Hey guys,

My first post here.. well really anywhere on a poker forum so please have mercy if I screw this up somewhere!

I have been playing poker for about 12 years now, starting with home games with friends and the last 6 or 7 years in 1/2 NL cash games at casinos. I have been living right down the block from Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood for 3 years now - which is where this situation took place.

Prior to the hand in question, I get dealt AAo and pre-flop raised to 25 in EP. Cutoff 3-bets min raise to 50 (held his hand and mucked it before I could see what it was but I think it was KQ/JJ/QQ something or other) and button 4-bets all in with AKo. Action is back to me , and I had both raisers covered and pushed all-in with $225, cutoff calls and button calls. Long story short, I took the pot and tripled up - wish I could tell you the board but I dont want to make up what I cant remember (adrenaline was pumping sorry =/ )

Few hands later I am chip leader at the table of 8. I am SB with 10,3o - no pre-flop action, only cost me 1$ to see a flop so I called, ended up playing with the same player who was in Cutoff in the above hand who mucked his hand. Flop comes J , 10 , 3 rainbow. I check and action lands on him , he raises 20 - I check-raise to 45 and he shoves with about 120 all in.. I insta-call - turn and river end up as blank blank , he had top pair with J,X and I take the pot with two pair.

He goes full tilt and is shocked and starts ranting and going nuts as if I did something wrong and couldn't believe I check-raised and called his all in and even went over to another table next to us to complain and rant about what just happened over there as well..

Did I do something wrong here? Please let me know because I dont want to be that "guy" and I cant get it out of my head =/

(Sorry ahead of time for the missing board information, now that I am getting a bit more serious into this and documenting my play , wins, watchnig Poker Go events, reading more etc. I will make an effort to document the correct info I need to post an accurate thread in the future).

With 6-7 years of live casino play, this is the first time you've been yelled at for spiking a garbage hand in the blinds?

Seems fine. Guy is obviously on tilt.

I sure hope it was offsuit.

As far as the hand in question, you didn't do anything wrong obviously as far as how it played out, but be careful completing your SBs/overlimping with hands that hold almost no equity like T3o. It's one of the easier leaks to plug in most people's game.

Over the last 6 7 years I probably played 25-30 times with months in between play, sometimes 10months to a year. When I meant hobby/on the side player, like for fun whenever it dawned on me to go play, I really mean it.

Is that what it's called when you literally just limp in with a garbage hand and catch, spiking?

Yeaaaaah - noticed that a minute after I posted lol.

Folding preflop is more profitable in the long run. Hand like this where you make money are offset by the times you run into JT.

After that you are fine as long as you didn't say anything. Taunting somebody that you beat is frowned at because it makes them stop playing poker.

Oh no! Absolutely not, I would never taunt or fire back on anyone on tilt. I have been there and as a hobby/rec player I go to have fun with low expectations. If I break even and get a couple drinks paid for I am happy. My table talk is basically chatting up and cracking jokes, I hate negativity like that at a table its infectious

He did not return after that hand and although other players had things to say I just nodded and move along to the next.


Edit -- In regards to the advice on tossing these garbage hands, I absolutely agree and I usually only get out of line like this when I am up big and can afford a few bad gamble plays y'know ?

Don't open to 25 pre at 1/2.

Fold T3 in the SB. AP while the guy is ranting, politely interrupt him and ask him to grab you a few racks.

lol. it's a cute saying in a non tourney setting .

I widen my calling range with this guy and let him keep believing there is a him vs me dynamic. Then I laugh when he completely loses it because he cant fold a single pair hand against me, or when he spaz jams air in to my set.

Haha - might need to do this sometime.

I appreciate the info guys - I don't think in my entire HH I have ever won with T3.. like ever. I have a alot to sharpen and if I am considering trying to dive deeper into this, in the long run will have to tighten up on these garbage hands even if it's only 1$ to call.

I do have one question to Amanaplan: You said - Can I ask you to elaborate here please?

Side note: This particular table opened up was on fire, bet sizes were pretty much around here almost as soon as the first hand was dealt it was crazy! Would that make any difference or .. ?

I'm not Amanaplan, but...

You have to ask yourself why you're raising pre and what you're looking to accomplish. You typically don't want to increase your preflop bet sizes based on your hand - you want to change them because of your position or because of the number of people in the hand that you're trying to get to fold. You don't want to change it because you're scared though, because then you lose value.

You had AA in EP. In middle-late position, were people raising to $15 and still getting 4-5 callers per hand? In that case, raising to $25 is OK but you should be tightening your range in that case (I realize you had AA here, I just mean in general), and making the $25 raise with pretty much all of the hands you're going to play in EP when you want to limit the field. If $25 is instead going to get the entire table to fold around, because you've been raising $12 otherwise, then you're losing value. You don't want to steal the limps and blind with AA. You want to get one caller optimally, two callers if necessary, and even with 3-4 in the hand you still have a large portion of the equity and can win some very good pots if you play carefully.

You also may be telegraphing your hands when you make large raises and making you exploitable. If someone notices that every time you raise too big you have JJ+, AQ/AK, they're going to adjust their play vs. you and look to stack you with speculative hands and will be folding their AQ/AJ hands to you. You never want to set yourself up to be too easy to play against. Old people and your average passive player often play this way and they're the easiest players to navigate because we always know where we stand. As another poster stated here recently, don't be scared of cards.

If that table was opening to $25 normally, that's fine, but you have to really adjust your game in that case. Make sure you're paying even more attention to stacks than you normally would, because you don't want to call a $25 raise on the BTN heads-up to set mine a pair of 6s when your opponent has $150 left behind. You need to jam or fold here. On the contrary, it's a lot easier to flat a $15 raise with 66 when you and your opponents are playing at $450 effective.

If the normal table open is $12 though, and you're in EP, you can always make your raises there $15 or $16, and use your $12 raises when you're opening an unlimped pot in LP. Add the limpers money to your LP raises in general, so with 2 limpers ahead you can make it $18 in LP, for example. But try to be mostly consistent. Like I mentioned before, you don't want your bet sizing to make your hand play face-up.

I'm pretty sure this thread is a lvl.

I would say, don't ever complete the SB with trash like T3o type hands. It's a -EV for sure. At the same time let me tell you what happen with me in Vegas couple years ago.

It was at The Venetian; I had 63 in the SB and it was $20 straddle by the player OTB. Four people call the straddle, I did too. Don't know why I did it, maybe I may misread my hand but usually never do this kind of FoS play. Anyway, the player OTB check his option. Six way pot $120. I flopped OESFD on a board like 345, it was a 5/10 game. So I was thinking; man,.. what a mess I put myself in, !.. ha ha, .. I hope I can fold this trouble situation because I don't want to draw to six high flush. The action is checked all around so the pot is still $120. Could you imagine how stupidly lucky I got when I sniffed the 7 OTT. ha ha.. , now I got the absolute nuts. I cannot lose. I bet the pot for $120 and get raise by a villain to $1000 more. I re-raise to $2500 to go. He shoves the rest of stacks of about over $4000. I obviously call and won a huge pot on a one-card-stupid-hand. I played only the 6 for the nut hand. The villain had the nut flush with AQo that he didn't raise pre otherwise I would have folded that garbage on the preflop action.

The money were good but it was a stupid play on my part I must say and I was not proud about to complete the SB by another $15. Since that time I got the same 63o many time but never played again and I follow the flops and the board and I don't ever remember to have hit in any significant way. That hand and many others are all trash and rubbish.

So, Yes.., don't play trash ..,

Thank you for jumping in there Ghengis , it definitely makes sense especially with your example. I couldnt help but think though -

Given the story as a whole, is that his fault he didn't raise and play his hand or your fault you played trash 'eh? haha.

Also - What does this mean? lol

A+