I truly love this thread. This topic isn’t talked about enough! Most poker players would rather focus on how to value bet and how to gain maximum value. However, there is certainly merit for losing the minimum as well.
Unquestionably, the most difficult decisions in Texas Holdem are on the river, and I firmly believe that this is the street where the most money can be gained or lost Time and time again I see players making mistakes preflop (myself included), which leads to bigger mistakes post flop. These mistakes are very -EV and also are easily avoidable without too much study.
If you are serious about getting better at NLHE then I suggest you work on your preflop hand ranges. Figure out which hands you are calling with (of course, that depends on player type and your position), which hands you are 3betting with, and which hands you are folding. Again, position makes all of the difference in the world. So working out ranges from Under the Gun, UTG+1, … hijack, lo-jack, button, and most importantly, blind ranges (sb/bb). This small effort will help you tremendously, and it will help you consolidate your strategy on how to approach the game. Cheers and good luck out there!
To make it worse, I had AA, flopped an Ace, and still lost my whole stack. In fact, I think it’s happened to me more than once. It’s hard to give up that hand, even when you can see 4 suited cards on the felt and none of your aces is of that suit. I’ve read more than once that pocket aces win small pots and lose large ones. But, that’s poker.
minnow - check out my tutorial post on playing those pocket aces, or “pocket rockets” as they are sometimes called in big cash games. some good food for thought and might help get ya back on track!
analyst, why so threatened and negative? We’re analyzing poker hands and inviting discussion. Way too much negativity and direct insults. It’s a great board for the exchange of poker info and analysis of hands. Go ahead and keep it to that. Five lines of text and 4 contained insults. Do better son.
Your calling people “son” is condescending, pretentious, and very insulting in itself. So, don’t give anyone else crap about being insulting until you stop it yourself.
This entertaining topic is starting to degenerate into name calling. Please return to the spirit in which the OP intended, or I will reluctantly have to close it.
I think the key to winning on RP( in tournaments) is to really concentrate on observing what other players are doing, rather than on any mechanical mathematics and ranges. For example if you see that certain players will limp with any ace from early position, then when an ace comes on the flop and you make second pair from the BB, then you are most likely behind.
Here are a few examples:
If I am in the BB and 4 players limp to me and I have something like QT or J9, I will raise to maybe 2.5 BB, because I may not have the best hand now, but if the flop hits and I get top pair or a straight draw or flush draw, then I am putting in 1.5 BB to create a pot of 12.5BB, so the odds are fantastic (better than 8 to 1). If I miss on the flop, then I miss, but if I contest the pot and win it, the pot is likely to exceed 20BB.
KQ suited is a pretty useful hand, but if a fairly tight player raises to 3BB from early position, it might be better to fold. This is why: the most likely hands opponent holds are AK and AQ–hands that dominate KQ–and if you flop a pair against either of these hands, you may be in for a world of pain. On the other hand, if opponent has something like 99, then you need to flop a pair, which is only a one in three chance, to be ahead at the flop. Even if the flop comes with JT, giving you an open ended straight draw, the odds are still against you if you are up against 99.
AK is obviously a good starting hand, but it doesn’t play particularly well in deep stacked early rounds of tournaments when there are multiple callers. However it is very strong in heads up, or when blinds are high and all players are short stacked. If you shove with AK preflop and someone calls, you definitely have prospective outs unless you are up against AA. in which case probably not.
What a lot of players on RP do not do is look at the odds. I see loads of players who will happily call raises from position from the SB with marginal hands or dominated hands without looking at their odds of being ahead on the flop, then hopefully take a stab at the pot with a small bet from out of position, and then fold when raised, or even worse, call when they are behind. I owuld say that if you are in the SB, if your hand is not a pocket pair and not strong enough to three-bet, it is better to fold it.
When deep-stacked early in tournaments, you can get away with calling from behind and chasing draws, but later in tournaments, it can be fatal to your stack.
AQo is pure fold UTG vs HJ even in 100bb stack depth, but I’m quite sure that you did made this call because you lack any poker understanding: played with you HU, you didn’t even now that proper open raise sizing 100bb deep is 2.3bb-3bb and not minraise, and 7.5bb is never good 3bet size vs 2.5x or.
LOL. I thought you played heads up quite well this morning. I look forward to further matches.
I already pointed out that AQo is a pure fold without the big blind call (though I think that belongs on the Thin Value thread). I think the call from the big blind pushes it to a call, though I’d agree it is still a marginal spot.
I already posted this hand from today on the “To Call or Not to Call” thread from my opponent’s perspective, but also thought it would be a fine addition on this thread with the point of view flipped.