Advice?

Poker Strategy
161

By betting out you Rep the higher flush and might get a weaker flush to fold. Obviously 2pr or trips is also something you are repp’n, so any other 2pr or trips will have equity to make the call/shove. Hopefully you bounce out anyone with only 1 club thats higher and can draw to a better flush.

Too many smalller bets just price in future callers here… any board pair, or 1 more club prolly spells doom. Not sure you can just sit back on this hand, this early… otherwise you’re folding here, cause he just repp’d the higher flush.

This is 1st hand, you paid 105 to see the flop, you’re UTG on the flop, and 5 ppl see the flop. V raised preflop therefore could have suited paint or a pr. Sounds like its also a SnG since you said 1-3 or 7-9 finishes.

The last thing is, if you call all in, and you lose, by virtue of your seat, you will finish 9th place. If you cannot afford a bad finish … because you checked, you MUST fold. All other situations you shove behind and take your chances.

There musta been a reason you checked, whether trying to trap or not wanting to be all in on the 1st hand, but you got the bad news… the higher flush got repp’d.

Since you are BB, you didn’t have the chance to bet 9-7s, so the flatcall preflop is usually right here. Checking the flop is completely wrong here. You have the ppl that will donk off chips with a variety of hands here to your flush, if you are trapp’n then its an insta-shove behind. You’re only behind to 3 cards and that player has to be suited, so I say you jump all over that flop, knowing you’ll call anyone’s re-raise.

Your flop bet, must bounce out AcQx, KcQx, and make it painfull for 2pr/trips to call. As I said , if ur trap’n then you want to price in anything including Top Pr/kicker, but should be rdy to call anyone. With any flush, if the board pairs not good, as well as a 4th club since you only have middle clubs. Thats always the problem with an early flush with cards still to come.

Betting 270-720 screams call me, plz. Betting 1420-1900 says you have high flush, buyer beware, but shoving is suspect because they might not have clubs, or have the nuts. If they do have the nuts, why not price in callers here though…

( long term ) getting your chips in the middle with the best hand is all you can hope for, especially if its isolated to 1-2 other players.
Sassy

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162

My plan here was to check/raise a large bet, or call several limpers, with a pot bet to come, if no club on the turn. A big flop bet might have scared off 2 pr., but probably not. It might have kept him from shoving, tho. That gives me an out, when the board pairs.
If he had dropped his hand, i’d have ended up with the blinds on a flopped flush. Happens all the time with AA or KK, and doesn’t bother me at all, but here, i really wanted an early lead. get paid for being lucky.
If it happens again, I’m calling again. If they beat the odds, and have the higher club flush, or draw to the boat, that’s poker.

163

Honestly, this is pretty ideal. You don’t want to waste a bunch of time if you aren’t getting paid. Take a risk early when you can and either get the lead or donk out and get on to the next table. Exception: if you’re playing for certain types of leaderboards.

I strongly agree with this. It’s better to raise all-in than call all-in. Being the aggressor adds fold equity to your already strong hand. There’s a possibility of a come from behind and the opportunity to nip that in the bud should always be considered. Also, if you expect to call anything anyway, why not do it before they do?

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164

Guess that’s why it’s all about the nut.
But don’t you guys think it’s wise to hold back, now and then. Let them know that you might be holding top pair, even tho you didn’t bet it on the flop. Or, sometimes bet the set, sometimes trap. I usually bet strong hands aggressively, to clear out draws, but without something to mix it up, I’d quickly become exploitable. Suddenly all my draws are getting blown out.
There are other reasons for checking. I’ve lost my share of hands when my K high flush dies, as the board goes 4 to flush, and someone has the nut.
There can be value there when someone fills a straight, or 2pr.
The possibility that someone who flopped 2 pr., a set, or straight, will shove.

165

By pushing, you are attempting to get rid of those draws. Unless points are paramount for a leaderboard or you are on the bubble to cash, I’d push rather than check. Checking leaves you the option to fold on a later street, if 4 to a flush comes, but I’d rather win a small pot than none at all.

2 Likes
166

As luck would have it, I flopped another flush, in a 50K buy-in, in which i just finished on the bubble. #&!!& %$. Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to add that I checked the flop.
V shoved on the turn.

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granted, there are differences, such as having the nut, but i was still open to him drawing a full house, with the board pairing on the river.
Had i shoved, or bet heavily on the flop, he probably has me on a set, and folds. The draw can’t be that tempting, with 4th nut.

167

Perfectly played. I like the 5x open facing a bunch of limpers with an incredibly strong preflop hand instead of checking your option. Checking the flop when you have relatively little to protect against made a lot of sense, too.

NB: V shoved on the flop facing your check. Also, V was drawing to just the 5th nut flush with the jack of spades - a straight flush holding 6s4s was the nuts in that spot.

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168

Right on both points. Saved the hand while playing, since it kinda related to the former hand i posted. I copied the result, and never replayed the hand, going just from memory. I wouldn’t push with a pair of J in that situation, and assumed he didn’t either.

The weird thing about the other hand, is in a real cash game, I probably would have folded, because losing would mean standing up, and leaving the casino, after 1 hand. Never played holdem for cash, tho, so who knows.

169

Yep on that last hand with flopping the nuts ( well he coulda had a stght flush but so rare you have to rule that out and either way your calling his bets or his shove sooo… thats deff a check/call or check/raise. well played

170

flopped another one. wierd, eh?

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check/raised on the flop, this time. They were betting into me, so I figured it time to get some chips into the middle. I’m not sure what the odds were, that the board would drop another club, but I was blocking 2 of them, so it should be less than the two 4:1 shots you usually get.
The betting went
preflop…everyone limped. cost me 15 chips getting something like 12:1 pot odds.
postflop…SB, BB, and UTG check
HJ raises 13 BB
CO folds
Button calls
SB raises to 26 BB. This leaves me with just under 30 BB
Should that have been a check/shove, instead of the x/r?
There’s also the viewpoint that starting the betting with a push is the best way to clear out that pesky nut flush draw. Maybe this was the time to go there.

171

Some thoughts on this hand:

  • It highlights why you shouldn’t try to slow-play your strong hands preflop when numerous other players have already entered the hand. Because @EdieBlue limped AA instead of raising and knocking out weak players (would you have called a 4x raise with K2s?), she let a much weaker hand into the pot, and lost a big hand.
  • I like your check on the monotone flop. This is pretty much as good a flop as you’re likely to see… but as the first to act, you’ll want to let someone else take a stab at the pot. Leading out will probably kill your action, and would probably make it unlikely three players would get their chips in on the flop.
  • You’re right that @golfrguy67’s overbet sizing, followed by @EdieBlue’s call, makes your raise sizing awkward. In this spot, I really don’t like the decision to min-raise, since the original raiser - not to mention the caller on the button - is getting an extremely good price to simply call. It also leaves you with just 40% pot behind if just one of the other two players call, and 35% pot if both call. That’s probably not enough to give you fold equity on a later street, and you’ll be in a rough spot if the turn brings a club or pairs the board.
  • What bluffs do you have when you check-min-raise on the flop, and would you ever fold those to a 3-bet? If your bet is committing you to the pot, might as well jam and rely on the extra fold equity.
  • Because of the above, I think jamming is your best option, even though it’s a pretty hefty overbet, and would likely get just a call from @EdieBlue with an overpair and the nut flush draw. You’re going to put non-suited hands with the ace of clubs in a tough spot, and likely get calls from smaller flushes. In addition, you could work hands where you hold the ace of clubs yourself into a bluff range, though you’d have to do the math to see whether that would result in over-bluffing based on your preflop flat range.

Final comments on posting your hand histories:

  • When posting a tournament hand, it helps to understand what stage of the tournament you’re in. Is registration still open? Rebuys possible? Final table? Approaching the bubble? Late in a tournament, or around the bubble, ICM considerations can play a big role in decision-making, while extremely early in a tourney they’re mostly absent.
  • Mention whether antes are in play, as they could affect ranges due to the higher amount of dead money on the table.
  • It helps to understand effective stack sizes at the start of the hand. Are you the shortest player at the table? Is there one player who’s dominant? Do you have the villain(s) covered? Stack depth is important too - 10BB effective stack strategies look very different from when effective stacks are 100BB deep.
  • When reaching a critical decision, it helps to think through what range of hands might you have, and what do you expect your opponents’ ranges to look like. You could consider posting that information in your hand history, though it may color the responses you’d get. Something to think about.
1 Like
172

No. One of the things i’ve been been working on is avoiding the allure to open weak kings, or disconnected suited hands. A healthy raise would have diminished my pot odds, and caused me to fold.

After replaying the hand, and giving it some thought, I totally agree.

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173

This hand is from a SnG I played earlier.
I’m holding As Qc.

At the time, I thought i played the hand correctly. I had noticed V taking a few pots by betting heavy on the river, and getting no callers. He was who i was aiming for.
Afterward, when watching a replay of the hand, I begin to have questions.
With two diamonds on the flop, would the wise move be to take the hand then?
Without the read on V, would it have been better to try to gain value while other players were hoping to fill their hand?
Since I was trying to rep a bluff on the river, should my re-raise have been larger?
Worked out for me this time, but right now, I’m more interested in solid play, than results. I’ve also lost trips and sets that I slow played, letting opponents fill out flushes, straights, and boats.

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174

I like it as played (given the read on V), but yeah you might have been able to pull some draws along even with a proportionate bet (given the players here at RP). You still had ways to improve your hand, in case the flush filled out.

If you typically c-bet your pre-flop raises, it would probably be prudent to c-bet on this flop as well. If there was anyone smart enough at the table to put you on a range, those cards would probably hit your range and they’d be wise to fold. However, this being Replay… hah… it might have been better to milk it.

I don’t know if I’d read it as a bluff, but V might have. I think you could have busted this guy out with a shove, knowing he’d probably call.

Overall, I think with the ubiquitous overcalling that goes on here, you probably could have gotten more out of this, either with a flop c-bet or a shove at the river. As played, it wasn’t necessarily bad, but there’s always room to improve.

175

How do you maximize value across your entire range? What does your preflop 3x open range look like here?

This is a very connected board. On the flop, QQ has quads, QJ and JJ have boats, AQ and KQ have trips, AA and KK are overpairs, AK and AT have broadway draws, KT has an open-ender to the nuts on both sides, T9 has an OESD, and 98 has a gutshot to the bottom end of a straight. Meanwhile, you could have a suited hand with diamonds (front-door flush draw) or hearts (back-door flush draw). I’m assuming you’d open most of these hands - in other words, this flop smashes your range. Why not c-bet on the flop and deny equity from players that have long-shot draws? I would have liked to see a bet around 60% pot to drive some of the weaker draws out of the hand with basically all of these holdings, possibly save QQ and QJ to protect your checking range.

When the turn brings a heart, you NEED to start betting. There are now two flush draws on the board - any diamond will give a suited diamond hand a flush, and any heart will give a suited heart hand a flush. That’s a dangerous place to be sitting when you’re multi-way with trips and a high kicker. There’s still a wet board with a huge number of draws out there. Since any K, T, 9, 8, heart, or diamond will bring a straight or flush that could beat your trips, the only “clean” rivers from your perspective will either pair the board or provide an ace (10 outs), or bring an off-suit 2-5 or 7 (10 outs). Betting on this street would build the pot while you’re almost certainly ahead.

When you say that you were trying to “rep a bluff on the river,” which bluff(s) were you trying to rep? Generally when you have more bluffs in your range relative to your value hands, your bets need to be bigger; in this case, it was as small a raise as you could possibly make it!

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176

Anything wrong with the way i played this?
I have AA

maybe a bigger preflop raise, or thinking ‘this is replay, if there’s a flush draw out there, it’d take a shotgun to get them off it’?
I’ve picked up a few stacks playing bullets from the blinds, this way. Guess i should accept it won’t work every time. At least not for play chips.

177

Hmmm.

Given the effective stacks of you, the limpers, and the BB being about ~10BB… I’m shoving AA pre-flop. If no one calls, you get a decent pot from the limpers and the BB without the risk of a showdown. If they do, good chance to double or triple up at the risk of getting out drawn.

As played, you’ve got less than a pot bet left in your stack which doesn’t leave you room to really get any fold equity post flop. Your opponents were pretty much pot committed and likely to ride out the flush draw & top pair no matter what.

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178

just finished my first year on replay. still no clue how to handle hands like these.;

179

First hand, you did what you should have done, despite the awful flat calling by everyone at that table. You’re 80%, then 90% to win until that cooler on the river. Really, the only scary thing on that flop would have been if V had 7-6, but that would have probably been a shove back to you… so…

The second one is a Replay recreational playerbase special™. I see merits to playing it aggressively with decent players… but… after seeing these two hands and immediately figuring out the MO of the players at your table… I’m probably dropping my bet/raise sizes to play for value and merely x-c or x-f with my air.

These are classic calling stations: c-betting or raising air into these people will not induce a fold. V’s min bet is suspect, I usually read that as a draw or a pair trying to “gauge” where they stand. Against these specific players: I probably call that min-bet with the overcards and muck it on the turn when shoved into after the board indicates straight.

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180

tks for the reply, Fozman. You’re right on all points, of course.
my main prob is following my own advice. I blame no one but myself when i go for the trap on the wrong board, and someone hit’s their draw. happened to me twice, in the prior game, and i had tunnel vision.
i usually do well with villians like those. Sooner or later, they throw their stack in the middle when their T6 sees 789 on the board. you’re IP with TJ.

LOL

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