small blind confusion

[Dr_Jeckyl_00]

In August/September I finally started making money. I play party $10-$33 and after 10 weeks, single tabling about 2 hours a night I was up about $1000 over 200 games. I felt great. One major adjustment I made was to tighten up. Fold AJ, KQs, etc L1-3 (unless in late position), save my chips so I had FE once I got to the bubble and turn into a push- bot. Then I started reading HOH v1. Harrington talks about completing from SB when there are limpers because you are getting good odds. So I started... this has been terrible for my game! I am bleeding chips away, getting into difficult post flop situations (which I don't have the skills to deal with, and causing me to start pushing to early (6-8 handed... L3-4) b/c my stack is too small. So what am I missing. Harrington is awesome and I am not. This morning I decided I have to tighten up from SB again. But what am I missing. Maybe what I did not realize is that I can't complete b/c I play at Party where I only get t800 and if I only play from the blinds I will have beed away 20% of my stack by L3, and if I get a PP or AK I could lose more, resulting in less FE in the bubble... if I even make it there. I guess if you're going to complete from sb due to getting good odds, you need some good post flop skills.

A good recent example is in a live 20 person home tourney I played in last week. 200/400 blinds I was in SB w/ J6s. Chip leader limped, I completed getting 5:1, BB checked. (Before reading HOH I would not have completed here.) Flop is AQx-rag w/ 2 of my suit. Now Harrington says protect your hand and I am sure I miss understood this) so I bet t1200, BB calls and I think chip leader raised to t2000. I call t800 getting 7:1 and so does BB (Pot now t6800). Turn is a K. I check, BB is all-in for t700, chip leader raises to t2700 to go. I call t2700 w/ t10,200 in pot and I now have Str8 and Flush draw getting 3.8:1 from pot on a 3:1 shot. River does not help and I am out of game. The entire time I am saying why the f'ck am I in this hand, but the odds say to call so I do. If I had played my normal tight game I would not have completed from SB... but Harrington says to.... what am I missing? Your thoughts?

HOH applies most specifically to deep stack tournaments. If you had a deeper stack, your play here becomes more correct, because even when you whiff this hand, you have plenty of chips to work with in the future. The most important thing at Party SNG's and probably your home game is to adjust to the amount of starting chips.

[jb9]

I haven't read HOH, but as Fox mentioned it is not a book about small short-stacked tournaments (like the Party STTs), so you have to be careful about transferring the advice.

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I guess if you're going to complete from sb due to getting good odds, you need some good post flop skills.

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Yeah, this is critical. If you flop a full house, that's easy enough to play, but if you flop a weak made hand (top pair weak kicker) or draw, you need to be able to play those out of position (which you often do by check/folding...).

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200/400 blinds I was in SB w/ J6s. Chip leader limped, I completed getting 5:1, BB checked. Flop is AQx-rag w/ 2 of my suit. Now Harrington says protect your hand and I am sure I miss understood this) so I bet t1200.

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You can't protect your hand. You have J high. You have nothing to protect. I don't think you should bet here unless you are trying to steal the pot (which maybe you do if stack sizes are right and you are getting desperate).

In the Party STTs I almost always complete the small blind in level 1 (i.e., when it is only 5 chips), but after that I tighten up. If I can see a cheap flop with a small pair or suited connectors, I will, but I don't play "any 2 suited" or hands like A7o or Q9o. With the small stacks, the implied odds just aren't good enough.

If you play with deeper stacks (on Stars or UB), you can loosen up from the small blind a bit.

Ok, this will be my first post here after a period of lurking. Anyway this is the way I see it:

The party tournaments are not deep stacked and thus not conducive to always completing the small blind even when you have odds. I play at Stars so this is never a problem for me and I would certainly complete from the small blind with this hand here.

Flop:
After the flop I don't know what you mean by protecting your hand. You don't have a hand. From what you're saying I'm inferring that 4 people saw that flop and I could just about guarantee you that at least one of them has an ace, and if not someone definitely has a queen. Anyway you look at it you don't have the best hand. You have a good draw and I would check this and hope nobody makes a large bet allowing me to call with my draw. Betting out here is asking someone to raise you and put you in this quandry. You're lucky he didn't raise more. I would have. In fact that's not even a legal raise, he's supposed to raise to at least 2400. I would have raised to at least 3000 and that's if everybody else folded and I wanted to try to slow play something a little.

Turn:
Ok, I don't know how how big your chip stack is now, but assuming I did play this hand the way you did so far and you still have a chip stack large enough to play in this tourney I may fold here after the turn. You have gotten yourself in quite a position though. You have an all in and a raise of about 4 times more in front of you. You're getting about 3.8 to 1 but you also do not have a 3 to 1 shot of winning. I would have estimated 4 to 1 at the table without doing any math but my math shows its about 3.8 to 1. Flush draws with an OPEN ENDED straight draw (not a GUTSHOT straight draw) are about 3 to 1, actually 3.07 to 1. So actually to be more exact you are getting 3.8 to 1 on your money and you are 3.8 to win, although this I would have estimated at 4 to 1 at the table. So your odds are really close. That said then this being a tournament where this is real $'s and the goal is to finish high enough to make real $'s I would probably throw this away here if I thought I still had enough chips in my stack to get to the money.

But I really think you could have saved yourself all this trouble by simply not betting out at the flop and hoping to call a small bet relative to the pot and yea if you're playing tournaments where you start with very few chips you may want to reexamine completing your small blind even when getting odds.

[Dr_Jeckyl_00]

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Flop:
After the flop I don't know what you mean by protecting your hand. You don't have a hand.

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Well I am not completely sure what protecting my hand means... I thought that protecting my flush draw applied, but I could be wrong and would love some clarification by what Harrington means by protecting your hand...

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Turn:
Ok, I don't know how how big your chip stack is now, but assuming I did play this hand the way you did so far and you still have a chip stack large enough to play in this tourney I may fold here after the turn. You have gotten yourself in quite a position though. You have an all in and a raise of about 4 times more in front of you. You're getting about 3.8 to 1 but you also do not have a 3 to 1 shot of winning. I would have estimated 4 to 1 at the table without doing any math but my math shows its about 3.8 to 1. Flush draws with an OPEN ENDED straight draw (not a GUTSHOT straight draw) are about 3 to 1, actually 3.07 to 1. So actually to be more exact you are getting 3.8 to 1 on your money and you are 3.8 to win, although this I would have estimated at 4 to 1 at the table. So your odds are really close.

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After the turn I have 12 outs (9 hearts, 3 tens (one ten is included with 9 hearts) with 46 available cards, therefore, 34 cards don't help, 12 help... that is 2.83:1 against my making my hand, but I am getting 3.78 from the pot... I think I am committed at this point and I definitely have good odds to call here (I believe I had t3500 left before calling turn raise)

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But I really think you could have saved yourself all this trouble by simply not betting out at the flop and hoping to call a small bet relative to the pot and yea if you're playing tournaments where you start with very few chips you may want to reexamine completing your small blind even when getting odds.

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You are probably correct here.

[jb9]

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Well I am not completely sure what protecting my hand means... I thought that protecting my flush draw applied, but I could be wrong and would love some clarification by what Harrington means by protecting your hand...

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Your protect your hand from flush draws by betting enough so that flush draws do not have proper odds to call (for example, your opponent did not bet enough to protect his hand from flush draws because you had odds to call).

When you have a flush draw, you don't want to protect your hand -- you want free or cheap cards so that you can try to hit your flush.

You only protect made hands that are vulnerable to draws (by betting enough that it is wrong for the draws to call).

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After the turn I have 12 outs (9 hearts, 3 tens (one ten is included with 9 hearts) with 46 available cards, therefore, 34 cards don't help, 12 help... that is 2.83:1 against my making my hand, but I am getting 3.78 from the pot... I think I am committed at this point and I definitely have good odds to call here (I believe I had t3500 left before calling turn raise)

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I agree you are pretty much committed at this point, but here are three comments in no particular order:

1. One of your opponents could have a higher flush draw, so you can make your flush and still lose, or one of your opponents could have a J so that you would split the pot if you hit your straight, so your odds are not as good as they seem.

2. One reason not to bet the flop is to try to keep the pot size down while you are drawing so that when you get to the turn you don't find yourself in a situation where you are almost certainly behind but you put in all of your chips because you "have the right odds".

3. If I knew I was going to end up all in with my flush draw on the turn, I'd rather re-raise all in on the flop. So, before calling that 800 chip raise on the flop, I would ask myself "am I folding the turn if it doesn't improve my hand" and if the answer was "no" I would consider my best options to be re-raise all in or fold (and I would really need a read on the other players and know all of the chip counts and payouts to decide what to do).

[durron597]

There is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference between completing J6s in the SB at 200/400 blinds and completitng with it at level 2 for 15 chips.

200/400... fold preflop.

[Dr_Jeckyl_00]

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1. One of your opponents could have a higher flush draw, so you can make your flush and still lose, or one of your opponents could have a J so that you would split the pot if you hit your straight, so your odds are not as good as they seem.

2. One reason not to bet the flop is to try to keep the pot size down while you are drawing so that when you get to the turn you don't find yourself in a situation where you are almost certainly behind but you put in all of your chips because you "have the right odds".

3. If I knew I was going to end up all in with my flush draw on the turn, I'd rather re-raise all in on the flop. So, before calling that 800 chip raise on the flop, I would ask myself "am I folding the turn if it doesn't improve my hand" and if the answer was "no" I would consider my best options to be re-raise all in or fold (and I would really need a read on the other players and know all of the chip counts and payouts to decide what to do).

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Points one and two are very good points, neither of which I thought about in the heat of the battle.

point 3... I never expected that the hand would turn out so badly and that I would be all-in with this hand. I guess I needed to have a plan and not just consider the pot odds...

[Dr_Jeckyl_00]

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There is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference between completing J6s in the SB at 200/400 blinds and completitng with it at level 2 for 15 chips.

200/400... fold preflop.

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yea, you're right

I'm sorry, you're right about the math. I was thinking 33% when I said 3 to 1 and 25% when I said 4 to 1. There are those stupid mistakes that used to get me B's and B+'s on math tests in high school. I still might fold that after the turn hoping I could make a better play with 3500 chips. Might depend when the blinds were going up. The only real mistake I think you made was betting the flop and then getting sucked in because of it.