10-20 blind game at Bellagio

[Jedster]

So yesterday I decided to take a shot at the 10-20 blind NLH game at Bellagio. Unfortunately, I lost $4k. I don't think I played particularly well, in part because I'd never played a game that big before and I was a bit nervous and in part because I was spending too much time figuring out the pot size (I'm used to 2-5 pots and tournament pots, tournament pots are always easier to figure because they are less frequently multi-way).

Anyway, the overriding theme to me seemed to be that people were itching to get a ton of chips into the pot, whether on a bluff or on a hand they thought best. I played at 4 different tables and it seemed like people were constantly making overbets preflop and on the flop.

So after playing passively and not very strategically I shifted gears and decided that I would try a trapping strategy (without trapping myself) when I had a huge hand and to try to build an enormous pot. I also decided that I'd chip away with small bets at small pots to try and chip up.

The strategy seemed to work (except I got unlucky and lost two pots where I was a 9:1 favorite and one where i was an 4:1 favorite and also a huge straight/flush draw pot in which I was getting 3:1 odds to hit my even money draw). What I'm wondering is whether it is common in the 10-20 NLH game (for those of you who play it) to find players who are just itching to put chips into the pot when they are trying to run a bluff or when they overvalue their hand.

I know this is a vague, abstract post. Hopefully it will engender a useful conversation about the 10-20 game at the B.

To add some specifics of hands:

- Probably 4 or 5 times, I made bad decisions on trying to steal small pots. I'd make a one-half to two-thirds bet on the flop and then continue on the turn. This isn't always bad, but it's bad when a bad player calls your flop bet and you don't have anything. The PLUS of this though is the better players noticed that I'd frequently make bets and give up when raised. They probably figured I was giving up a decent hand when I was really giving up nothing (setting them up to bluff me in the future when i actually had a bluff-catching hand).

Here are some specific shitty hands I went through:

- On my first hand, I get QcQd in the BB. One limper to the button who makes it $80. SB folds and I just call and the limper folds. Pot = $190. Jc 7d 2c flop. I check, button bets $140, I make it $400. Button calls. Turn 8c. I bet $500 which puts button all-in. Button calls. River Jd. Button turns over KhJh for a winner.

- I limp with 4c 2h on the button after 6 limpers. Flop is Ah 3d 5c. Checked to me on the button and I check. Turn is 6h. Pot = $160. UTG bets $140. Folded to me and I raise to $420. UTG has me well covered -- I only have $900 left. He puts me all in and I call. Button has 3h4h and catches a 7 on the river for a chop.

- I have AA in the cutoff. UTG who is a very aggressive player prone to overbetting on the flop makes it $60. I call (willing to dump on the flop if the blinds give much action on a scary board). Button raises to $300 and blinds and UTG fold. I probably should put in my last $1k here, but I decide to try and get it in on flop so I call. Flop is King high no flush. I bet $200 into the $700 pot hoping to get raised by a King or bluff-raised. Button raises $400, and I go all-in. Button calls with AK. Turn K. [censored]. I decided to pick up at this point.

My final analysis is that I didn't play very good poker and still had to get very unlucky to walk away a big loser.

This makes me think the 10-20 game is pretty soft. Comments?

Oh i also have to share this one last hand I wasn't involved in. Without getting into the street-by-street analysis, the river board is:

2s 3s 4c 5s 5d

Preflop there was a raise, there was no betting on the flop and only a small bet and calls on the turn.

Anyway, the river card completed the spade flush and As7s bets out $120 or so into a $1k pot. Next to act makes it $300 and gets 2 callers. So it's $180 back to the nut flush and he's getting about 11:1 on his $180. HE FOLDS! KsTs takes the pot down. Can you believe it?

[jen]

This was an awesome game when I was there a couple of weeks ago. The surprising thing to me about the game, aside from the bad play, was that even though I played in it for quite a number of hours over the course of three days, I never made it to the main game.

On my last day, I witnessed this hand: UTG (~$1500), Button (~$500), BB (~$5k). UTG and Button were all-in preflop with BB. The hands? QQ, AJs, KK.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

[ QUOTE ]
So yesterday I decided to take a shot at the 10-20 blind NLH game at Bellagio. Unfortunately, I lost $4k. I don't think I played particularly well, in part because I'd never played a game that big before and I was a bit nervous and in part because I was spending too much time figuring out the pot size (I'm used to 2-5 pots and tournament pots, tournament pots are always easier to figure because they are less frequently multi-way).

Anyway, the overriding theme to me seemed to be that people were itching to get a ton of chips into the pot, whether on a bluff or on a hand they thought best. I played at 4 different tables and it seemed like people were constantly making overbets preflop and on the flop.

So after playing passively and not very strategically I shifted gears and decided that I would try a trapping strategy (without trapping myself) when I had a huge hand and to try to build an enormous pot. I also decided that I'd chip away with small bets at small pots to try and chip up.

The strategy seemed to work (except I got unlucky and lost two pots where I was a 9:1 favorite and one where i was an 4:1 favorite and also a huge straight/flush draw pot in which I was getting 3:1 odds to hit my even money draw). What I'm wondering is whether it is common in the 10-20 NLH game (for those of you who play it) to find players who are just itching to put chips into the pot when they are trying to run a bluff or when they overvalue their hand.

I know this is a vague, abstract post. Hopefully it will engender a useful conversation about the 10-20 game at the B.

To add some specifics of hands:

- Probably 4 or 5 times, I made bad decisions on trying to steal small pots. I'd make a one-half to two-thirds bet on the flop and then continue on the turn. This isn't always bad, but it's bad when a bad player calls your flop bet and you don't have anything. The PLUS of this though is the better players noticed that I'd frequently make bets and give up when raised. They probably figured I was giving up a decent hand when I was really giving up nothing (setting them up to bluff me in the future when i actually had a bluff-catching hand).

Here are some specific shitty hands I went through:

- On my first hand, I get QcQd in the BB. One limper to the button who makes it $80. SB folds and I just call and the limper folds. Pot = $190. Jc 7d 2c flop. I check, button bets $140, I make it $400. Button calls. Turn 8c. I bet $500 which puts button all-in. Button calls. River Jd. Button turns over KhJh for a winner.

- I limp with 4c 2h on the button after 6 limpers. Flop is Ah 3d 5c. Checked to me on the button and I check. Turn is 6h. Pot = $160. UTG bets $140. Folded to me and I raise to $420. UTG has me well covered -- I only have $900 left. He puts me all in and I call. Button has 3h4h and catches a 7 on the river for a chop.

- I have AA in the cutoff. UTG who is a very aggressive player prone to overbetting on the flop makes it $60. I call (willing to dump on the flop if the blinds give much action on a scary board). Button raises to $300 and blinds and UTG fold. I probably should put in my last $1k here, but I decide to try and get it in on flop so I call. Flop is King high no flush. I bet $200 into the $700 pot hoping to get raised by a King or bluff-raised. Button raises $400, and I go all-in. Button calls with AK. Turn K. [censored]. I decided to pick up at this point.

My final analysis is that I didn't play very good poker and still had to get very unlucky to walk away a big loser.

This makes me think the 10-20 game is pretty soft. Comments?

Oh i also have to share this one last hand I wasn't involved in. Without getting into the street-by-street analysis, the river board is:

2s 3s 4c 5s 5d

Preflop there was a raise, there was no betting on the flop and only a small bet and calls on the turn.

Anyway, the river card completed the spade flush and As7s bets out $120 or so into a $1k pot. Next to act makes it $300 and gets 2 callers. So it's $180 back to the nut flush and he's getting about 11:1 on his $180. HE FOLDS! KsTs takes the pot down. Can you believe it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Imagine a world where everybody flooded the forum with bad beat stories and how their night went the other week. Now off yourself.

[mr. shred]

trappers sometime get trapped. trying to play cute lets your opponents see too many free or cheap cards. The game is about driving people out or making them pay. With your style of play you don't put your opponent to the test. In that game with big pairs I would been overbetting them and if they called and beat me thats poker. You did get a bit unlucky but you might have won one or two of the hands you lost. TWice with aa and qq you just called. Would it have made a difference if you made big raises? Could be. You might have won small pots instead you blew big ones.
I am sure you know all this and are just venting your bad play. It always hurts twice as bad when you lose and play poorly.
Stick to the smaller games until you can play the bigger games more comfortably.

Good Luck

[turnipmonster]

I thought NL was all about getting out of the kiddie pool. anyways this sounds like a great game and I'm looking forward to playing it in a few weeks whilst in vegas. If I run really bad I'll post a thread whining about it here on the strategy forums.

[Ole16]

Hey Turnip - might be the wrong place to post/ask but when will you be in vegas? Playing where? Just curious as I respect your post a lot and would be fun to watch you play [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[fsuplayer]

what turnip should do is come to vegas between june 18th-june 26th and redeem his free drink coupon with myself, matt flynn and assorted others. he can even sit on my left this time.


what turnip will do is unbeknownst to me.

[Ole16]

[ QUOTE ]
what turnip should do is come to vegas between june 18th-june 26th and redeem his free drink coupon with myself, matt flynn and assorted others. he can even sit on my left this time.


what turnip will do is unbeknownst to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Jedster]

Fair enough points about the whining. If I could still edit my original post to delete the whining about the hands, I would, and I agree that the whining isn't anything that is particularly interesting to anybody (other than myself!).

One hand that I was not involved in sticks in my mind. There are six limpers or so to the big blind who makes it $200 to go. One of the limpers calls and everybody else folds. The two players in the pot each have over $10,000. The flop, turn, and river are checked. The final board is something like 24568. The BB shows AsQs and it is good. The limper mucked -- so AsQs was good.

What type of hand do you think the lipmer called $180 with that couldn't beat AsQs? I also am surprised nobody took a stab at the pot at on any street.

My best guess is that the caller put the BB on a big pair and decided to play a T9s or JTs kind of hand to see if he could win a monster pot.

In my view, either these players are playing on a totally different level than I play, or they are horrible. I assume they are playing on a different level and I'm interested in insight the more intelligent players on this board might have.

[turnipmonster]

lol, prepare to be underwhelmed. watching me play is about as interesting as watching grass grow, ask fsuplayer [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

april 14-17th, probably playing 10/20 and I heard they have good 5/10 and 10/25 games at the MGM. it's my bachelor party so probably some 1/2 donking as well. PM me if you want to hang.