Hey guys, I was just wondering what your thoughts + opinions were about this play.

It was a $5 sit and go.

I put the villain on precisely what he had, and I was right. And luckily, wound up winning the hand.

But, from a theoretical strategy standpoint, I was wondering what you guys thought of the hand below:

Winning Poker Network (Yatahay) - 50/100 NL - Holdem - 2 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

Hero (SB): 5,453
BB: 8,047 (VPIP: 46.00, PFR: 25.00, 3Bet Preflop: 15.38, Hands: 52)

Hero posts SB 50, BB posts BB 100

Pre Flop: (pot: 150) Hero has Q 8

Hero raises to 200, BB calls 100

Flop: (400, 2 players) 7 4 9
BB checks, Hero bets 330, BB raises to 1,650, Hero raises to 5,253 and is all-in, BB calls 3,603

Turn: (10,906, 2 players) 2

River: (10,906, 2 players) K

Hero shows Q 8 (High Card, King)
(Pre 63%, Flop 54%, Turn 70%)
BB shows 5 6 (High Card, King)
(Pre 37%, Flop 46%, Turn 30%)
Hero wins 10,906

Hi,

Why the strong flop bet? I see no need to build a big flop fast with so little equity. Small bets keeps the pot low, and gives you more room to outplay villain on later streets in position. It also gives you the benefit of getting out at low cost when facing resistance.

When he playes back you should fold. You could already be way behind, while still only 60/40 - 50/50 vs the open straight draws. In other words is his range is crushing you and you are praying for a draw.

Good read! But...... you realise that, aside from runner runner, you are down to 3 outs? And you have structured your bet sizing to give him almost exactly the correct odds to call, even if you never bluff?

It's not something I wish to adopt any time soon.

I bet out strong on the flop because I thought I was ahead of his draws, and if I get a call, then I can bet out again on any broadway card on the turn. Other than broadway cards, there are several cards that improve my equity such as a 6, ten, queen, and jack leaving me more outs if I was to get called on the flop. Any other cards than what completes villains draw, I think he's folding. I'm repping a medium-strong pocket pair, and QJ+.

If the turn comes a brick 2 or pairs the board, I was jamming.

When he made the big raise on the flop, I had seen him do this earlier in the tournament with the same draw. So I shoved, wanting a fold to scoop it there.

I'm sure that theoretically, I made a mistake. I guess it was just a good read.

I'm trying to get better at theory, so I appreciate your response. I'm mostly a live player (professional dealer) but I've been playing small stakes sit and go's and have been doing well.

I'm with mancuso
BTW I consider this whole post to be a thinly veiled brag - at least that was the intention. I think alll it really demonstrates is a lack of understanding of the fundamental concepts required to make a good decision here.

I don't like the play fyi. You don't need to be wrong much and it get terrible very quickly.

You are wrong way more often than required for this to become a sink hole of a leak.

How do you really do against the range of hands that 4x riases your MASSIVE near pot size bet on this flop?

You really want to ship all the money in against that range?

Hmm. That makes sense. I think in a vacuum, definitely it is a wrong decision. But when is poker ever really played in a vacuum? I had played the whole tournament with the guy, then it got heads up.


Hmm. I'm gonna take what you said strongly into consideration about the leak. Going to reassess why I made such a large bet. I do that often, now you have me questioning it.

And of course it was a subtle brag lol. Who wouldn't be proud of a sick read?

Questioning the things you do, particularly the things you do as a habit, is a very good way to lay a solid thought process for your game.
It is VERY easy for the ego to just assume a play is good "because it is what I do" - ergo must be a great play, and you can have huge leaks in your game and never realise - we all do this to a greater or lesser extent.

That's why it is so important to be honest with yourself as a player in order to keep improving.

That's where the good news for you ends I'm afraid.
I'd only bother reading the rest of this is you really want to be a good poker player, even if that means eating some humble pie along the way.

WHat follows is an honest assessment of this hand, how you played it, an evaluation of the ev of your line, and an evaluation of your own assessment of your play - ie what I think of how you think you played.

re sick read, you picked a hand and gambled that he had that one hand. You don't know enough about this player to call this a read. There are soooo many combo's he could have.
That isn't a read, it's a guess. It's like saying I made a read that the dice would roll a 6 next time. 1/6 times I'll be right, does that make me sick?

In heads up given how wide the ranges are and how random/irrationally people play, putting someone on one single hand an going with it is basically just guessing, you'll be wrong 10 times for every time you're right.

Each time you're wrong you will lose 30bb in ev by getting all in with maybe 20% equity, and each time you are right you win 5bb in ev by getting all in with 55% equity ( bet you thought you had him crushed right? NOPE - by allowing him to get all in at this point you give hime 45% of the pot), so we can already see he has to have this ONE EXACT hand 6 times for every one time you are wrong in order for your line to even break even with just folding.

Actually, if you were so sure that he had 65, then your line is totally awful, like easilly the worst thing about the whole hand.
Unforgiveable in fact.

As each future card works massively in your favour when you have more info than your opponent - you know his hole cards, you can't have more info than that, and you are in position.
That is a licence to print money, and yet you picked a line that only wins 5bb???
I'd think twice before I bragged about that.

I did read what you wrote.

But your ending, "yet you picked a line that only wins 5bb". That's if looking at it through a long-term play lens. I got him to call off his whole stack with me being a sleight favorite. I wanted to end the tournament right there and then and got it in on a sleightly better flip. I was fine with that.

I agree that if this the type of play I do regularly in this spot, that is pretty bad. But every spot is unique, and the play of the session, as everything that happened, leading up to the decision in a hand.

I would never play this hand this way in a cash game. Only a tournament. I wanted to win the tournament, and I got it in a sleight favorite. I don't know. I guess I was fine with 2nd place if I was wrong?

I appreciate the response. I just picked up this book "The myth of poker talent" by Alexander Fitzgerald. It's pretty good so far. I understand what you mean about being honest with yourself. So thanks again for the reply.

This may be the best sentence I have read on 2+2 ever. Good luck with your long term poker career Ian.

And +1 to everything Colin said

Alright, thank you. Good enough.

I'll update as I continue to get better at Internet poker. I'm mostly a live player, trying to transition into internet poker. I'm probably wrong in a lot of places. I still read everything you guys said and am putting it into consideration. Hopefully I'll have a good update as I continue to learn.

Good news Ian, your last post not only contains no glaring errors, but finally demonstrates acceptance of where you are in the poker learning curve/poker knowledge journey and is a step away from the dogmatic & counterproductive defense of how you played/thought in the past.

A humility if you will, which is a prerequisite for true growth and progress.

Good luck on your poker adventure sir

Thanks man. I appreciate that.

I was wondering if you knew of any good resources for small blind vs big blind strategy. I'm not too sure of good hand ranges for those spots. Or if you knew of any good resources in general? I listen to a variety of podcasts and am in the middle of Fitzgerald's book, but I'm specifically looking for small blind vs big blind play.

resources no, but the things I think you will need to know to help you study -
* Math of situations
How often does he have to fold for this bet size to be effective as bluff etc r how much do I need to defend here to stop him stealing the pot with ATC for example are a good starting point for constructing ranges, and knowing how to set up the formulas to solve these numbers is helpful.

* Range implications
BvB ranges are so wide, you need to look at what hands people play here in your games, and get a feel for the types of ranges people use. It's almost always surpising to new players when you see a range like this in flopzilla and see how much is flops junk.
When you see this, you will realise why the next step is key.

* Aggression
When neither player has anything - often the case bvb- the aggressive player will often come out on top. It's hard to face aggression when you have bad cards, so use this to your advantage.

Flopzilla - If you want to get good at poker, I think this is a must.
It lets you build and save ranges, the test that range on any flop/t/r you like and breaks down what you'll flop and how often.
It's $35 but I think it's great value and will help you get a much better picture of the ranges you need in different spots.

Thank you for this. The math part, I understand how to calculate how often a bet must work as a complete bluff. For example, a pot sized bet needs to work 50% of the time as a complete bluff, and you must be good 25% of the time to call a half pot sized bet.

I need to start constructing ranges and I really need to get flopzilla. I'm up to that chapter in Fitzgerald's book. I think I'm going to switch from poker tracker to Holdem Manager. But, I have a MacBook and flopzilla is windows only. I think I'm going to purchase a windows laptop solely for poker alone.

Thanks again for the recommendations.

With a bet that big, you're getting a lot of raises that are more than draws. You're showing a lot of strength and or a moron vs most opponents.

Best of luck with that c-bet size and best of luck calling off Q8.

awesome hand!
more please

pretty bad. bet less on the flop and probably just give up.

...you even block his bluffs...

having a 8 or 10 in youre hand are probably the worst cards you can have when youre looking to call light since you block 58,68,810,8J,10J and even 106... depending on how wide he defends this spot

plus with the 8 you dont even have 2 overs when vs a 9

*but all of that is hypothetical since you shouldnt be in this mess in the first place(i.e. huge CB and Q high call)

The sizing of his raise suggests he's not folding.

You say you bet flop to get called by his draws, but then when he raised big you put him on a draw. How does that work?

Your line could be good if you have a really good read on villain, but I dont think you have that from the info youve provided.

If dude is spazzing this hard you will get a lot better spots in the future to get his stack. You should prob be limping hands like this vs villain, even at this stack depth.


fyp

Dont let results be the judge of whether you made the right play or not. Youre not playing against the hand he had, youre playing against the entire range of hands he shows up with.

Hopefully i dont come off too harsh. I think nudging people to question their assumptions is a better way for them to learn. You seem to have a good grasp of concepts and approach the hand in a proper manner. You just seem to be subjectively analyzing things in order to justify your play, rather than looking at the hand objectively.

hi, the raise on the flop i dont think is bad,i mean, what hands he is representing ?, then when he shoves is clearly a fold, i know u have a read on him, but if he ace high u lose, he has 33 u lose and i can be all this day putting hands.

The thing is: " You can chose better spots to put your chips in. "

Good luck!