Another unknown villain.


Poker Stars $105+$9 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t50/t100 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BB: t1650
Hero (UTG): t1370
UTG+1: t1340
UTG+2: t1275
MP1: t1570
MP2: t1695
CO: t2195
BTN: t1335
SB: t1070

Pre Flop: (t150) Hero is UTG with T T
Hero raises to t254, 7 folds, BB calls t154

Flop: (t558) J 4 5 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: (t558) 2 (2 players)
BB bets t200, Hero calls t200

River: (t958) 7 (2 players)
BB bets t1196 all in, Hero ?

ya this is close. I mean, unless he was going to c/r flop, he prob doesn't have a J. I'm on the fence about this one. I'd prob. fold.

I fold. This looks pretty strong to me. A really small bet followed up by a really big bet is often strong imo.

Looks like he planned to check raise the flop, but when you check behind he puts out a small bet that you're probably going to call on the turn in an attempt to make the pot big enough to shove the river. I don't think he's ever really gunna bluff in this spot and I don't reckon he's shoving a 5 or a 7.

Lowstakes question of the day (if not appreciated, feel free to tell me, but I'm trying to educate myself here ):

Why didn't you c-bet this flop? I'd always do so in my lowstakes games with as reasoning that there are lots of overs that you don't want to see on the turn, this flop doesn't hit his range in particular and you might get some value out of 66-99. Of course pf calling ranges might be dramatically different here... Is checking behind standard here? (and if so, why?)

I bet the flop. Too many turn cards I don't want to see.

I will never cbet on this flop with TT, this is the perfect spot where 66-99 will actually check raise me.

I decided to fold because the only possible hands are 44,55 or 77.

If he's a good player I would say he's trying to buy you out of this pot because you've provided him with an obvious read on the turn that your hand is weak.
But however, some heavy donks will make the same move...

So being bluffed out of the pot because you showed obvious weakness, by either an experienced player, or a superdonk... Possibility#1


Possibility#2
If he's an average bad/fishy player(but not the worst kind), and he prolly flopped a monster, like a set... wanted to trap you on the flop... then on the turn he wanted to see if you would still stay in the pot if he made a small bet... and on the river let his greadiness get the best of him..like so many other bad players do... they don't know how to valuebet...Or in most cases they dont even know the word 'valuebet'.


Possibility#3
Bigblind called you with A3s.



I would check his stats to maybe have a better idea which possibility to choose.


(Edit: I fold here too in this case... You should've made a C-Bet on the flop... or you should at least have raised his bet on the turn imo)



Grtz
Jorgo V

Ah ok, so its for pot-control basically (?), makes sense. Thanks for the reply!

One more thing though, you are opening UTG with 14BB, won't BB be CRAI'ing himself straight out of the tourney alot here (seeing that your range probably contains a lot of JJ+ with which you are getting it in)? and does that mean that villains still suck at these stakes?

yeah so i raise to ~ 1/3 of my stack pre so I have one PSB left on the flop.

raising to 254 is cool looking and all, but theres not shot its optimal. You have 13.5 BB's, and 1010 UTG. By raising to 2.5 bb's you leave the option open for you to make mistakes by folding somewhere in the hand, which might not be a mistake giving the board texture - but is because you have so few BB's its terrible to raise pre then fold out flops somewhere, and getting in tough situations.

better to just avoid all that and raise to ~400 pre and ship any flop. In LP with same stacks a str8 shove is better so blinds dont mess with you via stop and go...

by all means if u have a 15ish-20 BB stack in same spot raise small as you did, but with this stack size and position, you will be getting yourself in lots of post flop trouble which can be avoided by playing the hand better by Go and Goin'.

btw shove>>>>>>254 by lots, yet imo ~400>shove>2.5

raise to something tall and scarey 399 is good.

I definitely shove preflop. Open raising makes it awkward to c-bet the flop. I probably call a lot on the end and if you think his range is only 44-55-77 then what was the point of posting the hand? He can easily be bluffing a wide range here, your line looks really weak so if he had any sense and was so strong he'd bet smaller.

The trouble is that there's John, Darin and others at the 114s who actually pay attention to what your doing. If you shove this then you really have to shove AA too.


And as played I think it's a fold. Big bets on the river from unknowns are usually strong and as Luis says he could easily have played all those sets like this. And 22 fwiw.

and the problem with this is???

it's called merging your range.

yeah pretty dependent on who's sitting at the table but if you want to really get into it you could discuss it for a long time and it would become slightly less longer than how to play big pairs in early levels vs other tight regs.

Shove TT = +Ev.



...nothing more to say

First of all, I'd have either limped in or raised to 350-400. Not sure why you raised to 254. You gave him correct odds to call with almost any two if he is a decent post flop player.

Then, with the flop in question, I'd bet between 600 to a shove if he checked to me. I'd almost never check that flop.

Considering the way you played it, I would have raised him 300-400 on the turn and folded if he re-raised me, and probably if he called and donk bet the river, but avoiding those situations is one of the many reasons to play it more aggressively pre-flop and on the flop.

LOL! Seriously...
I THOUGHT he had 44,55,77 but obviously I don't know since I folded and I wanted the forum's opinion...

Also shoving preflop TT UTG with 14bb can be profitable at a $16s where if you raise you get called by a bunch of morons, at $114s you reallly don't want to give out so much info with 6 very good regulars at the table.

As played I fold. It's really hard to call readless here so big bet and hard to also define if his play is either strong or weak IMO. I think 2,5x is standard. Alltought fisheaters 399 sounds kinda nice bc it makes postflopplay so much easier but it's problem is like shoving that it gives away info to other players who watches u(regs) and u would have to do it with your good hands too or darin or john would see in to your soul And open shoving Hands like QQ+ and AK with 13bb u lose much value when no one can re-shove over you and calling is their only option.

And when we are 13 bb deep I'm okay with the fact that sometimes(rarely) I'am force to fold 1010.

So overall I think keeping your play balanced and raising 2,5x and taking some hard desicion post would be my option here.

I'm like 100% c-betting this flop but u made good argument not to do it though. If u paly your strong hands also like this sets etc. I think it's pretty unexploitable.

pretty much my thoughts. altho, dude are you really shoving 'any' flop here when flatted reguardless by who flats you? I might find some sort of fold in some extreme situation.

gonna depend a bit on what i see in the hud. but i c-bet 100% vs unknown and probalby going broke

one more thing to add about the flop. guys that call from bb with 66-99 love a J45 flop. so this flop is pretty good for you. if the flop is JT4 or QT4 then a guy with 66-99 is not so exicted with two overcards.

also, i would never consider open pushing this hand. being able to 2.5x and then being good enough to play postflop and/or being able to fold pre in certain situations is an adjustment that needs to be made at 114+ imo.

Luis c-bet, let him float, call him down on turn and river. As played I think you have to call since you've represented nothing. But it's thin.

I would call vs a random, im an awesome station. If i didn't cbet it would be to not fold to action like this, otherwise i just cbet 254 again and snapcall his CR and not really care what he has

hmm seems terribad. at what point will sng players come to a different conclusion than "shove" when facing an awkward spot? shoving is +EV, unexploitable, easiest move blah blah blah but if we are talking about maximum value, most +EV raising to induce shoves from worst hands is the vastly superior play. once in a while you will get flatted and have to dump it on poor flops but it's not like people are flatting a ton here.

also luis i would be bet calling this flop, how many jacks does villain have in range? worse hands call/CRAI all the time. as played i like your line though, maybe five percent of the time I hero it if villain has atrocious shark stats or some such.

sorry to call you out brendan specifically but it in the holiday spirit i must give unsolicited advice as it tis the season

Btw just to clarify I thought sippin's vid was very solid in general. Incredible how he can play that many tables and still make near-perfect ICM decisions constantly. His ICM is probably more solid than mine is playing 8 tables. Also a lot of good insight into how to still pay attention and even hand-read some while playing 21-tables. I just thought he might be missing some value on the +10BB shoves.

And the LTAI = scary raise thing is a personal opinion of mine. I know a lot of people use it. But I don't think it works on the good players, and the bad players are more likely to not notice or understand that you're committed and shove over -- as they are to be scared of your LTAI raise. IMO. The only time I ever pay attention to an LTAI raise is when I've seen the player shoving 10BBs previously, or I have a note. But a solid multitabler I would play it exactly like a shove.