Topic: Poker talk - Specifically Hold'em - Hands and or strategy - page 8. (Read 4753 times)

Clearly it was his day and that was a great comeback.

Hand on the last page? What that means? Sorry, I am still learning the porker words LOL

By the way, I suck in River round most of the times, is there any tips on that to improve my river round?

Pretty standard spot and play. These hands always suck for somebody, either Hhampuz gets coolered, or they 2 outer you for the win. I think the same amount of money would have gone in either way after the flop. I'm curious about how your hand on the last page went, nut flush draw and trip Aces.

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Yeah at the time I had nothing on them but it did play on my mind in later spots against them.
Yeah I don't have a lot to go on with cygan... apart from efialitis's reviews  
If you had limped behind you might have been able to push them off with a kxx flop.  I have begun to call some limpers as opposed to raising them... especially in the series play.
I've shoved both a bunch depending on the spot. They tend to hold up well, but i need to be really short if someone else was first to act.
I am surprised by that call somewhat. This happens lots though some times people just expect the BTN/CO spots to be stealing very wide. Usually they only call down at those stack sizes with a more nutted hand but some people like to gamble... or as you said they just lost a big pot.
Damn rivers. Well you were ahead so it wasn't exactly a bad spot apart from the greater ICM implications. I've had to consciously put in an effort to not worry about keeping the table in line. It helps because more often than not after 10-20 minutes someone tags them with a monster.

Is anyone going to review this hand?


It was a good battle between me and Hhampuz. I think this was a 180 degree turn for Hhampuz to win this tourney. I had this feeling that he was going to win this tourney and he indeed won at the end.

P.S: That ALL IN from Hhampuz was in the pre-flop to answer my raise of the BB. I was very happy to call him once he gone ALL IN but the rest is history 🤪

that's certainly not what i expected! i still think folding was the best move, without any more obvious reads on either player.


he did indeed limp QQ here but i don't think @cygan is thinking on that level tbh. in hindsight, i probably could have gotten him to fold the Kxx flop, which is what he had likely prepared to do by limping. i could be wrong about that.

this was my main concern, which is why indeed A9 may be too marginal:


it seems the consensus is against A9 in this spot. A9 and AT have always been a struggle for me in preflop selection on shorter handed tables or nearing push/fold stage. card dead tilt may have been a factor.


that was basically my mindset on that hand. however, i did not really expect a call from A-rag. or random K-highs either. i was definitely hype on my fold equity there, especially considering the tight play due to points considerations.


fair enough. he had certainly annoyed everyone by then. he was almost knocked out at one point, but chipped up twice against the other two players. my concern was that he had scared them off from calling after that, and while my stack wasn't tiny, it was definitely the short stack at the table.

i ended up calling. he showed QJ and hit a J on the river. good game.

^  You should also consider your stack size.  If you're around 20bb's or less, it's def a jam no matter who raised and what your position at the table is.  IMHO.

Glad you find the video useful.  It's nice to go back and watch my own play to see if there was a better path to take.
For deck color it's mostly because I play on a larger screen when recording and don't multitable. When on my phone and multitabling tournaments I use a 4 colour deck. It is very useful I just don't think of it when on a large monitor.

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Oh JJ you silly bitch of a hand lol.

My short answer is sometimes all those plays work. I will always RFI this hand. I might 3-bet it depending on who the raiser/limper was. All-in i will call if I have them covered and ICM isn't a big factor, I will Jam this from SB,BTN and maybe cutoff. This all depends on stack sizes. I will call down RFI's for a standard betsizing 100% including multiway pots.
Your friend is overvaluing the hand if they expect this to win most of the time by flating or limping.  You are right in thinking they are giving other hands that can beat them a good price to call.

Thanks for making and posting it! We can analyze our opponents' tactics more thoroughly now.

As I see you are using standard two colour deck, which I've been using my whole life until just recently. Several days ago I was convinced to switch to four colour deck. I'm testing it now, and it seems okay, but now I'm wondering what are the reasons for your not switching to it?

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Regarding hands and strategy discussion, what do you guys think about going all-in preflop with pocket JJ and higher? I was discussing it with an offline friend of mine the other day, and he said: "I don't even raise with those cards cos I want to suck out as many chips as possible from the table." But I think it's a bit too presumptuous to think that you will necessarily win with those pocket cards in the end. Wouldn't it be better to go all-in and make someone fold with, say, K8o instead of giving them the chance to beat you?

I mean, I don't know the right answer. Sometimes I raise, and other times I go all-in, and in other times I just call any. I know that although poker is called a game of skill, lots of things still depend on luck there, so there is no strategy that works all the time. But what, in your opinion, would be working most of the time?

Yes, good point. After 12 tournaments you already know most of the players and their playing styles, so some general advice like maybe "always shove your A9 against early limper with 12.5BB" is a bit meh, since you have to take into account who was limping. Playing randoms in other tournaments and getting re-seated all the time, you can maybe operate with some standard play, but in our series you need to think twice imo.

It's a very mixed field we have. Here cygan was the limper, what if it was Yahoo ? Would you play it differently ? I think you definitely should. The more LAG players (Yahoo, Iv4n, ceehe etc.) will definitely call you with any2, others might not. Otoh, if cygan limps, I would expect him to have a better hand on average than when the LAGs limp, so your A9 might not be as good against cygan as it is against the others.

Hand #1 playout Villain 2 bets 6090.00 I fold on the river with my pair of 9's Villain 1 calls 6090.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 24360.00 Villain 2 shows [Tc Kd] (a high card, Ace high [Ac Kd Tc 9s 8h]) Villain 1 shows [3c 3d] (a pair of Threes [3d 3c Ac 9s 8h]) for the win                       Villain 1  collected 24360.00 from main pot

So you can see I folded to this river bet. Hitting an A or a better 9 was a possibility for both the preflop raiser Villain1, and the SB calling range. I didn't put SB on a higher pocket pair as they didn't 3 bet, but maybe they have TT+ and just don't 3-bet the small blind.
I was also much more concerned with the in position player as they could have any number of Pocket pairs...didn't expect 33, and A smashes a lot of their range.

Overall happy with the fold, calling down with second pair is something I've struggled with. So this time I would have amassed a massive stack, but overall in this spot I think the safe play is the right play more often than not.

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Thanks, I liked my overall play, had a few lucky spots and was able to capitalize on monsters. That was a tough beat, not sure which hurt more that one for the win or the boat over flush that knocked me out Sunday. It's funny you bring up hitting on the bluffing range for opening, as these have been costing me a lot of chips as well lately. Mostly 2 pair spots, and draws that brick out or lose equity by the river.
** haven't read the replies before answering

hand #1, from the bitcointalk series:
I don't like a shove in this spot with this holding. Mostly because of the limper having ~8X your all-in. They could be limping to induce a jam given the stack sizes in the blinds, or they limped because people are over folding to them and they have a monster. There is also the very real possibility they call down with any 2, not the best for tournament life. Also tournament specific, people limp so many monsters and high equity hands it's tough to not always have that thought in these tournaments. With your smaller stack you want to be the first raiser/caller in any pot you play unless you have a top tier hand. If you were down to 9BB or less then I think go for it, I have also been experimenting until 6-7BB shoves with weaker AX combos, as I feel it still generally has some fold equity.
To shove here I would want 77+, AJ+. I'm not even giving preference to suited here, as I think broadways and pocketpairs are best here. Maybe go ATs. My thoughts here are that broadways with an A block a lot of the combos either player may call with that could be ahead of you.


hand #2, also from the bitcointalk series:

My instinct here is to jam. I can't recall much about wither players style but this falls into what I said last hand somewhat. You get to RFI (Raise First In ... for @Globbo). Stack sizes are pretty much even between you and the blinds so this essentially puts any callers tournament life on the line. 9Ts plays pretty good with any flop. The downside is if they do have an A, K or some other random broadway combo they are calling, but you still have a strong hand. If not here then you are essentially waiting for the range above, which isn't bad but you lose a lot of the fold equity you have at this point in the game.

hand #3, on the bubble in a small field MTT. villain had been tilt shoving every 1-3 hands:

As out of character as this sounds I would fold here. First on the bubble, I don't want to call down all-in pre with anything less than AQs, AKo or QQ+. Even some of those don't feel good. Now this villain could be shoving any 2, or they've had a few Ax,Kx,Qx combos. Jamming into a BB big stack is a bit alarming as well. Personally I would wait for a better spot or for someone else to catch him. These are tough hands to fold especially when you just want to knock out the jamming donkey.
I will say this I am also less liokely to call down one of these players if I find they've annoyed me with this sort of play. I used to get into this mindset of they can't have it their always playing and would find myself calling without thinking as much. I also hate any spot on the bubble you are putting tournament life at risk with K high, with no pair any A takes it.

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Edit: Here is Sundays tournament. I unfortunately cutoff the final 2, I got right up until the 3rd player was knocked out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It1vBjaO7qo

For me definitely yes, but then again I am pretty tight too. Risk-reward ratio is too low imo for just some chips that won't improve your position at the table that much. If you get called, it's most likely by a better hand or you have a coin flip at best. 12.5BB is still fine and not yet any need to get desperate and challenge your luck with these smaller A's.
More aggressive players would probably take the risk and these are the players that either finish 15 or Top3, but that is not what we tighter players do

I don't enjoy playing these Ax hands in general from whatever position, because more often than not you find yourself in very uncomfortable situations. And since I am not very ambitious with my poker, I just avoid any situations that give me too much headache Even in push/fold mode I am always hesitant with it^^

he had just lost a big hand for like half his stack the hand prior to this. i didn't take that into consideration when i jammed. i wonder if he normally would have called down that light.


that's why i'm thinking about it only from "push or fold" perspective. not interested in playing that postflop with that stack. it seemed like a decent spot to steal with one limper but.....too marginal you think?


i agree. i've been trying to adjust from an old school TAG style (which is not as effective these days as it once was) to more LAG recently, but old habits die hard. some rungood re set mining or draws in the early stages and i can get chip bullying but it's been a tough run lately.

I remember that hand very well and I think it was an ok move from you to go all-in. Was a bit surprised with what hand 1r0n1c called it, but T9s is good enough in this spot imo.

The A9 in hand #1 I would throw away with one limper Just a nightmare to play post-flop, if you don't hit and have only 12.5BB behind. Even if you hit the A, you don't really know where you stand, so you would have to invest some more chips to find out

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I am not in the position to give you advice, but I think you are too tight in the middle to latter stages of a tournament from what I observed (I have the same "problem" btw^^). That is why you have good results, but it's missing top results. I know it's hard to go against your temper, but you should be more aggressive, while you are still in the middle of the pack chip-wise and before being forced to go into push/fold mode as short stack due to blinds rising.

thanks, i took a gander last night as i was falling asleep. you caught some very nice flops on the bluffing end of your preflop range. well played overall. that 99 hand at the end was a bitch!

there was a hand of mine in there i wanted to discuss. in fact, all the hands i wanted to discuss from this weekend are sort of about short stacked push/fold strategy.

let me know what you think of these spots:

hand #1, from the bitcointalk series:


hand #2, also from the bitcointalk series:


hand #3, on the bubble in a small field MTT. villain had been tilt shoving every 1-3 hands:

https://youtu.be/i97buOlc2II

That is Saturdays tournament. You can see my hole cards all the way to the end as I finished second. I'll post todays after it finishes... I was out real early so not many hole cards.

I like the idea of putting in a bet on the flop. I thought about it but figured I would check to the preflop raiser. I was pretty confident when it checked through and considered a re-raise on the turn. Here is where I think I let the "table big stacks" stack get to me. I know they were playing a wider range with their chip advantage from previous hands so I wasn't sure I had the best hand. I'll post how it played out after but I agree with you on the river.

So these hands were all from the same tournament and involved a lot of the same people. I didn't mention it before but these guys are involved in hand 3 as well. I agree I can't ever call this 1 at that price multiway just to battle post-flop. Heads up against just the All-in I would call this though, I think it does well enough against what they are probably shoving with 10BB

Yeah definitely not married to this play. I was trying to go for a squeeze to get heads up against the all-in. The limper had been limp folding quite a bit from early position. The caller was the wide range bigstack and I figured they would get out of the way, seen them let it go to a few 3-bets earlier not all of them. The call was not what I was looking for. It was more a situational play and it could have gone terribly.

Yeah this sucked the more I looked it over the more I realized I was never getting away from it. The flush draw is what really kept me in there, and the 2pair river sealed my fate. The turn I was close to letting it go, it was when I started to think Limped AA, KK and they had me on a Q, again with the flush and some equity with my pair I was in intending to fold river.

AK is good against random hands (~2:1 favorite) but nowhere near as good as a premium pocket pair. i have to stop treating them equivalently when it comes to oversized preflop bets and all-ins.

hand #1: second to act postflop, i like a bet there. lots of villain 1's range is missing that flop. as played, villain 2 may have hit a straight on the turn, possibly 2 pair. both villains (particularly villain 1) could have an ace. 3-handed on that river, i don't see a big reason to pay 1/2pot bet with one more to act.

hand #2: i feel your pain missing flopped quads but i'm not taking that risk preflop, no way.

hand #3: seems like kind of a marginal shove. i don't love it. i wouldn't have put villain 3 on AA (although in hindsight maybe he wanted to build a side pot rather than isolate the short stack) but still feels a bit donk-ish 9-handed and out-stacked. i could justify a call though, thinking lots of villain 3's range can miss the flop.

hand #4: that's a tough river. i probably would have played it similarly, you know i like my semi-bluffs. i might have put on the brakes on the turn for a shot at a cheap river, but with that river it's gonna be very hard to fold either way.

Yeah I hate myself when I make those crying calls already knowing. Been getting better. regardless of how many coin flips I lose with it AK will just always have to play those spots. pre. Post I hate when I'm stuck with a big pot and just a couple over cards praying that I get a free turn or a cheap price.
You would have loved me  

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So I have a couple spots from last night. I have a bustout,and a tough river decision. Hand #1 is a spot let me know what you do on the river. The other 3 are as played hands, #2 and #3 I see as similar spots let me know what you are doing in these situations. #4 Is a bust out I like how I played this hand overall but would like to hear form others.
The only other hand I was going to bring was KK that I 3-bet pre, was called by the UTG+2. I checked it down to the river because it was an A high board with A,2,6 rainbow. Turn 3 and then a 4 or 5 I believe. Felt like a spot at the time but reviewing it seems pretty straight forward to check that down. Not sure if I would have called a bet on the turn or river.

Hand #1 9 seated Level 15 (500.00/1000.00) Villain-1 LJ Raises to 2000 (19608.00) Villain-2 SB  calls (81537.00) Hero BB  [Ts 9c] calls (21860.00) *** FLOP *** [2h 9s 8h] Main pot 6960.00 Checks through *** TURN *** [2h 9s 8h] [6c] Main pot 6960.00 Villain 2 bets 1740.00 Hero calls 1740.00 Villain-1 calls 1740.00 *** RIVER *** [2h 9s 8h 6c] [Ac]  Main pot 12180.00 Villain 2 bets 6090.00

Hand #2 Lost some info in copy - 2 levels before Hand#3 Villain-1 UTG calls 600.00 limps Has me covered Villain-2 UTG+1 calls 600.00 Villain-3 UTG+2 raises 5795.00 to 5795.00 and is all-in Villain-4 LJ calls 5795.00 BB folds Hero SB Folds (4c4d) I believe I had around 16 000 chips Villains 1 and 2 fold *** FLOP *** [4h 4s Ad] Main pot 14365.00 *** TURN *** [4h 4s Ad] [Js] Main pot 14365.00 *** RIVER *** [4h 4s Ad Js] [5s] Main pot 14365.00 *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 14365.00 Villain 3 Wins shows [As 8s] (a flush, Ace high [As Js 8s 5s 4s]) Villain 4 shows [Qh Ac] (

Hand #3 Level 16 (400.00/800.00) 9 seated Villain-1 [UTG+1] limps 800.00 Stack (52691.00) Villain-2 [LJ] raises all-in to 4725.00 Villain-3 [HJ] calls 4725.00 Stack (69742.00) Hero [BB] [9c 9h] raises all-in to 29905.00   Villain-1 folds Villain-3 calls 25180.00 *** RIVER *** [7d 9s 2d 4s] [Qd] Villain-3 shows [Ac As] Hero shows [9c 9h] Villain-2 shows [Th Kc] (a high card, King high [Kc Qd Th 9s 7d])

Hand #4 Level 27 (3000.00/6000.00) Deep 9-seated 22 left Villain [LJ] Limps 6000.00 (225088.00) Hero BB checks [Th 2h] (216573.00) *** FLOP *** [6h 3s Qh] Main pot 20600.00 Hero bets 6000.00 Villain calls 6000.00 *** TURN *** [6h 3s Qh] [Ts] Main pot 32600.00 Hero bets 16300.00 Villain raises 48900.00 to 48900.00 Hero calls 32600.00 *** RIVER *** [6h 3s Qh Ts] [2d] Main pot 130400.00 Hero bets 65200.00 Villain raises 163488.00 to 163488.00 and is all-in Hero calls 89773.00 and is all-in *** SHOW DOWN *** Main pot 440346.00 Villain shows [3h 3c] (three of a kind, Set of Threes [3s 3h 3c Qh Ts]) Hero shows [Th 2h] (two pair, Tens and Deuces [Ts Th 2h 2d Qh])

looking back, there was technically a backdoor flush draw---not a huge factor.

yeah, plugging in some reasonable ranges into pokerstove, i was destroyed on the flop. maybe 20% equity if i was lucky. i was in the mood to donk it off.

i tend to overvalue holdings like AK preflop.....6-handed makes it even tougher to get away from. but considering the ridiculous sized shove for >1/2 my stack when i had 47bbs left, i think this is a spot where i could have (should have) just folded preflop.


that reminds me of the poker boom days. such juicy games!

@Globbo

Don't worry if it doesn't make sense now. The more you read listen and even bring your own spots in for review the more you will understand and see how you can apply it to your game.

We all start somewhere just for reference here is how terrible i started... i still remember this that's how bad it was. Feel free to rofl.

So about 3-4 years ago when i was still just loading up 30 dollars here and there and playing on 888 i found myself in a spot where i was second in chips and at the table with the chip leader. For whatever reason i figured it was a good time to bluff hard. I had nothing maybe like a 9 high. The river comes and he jams... i again have nothing and could have easily folded out and loomed like i had a clue.
No i called... you read right had nothing, bet 2 streets with nothing and then called his jam.
Iirc he has flopped a straight or flush, and i just gave him my chips and tournament life.

Feel free to ask questions about what you don't understand whether it be terminology or our explanations. Hell look at the beginning of the thread where i was incorrectly referring to a limp strategy.

People keep taking me out with fluke last cards, how can you read that?

I just read this whole thread for advice. I think I cant understand half of it.  :/

Now I replied here I will be able to follow the future discussions. Thanks.