That's right, I'm a donkey and I admit it. Admission is always the first step. But seriously folks, if you don't have a little donkey in you, you aren't getting the biggest bang for your buck.
Yes, you can continue to play your tight / aggressive play and you will probably be a winner; but it is my humble opinion that you need show donkey tendencies. What do I mean? If you continue to play tight aggressive, you might lose quite a few bets over the long run because people will assume that you have the goods and quit calling you down. Of course, this is not always the case, as many folks will do just that.
I played quite a bit again last night as the trend continued where I was stuck a bit after completing my necessary 50 points to qualify for the Iron Man 10K freeroll. I won't bore you with too many details; but here are the stats from last night:
Hands: 1732
VPIP: 31.76
PFR: 15.24
AF: 3.06
W$WSF: 39.26
WSD: 29.97
W$SD: 50.27
bb/hr: -.14
So as you can see, I was pretty much break even.. a little ahead with bonus. I found myself down almost $300 and for whatever reason opened up an 8/16 SH game. This is something that I have fought off recently because I really do get more enjoyment level at the lower limits. It can be hard to handle the swings of higher limits.
Anyway, I continued to struggle on 3/6 and 8/16 wasn't helping although in my first couple orbits at 8/16, I had AK, AKs and QQ... all of which lost. Ouch!!. I finally got back to positive territory ($70) in 3/6 land and was getting ready to shut those tables down and concentrate on 8/16; but something happened and I didn't. Dang.... $300 later, I'm down at 3/6 again. As we already know, I came back to even (from over $700 down) so the story more or less has a happy ending.
I do want to share one hand with you that I think has great poker theory to it. I'll be the first to tell you that I'm not a mathie at the poker table even though I do understand the concept. I just don't go through the motions to figure exact odds and pot odds. Ballpark works for me and in this hand I used the ballpark theory. This also goes to my donkey perception noted above.
I'm at a full 3/6 SH table. I am UTG+1 with JTd. We already have 2 big blinds and 1 small blind as we have a new poster. UTG folds and I call. CO checks (poster) and button raises (I'll let you know now that he has AA). Both blinds call. Back to me. What do I do... Re-Raise (thanks Scurvy for putting this move in my aresonal). CO calls and button caps and everybody calls. 5 players wow.. just what the doctor orderd..
Flop As7sKc. OK not great; but at least a gut shot. BB bets out and I call and AA guy raises. 3 callers.. 4 players now.
Turn 5d. Dang... Everbody checks to AA who of course bets his set and scares nobody as we all call.
River Qh. Hallelujah!!!! Obviously, I'm betting out... only AA stays with me and the bets get capped and I rake a huge pot (25.5 BB)
Now before we look a little deeper into this hand, this put AA guy in a new form of tilt that I haven't seen recently. He lambasted me... I, of course, was very kind and courteous. He would say something like you called a capped preflop with JT... and I would say.. "Is that what I did?".. He says.. yep... I go.. "Is that bad?"... he goes ballistic... I go... "what did I do again"... he continues on his censored disortation... At the end.. I just said.. "thanks for the help". It didn't help later that he got his Aces cracked again... He typed in his thoughts and left.
Too bad... because a few minutes later, I got my Aces cracked. He would have enjoyed that. Oh well. Back to the hand.
What are your thoughts? Although, I didn't go through this exact analysis during the hand, I still had a good idea where I stood. Here are my thoughts.
Hand in review…
JTs is obviously a good hand to try and limp in with (even from early position when playing short handed) in my opinion. Next guy raises; but then shockingly 2 people cold call. Now, of course, I’m on drawing hand so I want as much money in the pot as possible so I bump it back and it gets capped and again 3 guys cold call 2 more bets.. so.. $60 (10BB) in the pot preflop.
Flop gives me nothing but a gut shot. An EP bet makes it 10.5BB. I am getting 21-1 on a 8-1 shot so it is pretty easy; but if I assume that others are calling, it makes it even better. Original raiser raises it so by the time it gets back to me, the pot is $78 (13BB). It’s definitely worth a call here as I am now getting 26-1 odds now. Still the cold callers are staying in. $84 in pot (14BB).
Turn brings nothing and we all check to the raiser who of course bets… $96 in pot when it comes to me giving me 16-1 in which I am about 10-1 to hit so I am OK with this call especially with the cold callers coming along (actually pretty easy call).. If a Q comes great, if not, I bail… I only need this to work about 10% of the time to be profitable (probably less than that).
Of course the Q comes and the rest is history. I sure would like to know what the cold callers had that made them bail on the river. I'm sure we had some flush draws and maybe another pocket pair... AK maybe... who knows.
Any thoughts? In reality, I did get really, really lucky; but I have no regrets. Capping the preflop was instrumental in dictating the future odds to hit my gutshot. Of course, this gave me a very donkeyish persona which I am glad to take.
If you ain't switching gears (especially in short handed play), you ain't winning as much as you could be.
I also played in a H.O.R.S.E. tournmanet last night for the first time. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I went out early when my nut straight in Omaha hi/lo was cracked when the board paired giving the villian a boat... Such is life. Hopefully I will be able to play in Friday's tourney.
I won't be playing any tonight. I already got my points from Full Tilt as I played to the wee hours of the night (3:30AM).
The 'ole Zeebo trick
1 year ago
7 comments:
The only thing I would worry about is that the Qs is probably bad news for you, as someone in that field is likely on the flush draw based on the action.
One of the cold callers also might be holding one of your Q outs with a hand like AQo, KQ, JQs, etc.
But yeah, you definitely have odds to see the turn. It might get close as to whether you have enough clean outs to see the river, but it's probably close enough that there's no huge difference in playing it like you did and calling or bailing out and folding on the turn.
In Scurvy's T9s hand, the field was extremely multiway (10 handed, no folders), so I think it was a very easy +EV situation to 3 bet to build a big pot where 2 conditions are normally true - i) you have a substantially above average preflop pot equity because of the mid suited connector, ii) in most of the hands you hit on flop or turn, the majority of your opponents will be drawing dead yet obligated to call because of the pot size. Now in Scurvy's actual flop he hit a dangerous flop and was very fortunate for his hand to hold up (and missed a ton of bets).
In your hand, I would argue that you are somewhat in a borderline "value" 3-bet situation with only 4 opponents. However, I concede that there is very little downside to 3 betting since you do not fear a cap given that the way the action has gone so far, you expect to see the flop 5 ways. I'm only questioning if there is enough value to 3 betting other than increasing your variance (compared to Scurvy's situation which is clearly substantially +EV)
I think postflop was absolutely correct. Flop is no brainer; turn you still have 3 outs to the nuts getting an immediate 16:1 and probably 17:1 when CO likely calls. The main risk is that your 3 (or 4) outs might be to a chop (less likely in a SH situation than full table) and there is also a small possibility of CO raising.
The other upside to the 3 bet is the metagame considerations. You severely tilted the button, and also you should get more action from your other big hands.
The preflop doesn't get me going. But then again I'm not a SH player either.
With 20SB's in the middle You just about have to chase your Q realizing the Qs is barely a partial out, if that. So you're looking at 3 cinch outs, the other Queens.
Hitting your draw was great, just don't get too Results Oriented on this hand.
I'm beginning to play a few donkey hands myself - in position - for 1SB and will call a raise for one more, but if it's two or more back to me I release.
Then again, I'm lovin' playing tight, then showing a Hammer when the table folds to my raises!
I am realizing showing a few bad hands wil result in bigger pots when you do hit a premium, or made hand. But I also realize if I Donkey a couple of times every 100 hands and miss, it can be a (-1BB+/100) detriment too...
The preflop reraise is fine if you expect the CO and the blinds to take the flop, even if the button caps. You have a slight equity edge here if you put the button on something like JJ+, AQo/AQs and AKo/AKs and the other three players come along. You do need the 5-way action to make this work. I'm guessing you expected those other three players to come along.
I think the rest of the hand was played just fine post-flop.
The only flaw I find is in your flop reasoning.
You should think of it either in terms of one cards odds, getting 21:1 on your 11:1 draw, or in terms of your two card odds, getting 21:3 (because you guessed that AA guy isn't going to raise)on your 8:1 draw, which isn't so good, because the pot odds aren't there, but you expect to get paid off by AA guy when your Q comes in.
The raise by AA guy is unfortunate, because that puts you at 25:4 (for this round plus the turn, odds in terms of SBs) on your 8:1 draw. You need to get a BB back when you hit your draw to make this worthwhile. And, you do, when cold-call crew add two dead BBs to your draw, and monkey-meister doesn't have the sense to recognize your draw for what it is when the Q hits. In the scheme of things, it was a great situational play made right by loose opponents.
I like it, though, for donk-tastic exhibition. AA guy probably has bad situation with the redraws for his FH. You look like a wacko while not putting yourself into a tough equity crunch on the river.
Thanks for all the comments. That was exactly what I was looking for. It definitely gave me some additional perspective to use next time.
I'm also trying to put my head around the other people's play including AA guy. I'll just chalk it up to typical loose online play. While I include myself in that crowd for this hand, there was definitely a method to my madness.
Thanks again. Keep em coming.
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