There's loads I could write about, but the theme of the session and the most thought provoking thing going forward which will no doubt crop up over and over again is 'getting 100xbb in pre flop readless'. I did it 3 times last night, and 3 times they had 2 aces. Firstly with AK, and then with QQ, and then after a Pep talk with myself I strengthened up the range and got KK in. It may be a sign of how much the games have changed since I used to play cash reguarly a few years ago that I'm even doubting these plays. Back in't day I could give random opponents like TT+ AK/AQ and some random sh!te like T7o when they put 100 blinds in pre. But if that's the way it is now, then it is what it is! Maybe it isn't. I've been told by friends it's more of a post flop game nowardays and under-representing your hand pre flop to blast off alot post is a more valid strategy when people are playing tighter before the cards come in the middle. Also helps with Gary Ballance I guess when playing draws and stuff aggressively, but all this is new to me and an example of why I'm way behind the times at the moment.
This is why I was a bit surprised when there were questions of 'Devonism' when you posted the AKo fold the other day... didn't seem that tight a fold unless you have info on the oppo when they come in with such a chunky 3b vs an UTG open.
Until you start to fill in the reads there are just so many people with such tiny 3b % and even smaller GII pre % that even KK can feel like a fold sometimes (although only done that once, normally gift my 100b stack and just swear lots when I'm inevitably shown aces).
I don't know if that dynamic changes more as you get up to higher limits. Although in my (very) brief foray into NL50 late last year I got it in with KK 3 times and 3 times saw AA. Maybe there isn't that much difference vs NL10 after all
Wasn't a follower of the old diary, but good stuff on the recent posts. Enjoyable read during lunch break.
In Response to Re: : This was a weird spot I never actually believed you would be screwing me over or anything, but when a TAG regular 4b/CALLED a shove 100xbb effective with Jack high it scrambled my brain. I felt abit of a n0b after, suggesting anything weird was going on but it was just such a bizarre hand, it would've tested anyones faith! For anyone curious about the hand, it was 30nl. Villain open 3x, I 3bet someting like T7o, villain 4bet, I shove 100xbb effective, he snap calls me with someting like J8o. It was an excellent bluff by me, my timing, bet sizing, and game flow read must've been spot on if I couldn't get him to fold Jack Eight. It's alright though we won In Response to Re: "Sit & DOHHHHHHH Diary" : Thanks for the kind words Tom. I've been using these little mottos and quotes to motivate myself quite abit recently. Some are very cringeworthy but others are quite good. This is my desktop picture(S !!! atm. ------ Well yesterday I listened to the designer of the nike poster above, and just did it. Or attempted to. 4/5 hours volume and it was all at 10nl for the first time. We lost. But, it wasn't too bad. There's loads I could write about, but the theme of the session and the most thought provoking thing going forward which will no doubt crop up over and over again is 'getting 100xbb in pre flop readless'. I did it 3 times last night, and 3 times they had 2 aces. Firstly with AK, and then with QQ, and then after a Pep talk with myself I strengthened up the range and got KK in. It may be a sign of how much the games have changed since I used to play cash reguarly a few years ago that I'm even doubting these plays. Back in't day I could give random opponents like TT+ AK/AQ and some random sh!te like T7o when they put 100 blinds in pre. But if that's the way it is now, then it is what it is! Maybe it isn't. I've been told by friends it's more of a post flop game nowardays and under-representing your hand pre flop to blast off alot post is a more valid strategy when people are playing tighter before the cards come in the middle. Also helps with Gary Ballance I guess when playing draws and stuff aggressively, but all this is new to me and an example of why I'm way behind the times at the moment. Results - £23.50 on Skypoker.com + €26 on U and I bet + $0 on 888 = - £5.50 Roll down to £774. ----- Lots of words again, so picture incoming. First time playing against this player. The 1 thing of note so far was when he raised 3xbb with AA. A random, 80xbb stack re-raised to 6xbb and this player shoved all in for 100xbb. Player Action Cards Amount Pot Balance Dumbmo Small blind £0.05 £0.05 £12.56 noah10 Big blind £0.10 £0.15 £12.10 Your hole cards A K LJHAlmight Fold xxx Call £0.10 £0.25 £11.71 johnlee29 Call £0.10 £0.35 £5.01 DOHHHHHHH Raise £0.55 £0.90 £9.45 Dumbmo Fold noah10 Fold xxx Call £0.45 £1.35 £11.26 johnlee29 Fold Flop 3 8 6 xxx Check DOHHHHHHH Bet £0.60 £1.95 £8.85 xxx Call £0.60 £2.55 £10.66 Turn A xxx Check DOHHHHHHH Bet £1.10 £3.65 £7.75 xxx Call £1.10 £4.75 £9.56 River A xxx Bet £4.75 £9.50 £4.81 DOHHHHHHH Call £4.75 £14.25 £3.00 £ Are all 3 options open to us here? If so, which one would you chose? We have 3 aces King kicker, but relative to the hands he plays like this is it any good? ----- Going through with the trip to the coast today, I feel the guys are sufficiently in control of the test match to allow me to leave the TV rail for a few hours. Just. In before a Johnson wonder-spell and 150 opening partnership between Rodgers and Warner and I regret it ----- Lots more hands to be played over the weekend, and despite the small loss yesterday I'm feeling more positive about poker. Best of luck to all playing cards, and to St Mirren in the football tonight. Posted by DOHHHHHHH
flop AK can either be a bet or a check, both are fine and should probably be mixed (I think the ev of both options are similar, if not the same)
turn we should bet bigger setting up stacks etc, and also it's just a great card for our range and one we can start "applying more pressure" on villains range since we have so many AK combos, and a few AA combos, and he doesn't. The sizing you used is ok if you plan on continuing to valuebet QQ-KK, which is also a fine strategic option. However, AK itself prefers a larger sizing since it's so far ahead of villains range, so on the more exploitative side I would go bigger with AK, close to pot, pot is also fine.
Not snap jamming and not even snap calling. I don't see any of his bluff range being confident enough to fire a pot sized bet. A snap jam seems to suggest we think his value hands that have reached the river are worse than AK on this board, and I just can't see it. A8s, A6s, A3s maybe A3o will have made it. 88 66 33 are absolutely loving it because there are so many Ax hands you have you're calling with that haven't filled up. Maybe I'm wrong, but having seen the way most people on here play 10NL there is much more of a case for all of those house hands to have limp called and been played this way. I just can't give credit here for floating this flop OOP with a worse Ace that hasn't already hit the board.
He can of course show up with 99-JJ or something, but that's a bit of a weird river bet for a hand like that.
Have always read when you've posted (skip over most of the non-Ashes cricket stuff, but you can't please everyone), so glad you're back up - as Jac said, lightens the boards.
firstly, he probably raises some sets otf, so let's discount some of those from his range. If he calls some, then he probably raises them some % ott when the flush draw comes in, so let's discount some more. It's also important to note that he probably raises a decent % of his 2 pair combos ott (some A8, some A6 maybe), so let's discount some of those. Even if he's not raising those 2 pair combos ott, he probably only has a few of the suited aces pre, so perhaps A3s, A6s, A8s with some frequency, so since there are only 4 combos of each of these, and there's already the Ad on the board, and hero holds the As, it means villain can only have A8hh, A8cc, A6cc, and he can't have any A3s combos. So that's 3 combos of suited Ax that beat us, and like I said earlier, he probably raises a certain % of those ott.
Now, if he's calling as wide preflop as A3s, A6s, and A8s, then he almost certainly has other Ax suited hands too. Vs a 1/2 pot cbet he is undoubtedly calling a lot of these suited Ax hands that have backdoor flush draws, making his range much wider than you suggest.
In addition to everything I've written above, this player is most likely a "fun player" given preflop action, making it even more likely that he'll call our shove lighter than he should.
If you don't jam this hand for what would be less than a minraise, then you are making a huge mistake.
Deffo calling, but also expect villain to rock up with a FH a reasonable %age of the time.
In my experience, people tend to pot bomb the river with either the goods or total airballs, so I think he can also show up with some random missed hand like 57, 59, 45 etc, and also with worse aces. You'd think they shouldn't, but some players will have an A here, and thus treat their trips like the goods come the river.
Probably estimate 1/3 of the time we are beat, 1/3 of the time they have nothing and 1/3 of the time they have a worse Ace leads me to calling over raising/folding (lol, like I'd fold).
Such a facepalm when they roll over AQ, yet the times you set them in for their sack they seem to have the FH!
If there are players at 10NL limp calling suited A9-AQ then floating OOP with a back door flush draw and a couple of overcards, I haven't seen them. But then I don't play cash here often, so I'm unlikely to have seen them anyway. It is a min-raise, but it's still 50bb.
to suggest villain has an equal amount of full houses as he does Ax is ludicrous. blockers and the fact he certainly raises % of sets/2pairs on earlier streets suggests he has significantly more Ax.
You clearly don't play much poker at all, never mind just on sky, if you haven't seen people limp/call preflop with pretty much anything and then call flop with overcards +fd.
whether it's 12bb, 50bb, 124.3bb or 600bb, a min raise is a min raise. it gives villain the same odds and it means the same thing.
If there are players at 10NL limp calling suited A9-AQ then floating OOP with a back door flush draw and a couple of overcards, I haven't seen them. But then I don't play cash here often, so I'm unlikely to have seen them anyway. It is a min-raise, but it's still 50bb. Posted by bbMike
And I realise that that is probably a tournament player's view too so I'm probably going to slink away from this discussion quietly if you'll let me....!
But yeah, I just think nutty hands > bluffs > worse value, so it's a call in my (blurry) eyes.
to suggest villain has an equal amount of full houses as he does Ax is a ludicrous statement. blockers and the fact he certainly raises % of sets/2pairs on earlier streets suggests he has significantly more Ax. You clearly don't play much poker at all, never mind just on sky, if you haven't seen people limp/call preflop with pretty much anything and then call flop with overcards +fd. whether it's 12bb, 50bb, 124.3bb or 600bb, a min raise is a min raise. it gives villain the same odds and it means the same thing. Posted by percival09
To have someone so knowledgeable back posting on the forum is a great thing. You should post more. Just maybe in a slightly different tone.
I thank you for your kind words. Please don't take everything I say to heart, I was merely critically analysing the logical fallicies in the above posts
Never folding and given what you have behind I guess I'd shove.
But you've made it harder on yourself with the smallish turn bet.
This could easily inspire a river bluff from the villain.
If you'd bet nearer 2/3rd pot then you reduce the chance of a float/bluff IMHO. But then as played you increase the chances you're ahead so maybe not such a bad idea but only if you have no intention of folding to a river bet.
PS nice analysis percy but it comes across better if you don't refer to other's ideas as ludicrous. A"I beg to differ" is so much nicer.
ahhh awesome response to the AK hand, tyvm everyone who's posted their thoughts.
I'll have to put more hands up!
In game I didn't even really think tbh.
I did the passive fish thing of "oh wow 3 aces top kicker call"
Didn't consider a fold or a shove until after the hand had finished.
Probably a leak that.
It's something I've already noticed and will be correcting next session. On sky without a timebank 6 tables is too much for me atm (lol).
It's contributing alot to the bad play which damages confidence which effects volume bla bla. It's just not worth pushing the table count atm so I wont. 4 next time.
So i called.
He had A3.
It felt like he had something like that in game.
"lol gut feel show me the maths"
But still, it's really really f*in hard not to be results orientated in poker no matter how experienced I get in the game.
Yes I'm past the "I shouldn't have shoved with AA pre because he had 72 and it came 22222222" stage.
But when it feels like the guy has a FH here, and I call, and he does have a FH here, I still find it hard to accept it was the right thing to do and I should do the same next time.
It wasn't even the right thing to do, apparently I should've shoved! qjriofajerfjroejfor
Ofc I know before I made this call (and before I make every call) that he WILL HAVE THE FULL **** HOUSE HERE SOMETIMES ANYWAYYYY.
The alternative is to try and make miracle plays everytime and balls things up even more.
Ranges innit.
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'On the positives' as the Don would say, had a fun day out this aft, after abit of a scare, England took care of business in Nottingham, I've survived another Friday without a beer and I've just played an hour of unibet 4nl and won 5 euros.
If Yorkshire Tea did Fridays......
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I'm going to try and push myself on the tables this weekend.
I've done abit of off-table reading regarding the mental game fishyness.
Nothing is going to fix over night, but I'm encouraged by how I've approached the last couple of sessions and dealt with the ups and downs during them.
I don't think they (the mental game probz) are THAT bad. I know people with much worse mental games than me. But they're different, in that I'm way too conservative. When I lose I want to stop playing, or I want to play lower.
From what I can see the 'norm' is to want to keep playing (normally badly) and play higher.
I'd rather have it my way.
But then I'd rather not have it at all.
It'll just take time to get used to actually feeling the emotions that come within a poker session rather than they just being masked by copious amounts of strongbow.
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If tinypic wants to work, here's a fun HH I played the other day. (I am playing as MarsaillesFC)
I think jamming river might be OK but I hardly think it's a fist pump jam. Villain may have more combos of Ax then FH's but when villain pots river his FH combos go way up. Someone that plays this passively generally isn't potting river with all their worse Ax. They might do so with AQ but mostly their continuing to check.
I also think they can still actually have plenty more FH combos by the river than you think - plenty of players I see are afraid of raising or betting before the river with their strong hands (2 pairs and sets in this case) in case their opponent folds... and when it comes to the river they're suddenly like "well, I really don't want him to check behind so now is the time I'm going to donk lead and hope he calls"
If this was from an aggressive bad player then 100% I agree it's a fist pump jam - but that doesn't appear to be the case here.
I know "results orientated" lol but I think it sort of proves my point above. Pot bets from passive players are just so often the nuts. Often in these situations it's "if it's good enough to call, then we should probably shove" but I'm not always good enough to fold!!
This is a new player, never seen from hero before. The only information we had was that he limped behind on the flop, and called two streets and donk bet pot on the river. We can't make any assumptions other than he is most likely a fun player. To suggest when he donks pot on the river his "full house combos go way up" needs some serious backing up to get through - it's a claim that has absolutely nothing to back it up. If anything, it's a mental leak from you guys thinking villain has the nuts when the pot size is used. The truth is it's your selective memory only remembering times when you were beat, and you don't recall quite as accurately all of the time he has AT-AQ here.
Now, with the information we have seeing the result of the hand, we know he limped A3o. That also means he likely has A2-Qo or something, and if he's capable of limp/calling A3o then he's almost certainly capable of calling the flop 1/2 pot cbet with A high and 2 overs, with or without a bdfd.
When lacking in any reads we can use population reads to make a decision. Someone that limp/calls and then check/calls twice is often a passive player. And on sky my population read is lots of players are polarized with large bet sizing. I'm not sure why it is my statement that needs backing up and not yours? I can't remember the last time I saw a pot bet on the river from a fairly passive player that wasn't the nuts or bluff.
Going back to the information we have - yes, we know villain is capable of limp/calling weak hands but it doesn't prove that he's going to pot river with them. Mostly a passive player is betting somewhere between half and 3/4 pot when going for "thin" value. And that's when they decide to bet them. It's a spot that a lot of passive players would check again.
Solid weekend so far, the formalities were taken care of at Trent Bridge, Donny earnt what could be an invaluable point against Bury (sigh), and I've won a few buyins on the tables.
Want to post a couple of hands from unibet, but they seem to be anti - C&P. Going to have to type which auto cuts down the audience by 73% but hopefully i'll get 1 or 2 replies.
Both 10nl
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1)
Multi tabling (assuming) regular is the villain. It's hard to build up any reads or create dynamics with opponents from session to session because they allow you to change your alias whenever you like. Of course it makes sense for anyone half decent to do this frequently, so I'll have probably played this guy a fair bit but I don't know about it.
So I'm readless, aside from I'm playin 4 tables, he's on all 4, and he seems TAGGISH.
Table is playing 4 handed.
Villain 3x utg off 100xbb
Hero calls in the small blind w/ QdQs also 100xbb
2 ways to the flop....
9d7s 6h
Hero checks
Villain bet 52c into 0.65c
Hero calls.
Turn is the6d.
Hero checks.
Villain bets €1.30
Hero calls.
River is 6c (board now9d 7s 6h6d6c)
Villain bets €2.17 into a pot of around €4.20
Hero ?
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2)
UTG is the key player here.
Again no reads, he's only on 2 of my 4 tables and is playing under 100xbb.
1 hand with him so far, he defend bb v my btn open w/ A9, x/c TJx rainbow, and we checked down blank 2 ott and 9 otr.
He won.
UTG opens 3xbb playing €6.60ish
Hero calls utg+1 w/ 6h6d playing 100xbb
Big blind peels also 100xbb
8c Tc4h
BB checks.
UTG checks.
I check (?)
Turn - 5h
BB checks
UTG now bets €0.60 into a pot of €0.95
I call (?)
BB folds.
River = 2s.
UTG overbet shoves all in for €5.86 into a pot of around €2.10
1. call - he was utg opener and although you have under-repped your hand you haven't tested his strength either. stick to the lower variance lines while working on your mental game.
2. fold - could mean anything - again stay lower variance until you have more info on him
Posted a longish reply about 2 and forgot I hadn't logged in lol! In short, I fold cause we won't be getting exploited by folding in this spot.
Hand 1 is a shove IMO. 9x and TT/JJ aren't folding and he has more combos of these than the hands that beat us especially with his smaller sizing (you'd expect KK/AA to go bigger knowing that most people would find it hard in your shoes to fold 9x or TT-QQ)
Comments
Until you start to fill in the reads there are just so many people with such tiny 3b % and even smaller GII pre % that even KK can feel like a fold sometimes (although only done that once, normally gift my 100b stack and just swear lots when I'm inevitably shown aces).
I don't know if that dynamic changes more as you get up to higher limits. Although in my (very) brief foray into NL50 late last year I got it in with KK 3 times and 3 times saw AA. Maybe there isn't that much difference vs NL10 after all
Wasn't a follower of the old diary, but good stuff on the recent posts. Enjoyable read during lunch break.
turn we should bet bigger setting up stacks etc, and also it's just a great card for our range and one we can start "applying more pressure" on villains range since we have so many AK combos, and a few AA combos, and he doesn't. The sizing you used is ok if you plan on continuing to valuebet QQ-KK, which is also a fine strategic option. However, AK itself prefers a larger sizing since it's so far ahead of villains range, so on the more exploitative side I would go bigger with AK, close to pot, pot is also fine.
river is such a snap fistpump jam
In my experience, people tend to pot bomb the river with either the goods or total airballs, so I think he can also show up with some random missed hand like 57, 59, 45 etc, and also with worse aces. You'd think they shouldn't, but some players will have an A here, and thus treat their trips like the goods come the river.
Probably estimate 1/3 of the time we are beat, 1/3 of the time they have nothing and 1/3 of the time they have a worse Ace leads me to calling over raising/folding (lol, like I'd fold).
Such a facepalm when they roll over AQ, yet the times you set them in for their sack they seem to have the FH!
We also calling river with KK/QQ?
You clearly don't play much poker at all, never mind just on sky, if you haven't seen people limp/call preflop with pretty much anything and then call flop with overcards +fd.
whether it's 12bb, 50bb, 124.3bb or 600bb, a min raise is a min raise. it gives villain the same odds and it means the same thing.
But when it feels like the guy has a FH here, and I call, and he does have a FH here, I still find it hard to accept it was the right thing to do and I should do the same next time.
Now, with the information we have seeing the result of the hand, we know he limped A3o. That also means he likely has A2-Qo or something, and if he's capable of limp/calling A3o then he's almost certainly capable of calling the flop 1/2 pot cbet with A high and 2 overs, with or without a bdfd.
Hero checks.