ITM % still very low of late. Getting fair hole cards, but not connecting with many flops, and when I do, I keep getting out-drawn on the turn and/or river. Bluffing will only get you so far in this game, you do need to actually have it sometimes.
It's really hitting the motivation hard right now.
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
That break was only supposed to last one week, but here we are two months later.
Actually my laptop broke, and it was three weeks until I purchased a replacement. After that, I hadn't played for so long that I just lost interest.
Watching a Daniel Negraneu YouTube video earlier today re-motivated me, still not quite to the level of before however, and I'm not really sure why that is. Despite that, I did play the mini tonight, and enjoyed it too.
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Mini was fun yesterday, I ended up finishing 16th for £37.76 including head prizes.
There are two hands I would like to get some feedback on from that tournament:
1) Looking back on the hand, I am surprised I would shove so many big blinds pre-flop with a hand like 99. The logic at the time was with the opponent raising from the button, their range was quite wide - so probability says I'm ahead - and it's rarely comfotable to play a pocket pair down the streets if you haven't hit, so I wanted to avoid that situation. Thoughts? Is this mental? If someone could point out the flaw in my thought process, that would be valuable. I'm sure there is one. Note: no specific reads on the opposition apart from them seeming to be a solid player.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
bonanza009
Small blind
250.00
250.00
17425.00
peter27
Big blind
500.00
750.00
32299.00
Your hole cards
9
9
kidgrimsby
Fold
DOUBLESNO7
Fold
bendini
Fold
laccy3
Raise
1500.00
2250.00
13429.00
bonanza009
Fold
peter27
All-in
32299.00
34549.00
0.00
laccy3
All-in
13429.00
47978.00
0.00
peter27
Unmatched bet
17870.00
30108.00
17870.00
peter27
Show
9
9
laccy3
Show
A
J
Flop
5
3
3
Turn
5
River
7
peter27
Win
Two Pairs, 9s and 5s
30108.00
47978.00
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Poker is an interesting game because it's SO difficult to gauge how you're playing due to the luck/sample size factor. However since my break, I feel like my game has been really strong - although today is an exception to that.
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
I do feel as if I have taken a huge step forward in my play since the break. And you know what, I haven't even done anything to adjust my decisions - but I have changed my "environment". I make sure I play on my laptop, in full screen mode (to limit distractions like facebook) and with the radio playing very quietly in the background. Effectively, I am giving the game 100% of my concentration now.
My cash rate right now is over 50%, which is fantastic. The only downside is that they're all smaller cashes. It's exceptionally frustrating to play for three hours and only make £10 profit. But, I think my time will come. A big result feels like it is round the corner.
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
My previously referenced poor performances on final tables; specifically blowing enormous chip leads, is starting to move from disappointing to just plain embarrasing.
That statement is off the back of a £5.50 Turbo BH where I had a mega chip lead for most of the tournament, got into the final three - still with a big chip lead - and finished 3rd.
Let's start with the good (pre-final table):
- Felt confident throughout. - Always felt that I was dictating the play at the table, rather than being bullied. - My attention span has improved dramatically. I am using all my time thinking about the game, rather than my mind wandering. - I have started to implement some nuances into my post-flop bet sizing which seem to be working out well so far, whilst also keeping in mind to not become predictable.
Now, the bad:
- There's a huge dynamic shift somewhere in the final two tables that I struggle to adapt to, partially because I don't understand what that dynamic change is. This is then exaggerated on the final table when we start to lose players. - It feels like people widen their calling and shoving ranges dramatically which does make sense to me (less players = hands automatically stronger) but shoving cards like T9s 3-handed from the BTN seems like suicide in my mind. - It also feels like I'm folding considerably more than other players, which is probably linked to the point above.
It makes sense that the weakest part of my game would be the later stages. It's probably true of a lot of people because this is the stage of the tournament where players have the least amount of experience. It feels like I have a lot of theory work to do - and unfortunately not many opportunities for practice. Maybe I should go play some 3-handed tournaments on another site.
Anyhow, curious to know what you guys think of my pre-flop play here. I don't usually like calling 3-bets, but this one was tiny, and the 4-bet (effective shove) just felt wrong OOP into two players. No reads.
Player
Action
Cards
Amount
Pot
Balance
codykings
Small blind
75.00
75.00
4225.00
mrweeve
Big blind
150.00
225.00
4535.00
Your hole cards
A
Q
peter27
Raise
330.00
555.00
2572.50
cherryboy
Fold
cfcbabe
Fold
andrew1427
Call
330.00
885.00
2047.50
codykings
Fold
mrweeve
Raise
510.00
1395.00
4025.00
peter27
Call
330.00
1725.00
2242.50
andrew1427
Call
330.00
2055.00
1717.50
Flop
5
6
4
mrweeve
Bet
1350.00
3405.00
2675.00
peter27
Fold
andrew1427
Fold
mrweeve
Muck
mrweeve
Win
2055.00
4730.00
mrweeve
Return
1350.00
0.00
6080.00
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
WP for FTing Peter. In the 5.5 turbos typically, in my experience, players overfold in the final 2 tables so being aggressive is pretty key as a big stack. Remember you can shove much wider than you can call in these situations. FWIW, 910s is a pretty reasonable hand to be shoving (effective stacks dependent ofc) and performs pretty well against a calling range. IMO the way you played the AQ hand was perfectly fine, 4b shoving is ok but you will run into AK/AA a handful of times, but at the same time a min3bet is often just trash, with no reads I play it the exact same as you.
WP for FTing Peter. In the 5.5 turbos typically, in my experience, players overfold in the final 2 tables so being aggressive is pretty key as a big stack. Remember you can shove much wider than you can call in these situations. FWIW, 910s is a pretty reasonable hand to be shoving (effective stacks dependent ofc) and performs pretty well against a calling range. IMO the way you played the AQ hand was perfectly fine, 4b shoving is ok but you will run into AK/AA a handful of times, but at the same time a min3bet is often just trash, with no reads I play it the exact same as you.
Wow, I believe that's the first time anyone ever said "I play it the exact same as you" to me.
Surprised you consider T9s to be a shove in the final two tables. That's pretty eye-opening to me, and does make me realise I am playing far too tight.
Actually finished 2nd in a £5.50 Turbo BH last night too, results are strong right now, and I'm feeling very confident
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: Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Weird situation on another poker site just happened where the software broke mid-tournament.
According to their terms:
If the tournament has reached the paid places, remaining players shall be refunded their Fee and current bounty (if applicable). Regarding the prize pool, the next prize to be won shall be distributed to each remaining player at the time of cancellation with the remainder being paid according to the chip count to the remaining players at the time of cancellation.
I was 35th/65 at the time so was "awarded" $86.80 from an $11.00 buy-in. Pretty happy with that - there were over 1100 entries so I had done a good job. Would have preferred to play to a conclusion though.
I don't usually post much but I've been reading a couple of these hands/posts and following for a while and thought i'd jump in with a few thoughts.
I would consider doing some work with ICMizer or another shove/fold software to get to grips with ranges and situations under 20 bbs. Earlier you mentioned that shoving with a hand like T9 suited 3 handed OTB feels like suicide and well, yes it is in some situations. However there are circumstances where this shove will be literally printing chips and subsequently your equity in the tournament. A lot of the answers to your questions in this thread come down to this idea - it simply depends.
Let's take the AQo hand from July 19th above as an example. You are fairly deep in the mini sitting on 23.5 bbs. UTG min raises and is 7bb effective with you. There are a few things we need to know here in order to answer concisely :
Perceived skill level of opp - what's he been doing on the table so far ?
ICM considerations - how big is his bounty? Are we playing for a payout of any sort?
My instinct in this spot is we should be ISO shoving all day long here with AQo for 7 BB eff. Here are some reasons :
We have a hand very high up in our range and would like to isolate this small stack to win the bounty. We should be chasing these quite aggressively at this stage as a lot of the equity in these BH's is locked up in winning these.
Assuming he is playing correctly and only has AA - KK here is giving too much credit to players on this site, especially relatively unknown ones. Our hand actually blocks a not insignificant portion of his nutted range and when running the numbers still has 31% equity vs JJ +. Shoving here means we get to realise ALL of that 31% whenever we get called. 31% to win probably a decent bounty, get one place closer to 1st and pick up 8.5 BBs seems ok to me - and thats only when we get called and are crushed.
Sometimes (a fair amount) he is literally clicking buttons and we might get called off by a hand we crush ie KQ or AJ.
Sometimes he is fully living the donkament life and raise folds 7BB eff w JTo and we pick up a decent pot. He might even be calling off here lol who knows
Anyway sorry for the long post i thought i'd just give my 2 cents - I'm not an expert or anything and i'm sure there are some holes in my logic somewhere. Def check out some kind of Push fold software though it will help you get more confident with aggression especially in late stages.
I don't usually post much but I've been reading a couple of these hands/posts and following for a while and thought i'd jump in with a few thoughts.
I would consider doing some work with ICMizer or another shove/fold software to get to grips with ranges and situations under 20 bbs. Earlier you mentioned that shoving with a hand like T9 suited 3 handed OTB feels like suicide and well, yes it is in some situations. However there are circumstances where this shove will be literally printing chips and subsequently your equity in the tournament. A lot of the answers to your questions in this thread come down to this idea - it simply depends.
Let's take the AQo hand from July 19th above as an example. You are fairly deep in the mini sitting on 23.5 bbs. UTG min raises and is 7bb effective with you. There are a few things we need to know here in order to answer concisely :
Perceived skill level of opp - what's he been doing on the table so far ?
ICM considerations - how big is his bounty? Are we playing for a payout of any sort?
My instinct in this spot is we should be ISO shoving all day long here with AQo for 7 BB eff. Here are some reasons :
We have a hand very high up in our range and would like to isolate this small stack to win the bounty. We should be chasing these quite aggressively at this stage as a lot of the equity in these BH's is locked up in winning these.
Assuming he is playing correctly and only has AA - KK here is giving too much credit to players on this site, especially relatively unknown ones. Our hand actually blocks a not insignificant portion of his nutted range and when running the numbers still has 31% equity vs JJ +. Shoving here means we get to realise ALL of that 31% whenever we get called. 31% to win probably a decent bounty, get one place closer to 1st and pick up 8.5 BBs seems ok to me - and thats only when we get called and are crushed.
Sometimes (a fair amount) he is literally clicking buttons and we might get called off by a hand we crush ie KQ or AJ.
Sometimes he is fully living the donkament life and raise folds 7BB eff w JTo and we pick up a decent pot. He might even be calling off here lol who knows
Anyway sorry for the long post i thought i'd just give my 2 cents - I'm not an expert or anything and i'm sure there are some holes in my logic somewhere. Def check out some kind of Push fold software though it will help you get more confident with aggression especially in late stages.
Also GG and GL on the grind !
Actually you're not the first person to suggest ICMizer and it's something I have been playing with already, but you make a good point about me trying to use this to nail down my strategy when short-stacked in the late stages of a tournament. Thanks for the tip.
Interesting hand analysis. I don't really have any counter-argument to that, seems logical. Excellent explanation IMO. Although, I am not clear where you get "is 7bb effective with you" from. Is this just a mis-calculation/typo? At the flop he has 3BB's behind, I have 15. Either way, your point still stands.
This was a strange hand from a £500 Turbo BH around a week ago.
I think my pre-flop call was okay due to my position (SB), but I can see an argument to say raising was the better play here. Unfortunately, I don't remember if I had any reads.
Quite a dry flop, and most of the time I would call a c-bet here, but a full pot size c-bet rang alarm bells. Thoughts?
Interesting hand analysis. I don't really have any counter-argument to that, seems logical. Excellent explanation IMO. Although, I am not clear where you get "is 7bb effective with you" from. Is this just a mis-calculation/typo? At the flop he has 3BB's behind, I have 15. Either way, your point still stands.
He means the opponent has an effective stack of approx 7bb
Comments
It's really hitting the motivation hard right now.
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: 184
Buy-Ins: £1281.07
Cashes: £1522.53
FT's: 19
Wins: 4
Actually my laptop broke, and it was three weeks until I purchased a replacement. After that, I hadn't played for so long that I just lost interest.
Watching a Daniel Negraneu YouTube video earlier today re-motivated me, still not quite to the level of before however, and I'm not really sure why that is. Despite that, I did play the mini tonight, and enjoyed it too.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 1
Buy-Ins: £5.50
Cashes: £1.88
FT's: 0
Wins: 0
There are two hands I would like to get some feedback on from that tournament:
1) Looking back on the hand, I am surprised I would shove so many big blinds pre-flop with a hand like 99. The logic at the time was with the opponent raising from the button, their range was quite wide - so probability says I'm ahead - and it's rarely comfotable to play a pocket pair down the streets if you haven't hit, so I wanted to avoid that situation. Thoughts? Is this mental? If someone could point out the flaw in my thought process, that would be valuable. I'm sure there is one. Note: no specific reads on the opposition apart from them seeming to be a solid player.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 3
Buy-Ins: £21.50
Cashes: £50.42
FT's: 0
Wins: 0
On the AQ hand
Not aware of opponent, I like a 3b pre against most opponents and in most situations.
Don't mind the flop check. Turn call seems fine on quick reflection.
As a note, might be best leaving out the result of the hand as it could skew opinions.
Good point about leaving out the result.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 12
Buy-Ins: £92.00
Cashes: £85.37
FT's: 0
Wins: 0
My cash rate right now is over 50%, which is fantastic. The only downside is that they're all smaller cashes. It's exceptionally frustrating to play for three hours and only make £10 profit. But, I think my time will come. A big result feels like it is round the corner.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 17
Buy-Ins: £119.50
Cashes: £135.72
FT's: 0
Wins: 0
That statement is off the back of a £5.50 Turbo BH where I had a mega chip lead for most of the tournament, got into the final three - still with a big chip lead - and finished 3rd.
Let's start with the good (pre-final table):
- Felt confident throughout.
- Always felt that I was dictating the play at the table, rather than being bullied.
- My attention span has improved dramatically. I am using all my time thinking about the game, rather than my mind wandering.
- I have started to implement some nuances into my post-flop bet sizing which seem to be working out well so far, whilst also keeping in mind to not become predictable.
Now, the bad:
- There's a huge dynamic shift somewhere in the final two tables that I struggle to adapt to, partially because I don't understand what that dynamic change is. This is then exaggerated on the final table when we start to lose players.
- It feels like people widen their calling and shoving ranges dramatically which does make sense to me (less players = hands automatically stronger) but shoving cards like T9s 3-handed from the BTN seems like suicide in my mind.
- It also feels like I'm folding considerably more than other players, which is probably linked to the point above.
It makes sense that the weakest part of my game would be the later stages. It's probably true of a lot of people because this is the stage of the tournament where players have the least amount of experience. It feels like I have a lot of theory work to do - and unfortunately not many opportunities for practice. Maybe I should go play some 3-handed tournaments on another site.
Anyhow, curious to know what you guys think of my pre-flop play here. I don't usually like calling 3-bets, but this one was tiny, and the 4-bet (effective shove) just felt wrong OOP into two players. No reads.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 32
Buy-Ins: £207.08
Cashes: £238.28
FT's: 1
Wins: 0
Surprised you consider T9s to be a shove in the final two tables. That's pretty eye-opening to me, and does make me realise I am playing far too tight.
Actually finished 2nd in a £5.50 Turbo BH last night too, results are strong right now, and I'm feeling very confident
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Q3 2020:
Tournaments: 42
Buy-Ins: £267.58
Cashes: £327.02
FT's: 2
Wins: 0
According to their terms:
If the tournament has reached the paid places, remaining players shall be refunded their Fee and current bounty (if applicable). Regarding the prize pool, the next prize to be won shall be distributed to each remaining player at the time of cancellation with the remainder being paid according to the chip count to the remaining players at the time of cancellation.
I was 35th/65 at the time so was "awarded" $86.80 from an $11.00 buy-in. Pretty happy with that - there were over 1100 entries so I had done a good job. Would have preferred to play to a conclusion though.
I would consider doing some work with ICMizer or another shove/fold software to get to grips with ranges and situations under 20 bbs. Earlier you mentioned that shoving with a hand like T9 suited 3 handed OTB feels like suicide and well, yes it is in some situations. However there are circumstances where this shove will be literally printing chips and subsequently your equity in the tournament. A lot of the answers to your questions in this thread come down to this idea - it simply depends.
Let's take the AQo hand from July 19th above as an example. You are fairly deep in the mini sitting on 23.5 bbs. UTG min raises and is 7bb effective with you. There are a few things we need to know here in order to answer concisely :
- Perceived skill level of opp - what's he been doing on the table so far ?
- ICM considerations - how big is his bounty? Are we playing for a payout of any sort?
My instinct in this spot is we should be ISO shoving all day long here with AQo for 7 BB eff. Here are some reasons :- We have a hand very high up in our range and would like to isolate this small stack to win the bounty. We should be chasing these quite aggressively at this stage as a lot of the equity in these BH's is locked up in winning these.
- Assuming he is playing correctly and only has AA - KK here is giving too much credit to players on this site, especially relatively unknown ones. Our hand actually blocks a not insignificant portion of his nutted range and when running the numbers still has 31% equity vs JJ +. Shoving here means we get to realise ALL of that 31% whenever we get called. 31% to win probably a decent bounty, get one place closer to 1st and pick up 8.5 BBs seems ok to me - and thats only when we get called and are crushed.
- Sometimes (a fair amount) he is literally clicking buttons and we might get called off by a hand we crush ie KQ or AJ.
- Sometimes he is fully living the donkament life and raise folds 7BB eff w JTo and we pick up a decent pot. He might even be calling off here lol who knows
Anyway sorry for the long post i thought i'd just give my 2 cents - I'm not an expert or anything and i'm sure there are some holes in my logic somewhere. Def check out some kind of Push fold software though it will help you get more confident with aggression especially in late stages.Also GG and GL on the grind !
@mumsie
WP, WP.
Interesting hand analysis. I don't really have any counter-argument to that, seems logical. Excellent explanation IMO. Although, I am not clear where you get "is 7bb effective with you" from. Is this just a mis-calculation/typo? At the flop he has 3BB's behind, I have 15. Either way, your point still stands.
Thanks for that. I appreiciate the input.
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:
Online: Buy-Ins: £1304.03 / profit of £222.26 from 188 MTT's / 19 FT's / 4 Wins
Tournaments: 66
Buy-Ins: £440.98
Cashes: £497.31
FT's: 3
Wins: 0
Also not included is $24.77 profit from the two occasions I staked Daniel Negraneu in WSOP events.
I think my pre-flop call was okay due to my position (SB), but I can see an argument to say raising was the better play here. Unfortunately, I don't remember if I had any reads.
Quite a dry flop, and most of the time I would call a c-bet here, but a full pot size c-bet rang alarm bells. Thoughts?
Interesting hand analysis. I don't really have any counter-argument to that, seems logical. Excellent explanation IMO. Although, I am not clear where you get "is 7bb effective with you" from. Is this just a mis-calculation/typo? At the flop he has 3BB's behind, I have 15. Either way, your point still stands.
He means the opponent has an effective stack of approx 7bb