(almost) Every Hand Revealed

[paxmaniac]

I played the $50k guarantee ($75 buyin) on Pacific this morning (3:30am), courtesy of a free ticket. I managed a pretty deep run, and was actually chipleader at a few points. Sadly I made a few bad errors and had a difficult run towards the end, and ended up with a min cash of $140. This was sadly a long way short of the $12.5k 1st prize that I was aiming for.

I suspect my lack of NL tournament experience showed at times, and in general I did run good in the early to middle stages. I'd be interested in some expert comments if anyone has time to go through the hands.

Here is pretty much the whole tournament laid bare. These are the key pots (all pots where I won or lost 10 or more big blinds). Starting stack was 5000, 10/20 blinds, 20 minute levels.

See the hands in replayer format here:
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/multihands.php/id/7885

Individual hand comments:

35: This was the first hand of the tournament. Gotta love flopping two pair and turning a boat. The river bet was an attempt to look bluffy by overbetting the pot. It's tough to get good value so early.
JTdd: Getting busy in late position here. As you can see, the play was pretty ******ed for a $75 tournament. Incredible that he can go bust with a single pair here.
54o: Another two pair. This time I am probably giving the flush draw too good a price, but I wanted to keep the pot under control with such a vulnerable hand. The donk bet on the river was a dead giveaway - I probably would have value bet significantly more if he checked to me.
TT: This is probably my limit play getting the better of me. When an overcard flops my pair, I like to raise the flop and see a cheap showdown. I think this early I should probably give the flop donk bet respect, as the players are generally pretty obvious. Dropping so much on the hand was pretty poor, but I was suspiscious of the small bets.
QTo: Getting busy on the button again, and again it works out well. I probably could have got better value out here. Turn check was an attempt to get him to lead the river, but maybe I just need to play straightforwardly and extract maximum value from his K or A.
35hh: Middle pair on the flop, plus a gutshot on the turn. I thought the combination of the turned ace and the rivered pair and flush made it a good spot to bluff, but it didn't come off. I think he folds without an ace.
J9cc: Pretty straightforward. Is there any point in value betting this river? I suspect not.
QQ: Another nice hand. Should I bet the turn? I figured the pot was big enough to get a decent value bet in on the river anyway.
TT: A monster hand, which basically set up my run. It's a cooler for AA, but A2dd got what he deserved.
KQdd: A bit cheeky to fire the second barrel here, but it worked out ok. I shutdown if he calls, obviously.
JJ: Always getting it in versus the shortstack here, and run good enough to river my two outer.
J6dd: Just got drawn into this hand, and hit the wrong outs on the river. I don't really think I could have played it differently.
A8o: Weird hand. Scary board, but the minbets on flop and turn made it pretty clear that he had nothing. I might have folded a bigger river bet, gutshot being the only real possibility for a good hand.
TT: A lot of limping on this table. I liked to punish this tendency from late position. Villain was short, so race was inevitable.
JQss: I should explain that asbo was the megafish on this table. He open limped any two cards, and liked to donk any flop and often followed up on the turn and/or river. But he often folded when put under pressure. After the turn raise, I have to credit him for a hand, and just call for my double belly outs.
AJcc: Overcards plus flushdraw I figure good enough for this allin checkraise. My equity was certainly enough unless he has a set or big pair. I saw a lot of light calls during this tournament.
KQo: Did I mention that asbo was ******ed? He claimed this was a bluff gone wrong, but that does not explain his final call on the river. He copped a lot of shit from the table after this.
AQdd: Huge, huge hand. Flop and turn were obviously semibluffs. The river 2.5x pot bluff was just completely inexplicable. I just couldn't put him on the backdoor flush, and surely sets would have done something smaller sooner? Whatever, it was a big call and put me into the tournament chiplead. The guy gave me shit about it for ages, basically calling me a fish for calling his ******ed bluff, but whatever.
AQo: Did I mention that asbo was ******ed? Yeah, I guess I did. I'll isoraise him all day, and float his inevitable donk bets liberally. Amazingly, he was still building a big stack by pushing the rest of the table around with these obvious and repeated bluffs.
A7o: Isoraising the fish again (the rest of the table were pretty weak, notably the BB here). My top pair is good 90% of the time here. Turn raise, because my kicker problem went away. Unfortunately it came back on the river. Cest la vie.
AQcc: Muppet from previous hand. Shortstack shove is quite likely to be air, but if not my pair outs ought to be good.
JQo: Detecting a pattern here? I like this button raise, especially when it folds out the other limper and leaves me with asbo once again. I had seen this river bluff so often, this was an instacall. After this hand, I hit my peak of 80k in chips which put me comfortably chipleader, with maybe 150 players left.
88: To be honest, I should find a fold here after the limp-reraise from the very tight player. But I figured he might have AK often enough that it was worth calling the short shove.
AJcc: Should probably fold the flop checkraise here. This guy hadn't got too out of line. Turn bet was obviously too big to go fishing for a flush. But part of me still thought that he had air and was just making a play against my presumed blind steal.

After that hand, there was a hell of a long time where I picked up nothing. Very little preflop, and nothing at all to play beyond the flop. Few opportunities to steal (or none). Worse however, I was moved tables leaving my megafish and assorted weak tighties behind.

KQdd: Preflop is fine. On the flop I just need to fold with the guy behind me. Raising was asking for trouble, and I got it. Shut down once he called my raise.
72o: Nice hand to bust out on eh? Flopping top pair is all very nice, but I probably shouldn't push it with four players seeing the flop. The raise is questionable to say the least. Once AAMERICK shoved over the top, I recalled the KQdd hand and figured he could be making a play recalling the same hand. The bet size certainly looked like it didn't want to see a call. Daft way to play a set, but perhaps an even dafter way to play 72o. Note in my defence: I had been playing for over five hours by this stage, having woken at 3:30am to play.

It's notable that I went from 200/400 to 800/1600 (6 levels) winning only one hand of note. So if my early tournament was a heater (you bet), then my late tournament was probably a bit of a cooler.

 

[Cartman121]

I played the $50k guarantee ($75 buyin) on Pacific this morning (3:30am), courtesy of a free ticket. I managed a pretty deep run, and was actually chipleader at a few points. Sadly I made a few bad errors and had a difficult run towards the end, and ended up with a min cash of $140. This was sadly a long way short of the $12.5k 1st prize that I was aiming for.

I suspect my lack of NL tournament experience showed at times, and in general I did run good in the early to middle stages. I'd be interested in some expert comments if anyone has time to go through the hands.

Here is pretty much the whole tournament laid bare. These are the key pots (all pots where I won or lost 10 or more big blinds). Starting stack was 5000, 10/20 blinds, 20 minute levels.

See the hands in replayer format here:
http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/multihands.php/id/7885

Individual hand comments:

35: This was the first hand of the tournament. Gotta love flopping two pair and turning a boat. The river bet was an attempt to look bluffy by overbetting the pot. It's tough to get good value so early.

Played that fine, bet pot on both flop and turn for maximum value. Personally wouldn't have bet so much on the river as he's not going to pay you off with alot there, probably only a flopped flush or rivered straight will call.

JTdd: Getting busy in late position here. As you can see, the play was pretty ******ed for a $75 tournament. Incredible that he can go bust with a single pair here.

Not a bad option to simply flat-call the 40 pre-flop (even though you know they're weak) you're usually only going to get action from big hands once you re-raise here (clearly he's a donk). 10Jdd is a perfect hand to see a cheap flop with early in a tourney, you've got huge implied odds and can easily stack someone with a big flop/draw. How you've played it is fine though.

54o: Another two pair. This time I am probably giving the flush draw too good a price, but I wanted to keep the pot under control with such a vulnerable hand. The donk bet on the river was a dead giveaway - I probably would have value bet significantly more if he checked to me.

Why would you value bet that river? It's probably the worst card in the deck, it was obvious that he was drawing to either the straight or flush and that card got both there. A flush will lead out the majority of the time and a straight would more than likely check-call. Although it's deepstacked and the river bet was hardly a huge chunk of your stack you could have easily gotten away from that river. Would have checked behind and folded to a lead out personally.

TT: This is probably my limit play getting the better of me. When an overcard flops my pair, I like to raise the flop and see a cheap showdown. I think this early I should probably give the flop donk bet respect, as the players are generally pretty obvious. Dropping so much on the hand was pretty poor, but I was suspiscious of the small bets.

Maybe this is just more my personal style coming into it again but you could have flat-called again pre flop, seen a flop 5-way, if the board comes out all unders to your 10's put a bet out and see where you stand, if you flop a set play it accordingly. This is my preference here, when you're so deepstacked try and see cheap flops with good implied odds and get the big money in with a made hand. The way you've played it here you've effectively turned your hand into a bluff; once the guy has lead out on the flop into two player you can safely assume your 10's are beat, rarely will you be ahead here. Most likely has a Queen and wants to find out where he's at, or has flopped a set and is fast playing it trying to build the pot. Once you've min-raised the flop you're representing AQ/KK/AA IMO, a good player might even lay down KQ here but the problem is though the min-raise has given him 5-1 odds to see a turn. He calls the min raise and then leads out again at a blank turn - muck and muck fast.

QTo: Getting busy on the button again, and again it works out well. I probably could have got better value out here. Turn check was an attempt to get him to lead the river, but maybe I just need to play straightforwardly and extract maximum value from his K or A.

Beginning to see you're style now, clearly a bit of a LAG, love to represent a big hand by punishing limpers/weak raises and play it hard after the flop. Basically the exact opposite of my style early in a deepstacked tournament, I employ this sort of game once the blinds/antes are actually worth stealing, not saying there's anything wrong with it just very different to mine. Post-flop you've played it perfectly, love the check behind on the turn - now your range looks huge to him, easy tactic to ensure you get paid on the river. Once the 3rd club comes on the river and he checks you can rule out a flush draw, and seeing how he didn't lead the turn/river 10J isn't much a possibility either. Good value bet 1/2 pot.

35hh: Middle pair on the flop, plus a gutshot on the turn. I thought the combination of the turned ace and the rivered pair and flush made it a good spot to bluff, but it didn't come off. I think he folds without an ace.

The flop call is ok, backdoor flush and straight draws along with pair/trips and he's giving you an alright price - you were ahead so a good call. Once he bets the turn though how often is he going to be betting a Jack/bluffing there? Most jacks would check behind scared of the ace, and all small pairs would check behind also, so his betting range is fairly small - you must be beat here imo. Once the scare card comes on the river 2c, I agree anything but an ace would fold here, but it's unlilkely you've hit the backdoor flush so all he would be scared of would be trips. A Jack would probably fold as all they can beat is a pure bluff, but be putting him on just a bare Jack after he bets the turn. At least you gave yourself of winning the pot though, a pair of 3's doesn't have a whole lot of showdown value.

J9cc: Pretty straightforward. Is there any point in value betting this river? I suspect not.

No point. But a bet on the flop to find out where you stand might have been better than planning on check-calling a continuation bet - I assume that's what you would have done.

QQ: Another nice hand. Should I bet the turn? I figured the pot was big enough to get a decent value bet in on the river anyway.

Would have checked behind as well, could have easily run into a set here so a good use of pot control here. Gives him a chance to bluff at the river as well.

TT: A monster hand, which basically set up my run. It's a cooler for AA, but A2dd got what he deserved.

AA only raised it to $775, $445 more for you and another player. It's his own fault if you ask me. Good lead out on a very drawy board.

KQdd: A bit cheeky to fire the second barrel here, but it worked out ok. I shutdown if he calls, obviously.

Well played.

JJ: Always getting it in versus the shortstack here, and run good enough to river my two outer.

Sick, but was inevitable with those stack sizes as you say.

J6dd: Just got drawn into this hand, and hit the wrong outs on the river. I don't really think I could have played it differently.

Agreed, nothing you can do about that. Cooler.

A8o: Weird hand. Scary board, but the minbets on flop and turn made it pretty clear that he had nothing. I might have folded a bigger river bet, gutshot being the only real possibility for a good hand.

Would have raised the turn bet, you knew he had nothing so why not give him the incorrect odds to draw?

TT: A lot of limping on this table. I liked to punish this tendency from late position. Villain was short, so race was inevitable.

LOL at his limp, but anywho $1k in there pre-flop, more than enough to try and isolate/take down there. Unlucky.

JQss: I should explain that asbo was the megafish on this table. He open limped any two cards, and liked to donk any flop and often followed up on the turn and/or river. But he often folded when put under pressure. After the turn raise, I have to credit him for a hand, and just call for my double belly outs.

You were getting nearly 5-1 to call, with 8 outs for the nutz you're nearly getting the right odds to call already without even taking into account implied odds, this is an extremely profitable call. Obviously you have to check-fold the river.

Playing in a $300k tourney now with 1st getting $60k and want to concentrate so will give my thoughts on the rest once I find some time in the next day or so. Hopefully that was a little useful pax.

 

[paxmaniac]

Hi Cartman,

Thanks for your comments, they are much appreciated. I am a little bit on the laggy style, but I am generally in position when I get active, and I'm not doing it every round.

For example, JTdd (and QTo) I feel that I can take best advantage of my position against 1 or 2 opponents rather than limping along with 5 and playing fit-or-fold. I'd play it more passively from mid position.

Re: the 54, you might be right - better to check behind if he checks. But I am always calling 300 into 720 there I think.

Re: TT, there is a decent case for the flat call - but that forces me to pretty much play for set value. My preference with 99 and higher is to get heads up on the flop if I can. But yeah, def should have dumped it on the flop after the donk.

Re: the J9 middle pair, I am not a big fan of the "donk to see where you're at" line since a smart player will raise when he misses and flat call when he hits often enough that you don't actually know any more after the flop action than before.

 

[Ricketts]

35: This was the first hand of the tournament. Gotta love flopping two pair and turning a boat. The river bet was an attempt to look bluffy by overbetting the pot. It's tough to get good value so early.

Agree with cartman, big sized bets on flop and turn to get him to pay for a draw, even though his draws are dead (straight and flush). Maybe smaller on river to get a call from a weak ace?

JTdd: Getting busy in late position here. As you can see, the play was pretty ******ed for a $75 tournament. Incredible that he can go bust with a single pair here.

Like the preflop play. Removes the weak min-raisers.
Like the turn play to check, especially after only calling his raise on the flop. He's clearly firing again here after your check, even if he's bluffing. Thought the checkraise all in was the go myself.

TT: This is probably my limit play getting the better of me. When an overcard flops my pair, I like to raise the flop and see a cheap showdown. I think this early I should probably give the flop donk bet respect, as the players are generally pretty obvious. Dropping so much on the hand was pretty poor, but I was suspiscious of the small bets.

Fold on turn. After he calls your raise and then leads out on the turn OOP i think it's a clear fold.

QTo: Getting busy on the button again, and again it works out well. I probably could have got better value out here. Turn check was an attempt to get him to lead the river, but maybe I just need to play straightforwardly and extract maximum value from his K or A.

pretty good play to bet the river after both draws hit on the turn and river. But he checked to you so i think most of the time he hasnt got it, and will pay with the king or ace which he has a lot of the time

35hh: Middle pair on the flop, plus a gutshot on the turn. I thought the combination of the turned ace and the rivered pair and flush made it a good spot to bluff, but it didn't come off. I think he folds without an ace.

won't comment here, as i'm weak so i don't play games where the blinds increase, but i fold on the river after getting sucked in to calling on the turn with the gutshot

J9cc: Pretty straightforward. Is there any point in value betting this river? I suspect not.

indeed.

QQ: Another nice hand. Should I bet the turn? I figured the pot was big enough to get a decent value bet in on the river anyway.

i don't think there's anything wrong with slowing down on the turn. Well played by betting on the river realising that he'd bet if he had the 7.

TT: A monster hand, which basically set up my run. It's a cooler for AA, but A2dd got what he deserved.

the hand plays itself.

KQdd: A bit cheeky to fire the second barrel here, but it worked out ok. I shutdown if he calls, obviously.

gutsy play. I'd just check the option, two limpers who will probably call a raise and have position on you i guess it's a bit lucky one of them folded. Fair enough to represent an Ace on the flop, but once he calls i'd not like it, and not like it more when the flush hits, but well done.

JJ: Always getting it in versus the shortstack here, and run good enough to river my two outer.

nice.

J6dd: Just got drawn into this hand, and hit the wrong outs on the river. I don't really think I could have played it differently.

i don't like the river raise. If he had a high ace he'd raise preflop, but he played it strong from the flop onwards so small ace and good chance of 2 pairs.

A8o: Weird hand. Scary board, but the minbets on flop and turn made it pretty clear that he had nothing. I might have folded a bigger river bet, gutshot being the only real possibility for a good hand.

maybe an option is to checkraise on the flop to find out more about where you really stand. Leading out will get called by lots of things and won't help you much in your thoughts.

TT: A lot of limping on this table. I liked to punish this tendency from late position. Villain was short, so race was inevitable.

pretty poo play by him. annoying

KQo: Did I mention that asbo was ******ed? He claimed this was a bluff gone wrong, but that does not explain his final call on the river. He copped a lot of shit from the table after this.

good job, got what you wanted - a big pot against him, by raising it up preflop.

AQdd: Huge, huge hand. Flop and turn were obviously semibluffs. The river 2.5x pot bluff was just completely inexplicable. I just couldn't put him on the backdoor flush, and surely sets would have done something smaller sooner? Whatever, it was a big call and put me into the tournament chiplead. The guy gave me shit about it for ages, basically calling me a fish for calling his ******ed bluff, but whatever.

river check induces bluffs.
although your hand was good enough to not have to worry about firing a third bet to get him away from something.

AQcc: Muppet from previous hand. Shortstack shove is quite likely to be air, but if not my pair outs ought to be good.

nice call. I would have just given up 3-handed on a random flop like that and moved on to the next hand.

AJcc: Should probably fold the flop checkraise here. This guy hadn't got too out of line. Turn bet was obviously too big to go fishing for a flush. But part of me still thought that he had air and was just making a play against my presumed blind steal.

agree with flop fold

KQdd: Preflop is fine. On the flop I just need to fold with the guy behind me. Raising was asking for trouble, and I got it. Shut down once he called my raise.

i don't think the raise is that bad. The c-bet was pegged correctly as weak, just unfortunate the 3rd player had a hand.

72o: Nice hand to bust out on eh? Flopping top pair is all very nice, but I probably shouldn't push it with four players seeing the flop. The raise is questionable to say the least. Once AAMERICK shoved over the top, I recalled the KQdd hand and figured he could be making a play recalling the same hand. The bet size certainly looked like it didn't want to see a call. Daft way to play a set, but perhaps an even dafter way to play 72o. Note in my defence: I had been playing for over five hours by this stage, having woken at 3:30am to play.

not sure i'm happy with busting out holding that hand on that flop, with that many BB's in your stack. Set play was probably because he felt your hand was strong enough for him to play it like that and thinking that you weren't going anywhere. He probably was suprised to see you turn over 7-2.