too. Once he flat called I decided barring a Q on the turn I was done with this hand. I actually thought the 9 on the turn was a bad card for me as it filled a lot of the non-flush draws available on that board.

Since the responses and feedback were pretty varied as well, I guess this hand was as tricky as I thought. Perhaps that makes a good arguement for the 'fold PF' people, although I still think if I don't mix it up and call sometimes here with hands I might not normally call with I'm giving away too much.

I wouldn't call all the time here, but I think given the reads, the stack sizes, and my relative image, the timing was okay, although after he flipped it over I couldn't help but think to myself if I'd put in a healthy PF raise I could have taken it down PF rather easily.

-Rizen

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
preflop: i like the flat call. if you had fewer chips, i'd push, but here a reraise is awkward and likely to leave you playing against a hand that dominates you if he calls.

flop: i would check/call the flop, planning on taking the pot away on the river. if he bets the turn, give up unimproved. i find that most guys with stats like 23/20 will fire one cbet and then give up if they don't have anything. and it will be very hard for villain to call the river with a hand like 77.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my feeling pre-flop. In fact, I might have re-popped him if had a lot more chips as well, but given the size of my stack I felt a smooth call was the best play.

I didn't even consider this flop line. I'm honestly not sure how much I like it, but it was definitely a line of thinking that didn't occur to me here and probably should. Generally I don't like to call down unless I'm against a very agg post-flop player who I know would fire at this pot repeatedly with any two cards, and I find those are few and far between. That being said, I should have given some consideration at least to a check/call and perhaps try to take the pot on the turn if not the river.

-Rizen

[/ QUOTE ]

i think you're misunderstanding what i'm saying. i'm saying to call the flop and then check the turn. if he bets, give up (not sure how you should play a K). if he's the kind of guy who will bet the flop and turn with 67 or 55 or some kind of missed hand, then congrats, he wins the pot. there's no way i'm going to call many streets with K high and hope it's good.

if he checks behind on the turn, assume he missed and pick up the pot on the river.

i know that this line is very effective against me, as i will fire one cbet very often, and then usually check the turn if i have nothing and bet the turn if i have a hand. yes, i realize this is kind of exploitable.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did completely misunderstand you. Thanks for clarifying, this makes more sense to me, and is a line that while I didn't consider, makes a lot of sense. I think the line I took actually got me away from this particular hand for cheaper than I would have had I called a cont bet (people love the bet pot button on UB), but I think your line would work against a lot of reasonable players, and is probably worthwhile as at least a consideration to mix up my game.

-Rizen

[schwza]

FWIW, i think i post about using this line (and simliar ones) more than i actually use them. and when i do use them, i often wind up kicking myself.

[stokken]

How would you have played it if this was a flopp that hit your hand?

It is a coordinated flopp that would fit nicely into the range a liberated player with regards to his raises may hold. It is also a flopp that has great potential for testing the honesty of your bet if one has position on you.

I would most likely bet less or check/fold(dependent on size though) Initiativ is great, but it is hard to gain in this hand as a mere call from opponent sort of regains his momentum with the stacks as they are here. Your lead bet, is it not in the same range as his cont bet would be?

I think I would try to control the pot with a bet of less magnitude and fold to a raise. Might even look scarier then the 2/3 pot bet. And if he raises he`s telling that you are not seeing it trough cheap and you can fold with more confidence

I have great respect for you, but if your bet accomplishes nothing ie he doesnt fold, what is it you hope to see on turn. If you are going to try and take it down with a bluff or you believe K high is good here and/or continue if a K or 9 falls on turn, move inn on flopp. Stop n go or check/raise all inn if he bets. If he holds a monster so be it. I prefer trying to control the betting action on flopps like this with read as you presented

[Rizen]

[ QUOTE ]
How would you have played it if this was a flopp that hit your hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

I probably play it the same way quite honestly, unless the flop REALLY hits my hand (like trips or a flush) in which case I would probably check/call or check/raise depending on the flop texture.

[ QUOTE ]
It is a coordinated flopp that would fit nicely into the range a liberated player with regards to his raises may hold. It is also a flopp that has great potential for testing the honesty of your bet if one has position on you.

I would most likely bet less or check/fold(dependent on size though) Initiativ is great, but it is hard to gain in this hand as a mere call from opponent sort of regains his momentum with the stacks as they are here. Your lead bet, is it not in the same range as his cont bet would be?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think my bet is smaller than his cont bet would be, as he tends to click the 'bet pot' button on UB a lot. At the time I felt a 1200 bet showed a lot more strength than a standard 700ish 'feeler' bet would have. With my reads on this player and past hands I honestly feel he wouldn't call 1200 or raise without some hand, speculative or otherwise.

[ QUOTE ]
I think I would try to control the pot with a bet of less magnitude and fold to a raise. Might even look scarier then the 2/3 pot bet. And if he raises he`s telling that you are not seeing it trough cheap and you can fold with more confidence

I have great respect for you, but if your bet accomplishes nothing ie he doesnt fold, what is it you hope to see on turn. If you are going to try and take it down with a bluff or you believe K high is good here and/or continue if a K or 9 falls on turn, move inn on flopp. Stop n go or check/raise all inn if he bets. If he holds a monster so be it. I prefer trying to control the betting action on flopps like this with read as you presented

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you for the kind comments. In this case I didn't really know if the K high was good, and my 1200 bet on the flop was *NOT* a value bet. It might be classified as a semi-bluff, but really it was more of a pure bluff that I wanted to take the pot down right there.

In hindsight (and this may be being results oriented, that's part of the reason I posted the hand) I honestly think the issue I had was I called his PF raise with the intention of outplaying him on the flop and taking this pot away from him. I should have re-evaluated my position on this flop. In my experience, bluffing out of position into a board that contains 2 or more coordinated broadway cards (either suited or connected) is usually a recipe for disaster. I was married to the idea of taking this pot away though, and I didn't stop and re-evaluate my position on the flop before I bet. As a player, that's still probably one of my bigger leaks. I get married to an idea of what I want to do with a given hand, and then I don't always re-evaluate what I'm doing based on new information. Thanks for the feedback.

-Rizen

[JustPlayingSmart]

[ QUOTE ]
The flop call scared me a lot. This player was a reasonable player post-flop (and really even pre-flop, the table was tight, so raising a lot of hands was probably appropriate). The fact that he flat called that flop scared me to death.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is one reason why that bet may not work against a thinking player, and also one reason why you might want to make this bet if you actually flopped a monster. He can certainly try to take you off a hand here with any two because most players would check/call or check/raise with a ten.