Regarding hand 38, I went with Eon's approach. I really didn't care much for that flop but there are 1500 chips in the pot and our opponent is one of the aggro players who has some hands in his range we do not fare too badly against.
I would also say that if we are going to check/fold and give the initiative up in such spots, against players with this stack size then we would be better taking a different line preflop that did not involve 3 bet potting to isolate the shorter stack.
I can see Phantom's point here but ideally we also want to have a range of hands we will do this with so that our range is not polarised and we can get action from weaker hands when we do completely nail the flop.
Anyways we continue potting it and our opponent gets out the way on the flop and we add some extra chips to our stack.
In Response to Re: 'Stay or Go' Style hand breakdown of a £5.50 PLO8 BH MTT - Input from players of all levels is very welcome! 8th 'interesting spot' (hand 37), WWYD? : That is such a good point, & one that cost me a good deal of money down the years whilst 6 tabling. I guess there is a balance to strike, an optimal number. In my case, it's almost certainly less than 6. Team Play Every Hand, of course, can only play 1 table at a time because they are, self-evidently, in every hand, & busy, whereas on average I probably only play 1 hand every 10 or 15. (I doubt many winning players play more than 1 hand an orbit on average). Posted by Tikay10
Yeah there just becomes a point when adding more tables that we have to play 'poker by numbers' as we cannot cognitively keep up. I used to be able to do this with a load of tables but these days (and as it is 6 max on Sky) I have to try and generally reduce the number of tables.
It isn't so bad against regs which is why you have no trouble giving me all sorts of grief at the tables, even if you are 7 tabling. As you have an idea of the stuff I get up to and quite correctly do not put up with it It is harder in such spots though to know what the non-reg random players (often the weaker ones and where the value is) are up to in such situations as we cannot easily flick through the hand histories and see what they have been doing and are too busy to notice it all effectively.
If I remember correctly the most effective human brain working memory capacity is around 4 'chunks of information' at any given time (very generally speaking). When we go past this it starts to fall apart a bit (I am guessing 7-8 tables is past that). Unless we are Timmyrara or Alvez etc.
It is all about balance as you say. I remember Doug Polk saying he preferred the option of going up in stakes, rather than up in volume, for these sort of reasons. Obviously the stakes only go so high in the PLO8 DYM's so yup, we have to strike that balance.
I thought your chronicles of your live event exploits last year highlighted this very well. With the 1 table going you knew what every player was up to and even assigned them labels such as 'Mr FOS' etc
Hand 40: We miniraise to 200 @ 50/100 level with 379J to isolate a 2BB stack and try and get their bounty. Someone pot 3 bets us and we fold.
Hand 41: With shorty still at the table. The player who 3 bet us in the last hand mini opens to try and isolate them. We have A23Q and 3 bet them this time. Their turn to get out the way this time but we chop it with the shorty.
Hand 42: We lose 3 BB's with A277 on an tricky board from the BB.
Hand 43: We are in the blinds (unraised) with 24JQ and see a JQ6 rainbow 4 handed. We call a pot bet on flop and are 3 handed, seeing a 5c on turn, everyone checks. After a non flushy king lands on the river we take a small stab at it for 200 but are raised to 2200 and fold.
Hand 44: ATTT on the BTN, we fold.
Hand 45: 448Q in the cut off, we fold.
Hand 46: 789T UTG, we fold. Hand 47: 389J in the BB, someone pots it, we fold.
We play hand 48 which I will post after I make breakfast
Situation: A simple enough hand this but a situation all ploppers will have found themselves in at some point. We have a straight and the dastardly board pairs.
We have 8c As Qc 6c in the SB. One player who is new to the table and has 11k+ chips limps @50/100 blind level from the cut off and it folds around to us. We flick the 50 chips in and our aggro player in the BB with 15k chips checks behind.
We hit the nuts with a Ks Th Jd flop. What looks like a dream spot can soon turn ugly if the board pairs. We are OOP and the players could easily check behind if we check, therefore we lead out with a pot size bet of 300. This seems like a good time to get value before the texture of the board changes and we end up having to employ caution. Also plenty hands such as sets, 2 pairs, etc may call and some players may float here thinking "he wouldn't just pot lead with the nuts". Our aggro BB player comes along for the ride, calls 300, and we see a nice and safe 7c on the turn.
We continue with the line and go for more value versus the big stack aggro BB player and pot the turn for 900 and they call again.
The river pairs the board when the 7h falls.
We are OOP so what do we do? Room for more value? Do we check/call, check/fold, or something else?
Check,calling here mark. If you raise you leave yourself open to a re-raise Posted by eon1961
Thanks for the reply Eon.
Hard not to see the logic in that. Are we check/calling even if our opponent bets 2700?
P.S. Most of our hands until now (maybe or maybe not including this) have been wins. I won't be cherry picking though and will have hands we lose. There just haven't been many significant loses thus far.
Also as the blinds get up some of our key decisions will need to be made earlier in the hands so hopefully things will get more interesting
Yes Mark. At least if you lose you have something left to try & spin up. If you raise & get re-raised & call & lose its gg gl all. But I think it could be a split pot here. Posted by eon1961
Great to have your insight Eon, it really is!
I will hold off the results as usual until tomorrow morning and see if we get any takers for a different line or if we are unanimous.
With Eon on latest hand, although not liking a pot bet if it comes. Our aggro player could fire again with 2 pair or a straight but the set making the boat is possible. As Eon says at least this way we are not putting our tournament on the line.
Regarding my check on previous hand, standard line for me would be to c-bet, I just felt on balance we are ahead/chopping alot more than we are behind and our opponent was likely to fire without a hand and so the opportunity to win more chips if we are well ahead might outweigh the loss of initiative.
I would mix it up though to keep the observant opponents guessing as to when we c-bet and when we check.
With Eon on latest hand, although not liking a pot bet if it comes. Our aggro player could fire again with 2 pair or a straight but the set making the boat is possible. As Eon says at least this way we are not putting our tournament on the line. Regarding my check on previous hand, standard line for me would be to c-bet, I just felt on balance we are ahead/chopping alot more than we are behind and our opponent was likely to fire without a hand and so the opportunity to win more chips if we are well ahead might outweigh the loss of initiative. I would mix it up though to keep the observant opponents guessing as to when we c-bet and when we check. Posted by Phantom66
That is definitely a valid concern IMO. I did kind of feel my opponent got off cheaply when they snap folded. The check/call could induce shoves from weaker hands as you say. I just was a bit unsure with the broken low and tried to keep it simple this time though.
I would lead out for about 1500 we have showed strength all the way.
if we check and he has the nutz/or bluff possible same hand, then i reckon i/he would only bet about 1500. I would possibbly call 1500, any more i fold
We post on here what we should do but in the heat of the moment we all play hands different. It's all very easy in retrospect but in actual game play its always player dependent. Posted by eon1961
We post on here what we should do but in the heat of the moment we all play hands different. It's all very easy in retrospect but in actual game play its always player dependent. Posted by eon1961
Good point, maybe there's a case for giving two answers, one is your first 'snap' decision....the one you would make in live play with the clock clicking down, the second being your considered opinion of the optimum play. They could of course be the same.
In Response to Re: 'Stay or Go' Style hand breakdown of a £5.50 PLO8 BH MTT - Input from players of all levels is very welcome! 10th 'interesting spot' (hand 48), WWYD? : Good point, maybe there's a case for giving two answers, one is your first 'snap' decision....the one you would make in live play with the clock clicking down, the second being your considered opinion of the optimum play. They could of course be the same. Posted by Enut[/QUOTE
Totally agree Enut as eon said its a check but in the heat of battle against a possible aggro player who plays loose/chip bully's with average hands its so tempting to go for it , however you can guarantee if you go for it he's bound to have it but that's poker. Excellent example Marky of a hand that is so tempting to keep raising after the river against a aggro player even though we know we should check.
Btw congrats Enut on your win hope you enjoy vegas, goodluck out there.
@eon - Yes, agreed, we don't want to be getting stacks in on the river with a paired board when we have only invested a relatively small portion of our stack so far.
If I did lead (I will reveal all after this post) I don't think it would be a raise/call situation unless I had a very very strong read that the opponent was trying to pull some sort of dastardly deed.
Likewise for check/calling. As you pointed out, a lot of these things are very situation and opponent specific. If we check and opponent throws the pot at it then they are representing a boat. It would just be down to whether I believed them or not, as to whether I would check/call or check/fold.
But yes, thoroughly agree, this certainly should not be a spot where we go broke on the river.
@Mick - There is definitely a case to be made for leading out for value on the river as you suggest. I would probably be folding to a reraise though if I done this (which I think you are suggesting you would also do). I chose a different line which I will give my take on after this post.
@eon - "We post on here what we should do but in the heat of the moment we all play hands different. It's all very easy in retrospect but in actual game play its always player dependent."
Yes, it is all very well posting on here about optimal lines to take etc but can be completely different in the heat of the moment and as you say is very player dependent. I would say though, that considering the optimal lines to take here, and tearing hands apart like this, can definitely help us get it correct 'in the heat of the moment' more often than we might otherwise do.
@Enut - "Good point, maybe there's a case for giving two answers, one is your first 'snap' decision....the one you would make in live play with the clock clicking down, the second being your considered opinion of the optimum play. They could of course be the same."
As alluded to above, for me at least, one of the major goals of discussing hands like this is to get the line taken in both situations to be one and the same. That may not be realistic 100% of the time but I definitely think we can get the 'heat of the moment decisions' to reflect our 'considered decisions' much more often via discussions like this.
@safc - "I would bet 20p at the bookies at 4/1 that you checked he raised and you split pot . Then again its evens that you raise and take the pot? no i will stick with the 4/1 shot i need the quid".
Comments
I would also say that if we are going to check/fold and give the initiative up in such spots, against players with this stack size then we would be better taking a different line preflop that did not involve 3 bet potting to isolate the shorter stack.
I can see Phantom's point here but ideally we also want to have a range of hands we will do this with so that our range is not polarised and we can get action from weaker hands when we do completely nail the flop.
Anyways we continue potting it and our opponent gets out the way on the flop and we add some extra chips to our stack.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
markycash
Small blind
50.00
50.00
7263.75
BB
Big blind
100.00
150.00
13222.50
Your hole cards
· A
· A
· K
· 2
UTG
Fold
CO
Raise
200.00
350.00
2995.00
BTN
Fold
markycash
Raise
650.00
1000.00
6613.75
BB
Fold
CO
Call
500.00
1500.00
2495.00
Flop
· 2
· 6
· 8
markycash
Bet
1500.00
3000.00
5113.75
CO
Fold
markycash
Muck
markycash
Win
1500.00
6613.75
markycash
Return
1500.00
0.00
8113.75
It isn't so bad against regs which is why you have no trouble giving me all sorts of grief at the tables, even if you are 7 tabling. As you have an idea of the stuff I get up to and quite correctly do not put up with it
If I remember correctly the most effective human brain working memory capacity is around 4 'chunks of information' at any given time (very generally speaking). When we go past this it starts to fall apart a bit (I am guessing 7-8 tables is past that). Unless we are Timmyrara or Alvez etc.
It is all about balance as you say. I remember Doug Polk saying he preferred the option of going up in stakes, rather than up in volume, for these sort of reasons. Obviously the stakes only go so high in the PLO8 DYM's so yup, we have to strike that balance.
I thought your chronicles of your live event exploits last year highlighted this very well. With the 1 table going you knew what every player was up to and even assigned them labels such as 'Mr FOS' etc
Hand 40: We miniraise to 200 @ 50/100 level with 379J to isolate a 2BB stack and try and get their bounty. Someone pot 3 bets us and we fold.
Hand 41: With shorty still at the table. The player who 3 bet us in the last hand mini opens to try and isolate them. We have A23Q and 3 bet them this time. Their turn to get out the way this time but we chop it with the shorty.
Hand 42: We lose 3 BB's with A277 on an tricky board from the BB.
Hand 43: We are in the blinds (unraised) with 24JQ and see a JQ6 rainbow 4 handed. We call a pot bet on flop and are 3 handed, seeing a 5c on turn, everyone checks. After a non flushy king lands on the river we take a small stab at it for 200 but are raised to 2200 and fold.
Hand 44: ATTT on the BTN, we fold.
Hand 45: 448Q in the cut off, we fold.
Hand 46: 789T UTG, we fold.
Hand 47: 389J in the BB, someone pots it, we fold.
We play hand 48 which I will post after I make breakfast
Hand starting stack: 6,958
Situation: A simple enough hand this but a situation all ploppers will have found themselves in at some point. We have a straight and the dastardly board pairs.
We have 8c As Qc 6c in the SB. One player who is new to the table and has 11k+ chips limps @50/100 blind level from the cut off and it folds around to us. We flick the 50 chips in and our aggro player in the BB with 15k chips checks behind.
We hit the nuts with a Ks Th Jd flop. What looks like a dream spot can soon turn ugly if the board pairs. We are OOP and the players could easily check behind if we check, therefore we lead out with a pot size bet of 300. This seems like a good time to get value before the texture of the board changes and we end up having to employ caution. Also plenty hands such as sets, 2 pairs, etc may call and some players may float here thinking "he wouldn't just pot lead with the nuts". Our aggro BB player comes along for the ride, calls 300, and we see a nice and safe 7c on the turn.
We continue with the line and go for more value versus the big stack aggro BB player and pot the turn for 900 and they call again.
The river pairs the board when the 7h falls.
We are OOP so what do we do? Room for more value? Do we check/call, check/fold, or something else?
What would you do and why?
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
markycash
Small blind
50.00
50.00
6908.75
BB
Big blind
100.00
150.00
14997.50
Your hole cards
· 8c
· As
· Qc
· 6c
UTG
Fold
CO
Call
100.00
250.00
11325.02
BTN
Fold
markycash
Call
50.00
300.00
6858.75
BB
Check
Flop
· Kh
· 10s
· Jd
markycash
Bet
300.00
600.00
6558.75
BB
Call
300.00
900.00
14697.50
CO
Fold
Turn
· 7c
markycash
Bet
900.00
1800.00
5658.75
BB
Call
900.00
2700.00
13797.50
River
· 7h
markycash
WWYD?
Hard not to see the logic in that. Are we check/calling even if our opponent bets 2700?
P.S. Most of our hands until now (maybe or maybe not including this) have been wins. I won't be cherry picking though and will have hands we lose. There just haven't been many significant loses thus far.
Also as the blinds get up some of our key decisions will need to be made earlier in the hands so hopefully things will get more interesting
I will hold off the results as usual until tomorrow morning and see if we get any takers for a different line or if we are unanimous.
I will need to take the dogs their walk anyway and then I will be free to play some poker and will probably fire up some PLO8 DYM's too
@eon - Yes, agreed, we don't want to be getting stacks in on the river with a paired board when we have only invested a relatively small portion of our stack so far.
If I did lead (I will reveal all after this post) I don't think it would be a raise/call situation unless I had a very very strong read that the opponent was trying to pull some sort of dastardly deed.
Likewise for check/calling. As you pointed out, a lot of these things are very situation and opponent specific. If we check and opponent throws the pot at it then they are representing a boat. It would just be down to whether I believed them or not, as to whether I would check/call or check/fold.
But yes, thoroughly agree, this certainly should not be a spot where we go broke on the river.
@Mick - There is definitely a case to be made for leading out for value on the river as you suggest. I would probably be folding to a reraise though if I done this (which I think you are suggesting you would also do). I chose a different line which I will give my take on after this post.
@eon - "We post on here what we should do but in the heat of the moment we all play hands different. It's all very easy in retrospect but in actual game play its always player dependent."
Yes, it is all very well posting on here about optimal lines to take etc but can be completely different in the heat of the moment and as you say is very player dependent. I would say though, that considering the optimal lines to take here, and tearing hands apart like this, can definitely help us get it correct 'in the heat of the moment' more often than we might otherwise do.
@Enut - "Good point, maybe there's a case for giving two answers, one is your first 'snap' decision....the one you would make in live play with the clock clicking down, the second being your considered opinion of the optimum play. They could of course be the same."
As alluded to above, for me at least, one of the major goals of discussing hands like this is to get the line taken in both situations to be one and the same. That may not be realistic 100% of the time but I definitely think we can get the 'heat of the moment decisions' to reflect our 'considered decisions' much more often via discussions like this.
@safc - "I would bet 20p at the bookies at 4/1 that you checked he raised and you split pot . Then again its evens that you raise and take the pot? no i will stick with the 4/1 shot i need the quid".
I will reveal all after this