Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Gotta Represent what you representing, right?

Today, I am starting a monthly poker league. It's a WSOP poker league. The nice thing about this one is that it awards 8 of the 32 league members to the WSOP. A couple Main Events and 6 $1500 ones. I'm probably in over my head; but we will see how it goes.

Here's a hand that I didn't like the turn card; but probably don't have any choice but to represent strength.

Villain is a 37/9/1.7 over just 40 hands.

So does this make the fact that he has calling station like stats factor into turn decision?

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/194582
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG+2: $64.10
MP1: $55.60
MP2: $96.30
CO: $100.00
BTN: $76.20
SB: $98.15
BB: $241.40
Hero (UTG): $100.00
UTG+1: $91.85

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with Qh Kh
Hero raises to $3.50, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls $3.50, 6 folds

Flop: ($8.50) 2h 9h Qc (2 players)
Hero bets $5, UTG+2 raises to $10, Hero raises to $32, UTG+2 calls $22

Turn: ($72.50) Ac (2 players)
Hero bets $64.50 all in, UTG+2 calls $28.60 all in


Thoughts?

Have a nice day!!!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't like any part of how that hand was played. You open a dominate-able hand UTG (a marginal play), and then c-bet/3 bet with just top pair??? Totally over-repping your hand. Not something you need to do against passive opponents.

The fact that he is a station, huge warning bells should go off when he donkishly min-raises you.

My guess is sets, and only sets, show up here (including AA)

Memphis MOJO said...

GL with the poker league.

BLAARGH! said...

I think you should have gotten it in on the flop, as you are in the 85% range vs his range to take it down. When the bad card comes on the turn and you're only @54% vs him, you get it in... no so great.

Did you hit your heart on the river?

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

Ditto what Blaarghy said. On the flop I pretty well love your hand as your TP2K is likely a favorite and you have another overcard plus a flush draw to boot. You want to get it in there, you can easily justify thinking you have at least an even-money shot at improving your hand, plus are probably ahead right now anyways.

Not sure I understand the big turn bet when you have to figure A-x in well within his range. Why did you say you felt like you "had" to show strength on that turn card? Why not pause-check and hope to get him to check behind? Or go for a blocking bet maybe that's not your entire stack?

noldmax said...

I think your play is fine. The min-raise on the flop actually represents a wide range, from overpair down to drawing hands that hope to buy a free trip river by raising the flop. Your hand is strong enough to raise for value against those hands, and given that the turn A doesn't help too many of them, I think your shove is fine, and may induce bad calls from a lot of drawing hands that you have crushed.

Anonymous said...

I missed the flush draw...
Nevermind the commments about flop.

I still am not a big fan of the preflop play open.

WillWonka said...

Thanks for all the comments.

A few things.

KQs is certainly in my open raising range from UTG. If nothing else for balancing reasons. Sure you have to proceed cautiously if you 1 pair hands; but I'm ok with post flop play for the most part.

Next, this is Pot Limit so I am definitly limited to how much I can raise. I could have raised more and maybe I should have.

Finally, on the turn. I've raised UTG. I've bet out and reraised on the flop. I'm sure representing something big. By moving all in which is actually more than what he had left it continues my story of having a strong hand which maybe gets smaller aces to fold.

He called as you can see with J7s (hearts)... so to answer your question BLAARGH, I didn't hit my heart; but didn't need to as it turned out.

I was a little surprsed to see his hand when he turned it over as he insta called. He was pretty committed so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised.

BLAARGH! said...

Weird... are we talking about 2 different hands? Your hand from today shows pot limit, but "Gotta Represent" said No-limit.... And I don't see where your opponent had Jh7h which is why I asked...

Having said that.... with his stats it makes perfect sense that he gets it all in. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets it in with any pair, any draw or any high cards, hence your dang good odds on the flop. I'd be a bit worried about the Ace - since any ace is probably a huge part of his range, but hell, you got him to stick his $$ in bad, so nice job :)

Did he reload for ya, or run away? I've had so many of those guys suck out then run, I can hardly count... but when you're running well against them... pennies from heaven.

WillWonka said...

BLAARGH... You are right.

I almost always play Pot Limit. There must not have been very many running on that day. When that happens, I fill in with good NL Tables.

This had was NL. Do you think pushing is better here?

I purposely left off the results on this post (and meant to leave it off of the other post) to not sway judgements. I also usually don't show what I did; but sometimes that helps discussion/criticism.

BLAARGH! said...

I think it's good to get it in quickly in this sitch when you're ahead. The A could have (and SHOULD have) been a scare card for your opponent, and might have shut him down, whereas there are tons of ways for him to want to get it in on the flop. But what the hell do I know - so far I'm a break-even fish at 25NL.

I ran into this exact same situation last night, but my opponent was tighter... I knew he had tp on the flop, but I had flush, gutter + 2 high cards, but unfortunately, he had oesd to go with his tp, so he was ahead 60/40 on that one. I put him in and would have been happy with a fold (lots of dead $$ in the pot), he thought about it for a while + made the call + I got the bad news. Lucky for me I hit my flush.

I guess it boils down to choosing the opponents that will call you down weak and getting their $$ in however you can when you're ahead. Even though I took the hand down, I'm not so sure it was a good play in my case, just because the other guy was definitely stronger than your usual fish. In your case, your fish was willing to get it in because he also had the draw, so getting him on the turn was easy, but I think he's also willing to get it in on the flop with a greater variety of hands, but more able to shut down on a bad turn card. Heh, I think I'm just rambling right now... back to work :)

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