Thursday, November 15, 2007

Mook Hands and when not to do Training

Of course it was Wednesday last night so of course that it means it was time for the MOOK . Man, were things going great or above average last night as I was getting the hands early. It felt a little Astin-ish. Unfortunately, not many of them got paid off and some of them completely missed the flop and I had to fold to pressure.

Speaking of Astin, I have 3 hands I want to review with my 1 or 2 readers in which 2 of them include Astin . A little history between the two of us as he laid down a pretty big hand last week while he was ahead. Congrats, by the way, go to Astin with a 2nd place finish.... again.

Hand #1

Seat 1: UnTiltable15 (2,125)
Seat 2: AgSweep (3,000)
Seat 3: Astin (2,880)
Seat 4: GScottW (4,000)
Seat 5: jamyhawk (2,150)
Seat 6: willwonka (3,655)
Seat 7: chipperdh (3,875)
Seat 8: VinNay (1,915)
Seat 9: Julkeus (6,280)

I have been raising a bunch as I mentioned earlier. I am UTG+2 in this hand with QTs (spades) and raise it to 180 (blinds are 30/60). Not a normal raising hand this early; but mixing it up and I have been raising a lot so perhaps people might read a little more strength with another raise based on gap concepts. Everybody folds to Astin who is in the BB.
Flop comes 9h8hJd. Bang!! Hit the flop.. Now how do I get chips?
Astin actually leads out 240 and I raise to 520 (intentionally small) as we all know that flopped straights are no good. Astin Calls.
Turn is harmless 2 spades and again Astin bets out.. this time 600.
What is your play? around 1970 in pot? My plays will be at then end of post.

Hand #2

This wasn't as exciting so I will breifly mention this one.

This hand is against AgSweep who is a player that I didn't recognize and hadn't played against.

I have 5445 in chips vs his 2540. I look down to another great hand QQ. Blinds are 50/100 and Ag raises from UTG+1 to 300 and I raise to 800 and now he re-pops to 800. It is 500 to call? What do you do?

Results below

Hand #3

Another hand with Mr Astin. Blinds are 60/120 and I have him outchipped 3205 to 1890. I am in the SB with J6d. Julkeus calls from UTG+1 and Astin from button and I call and BB checks. The flop comes:
Jc2h9s giving me top pair, crappy kicker. I check (with the intention of check/raising as I love to do). EP players also checks and Asting throws out 360 and I raise to 860 and he wastes no time in pushing all in which would cost me 910 more.
Is he just tired of me always seemingly check raising him? I definitely think he can push on a bluff or semi bluff.

Results below.

Hand 4

My last hand against my good buddy from Soonner land. I am now down to 895 and blinds are 80/160 so I'm just looking for a hand to push. I look down at AJs and I am primed to push away; but before I do that GCox raises to 560.
Knowing his play, do you wait until the next hand knowing that he has a good hand?

Results Below

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As I have mentioned, I have subcribed to some video training one of which being StoxPoker.
So far I am really enjoying it. They have a video category called "The ClassRoom" which talks of theoretical things as opposed to specific hand type stuff. Here are a few of the subjects:

-Stox talks about opening hand ranges when not in steal position.
-Bryce talks about Limit Holdem blind play
-Journey up in stakes
-Stox talks about the use of Poker Ace HUD and Poker Tracker
-Making poker decisions
-Stox reviewing biggest hands
-Bryce showing some PokerStove tricks
-Colin showing SNG Wizard

and more....

Great stuff so far. I have also subscribed to another service which I will talk about more later.

The problem for me is when to watch them. A couple of the videos I decided to watch after I was finished playing whether it be from a good or bad session. My problem is that it is usually late when I start these and it is hard to stay focused especially after a bad session as your mind drifts back towards your session.

So, having said that, I will not make a point to either watch them before I start playing or instead of playing? Thoughts?

---------

Results from above:

Hand #1 . I pushed for 2955 more and he folded; but he clearly didn't want to. We had a little conversation afterwards where I was saying that I was ahead; but didn't necessarily want a call. He wasn't so sure which confirms that he had a good hand.

Hand #2. I just called. Flop was 25Kr. Turn was 2cFlop and Turn both went check, check. River was Tc putting a backdoor flush out there. I checked and he put a nice value bet of 500 in and I called. He showed KK for a flopped set and turned boat. I think I did ok here to get out of this hand with a minimum loss

Hand #3. I had to call and he showed a better kicker. The board paired on the turn giving him thoughts of a split as his kicker was only a Ten. Turns out that card killed me as the river was a 6 and I lost with 3 pair.

Hand #4. I had to push and Gary showed QQ and I didn't improve and IGHN. I finished way down the pack a little worse than halfway. Oh well. There is always next week.

Have a nice day!!!

Peace!!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The only hand that I have a strong opinion on based upon the information provided is hand #1. With a pot of 1970, I like a bet of 1,000. When you have the nuts but you're defending against a flush draw or some other miracle catch, 1/2 pot is an excellent rule of thumb. In this case, for instance, a nearly 4-1 dog (if he's four flushed) is getting less than 3-1 on his money. In my judgment, this is the proper balance between not chasing away someone you will likely beat and not encouraging a lucky suckout.

GaryC said...

Will,

I hated that hand with you, especially after you re-raised. I actually figured I was behind, but had to make the call. I was lucky to dodge one of the 23 Aces in the Full Tilt deck on that one.

From purely your standpoint, with that hand in that situation, you had to push whether or not you thought you were behind.

G

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