Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A couple Preflop Decisions

Not much today. Since the first mistake you can make in a hand is preflop, here are a couple preflop decisions.


Hand #1
Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/364127
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: $200.00
BTN: $30.80
SB: $192.05
Hero (BB): $129.70
UTG: $167.00
UTG+1: $209.35
MP: $122.55

CO posts a big blind ($1)

Pre Flop: ($2.50) Hero is BB with Kd Qc
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $1, MP raises to $5, CO calls $4, BTN calls $5, Hero ??

Getting over 4 - 1, do you call? Still one person to act.


Hand #2
Full Tilt Poker $0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - http://www.thehandconverter.com/hands/364128
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $100.50
BB: $36.70
UTG: $46.95
UTG+1: $34.65
UTG+2: $150.35
MP1: $100.50 11/10/7 over 106 hands
MP2: $170.60
CO: $50.15 22/11/3 over just nine hands
Hero (BTN): $100.00

Pre Flop: ($1.50) Hero is BTN with Qs Ad
3 folds, MP1 raises to $4, 1 fold, CO calls $4, Hero ??

Have a nice day!!!

7 comments:

spritpot said...

Fold hand 1...out of position, KQo does not play well multiway, etc., etc..

Hand 2...don't fold. Close between re-raising and calling, mix it up between the two.

-bruechips

The Poker Meister said...

Fold Hand 1 - See spritpot's statements (OOP, does not play well, etc.) The ONLY reason for a call here is the implied odds. Everyone involved in the pot is relatively deep stacked (exception of BTN). However, I'd more love to call here with 73o instead of KQ which shares too many cards with the likely over-limpers.

Hand 2 - 3 bet to around $12. You'll likely get rid of CO, and perhaps take down the pot right then and there without a fight.

Unknown said...

What are you hoping for in the first hand, to quote Dan Harrington? To hit a K? Really? Maybe a Q? Even if you hit two pair here you could be in trouble.

The second hand you have the button. I don't even think this is worth thinking about. Of course call and maybe three bet.

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

Ditto on hand #1. If I am sooted I will call with KQs into a 4-way pot in a heartbeat and hope for the flush draw or some other magic, but calling a preflop raiser and two callers with KQ is falling into the trap with the ultimate trouble hand.

I don't think folding hand #2 is out of the question, and I'm sure over time at cash poker you won't hurt your overall results much if you fold AQ (again, offsuit but not sooted) to a MP raiser and a caller before the flop. I'm a bit surprised at how readily everyone is talking about calling here ( especially Peaker, who I consistently find to be much more aggressive in comments than at the actual felt). And personally I think reraising with the AQo is not advisable and I would never do it myself unless I had really good reads that these guys are super loose, bluffers, stealers, etc.

EN09 said...

Hand 1 - Calling is bad as you'll be OOP and not HU. Folding is probably slightly better than squeezing. Squeezing could take the pot down depending upon villains tendencies. Folding isn't bad. I'd opt for the fold here.

Hand 2 - Hand is too strong to fold outright. There is nothing ever wrong with calling and taking a flop multiway with position. You could hit a monster flop/draw. And again, squeezing is an option dependent upon villains tendencies and metagame/history. Calling = Squeezing here.

WillWonka said...

Hmmm.. The responses were almost opposite of how I was feeling.

1st hand. Getting over 4-1 with another person to act seemed like an excellent price to call. What did I want to get. 2 pair or better. At the end of the day, my position pretty much dictated my fold.
The flop? AJT rainbow..
DOH.. not to mention that somebody went all in after the flop.

2nd hand. Was just one of those feeling hands where something didn't seem right. I had a 3 bet ready to go and I scrapped and folded. Not that he was in steal position; but he had never attempted to steal blinds in my limited sample size.
The flop?

KTT.. Turn.. J
DOH!!!
but wait.. they ended getting all in and MP1 turned over KK. I most likely would have got stacked.

Henrik said...

Hand #1 seems to be case closed (and I agree with all prev. posters) but Hand #2 still makes me interested.

Say for the sake of the argument that in spite of the relatively small sample we have a correct picture of MP1. With 11/10 he seems to be what I guess you can call an aggressive nit. He plays very few hands (even for a tight player) but those he chooses to play he almost always raise. He probably play mostly premium hands, perhaps with a little mix of suited connectors and low pp:s from late position.

What can this players range for opening the pot be from MP? If I say it's something like 88+, AQs and AK, would anyone disagree? (If he is a good nit, add a few sc-hands or something similar for mixing up his play).

Now how would such a player react if we 3-bet him, absent any obvious reads on us as a LAG-tard? Will he 4-bet us with all of his opening range? Will he flat? Will he fold the lower part like say 88-TT and AQs?

Depending on what we think a 3-bet to say $15 might be a good move here since he only need to fold one time out of 3 to make it profitable. If he flat we can take advantage of our position postflop (If we miss the flop and he c-bets I guess we should fold almost 100% of the time tough). And if he reraises us we can fold without much thought since we have to put him on a very narrow 4-bet range as long as anything other has been proven.

How about that?

Who links to my website?