Wednesday, October 14, 2009

A pair of Pocket Queens hands

0 for 4 on Turbo SNGs again. I fell for the old limp call with Aces trick when I was on button with ATs. Next game... QQ vs AA.. Next!!! AJ vis A8.. of course the 8 comes. and the last one was AJ vs KT.. Of course the T comes. I guess I should just quit.

Two hands today and both are towards the end of good session.

Hand #1

Villain is 13/7/3.5 over 3K hands and I have him down $846 but after looking at PTR he is a break even player.

He squeezes 6% and has done it couple of times this session. Once to me and I folded. I don't this hand technically is a squeeze; but you get the point.

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 Pot Limit Hold'em - 8 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/325232
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $20.00
MP2: $8.55
CO: $214.35
BTN: $52.55
Hero (SB): $146.50
BB: $69.65
UTG: $101.25
UTG+1: $10.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is SB with Qh Qc
UTG raises to $3.50, UTG+1 raises to $10.50 all in, 4 folds, Hero calls $10, 1 fold, UTG raises to $43, Hero raises to $140.50, UTG calls $58.25 all in


Thoughts on action?



Hand #2


Lots of villains on this one. I did the old check out of position with the thought process that if I am ahead on flop, I will really be ahead on a non diamond turn. I may be taking this thought out of context again; but things get hairy on turn. Thoughts?

Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 Pot Limit Hold'em - 9 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/325231
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $120.60
UTG+1: $121.50
UTG+2: $100.00
MP1: $73.35
MP2: $111.40
CO: $88.75
BTN: $100.40
SB: $22.00
BB: $76.50

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is UTG with Qh Qs
Hero raises to $3.50, 2 folds, MP1 calls $3.50, 1 fold, CO calls $3.50, BTN calls $3.50, 1 fold, BB calls $2.50

Flop: ($18.00) 6d Qd 7d (5 players)
BB checks, Hero checks, MP1 checks, CO checks, BTN checks

Yikes!!! 5 players. I'm going to wait and see a turn card.

Turn: ($18.00) 4s (5 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $11, MP1 calls $11, CO folds, BTN raises to $30, BB folds, Hero requests TIME, Hero calls $19, MP1 folds

Looking at this, my bet size seems too low? Thoughts? Does anybody call the raise? Getting almost 4-1, I was ok. Stacks are big enough I think to see a river card. Although with somebody behind to act, it makes it a little tougher of a call.

River: ($89.00) Jh (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $66.90 all in, Hero ????

Button is a 19/11/9.3 guy over 202 hands. I won't even say that this guy is really aggressive so Brue, your point has been taken over your last couple "he's aggressive" comments by me.

But wow, this guy seems aggressive. ;-)


Have a nice day!!!!

BTW.. I folded KK preflop this session. Could be wrong; but it felt so right.

8 comments:

spritpot said...

Hand 1 the shortstack puts you in a pretty gross spot...the way you played it, I think you gotta get it in there, although you will be up against AA/KK maaaannny a time.

Hand 2 I really hate your flop check. You need to make a mondo-sized turn bet. Tons of people in the hand, you will feel retarded if a diamond comes and it checks down and some moron wins it with 8s8d. The pot is 18 bbs already, you have a hand worth protecting. Also even against a flush you have pretty good equity when you get it in on the frop. Your equity is much lower if you get in money on the turn/river when the board blanks off. Also people are less likely to make a big semi-bluff on the turn, for the same reason that you want to stuff money in on the flop: their equity with just a lone Ad sucks when getting it in on the turn, but is pretty good when getting it in on the frop. As played, call river.

The Poker Meister said...

Hand #1: Sucky with that shorty. However, given the action UTG+1 has shown (open, 4 bet), I have to give him serious credit for his hand. You said he is a 6% squeeze, but this is a 4 bet in this situation; I'm dropping my QQ with a $10 pre flop loss and looking for a better spot against this losing / break even player. At best, you're 50/50 (AK), and I give him more credit than that (AA KK less QQ). I don't think he's playing this aggro with AQ or (less QQ, JJ TT). Why throw down right here when there will be better spots down the road? It's not like you're playing in a tourney where you have a limited number of hands...

That said, against his 4 bet, I agree with your action (if you're going to go this path): All in is the way to go because you've committed so much already.

Hand #2: I get the line you took; looking to check / raise the flop. Really, though, what could people have that they're calling a bet with: A diamond draw or lower sets (overpairs are less likely with so many players seeing a flop).

Given that, you lead the turn and get 3x'ed raised by the button. As you say, he's a 19/11 - I'm not putting 53 or 58 in his range, but I do put sets and diamonds in his range. On second thought, with 4 players seeing the flop already and him knowing he'll have position for the hand, perhaps 53 is in his range? Definitely 2 overcard diamonds are in his range - and depending on your numbers (you have 200 hands of history on him), does he see you as a player who could be screwing around with AK AJ or lesser holdings (even weak Queens)? To me, I think he: sees you check into a very drawey board and try to steal it away on a semi-bricked turn. Therefore, he's putting the re-steal on (which is consistent with his 9.3 aggression factor). This is an easy river call to his shove; he hands it to you on a silver platter and I think you played this hand tricky & very well

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

In Hand 1 you are dominatedly behind with your QQ in probably 98% of spots, regardless of what happened in this particular hand. Utg raised pot and then there was a pot-reraise. When you called it the original utg raiser pot-re-reraised it again. If that ain't KK or AA then this guy sucks testicle, and it's AK about 95% of the time when it's not AA or KK. I think one of the marks of an excellent nl cash player is not getting it allin vs. raisers, reraisers and re-reraisers with QQ or worse preflop.

In Hand 2, I think your flop check is fine actually, at least for variation purposes. I would normally bet an all-suited flop when I flop top set, but with 5 players in there the odds of a lone high diamond folding are fairly low so I think checking that flop sometimes is just fine.

I also think your $11 bet on the turn is fine. I like to make all of my bets -- regardless of the strength of my cards -- around that fraction of the pot, so I don't see that bet sizing as a problem.

Now me, personally, I am probably going to call his raise, putting him on the made flush with the 5 players in there preflop and just hoping I can river a boat and get some stackage. But on the river when he pushes, I would fold assuming I am beaten by the flush. If it was just one guy in there with me all along and he had raised it up preflop then it becomes much harder to put him on two diamonds as opposed to, say, AA or even a smaller pair or two pairs. But with so many in the pot he could have called pf with any two suited cards and his action through the river supports that. I agree that his river push was a bit much for a guy trying to get a call with his flush, but I am willing to lay down top set on a board and facing a betting line that seems dangerous to me.

Good hands as always.

The Poker Meister said...

@Hoyazo -

The flush never got there. The only thing the 4 completes is a 58 / 53 straight. Does that change your analysis? It's a lot less hand combinations that are CRUSHING you - otherwise you are killing everyone else.

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

Meister -- unless I am misreading here, the flop came all diamonds, so that's the flush I am referring to. Once I miss my boat on the river and he bets again like he flopped the flush, I am folding most of the time absent a read to the contrary.

The Poker Meister said...

Shoot! You know - I didn't see that! I read it as a diamond draw. Oops... I was looking at the turn & river cards. Regardless, villain is not gaining much value by shoving the river here; Will has under-represented the strength of his hand throughout. I still make the call.

Henrik said...

Hand #1:

I'm on the fold line like most of you guys. But how about 4 betting ourselves here first? Our problem with our call of the smallstack's allin is that we don't define our handvalue. We may think it's a good spot to play AJs, KQ or something like that against a player who probably has a middle pair or something like that.

If we raise to say $30 we tell UTG that we have a real big hand. If he comes over the top we have to give him even more credit for a range that mostly consists of KK+
Also remember here that because of shortie UTG has to show his hand anyway and do we think it would be in his interest to hand over something like say TT?

Hand #2

A straight is very unlikely and why does he check the flop? He's in position and a small bet shouldn't necessarily "reveal" his made flush for the other player and freeze the action.

If he has a flush in fact his line in the hand was very tricky. I do not dare to make a guess how often we will find a set, QJ or even a complete bluff but don't you think that metagame reasons as well as the valuable information we can get adds enough ammo to the calling gun?
- If he had a flush we know he's tricky and that we should pay extra attention
- If he was bluffing we hopefully gave him a clear message for the future.

WillWonka said...

The key here was his aggressiveness during this session. Like I said he had done it a few times. Anyway, He had AK and the other guy had 99 and AK didn't improve so I won the pot; but certainly noted on your comments.

Hand #2.

The key in this hand to me was the multi player. Hoy pretty much capsulized my thought process on this hand and I DID fold to his push.

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