Not bots

This is interesting. Some guy thinks he's found bots on Stars.

But there's a more interesting story here, I think. Check out the analysis pages of some of the players involved:
http://www.pokertableratings.com/stars-player-analysis/manyee/0.1-0.25-NL-9-Hold%27em
http://www.pokertableratings.com/stars-player-analysis/tanny100/0.1-0.25-NL-9-Hold%27em
http://www.pokertableratings.com/stars-player-analysis/wen_jun589/0.1-0.25-NL-9-Hold%27em

They are all megatight, all off the scale for passivity, and all take everything they play to showdown. These are not bots. They are Chinamen in a sweatroom with a list of hands. When they get one of the hands on their list, they call and then check/call them down. They don't need to know any poker. They just need to click buttons really really fast. They could play in shifts and their playing pattern wouldn't change. They'd certainly look like bots and they couldn't chat, because they likely don't speak a word of English.

They get paid buttons and the guy who's running the shop gets all the rakeback. They could conceivably be a group of friends, but the funding they'd need is beyond most Chinese.

Also, they're going to have to be banking on making Supernova and playing higher, because it's easy to see that they're losing money.

You suck

Livestrong44 [observer]: you suck
FR Vessant: yes
FR Vessant: I'm just a fish
Dealer: FR Vessant, it's your turn. You have 14 seconds to act
Livestrong44 [observer]: obviously
Dealer: Game #52457667285: FR Vessant wins pot (500)
FR Vessant: just mashing buttons more or less at random

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $200(BB) Poker Stars Game#52457647051

w00d45 ($3,850)
elvis41863 ($2,005)
el_anuncio ($1,681)
Il_Nistra ($2,624)
FR Vessant ($2,385)
Livestrong44 ($955)

w00d45 posts (SB) $100
elvis41863 posts (BB) $200

Dealt to FR Vessant 7d Qh
fold, fold,
FR Vessant raises to $450
Livestrong44 raises to $955 (AI)
fold, fold,
FR Vessant calls $505
FLOP ($2,210) Jc 8c 7h
TURN ($2,210) Jc 8c 7h Qd
RIVER ($2,210) Jc 8c 7h Qd Kh
FR Vessant shows 7d Qh
(Pre 31%, Flop 75.8%, Turn 90.9%)

Livestrong44 shows Ah Kd
(Pre 69%, Flop 24.2%, Turn 9.1%)

FR Vessant wins $2,210

Can't win them all

Here's my day in a nutshell. Fish is raising pretty much everything.

PokerStars Game #52092913379: Tournament #327617603, $10+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2010/11/03 15:02:14 AEST [2010/11/03 0:02:14 ET]
Table '327617603 1' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: PokeHer2308 (2204 in chips)
Seat 3: ligertrainer (5135 in chips)
Seat 6: TigerInn89 (3360 in chips)
Seat 7: FR Vessant (1983 in chips)
Seat 9: Handler666 (818 in chips)
FR Vessant: posts small blind 75
Handler666: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [Ks Qd]
PokeHer2308: raises 150 to 300
ligertrainer: folds
TigerInn89: folds
FR Vessant: raises 1683 to 1983 and is all-in
Handler666: folds
PokeHer2308: calls 1683
*** FLOP *** [Qs Kc 9s]
*** TURN *** [Qs Kc 9s] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [Qs Kc 9s 9h] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
FR Vessant: shows [Ks Qd] (two pair, Kings and Queens)
PokeHer2308: shows [Qc 9c] (a full house, Nines full of Queens)
PokeHer2308 collected 4116 from pot
FR Vessant finished the tournament in 5th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4116 | Rake 0
Board [Qs Kc 9s 9h Th]
Seat 2: PokeHer2308 showed [Qc 9c] and won (4116) with a full house, Nines full of Queens
Seat 3: ligertrainer folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: TigerInn89 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: FR Vessant (small blind) showed [Ks Qd] and lost with two pair, Kings and Queens
Seat 9: Handler666 (big blind) folded before Flop

Calling a threebet

So yesterday, I raise A7s from the button and the big blind shoves a decent stack. I snapcalled and beat his QJ. He berated me for some time afterwards, to my great amusement. Surely he was right though? Raisecalling A7s must be bad, right?

The thing is, a lot of regs think that they can get a wide raiser to fold most of their range by shoving over and they do it extremely wide themselves. I've seen all sorts: some do it with any two. So I had noted that this guy was a nit, and he had done the same move twice before. After the first time, I'm already thinking about calling the next.

These guys play fairly predictably. If they had a big hand, they'd threebet to something at least callable, so you shouldn't be crushed. They may have something like AT/A9s and that's bad for my hand, but very often I'm going to be facing something I'm ahead of. The added benefit is that I will play this guy a lot and stealing his blinds will be a lot easier. Disciplining regs into playing straightforwardly is particularly important in regular speeds, where there is a lot of blindstealing at middle blinds.

It's a different matter if he's in the small blind. That tends to make restealers more honest.

BvB spot

So in STTF, someone asks about a spot at t100. We are in the SB with 98s and stacks are quite deep. I think it's five- or sixhanded. Should we raise or limp and then stab? Villain is playing 29/20 and has folded his BB 80%.

In my view, this is a snapraise. Although fold to BB is an unreliable stat (players fold their BB to raises from earlier positions much more willingly than to SB raises -- you could use fold to SB steal but it takes a long time to converge and we play nitty enough not to have given him many opportunities), if it's high, or the player seems tight or skilled enough, we can make a judgement about a player's willingness to fold.

If we raise to 250, we are risking 200 to win 350. If villain folds 57% of the time, we make an instant profit, and can simply checkfold the flop and make chips. You'd want some overlay for ICM tax and some allowance for simply being wrong, so I tend to think if villain calls or raises tighter than 30%, I'll raise ATC in this spot. 30% is 55+,A2s+,K5s+,Q7s+,J8s+,T8s+,98s,A7o+,A5o,K9o+,Q9o+,J9o+,T9o, and this guy is not going to call that. You'd need to put in more pairs and aces, and lose a lot of the other shit. I think 22+,A2s+,K9s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,98s,A2o+,K9o+,QTo+,JTo is as wide as he will go (that's exactly 30% as it happens). So yeah, there's not too much margin for error. Make him as nitty as I am, say, and you have an easy raise with ATC. I certainly don't call many raises at t100 with JTo or K9o even if I think villain is wide. And he has no reason to think we're wide. We won't have played many hands at all by this stage.

One guy wanted to fold in this spot. That's horribly nitty and I certainly wouldn't. Okay, you might have your doubts about 93s, but 98s is a decent semibluffing hand.

If you limp and then stab for another 100 chips, you are putting in 150 to win 350, so you're laying a slightly more favourable bet. But you do have to let him have a shot at the flop first and he may well raise you off your limp with hands he would not have reraised a raise or even called one with. A 29/20 guy is likely to read a limp from a nit as a weak hand and pop you up with his KT/Q9s type hands.

Should you cbet when you miss? Say the flop is K73r. Well, I certainly bet that but you can check and fold and no real harm is done. If villain has called with 30% though, he doesn't have a great deal he can continue with. He is reraising a lot of the hands that have a piece preflop, and most of his range has missed that flop.

In this hand, we were considering what to do against a guy playing 29/20, where we might feel raising is risky. So yeah, maybe you want to make sure your hand has something so that you can make value on some flops when you are called. Against a looser guy, limpstabbing might be better. Against a tighter one, your cards don't matter so much and 98s even has the advantage over stronger hands that it is not dominated by much of his calling range, where, for example, QT can be.

Games are tighter now and players don't obligingly fold everything short of AA when we get to push/fold, particularly regs, who overgeneralise the need to call looser BvB and now will call much too wide when you're less than 10BB (not that those same regs have realised they also have to push a bit tighter). So we need to find good spots to pick up chips before push/fold and not to waste opportunities because we want to "preserve chips". You have to at least limp/stab in this spot.

On the redline

Most serious STT players obsess over their redline. This is a measure of how "lucky" they've been with allins. If you win an allin, you gain over your expectation; if you lose it, you lose what you expected. In case that's not clear, imagine you shove 63, and are called by KT. You now expect to win 33% of the time. If you do win, you won 66% more of the pot than you expected, and when you lose, you lose 33% more than you expected. The gap between what you expected and what you got is important to STT players, because they can tell themselves they were unlucky if expectation is a lot higher than results.

I will note straight away that for most typical nitty 2p2 types, particularly those who do not shove enough, expectation will very much be higher than results. That's partly because you so often get it in with the best hand, and obviously, when you lose in that case, what you lose is further below expectation than winning would be above. It's also, as I discuss below, perversely because you tend to do the opposite later in the game and get it in worse when the equity involved is higher.

But there are other components to luck. I was thinking about this the other day. I lost 9ish buyins and I had about the unluckiest day I could remember. But when I checked my expected results, I should have lost even more! I had actually run good in allin EV. How was that even possible?

Well, here are a few things that most players don't even think about.

Take that 63 hand. If you make KT fold, and you often do, you gain his equity in the hand for free. You don't consider yourself lucky, but think. If I had KK, shoved and he showed AA, I'm not going to be unlucky when he wins (he's a 4/1 favourite), but I sure am unlucky that he had the only hand ahead of me preflop! I don't have the maths to hand how often I can expect that, but it's not often. If it happens to more than a time or two in a set, you are running bad. But your allin EV doesn't consider that. The same goes for the times you threebet the LAGtard who is raising half his hands and this time he has a monster. He may have raised 20 times in a tournament, and the one time you went for it, he had you beat. He may well have not had a better hand every other time.

But I am focusing on how lucky you are to get away with shoves. HEM will credit you with a gain because you took the blinds and your equity increased, but it doesn't credit you for folding out better. But villain will often make a Sklansky mistake (should have called if he could see what you had).

We all know it's unlucky to shove AA, get called by JJ and then watch in horror when a J flops, or to get it in on the flop and watch JJ turn his miracle card. But when you raise AA, flop rags, get it in and are shown a set, you are not considered unlucky by HEM. Your expectation then is very low and you usually get nothing. But he flopped a set! 7/8 times that won't happen but this time it did. Effectively you were as unlucky as with the JJ hand where you got it in pre. But if he flops it for a raise, you weren't very unlucky at all according to your redline.

The same obviously goes for the times you raise AK, get called by A8, flop comes A83r and you get stacked. Again, you are not accounted unlucky preflop where you would be if you shoved.

Nor does it account for longer-term patterns that we would also consider "lucky". You're supposed to flop a set one in eight times, roughly. But you can call 20 raises with small pairs and hit nothing. Or you can hit your set and no one else has a piece, so you have had your "luck" in hitting, but you gain nothing from it. Of course, you can also hit and then get sucked out on. This should all even out in the long run, but the long run is not a day, a week or even a month. If I have a day where I play a hundred games and hit 30 sets in the early levels, getting paid off with every one, do I think I'm lucky? Well, it doesn't show in my redline, does it? (I don't know how often I get dealt pairs or hit flops, but that strikes me as hella lucky!)

Also, your redline is skewed by high-equity spots. If I shove the first hand of an 11 with JJ, and get called by AK and lose, I lose 5ish bucks; but if I shove that 63 on the bubble with 4K chips and get called by KT and lose, I lose more dollars (I'm not sure how many, but say I have $23 equity, I would lose 33% of that, which is about 7.50 or so). I am "unluckier" to get caught when shoving with a worse hand than I was to get caught with the better hand. Sure, I gain a ton when I win, but losing is worse than winning (you lose more equity when you lose than you win when you win because of the structure of STTs: note that I'm not saying that you lose more when you lose with 63 than you win! I am saying that the downside when you shove is always bigger than the upside unless you're heads up, so that proportionately winning twice when a 66% favourite does not make up for losing once). So we tend to lose out both ways! We get it in better when equity is low, and if we run bad, our losses take many similar spots to recoup; and we tend to have the worst hand at high equity, so we lose more in dollars even if we run as expected.

A concept in two parts

Here's a fairly typical hand in an 11/27 that illustrates a couple of concepts that you grasp with experience (or one concept with two parts, I guess).

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $30(BB) Poker Stars Game#46704987178

nETP_XPYMOB ($1,420)
Shpuon ($1,460)
glavgrin ($1,460)
wheel_me62 ($2,440)
ae0066 ($1,200)
FR Vessant ($1,610)
ZJ=myhomeboy ($1,460)
JKoenig99 ($1,025)
rickdahick ($1,425)

nETP_XPYMOB posts (SB) $15
Shpuon posts (BB) $30

Dealt to FR Vessant As Ks

I have AKs. A strong but not made hand.

fold,
wheel_me62 calls $30
ae0066 calls $30

Two fishes have limped and many players are tempted just to limp behind. The fish don't fold they say. Then you miss the flop and you've wasted your raise.

FR Vessant raises to $150
fold,
JKoenig99 calls $150
fold, fold, fold,
wheel_me62 calls $120
ae0066 calls $120

And yes, not only do the limpers call, but another fish does too.


FLOP ($645) 5d 7c 3c

And I whiff the flop and will check/fold.

wheel_me62 checks
ae0066 checks
FR Vessant checks
JKoenig99 bets $330

This bet will very likely take it down. It doesn't really matter what bettor has although he can actually have a pretty wide range.

wheel_me62 folds
ae0066 folds
FR Vessant folds
JKoenig99 wins $645

So that sucked, right?

Well, here's the thing. Look at the pot size on the flop. It's pretty decent and that means that the times I hit, I'm going to find it very easy to get it in. Had I limped, the pot would have been much smaller and I'd possibly need all three streets, giving villain three opportunities to decide his shitty hand was not worth pursuing. Now I can commit villains on the flop and get them in on the turn, and often all the money will just go in on the flop.

And here's the second concept. Often the money will go in whether I hit or not. The other guys will now often be inclined to stack off, where if it had been a limped pot, they could keep it smaller. This is probably more of a benefit in 9mans but it's still useful.

Tilting again

Luck takes many forms in poker. A lot of people focus on allin EV and think they are unlucky if they run behind par in that, and they are somewhat, but you can be unlucky in lots of other ways. Here's a hand where I got my money in really bad, but I can count myself very very unlucky imo.

I hadn't been at this particular table long, maybe 20 hands.

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $1,000(BB) Full Tilt Game#18921016590

Tally Hooo ($55,426)
Albert Chuns ($63,214)
Dingle Tard ($43,760)
JMAVIS25 ($28,606)
mdfgreat1 ($10,027)
capro22 ($48,277)
basatagirl ($46,448)
pouppyshark ($36,077)

Tally Hooo posts (SB) $500
Albert Chuns posts (BB) $1,000
basatagirl antes $125
pouppyshark antes $125
Tally Hooo antes $125
Albert Chuns antes $125
Dingle Tard antes $125
JMAVIS25 antes $125
mdfgreat1 antes $125
capro22 antes $125

Dealt to basatagirl Qc Qs
fold,
JMAVIS25 calls $1,000
fold,
capro22 calls $1,000
basatagirl raises to $6,500

So I raise two limpers pot. I'm happy to play a big pot with this hand, obv.

pouppyshark calls $6,500

He's newly come to the table, so I haven't seen a single hand from him, but obv. I'm not happy to be called by a player with position.

Tally Hooo raises to $55,301 (AI)

This guy has 3bet on two of the four opportunities he has had, has raised several times and in chat, half the table is calling him a donkey. So I figure he is very often going for the squeeze here and it's impossible for me to lay down queens.

Except that they are queens, so obviously I am not going to win the hand. I don't know why I don't just fold them preflop. I've lost seven of the past 10 times when I've got them all in preflop, 13 of the past 20.

Still, this guy is a LAG, so he'll have all sorts in his range. This time, surely, we've run into JJ and we make it huge, right?

fold, fold, fold,
basatagirl calls $39,823 (AI)

Tally Hooo shows Ac As

Wrong.

Sighing all the way to the river

This is why I gave up playing on Tilt. I mean, wtf. The hand before, I raised QQ pot and flopped an A. Obviously villain's play is awful but as usual, he hits his hand. This happens to me routinely on Tilt. It really doesn't matter what cards I have or what cards they have. When the money goes in, I lose, simple as that.

I don't believe in doomswitches, and when you play low volume, losses feel a lot worse than if you play a lot, but I run so much worse on Tilt than I ever have on Stars. I'm at least 30BI below EV. And yes, I know I wasn't miles ahead on the flop. It's just the overall sickness. This is a deep tourney, 5K stacks, 12-minute blinds. You should play it fairly conservatively because you get plenty of spots to win chips. I have only 4K, so the implied odds aren't there for A9s -- if they ever are! I clearly have a very strong hand, so he has to get lucky. I know, you want the fish to call your raises when you're strong. I do. But I don't want the cunts to beat me every fucking time.

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $100(BB) Full Tilt Game#18888465027

LON64 ($8,861)
lurker31 ($6,110)
grumbles323 ($3,657)
1980pablo ($10,335)
alex0985 ($11,192)
Thunderstruck_5 ($19,490)
marrora ($13,195)
xander77 ($8,125)
basatagirl ($3,915)

LON64 posts (SB) $50
lurker31 posts (BB) $100

Dealt to basatagirl Kd Kh
grumbles323 calls $100
1980pablo calls $100
fold,
Thunderstruck_5 calls $100
fold, fold,
basatagirl raises to $650
fold, fold, fold, fold,
Thunderstruck_5 calls $550
FLOP ($1,650) Ts Tc 7s
Thunderstruck_5 checks
basatagirl bets $1,000
Thunderstruck_5 raises to $4,650
basatagirl calls $2,265 (AI)
TURN ($8,180) Ts Tc 7s Js
RIVER ($8,180) Ts Tc 7s Js Ad
Thunderstruck_5 shows As 9s
(Pre 33%, Flop 41.7%, Turn 90.9%)

basatagirl shows Kd Kh
(Pre 67%, Flop 58.3%, Turn 9.1%)

Thunderstruck_5 wins $8,180

Fuck Tilt

No really. Fuck Full Tilt. I quit playing there because I ran 40BI below EV in about 200 tourneys and it was getting ridiculous. I'd shove AA, get called by 54s and routinely they'd flop the straight.

So tonight I put some money on Tilt and nine times got 10BB+ in. Six times I was ahead, three behind. Of the six, three 70/30s and three 60/40s, of the three behind, two 60/40s and a coinflip I had the worst of. I didn't win a single one.

Now I know you can lose nine allins straight. And I'm not at all superstitious. But wtf. It's 3/10,000 that I should have that run. I doubled twice in ordinary play, so I did get in more than 10BB and win, but we're talking just preflop shoves.

I don't play high stakes, so this is only like 130 bucks or whatever. But it does feel like I just can't win on Tilt. The play is lol bad, so it's not that I'm not good enough. I mean, if people limpcall with QJ for their 10BB stack, you're not out of your depth. But if they hit the J vs your AQ every time, it doesn't really matter how good you are. SNGs are all about push/fold, and so ultimately are MTTs. You run super card dead for 30-40 hands, then shove when you get something decent, and if you never win one, you go busto.

You called with what?

This pretty much says it all. This is a 40-man $11 game.

http://www.holdemmanager.net
NL Holdem $300(BB) Poker Stars Game#39767157607

Funkytus ($6,178)
FR Vessant ($2,555)
RoLLeR7788 ($3,287)
dhdn1980 ($5,665)
neil_rick ($8,525)
llenti13 ($10,270)
WM80 ($9,043)
canaans ($4,040)
Anarchy-X ($10,437)

neil_rick antes $25
llenti13 antes $25
WM80 antes $25
canaans antes $25
Anarchy-X antes $25
Funkytus antes $25
FR Vessant antes $25
RoLLeR7788 antes $25
dhdn1980 antes $25
Funkytus posts (SB) $150
FR Vessant posts (BB) $300

Dealt to FR Vessant 5s 6h
fold, fold, fold, fold, fold,
fold, fold,
Funkytus raises to $600

Has openraised every time the opportunity has presented. He clearly doesn't have a good hand because his raise sizes have mostly matched his hand strength. I can't shove though because I saw him call off 5K of a 7K stack with J9o when someone openshoved at t200.

FR Vessant calls $300
FLOP ($1,425) 3c Td Tc
Funkytus bets $300

Has nothing, obv.

FR Vessant raises to $1,930 (AI)

Good spot for it.

Funkytus calls $1,630

Check his hand.

TURN ($5,285) 3c Td Tc 5c
RIVER ($5,285) 3c Td Tc 5c 9d
Funkytus shows Qh 5h

What. The. Fuck. Not only does this complete fucking clown call off the rest of my stack with Q5s, no pair, no draw, he has me fucking dominated. I was running well earlier this month, but the last week has been a bloodbath for my bankroll. Sigh.

Fishfood

This was a bit frustrating.


PokerStars Game #38087149596: Tournament #262010133, $30+$3 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2010/01/13 3:51:26 ET
Table '262010133 10' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: 555DAN (6135 in chips)
Seat 2: FR Vessant (3485 in chips)
Seat 3: unclepaullly (4922 in chips)
Seat 4: cobratatus4 (4195 in chips)
Seat 5: NjLiOnS (17988 in chips)
Seat 6: pAtcAsh83 (2890 in chips)
Seat 7: rsend73 (6475 in chips)
Seat 8: 23121969 (9005 in chips)
Seat 9: kouvidg (7302 in chips)
rsend73: posts small blind 50
23121969: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FR Vessant [8d 8c]
kouvidg: calls 100
555DAN: folds
FR Vessant: calls 100

This is a loose limp, but the table has been very passive and I figure often to see a flop for free. I consider raising the limper to try to get heads up, but I'm liable to get called in more than one spot.

unclepaullly: folds
cobratatus4: raises 350 to 450

That's annoying.

NjLiOnS: folds
pAtcAsh83: folds
rsend73: folds
23121969: calls 350

This guy's a terrible fish. He is playing 69/8 and I've seen him call a raise with K5s. I played one hand against him. I had AK and raised his limp. He called. The flop was 987r, he checked, i checked behind. Turn was a K, I bet and he called. River a T, he bet and I paid off the gutshot that he had hit. My call is a bit marginal because he probably does have at least two pair too often, but whatever.

kouvidg: calls 350
FR Vessant: calls 350

I call with the two fish in because if I flop the set I should have a decent chance to make some chips.

*** FLOP *** [4h Ts Ks]

That's a terrible flop obviously.

23121969: checks
kouvidg: checks
FR Vessant: checks
cobratatus4: checks

So raiser most likely has AQ, possibly a middle pair. The other two can have wide ranges, but you'd expect them to donk Kx.

*** TURN *** [4h Ts Ks] [Kd]
23121969: checks
kouvidg: bets 300

This is a very weak bet for a king and the board has enough draws that he is probably just taking a cheap shot.

FR Vessant: raises 2735 to 3035 and is all-in

So I shove what I expect to be best hand often, with plenty of fold equity if villain happens to have Tx.

cobratatus4: folds
23121969: calls 3035

Unfuckingbelievably, this guy actually had a K. You wouldn't credit it. This is a guy who has bet everything he's hit hard and got paid. This one time he decides to slowplay. Of course it's contrary. This is an awful board to slowplay on, so ofc the fish chooses to do it.

kouvidg: folds
*** RIVER *** [4h Ts Ks Kd] [Td]
FR Vessant said, "ugh"
*** SHOW DOWN ***
23121969: shows [Kh Qs] (a full house, Kings full of Tens)
FR Vessant: shows [8d 8c] (two pair, Kings and Tens)

Oh well. No regrets. My MTT record is very poor, but I do think I play okay. Usually, the fish has 77 in this spot and rivers another 7. It makes a pleasant change actually to be behind! Pity I didn't bink the 8 to punish him.

LOL donkaments

I have registered to play in the WBCOOP PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! You too can Play Poker Online at PokerStars.com and take part in the WBCOOP which is open to all Bloggers by registering on WBCOOP to play.

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AKs on a wettish board

Here's my bustout hand from the 33 deepstack I played the other night. I played pretty well in this tourney, and notably only had one bit of luck (got it in with AA vs a set of jacks and rivered another ace!).

Villain in this hand had been at my table earlier, and was playing a sort of semitag game. He seemed to have a clue.

So that I can discuss his play as well as mine, I'll tell you straight up that he has 65s.

Poker Stars $30+$3 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t500/t1000 Blinds + t100 - 7 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/464293
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG+1): t30171 M = 13.71
MP: t8713 M = 3.96
CO: t108150 M = 49.16
BTN: t105323 M = 47.87
SB: t159768 M = 72.62
BB: t115550 M = 52.52
UTG: t127325 M = 57.88

Pre Flop: (t2200) Hero is UTG+1 with As Ks
1 fold, Hero raises to t3000, 3 folds, SB calls t2500, 1 fold


Not sure why I raised 3x because 2.5x is standard, but it could just have been laziness/tiredness.

When he calls, what do I think he has? I guess I'm putting him on broadways and pairs. I didn't know he was bad enough to call with SCs.

Why is that bad imo? I only have 27BB behind, so the implied odds aren't there. If you do flop a huge hand and stack me, you are only getting 12/1, and you won't do that very often. Playing draws OOP is difficult. We're a bit deep to CR allin, so if he hits a decent draw, he's going to often be flatting the flop and then hoping I have missed so he gets odds to draw. When I haven't missed or I barrel, he's usually taking two bad bets to try to hit it.

I suppose that if he hits a pair he can checkcall and then if I check my whiffed hands behind on the turn, he can hope for a cheap showdown. But if a high card comes on the river, at least on dry boards he's going to be unsure if I bet whether he is just valuetowning himself if he calls.

Say you have an 863r flop, he checks, you bet, he calls. His hand is pretty face up. He has to have a pair, probably lower than 88. The turn is, say, a J or a 2, he checks I check behind. Now the river is a Q. He checks again. If I bet here, can he call with his pair of 6s? I mean, people do, but you have to put your opponent on AK/AT/A9/KT if you do. Do I bluff with them more often than I actually have AQ/KQ, a cute QJ/JT/Q9s? Most people do not, in my experience, bluff here, so no, I think you have to fold your 65s.

Also, on flops that really aren't good for me, I can check behind and see a free turn. So he also doesn't necessarily get value for his pair on a lot of flops.

Flop: (t7700) Kd Tc 6d (2 players)

So I hit the flop. This is a terrible flop for handreading, but obv. a good one for a shorty who wants to make value from his AKs.

SB checks, Hero bets t4000, SB calls t4000

I bet fairly small in the hope of inducing action from Kx and to keep the draws in so I can bet again on the turn. I actually bet far too small and should have made it more like 6000 so that I'm not overbetting the turn so much.

On safe turns, I am always going to be shoving. His range for calling the flop is imo weak Kx/Tx/maybe 6x/flush draws/any broadways. He's not going to fold AQ/AJ/QJ for instance. Probably won't fold Q9/J9 even. And he may well call with any pairs that he had preflop.

So basically he is going to be calling with pretty much his entire preflop range. I didn't expect hands as weak as 65s to be in there, so I wouldn't expect to see 87s either. 98s is barely possible, T9s obviously is Tx and will mostly call.

So my bet is a mistake. Given that he's not folding anything, I should bet more! I want to get value from my hand. Yes, I can already be beat some of the time. If he has 66/TT/KT or the unlikely KK, I'm fucked. But he has a vast range of hands I crush. This guy was fairly aggro so I was sort of hoping that he might give more action with KQ/KJ and even other broadway draws. QJ has 14 outs against AT/99 for instance, and he can have combo draws that I'm ahead of but not a ton, so he might raise that and only really be badly behind the top of my range. Still, betting so small was a mistake.

Not because I would have folded out 6x. If he's calling 4K with it, he'll call 6K with it. He has to think I whiffed the flop or not be thinking at all. I think his call is bad because this is as bad a flop to hit a pair on as you could wish for. On many turns, I am likely to shove AQ/AJ/QJs when checked to. I have a lot of outs against Tx and worse and can hope to fold out a lot of hands that beat me, including 65s! If I check behind on the turn, you still face a lot of bad cards on the river and cannot really call another bet.

Turn: (t15700) 6h (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t23071 all in, SB calls t23071

Why shove the turn? Didn't I just say that I would shove AQ? Well, on many turns I probably would, but not so much on this one. The paired board just makes it more likely for Tx/99-88 to call.

The reason I shove is pretty simple. Say he has QJo. If I bet 9K here and he calls, the pot is 33K and I have 14K behind. The river comes Ac. He puts me in. Can I fold? Getting better than 3/1 with 14BB I don't think so. Make it a 9 and it's even harder. Can I fold when a diamond comes? Very tough because it's such an obvious card to bluff on. I'm not likely to have a diamond draw after all. So I think I get stacked when his draws come in.

Whenever you are guaranteed to get stacked on the downside, you might as well ensure you get doubled on the upside. So I shove to force draws to double me when they miss. If they fold, I'm cool with that. I take down a nice pot and on that board, tbh, there aren't a ton of hands you're getting three streets with with TPTK.

The thing is, he had a superwide range on the flop and the 6 doesn't change much for most of it. He has a big stack and here I'm overbetting the pot, which doesn't look like it wants a call. He's not ever folding a K. Now, he probably doesn't have KQ/KJ but he can have K9, maybe a suited K8. He may call with some Tx. If they're not calling here, it's hard to imagine they will give me value on most rivers. But the key for me is to make draws pay me when they miss. I surrender the value from hands that might call a bet here but won't call a shove, but in this spot, I am more concerned about getting fully compensated for the times I'm stacked than I am about making a bit of value. I'm short and I won't be any closer to winning for being 9K better off the times he misses.

I don't know that I'm necessarily right but that's how I felt about it. If I was a little bit deeper, I think I would have simply checked the turn behind and called bets in a smaller pot on most rivers. I don't like doing that because this is a super bad board to give a free card on but it does prevent me getting stacked against 6x, which would be more of a concern if I was deeper. If I was deeper still, I'd be making a bet to give draws bad odds because I can then get away from checkshoves. When shorter, I can't, because most $33 villains with KQ/KJ and even JJ are dumb enough to think oooh, I has two pair, shove it over, not realising that I am just never calling with anything they actually beat, and I will have to call off my stack to punish them.

I'm not sure my analysis was all that good, but that's how I'm thinking about it. I was tired and stoned when I played the hand, but I felt like I was playing well. The flop bet is definitely too small, and my thinking was the wrong way round there, but I like the turn shove. I'd have liked it a lot more if he'd had K9!