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Diary of a determined player

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  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Q1 2020:
    Online: Buy-Ins: £566.74 / loss of £58.92 from 83 MTT's / 7 FT's / 4 Wins
    Live: Buy-Ins: £380.00 / loss of £280.00 from 7 MTT's / 0 FT's / 0 Wins

    Q2 2020:
    Tournaments: 55
    Buy-Ins: £431.74
    Cashes: £582.20
    FT's: 11
    Wins: 3

    Mini's £10 Bet vs @cal69 (shown 2nd below):
    Played: 20 - 24
    Buy-Ins: £175.50 - £202.50
    Cashes: £15.49 - £56.92
  • Jac35Jac35 Member Posts: 6,491
    peter27 said:

    peter27 said:

    bbMike said:

    And exploit you he did.

    I won’t give a full blown analysis of the hand, as you’re probably not looking for one, but calling off a 4x river overbet hoping for a chop is not great. Not great at all.

    Actually in this instance I wouldn't mind a full analysis if you're up for it. I believe my big error here was on the turn, although you could also argue that it happened on the flop. Not sure on the river really. He has more hands in his range that I'm not losing to - but not winning against either. :/
    Your biggest error here is certainly river. Turn you should just fold. If he has a hand like QJs you are supposed to get bluffed sometimes. Why are you so convinced he shoves an ace for 4x pot on the river? I'm sure you wouldn't just shove an ace here so why are you so sure he would? When he's value betting you would think he is going to choose a size that can get called by a worse hand. How can he ever get called for this size when you don't have a straight? His sizing choice here is an exploitative play designed to get an ace to pay far too much. And I think he will expect you to have an ace often here.

    BTW if you think the best case scenario is a chop, you are risking 4190 chips to win back 625 chips when you are right. When you are wrong you lose 4190 chips. That is a terrible trade off.

    From these positions the only 6 he can really get to the river with as played is 66. But this is a such a highly specific line that 66 is probably the only hand he ever does this with. I don't know how but the stars have aligned and @hhyftrftdr has blindly stumbled into playing his hand to absolute perfection.
    Now that I'm looking at it with fresh eyes, It's beginning to sink in just how dumb that river call was by me.

    My theory about his thought process was:

    Flop: Haven't hit, check behind.
    Turn: He was the pre-flop aggressor, and hasn't bet post-flop, maybe I can take this with a bet.
    River: He has shown no post-flop aggression, I can steal this with a shove.

    His huge river shove is very polarising which I guess meant I partly convinced myself it could be air. But, point taken about the size of the shove compared to the pot from a strong player. I feel like the line above could be valid for a less experienced player though?

    Up until the turn, he could surely be holding something like A7 or A8 though, right? With the bet on the turn being an attempt to steal after I showed no post-flop aggression.

    I am slowly learning that just because you think someone is bluffing, doesn't necessarily mean you have to make the call. This seemingly catches me out on occasion.
    As a % out of a 100 he will be bluff shoving this river in the region of 0%
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Jac35 said:

    peter27 said:

    peter27 said:

    bbMike said:

    And exploit you he did.

    I won’t give a full blown analysis of the hand, as you’re probably not looking for one, but calling off a 4x river overbet hoping for a chop is not great. Not great at all.

    Actually in this instance I wouldn't mind a full analysis if you're up for it. I believe my big error here was on the turn, although you could also argue that it happened on the flop. Not sure on the river really. He has more hands in his range that I'm not losing to - but not winning against either. :/
    Your biggest error here is certainly river. Turn you should just fold. If he has a hand like QJs you are supposed to get bluffed sometimes. Why are you so convinced he shoves an ace for 4x pot on the river? I'm sure you wouldn't just shove an ace here so why are you so sure he would? When he's value betting you would think he is going to choose a size that can get called by a worse hand. How can he ever get called for this size when you don't have a straight? His sizing choice here is an exploitative play designed to get an ace to pay far too much. And I think he will expect you to have an ace often here.

    BTW if you think the best case scenario is a chop, you are risking 4190 chips to win back 625 chips when you are right. When you are wrong you lose 4190 chips. That is a terrible trade off.

    From these positions the only 6 he can really get to the river with as played is 66. But this is a such a highly specific line that 66 is probably the only hand he ever does this with. I don't know how but the stars have aligned and @hhyftrftdr has blindly stumbled into playing his hand to absolute perfection.
    Now that I'm looking at it with fresh eyes, It's beginning to sink in just how dumb that river call was by me.

    My theory about his thought process was:

    Flop: Haven't hit, check behind.
    Turn: He was the pre-flop aggressor, and hasn't bet post-flop, maybe I can take this with a bet.
    River: He has shown no post-flop aggression, I can steal this with a shove.

    His huge river shove is very polarising which I guess meant I partly convinced myself it could be air. But, point taken about the size of the shove compared to the pot from a strong player. I feel like the line above could be valid for a less experienced player though?

    Up until the turn, he could surely be holding something like A7 or A8 though, right? With the bet on the turn being an attempt to steal after I showed no post-flop aggression.

    I am slowly learning that just because you think someone is bluffing, doesn't necessarily mean you have to make the call. This seemingly catches me out on occasion.
    As a % out of a 100 he will be bluff shoving this river in the region of 0%
    Agreed. What about a less experienced player? There was certainly a time in the past where I could have made a play like this.
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Weird day. Frustrating day. In terms of results it wasn't bad, I won a satellite event earlier today and cashed in the mini for the first time in a long while.

    But, I seem to have stumbled across quite a major flaw in my game that I am not sure how to rectify. It came up several times today, particularly when I got moved onto @Jac35's table.

    In the middle-late stages of a tournament, when I have a hand in the bottom 70% of my raising range e.g. A9s, KQs etc. I make my standard raise, and let's assume it's called HU to the flop. On a fairly dry flop, let's say J72 rainbow (I'm holding KQ), if I make a c-bet, and it gets called, I then seem utterly buggered assuming I don't hit the turn. The problem is that at the mid-late stages you're putting in 2.4k pre, and then 2.4k on the flop, that's a significant portion of your stack. I seem to be in this situation frequently. On the table with Jac I went from 70k to 40k in the space of 10 minutes. In some cases I was even hitting bottom or middle pair, but getting called, which made me check-fold the turn. It felt like it was happening too much to be coincidence and I believe I was being exploited. I realise that I shouldn't always give up on the turn, and I didn't, but in those instances I was still losing the pot - with even more chips.

    I thought about making my c-bets smaller, but then you're giving them much better odds to call. I guess what I am asking is what is the most frequent play when I haven't hit the flop in the mid-late stages? I know it depends on a host of factors such as board texture and the aggression of the other player, but a vague indication into the common "by the book" play % would help. Is it 50-50 c-bet/no c-bet on the flop? Double barrel 20% of the time etc? When I apply my methodology at the early stages (where I feel like a very strong player) to the mid-late stages, it all seemingly goes a bit wrong.

    I suppose the mid-late stages should be more difficult by design - as the opponents should be tougher - but I was completely robbed today. It was baaaad.

    Here are a couple of examples:
    PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalance
    SenorBegsSmall blind250.00250.0015850.00
    Summers119Big blind500.00750.0035682.50
    Your hole cards
    • Q
    • K
    RenodemediFold
    Thomo8Fold
    Sarahg114Fold
    peter27Raise1000.001750.0017130.00
    SenorBegsFold
    Summers119Call500.002250.0035182.50
    Flop
    • 7
    • 10
    • 2
    Summers119Check
    peter27Check
    Turn
    • 2
    Summers119Bet2000.004250.0033182.50
    peter27Call2000.006250.0015130.00
    River
    • 9
    Summers119Bet3500.009750.0029682.50
    peter27Fold
    Summers119Muck
    Summers119Win6250.0035932.50
    Summers119Return3500.000.0039432.50
    Standard raise pre-flop. In most cases I would have c-bet this flop, but I elected not to here just out of instinct which I don't think is necessarily a mistake. Correct me if I am wrong, but it is important to not always be c-betting (I think I made a lot of conseuctive c-bets prior to this hand). She bets the turn, which I reluctantly call with two overs on the basis that she could just be trying to steal the pot following my passive flop play. Then when she bets the river, I obviously fold, but I have lost 3000 chips or 18% of my original stack. Was there an obvious mistake here? Maybe I should be playing a shove/fold range with 18BB's? Seems like too many BB's to be in shove mode though. Folding KQ in position pre seems wrong.

    (1/2) ..
  • Jac35Jac35 Member Posts: 6,491
    Im not sure Summers is a girl, Peter 😊
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    edited April 2020
    (2/2) ..
    PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalance
    Milhouse77Small blind600.00600.0034603.50
    Cjw74Big blind1200.001800.0036767.00
    Your hole cards
    • 3
    • 3
    peter27Raise3600.005400.0067340.28
    Jac35Fold
    cinderconeCall3600.009000.0089642.25
    chrisdboyFold
    Milhouse77Fold
    Cjw74Fold
    Flop
    • 4
    • A
    • 2
    peter27Bet4500.0013500.0062840.28
    cinderconeRaise11400.0024900.0078242.25
    peter27Fold
    cinderconeMuck
    cinderconeWin18000.0096242.25
    cinderconeReturn6900.000.00103142.25
    A 3x pre-flop is not my usual play here, but I had just come to the table with a big stack and was trying to bully a little bit.

    Very good flop for me, but I didn't feel I could call his re-raise. He's re-raising a player that went 3x UTG pre-flop, surely he's hit that flop well (ace with middling kicker presumably). Now that I'm looking at this whilst not under pressure, I think I'm supposed to call that re-raise. Odds of 9/2 or so with a rougly 16% chance of hitting. Nevertheless, I folded and lost 8100 chips (or 11% of my stack). If I made the call on the flop, and missed, that would have been even worse. I guess that's where reverse implied odds comes into it. This is a concept I was reading about for the first time yesterday. So, maybe my fold was correct? Either way. I'm stuck and confused. Even a 2x raise pre followed by a 1/3 pot c-bet on the flop is a big percentage of my stack.

    Q1 2020:
    Online: Buy-Ins: £566.74 / loss of £58.92 from 83 MTT's / 7 FT's / 4 Wins
    Live: Buy-Ins: £380.00 / loss of £280.00 from 7 MTT's / 0 FT's / 0 Wins

    Q2 2020:
    Tournaments: 59
    Buy-Ins: £458.04
    Cashes: £631.02
    FT's: 12
    Wins: 3

    Mini's £10 Bet vs @cal69 (shown 2nd below):
    Played: 22 - 24
    Buy-Ins: £191.50 - £202.50
    Cashes: £42.31 - £56.92

    I also played some DYM's today for the DYM streak week promotion, but I am not counting them in my totals. Also, shout out to @Shelley7 who I shared an enjoyable conversation with at the tables today, and they mentioned they read my diary :)
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Jac35 said:

    Im not sure Summers is a girl, Peter 😊

    My bad! :D
  • bbMikebbMike Member Posts: 3,716
    peter27 said:



    Now that I'm looking at it with fresh eyes, It's beginning to sink in just how dumb that river call was by me.

    My theory about his thought process was:

    Flop: Haven't hit, check behind.
    Turn: He was the pre-flop aggressor, and hasn't bet post-flop, maybe I can take this with a bet.
    River: He has shown no post-flop aggression, I can steal this with a shove.


    His huge river shove is very polarising which I guess meant I partly convinced myself it could be air. But, point taken about the size of the shove compared to the pot from a strong player. I feel like the line above could be valid for a less experienced player though?

    Up until the turn, he could surely be holding something like A7 or A8 though, right? With the bet on the turn being an attempt to steal after I showed no post-flop aggression.

    I am slowly learning that just because you think someone is bluffing, doesn't necessarily mean you have to make the call. This seemingly catches me out on occasion.

    This isn’t how a good player thinks
  • waller02waller02 Member Posts: 9,070
    Both spots look pretty standard.

    Hand 1 is an awful flop, you could have a little stab but check/giving up on a bad turn is fine with just the 2 overs imo. The turn is a fold.

    Hand 2 you lost more chips than you needed to. Min raise pre, then cbet smaller on that board, no need to go half pot when all his auto folds fold for a lot less. Easy fold to raise.
  • bbMikebbMike Member Posts: 3,716
    Hand 1 above, you need to be thinking in terms of board textures for your range and for the BB defend range. This is a low draw heavy board that hits BB way more than it hits you. You have over cards, but that’s about it. If you cbet here you’ve got to expect to be getting called a good proportion of the time, and raised a smaller proportion. Given you won’t be able to defend vs a raise, and you’re unlikely to pick up more equity on the turn, the check back is fine.

    When she leads the turn though, you don’t have to start levelling yourself. Why float? She could of course still have a lot of draws on the board so floating with the intention of checking back or calling a good river is ok. You could even raise turn for the same reasons. 9d river completes everything and it’s an easy fold.
  • bbMikebbMike Member Posts: 3,716
    Hand 2 I personally wouldn’t be trying to bully with a big raise UTG with a hand that doesn’t play well when flatted. Your flop bet is also very large and they could just try to bluff raise you here. If you cbet smaller you can more easily defend bluff raises. Not the best exact hand to do that with though. You might have been better check raising yourself in this spot, but your 3x open has limited your options as you’ve bloated the pot with a very average hand.

    Reverse implied odds references the times when you hit your hand but then lose more chips to opponents better hand, e.g. calling to hit a low flush and losing more to a bigger flush when it comes in. If you’ve just started learning it, revisit it.
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Thanks @waller02 & @bbMike for the feedback.

    Hand 1:
    Interesting that you disagreed on how to play the turn.
    Mike: "floating with the intention of checking back or calling the river is ok"
    Waller: "check/giving up on a bad turn is fine with just the 2 overs imo. The turn is a fold".

    He may just be raising the turn due to my flop passiveness, but then again I do only have K high, and there's little chance of me improving on the river, so looking at it now I think I should have folded the turn. Actually this is a good example of something I have mentioned before that; just because I think someone may be bluffing, that doesn't mean I automatically have to call. It's a trap I do fall into sometimes.

    Hand 2:
    You both commented on my pre-flop raise size. The idea of bullying the table was something I planned to do when I joined the table because of my stack size. Effectively that meant the 3x raise was going to be my standard raise size regardless of hand strength, and I understand that keeping pre-flop raise sizes consistent is good to reduce the information you're giving out. So is it the concept of me trying to bully what you disagree with, or just this hand in isolation? Or perhaps you think this should have been 2x, but everything else could be 3x?

    Point taken about the flop raise size.

    Noted about reverse implied odds. Will revisit as what you said is not what I understood at all. :D
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Didn't make a profit today, but had my most enjoyable session .. ever! I'm not really sure what was different, just had lots of fun. Feeling confident in my game right now too, it's funny how perspective on this game can change in the space of 48 hours. Nevertheless, feeling confident does not mean I am going to stop working on the flaws in my play.

    Q1 2020:
    Online: Buy-Ins: £566.74 / loss of £58.92 from 83 MTT's / 7 FT's / 4 Wins
    Live: Buy-Ins: £380.00 / loss of £280.00 from 7 MTT's / 0 FT's / 0 Wins

    Q2 2020:
    Tournaments: 64
    Buy-Ins: £489.14
    Cashes: £646.23
    FT's: 12
    Wins: 3

    Mini's £10 Bet vs @cal69 (shown 2nd below):
    Played: 23 - 26
    Buy-Ins: £202.50 - £219.00
    Cashes: £42.31 - £88.27
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    edited April 2020
    Gather round children, it's time for some random musings.

    There's a widespread strategy in poker where players look to shove at the 10 BB mark. Over the last few years, I have noticed that the top pro's actually start looking to shove between the 12 - 18 BB mark.

    This strategy never made any sense to me, I always felt that being patient and waiting for a strong hand is fine up to the 5 BB mark. This effectively allows you to stay in the tournament for longer as you're delaying the elimination risk.

    I think my theory is correct for the player I used to be, because staying in the tournament longer means more chance of reaching the cash.

    However, I have developed to the point where I am now aiming to win tournaments, not just min cash. With that in mind, the 12 - 18 BB strategy does begin to seem logical. Yeah, you'll miss out on some minimum cashes, but when you do double up, you then have some breathing room to start playing GTO again before the blinds catch-up, if indeed they do.

    My strategy before wasn't wrong, but now my aims have changed. Interesting. Well, interesting to me anyway. This probably sent you guys to sleep. :D
  • FeelGroggyFeelGroggy Member Posts: 840
    You are allowed to fold. There is nothing wrong with folding King high to a pot size bet. You should have a strategy that involves checking back some hands that can call down, so you don't need to worry about defending pot size bets with king high. For example in that hand it makes perfect sense to check hands like 99, JT, because they can't go for three streets of value and can be used to pick off bluffs on certain runouts. In the hand histories you post you are stationing relentlessly in some spots. It is as if your more interested in not getting bluffed than making money. Let yourself be bluffed sometimes and your results will improve.


  • FeelGroggyFeelGroggy Member Posts: 840
    peter27 said:

    Gather round children, it's time for some random musings.

    There's a widespread strategy in poker where players look to shove at the 10 BB mark. Over the last few years, I have noticed that the top pro's actually start looking to shove between the 12 - 18 BB mark.

    This strategy never made any sense to me, I always felt that being patient and waiting for a strong hand is fine up to the 5 BB mark. This effectively allows you to stay in the tournament for longer as you're delaying the elimination risk.

    I think my theory is correct for the player I used to be, because staying in the tournament longer means more chance of reaching the cash.

    However, I have developed to the point where I am now aiming to win tournaments, not just min cash. With that in mind, the 12 - 18 BB strategy does begin to seem logical. Yeah, you'll miss out on some minimum cashes, but when you do double up, you then have some breathing room to start playing GTO again before the blinds catch-up, if indeed they do.

    My strategy before wasn't wrong, but now my aims have changed. Interesting. Well, interesting to me anyway. This probably sent you guys to sleep. :D


    Top pro's shove 12-18bb because they find situations where shoving is better than folding or min raising. If players chip down to 5bb often it is because they are missing spots where shoving all in generates chips. This is why the pro's are pro's and the tight shovers are recreationals.
  • chicknMeltchicknMelt Member Posts: 1,159
    edited April 2020
    Groggs as ever is spot on.

    To me the KQ hand is a cbet. With KQ we block QT and KT which make up a good portion of villains calling down range. We have overcards and backdoor straight equity to back us up + we need some hands that make good bluffs when the flush misses (missed flush draws usually make bad bluff candidates because we want out villain to have a missed flush as often as possible, as that adds to his auto folds). For that reason I would be thinking of going 3 streets as a bluff on a lot of run outs, although this probably isn't one of them with the board pairing on turn and flush hitting on the river. Now you want a diamond to block their calling range. Something like KQ with one diamond for example would be good.

    when you are in the 15bb range there are some hands that make sense to open, and others that make a better jam
  • bbMikebbMike Member Posts: 3,716
    peter27 said:

    Thanks @waller02 & @bbMike for the feedback.

    Hand 1:
    Interesting that you disagreed on how to play the turn.
    Mike: "floating with the intention of checking back or calling the river is ok"
    Waller: "check/giving up on a bad turn is fine with just the 2 overs imo. The turn is a fold".

    He may just be raising the turn due to my flop passiveness, but then again I do only have K high, and there's little chance of me improving on the river, so looking at it now I think I should have folded the turn. Actually this is a good example of something I have mentioned before that; just because I think someone may be bluffing, that doesn't mean I automatically have to call. It's a trap I do fall into sometimes.

    Hand 2:
    You both commented on my pre-flop raise size. The idea of bullying the table was something I planned to do when I joined the table because of my stack size. Effectively that meant the 3x raise was going to be my standard raise size regardless of hand strength, and I understand that keeping pre-flop raise sizes consistent is good to reduce the information you're giving out. So is it the concept of me trying to bully what you disagree with, or just this hand in isolation? Or perhaps you think this should have been 2x, but everything else could be 3x?

    Point taken about the flop raise size.

    Noted about reverse implied odds. Will revisit as what you said is not what I understood at all. :D

    Hand 1 I was asking you why you were floating turn, and giving some specific rationale where it might be ok - but I don’t think you need to be adding K high hero calls to your game right now. As played I’d be giving up on that turn given the action.

    Hand 2 absolutely no issue with aggression, but there are other ways to bully the table than increasing your pre flop raise sizing.
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    Thanks for the feedback guys. @chicknMelt your thought process about how you play that hand with a view to potentially bluffing depending on the run out is particularly insightful.

    @bbMike Apologies, I thought your question was rhetorical. Two over cards, and the feeling of being bluffed was the thought process at the time.
  • peter27peter27 Member Posts: 1,634
    edited April 2020
    Just finished in toinght's mini for a min cash but am really frustrated. Same thing happened again, got destroyed by everyone in the mid-late stages. Hands like AK, AQ, AJ are doing the damage. If I c-bet, they seem to call and I don't feel like I can bet again on a board like T72. Them hitting the T or 7 is quite possible, and a second barrel would be a significant portion of my stack. If I don't c-bet, they do bet the flop, and then I'm on the back foot from there unless I hit. This really is a big issue. I'm struggling to identify my flaw here.

    A hand like this probably illustrates it quite well.
    PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalance
    MohicanSmall blind125.00125.004222.50
    HendoAABig blind250.00375.0020390.00
    Your hole cards
    • Q
    • A
    peter27Raise500.00875.0012525.00
    tracyswiseFold
    Murphy220Fold
    itsnotluckFold
    MohicanAll-in4222.505097.500.00
    HendoAAFold
    peter27Fold
    MohicanMuck
    MohicanWin1250.001250.00
    MohicanReturn3847.500.005097.50
    I suspect you guys are going to say this should be a snap-call, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. Pocket pairs make up the majority of his shoving range, and I didn't want to be flipping for a third of my stack - especially as the bubble hadn't burst yet.

    As we played on, I tried to force myself to open up my range (which felt correct at this stage of a tournament, but I am not sure?) and it ultimately cost me my stack with this hand. Was the shove correct?
    PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalance
    bagster731Small blind300.00300.0023429.08
    enartee17Big blind600.00900.0030902.50
    Your hole cards
    • 4
    • 4
    itsnotluckFold
    READTHIS23Fold
    neely0y0Fold
    peter27All-in13000.0013900.000.00
    bagster731Fold
    enartee17Call12400.0026300.0018502.50
    enartee17Show
    • 6
    • 6
    peter27Show
    • 4
    • 4
    Flop
    • 8
    • 8
    • 5
    Turn
    • 2
    River
    • 7
    enartee17WinTwo Pairs, 8s and 6s26300.0044802.50
    I think the reality is that I just don't have that much experience playing in the mid-late stages, so my play is far from optimal. How do I fix this? Coaching specifically aimed at this portion of the tournament?

    While I am frustrated, a little rant. 89 were paid in that mini, and when we got down to the final 100 every player at my table started taking an extra five seconds or so to make each decision. This is stupid. I get that you want to slow down to make sure you reach the money, that's fine. But, why only slow down by five seconds? Don't f*** about, if you're going to slow play then ACTUALLY slow play and use ALL your time.
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