$5 SnG Hand History

[nuclear500]

Not enough people called Mr. Juiceman who has no idea how to play Hold 'Em like a smart player.

A lot of his moves and calls were extremely sad.

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In subsequent hands, you were a bit too aggressive for my tastees, especially early on--on hand 23 for example, you went all in right away, throwing away any chance to milk your good cards for a few chips.

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I don't like calling away significant chunks of my stack. I would have been calling about 1/3 of my stack pre-flop. It was maybe a little too agressive, yes, but in this situation, I would not have been able to do any "milking." He would have bet his overpair on the flop and I would have laid down my hand, since I completely missed the flop.

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The same for hand 41, and I think it was on hand 49 that you put all your chips at risk too early on an Ax--I have no idea why plaboy 34 called you with 77.

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Hand 41: I had AKo and open raised in middle position for 3xBB. That's about as standard a play as there is.

Hand 49: Looking back at it, it looks like I was far too aggressive with Axs, but my recollection is I had a read that he was limping a lot and would lay it down to a raise. Don't know why I went all-in, so lucky me I guess.

I think that my strategy has turned into: be aggressive on the bubble (which I usually define as 4-5 players left). I think I'm being too aggressive, mostly when there are 5 players left. I still think aggression is the right thing to do with four.

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Again, on hand 50, I thought it was a bit early to get cocky with an Ax--it worked for you on 53, but not on 54.

Remember, the idea isn't to grab a lot of chips on any one hand, just to make it to the last one!

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Hand 50: Not so well timed steal attempt.
Hand 53: Succesful steal attempt.
Hand 54: Steal attempt followed by some not-so-good play.

What have I learned? Stay tight until down to four. At this level people don't seem to tighten up enough for "stealing" to be profitable until there are four left.

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I have no idea why you went all in on 58 with a low pair, though it worked--but on 59 you paid the price for doing the same with 10s.

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Too aggressive. It's interesting. Though I was perhaps a little more aggressive than usual in this particular game, this has made me notice similar behavior of mine in other games. Okay, weakness #1 spotted, thanks!

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1. Raise more preflop. Punish all those who will call a raise with 89o before they know the flop misses them. Bad beat for you on that hand though.

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I assume you're talking about in the early rounds, where I stuck with the 3xBB raising convention pretty much no matter how many limpers there were before me? I've always struggled a bit with how to adjust opening raises for the number of limpers. I know that these people aren't usually going to be very smart, but I've always liked the idea of keeping your opening raise the same size so people can't get a read on your hand strength based on the size of the raise. Cleveland guy talked about this in his response, and I'm planning on working that into my game plan. (I know I know, I wasn't very consistent with this towards the end, but still...)

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2. You seem a little weak post flop. I think you layed down the best hand a couple of times. Be more aggressive esp. heads up toward the end. Follow through preflop raises with post flop bets.

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Yeah, I am a little weak post-flop, which is why I'm here posting hand histories. Well I KNOW I laid down the best hand on #54, and I also suspect that may have been the case on #3 and probably others.

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3. I don't think the overall tourney was all that bad. Tough luck at the end. It happens.

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Yeah, I play enough that I'm not real concerned with the outcome of any one tourney, but I'd like to improve my play as much as possible. I'm about 35 SnGs into my quest to build a good bankroll and actually make some money. It's a very small sample size, yes, but my ROI is only around 20% and I'm going to start being concerned if that doesn't start to improve in the near future. My overall goal is to 4-table at the $20 or $30 level.

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#44 - I semi bluff that - pot sized bet
#49 - I put in a normal raise here
#54 - I fold to the reraise
#58 - Ditto #49

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Hand 44: I was UTG on the flop, you would still semi-bluff an OESD/backdoor flush in that situation with two left to act behind me? If I got called, I wouldn't necessarily know I was beat. I assume the semi-bluff would be follwed by folding to a reraise and check/folding if the turn missed?

Hand 49: I agree... I was being too aggressive.

Hand 54: Yeah, it was one of those things where I just didn't respect the opponent and figured he could be raising with anything. Apparently he hit something though and I paid for being loose.

Hand 58: My standard play here, with such a low pp, is to limp and fold if I don't hit a set. Again, I was being overly aggressive.

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Last hand - Ugh. I don't know... I'll wait for others to comment. Perhaps your play is textbook. I'm reserving judgement [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
Overall looks good!

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] Ugh is what I said too. I don't know how textbook it was, but as usual my worst play is my last. Looking at it now, I REALLY don't think a re-raise all-in with middle pair was a smart idea. I got "lucky" in that Juiceman sucks and my middle pair was ahead of what he called me with. This is one of those situations where the only hands that call me, beat me. I'm glad no one told Juiceman that so I could go into it with about a 10% edge. Ce la vie.
In conclusion:
Good Poker Playing: 1
Me: 0

Thanks people for all the advice.