Haha thanks btw i was wrong about casino de montreal it's hella fishy

Just played the biggest pot of my life...

2/5 ($10 straddle)
(BB) Hero $900: KK
(UTG+1) Villain I $850:
(MP) Villain II $1200:
(MP) Villain III $1700:
(SB) Villain IV $900:

Preflop: Straddle UTG, Villain I raises 35, 4 callers for 35, Hero makes it 250, Villain I calls, Villain II calls, Villain III calls, and Villain IV calls 250

Flop, Pot = 1300
848
SB x, Hero goes AI for 600, Villain II calls, and Villain III ships AI, Villain II calls

Turn, Pot = 3100
7

River, Pot = 3100
T

Damn unlucky in that last hand glgl in the journey. I played at Casino de Montreal a bit and really liked it there. I've thought about moving there myself before since you've been there a while how do you like it compared to Alberta?

9Td flop 895dd I'm betting 50-60 into 75. You smashed it, now build that pot or take it down right there. Jacks are easy fold, you told him over pair with bet to 300 what is his min raise telling you. Aces fold river walk to restroom and puke. Guys are cold calling 100, time to flop a set with those jokes.

Very enjoyable thread btw, you play extremely well.

Hand 1: How does he react to 4bets? 3bets are smaller pots, whereas 4bets are much more meaningful. What range is he 3betting against an UTG raising range? Against a merged range IE normal villains, we're pretty crushed. Against a LAG's range, I would assume it's a bit better. But he did flat a 4bet OOP and then flat our flop bet. It's not a good spot for him to get FPS. The only hand IMO that we're ahead of that could make any sort of sense is AQ. 6 total combos, 7 combos of flopped sets and KK. AK, against our small flop bet, could potentially float as well.

So if we beat 6 combos and lose to 11, we're going to need to win 6 of 17 times. We're getting 575 to 1400. I don't have a calculator readily available, but mathematically seems like it's a fold.

Hand 2: Is his raise legal? Doesn't seem like it. Either way, think this is a fold. Surely we're hardly ever just limping UTG, so if our "reg" villain knows this then he could flat some strong hands. Maybe some FPS thinking, but also seems like a fold.

Hand 3: Like the flop xc. Turn....not sure I like the xc being OOP. We do have a decent amount of equity, but not enough imo to want to use this as a bluff catcher. Turn check/raise all in? If we think he can b/f hands like KT/KJ/AQ/QJ here. We can have all of the QQ/KK/AA - he can't.

But as played, think river is a call given sizing. Most villains aren't thin value betting enough so K9/KT/KJ might not be in his range, whereas AK/KQ are. 66/44 are possible as well, but other than those hands....AT/AJ/AcXc (A4cc comes to mind) JT/etc.

I'll post to the other two later

Min raise 530

Hand 4: Think we bet the flop, no? If we're wanting to play a balanced GTO range, then this might be a good spot to check and protect our overcard hands, but imo our hand is strong but vulnerable, and there are quite a few not good turn cards (A, K, Q, 6, 8).

OTR, what are the odds he has a 7? Pretty much 77/87/76, and maybe some A7s. But we also don't have many 7x in our range. I'd like a bet of ~$200. Villain may have some sort of bluff catchable hand and our line looks fairly bluff heavy. TT/JJ/65/86/A8s are all hands that can call. Obviously fold if raised.

Hand 5: Seems perfectly fine. Just as long as we jam pretty much all river cards. Not overly convinced villain can have a super strong hand that wants to play for stacks on a board that will favor us more than him.

Expecting villain to over-bluff the turn a lot think this hand is 2 streets we block a lot of his calling range with the 9x and flushes so i don't think we are getting called much OTF most likely x-fold or x-raise.

Your getting confused im not trying to balance/take FPS lines... always trying to max EV based on certain villain/spots. In this spot i think checking here is both a +EV strat for both our hand and our range.

Our range is most likely a lot of air when we x back flop here + some 9x being in EP.

Gotcha, didn't catch your value bet on river 120?

Montreal...jelly subbed, keep going man, you got this

I think there is a lot that he can call a flop bet with here. QJ/JT/J9/T9/87/86/56/75/A8/diamonds/77/66. Just think there is a lot more calling hands than expected. Only hands that won't call are like AQ/KQ and lower pp.

But at the same time I don't think we necessarily want to see a lot of turn cards. Which may be a reason to keep the pot smaller with this hand.

In regards to live poker in canada alberta is better then quebec/montreal. However the games are more spread in montreal there is more 2/5 nl, 5/10 and even 10/20+ (idk about PLO in both provinces as im mainly a NL player). There are def more fish/splashy players in alberta compared to some of the more reg infested games here in montreal. However most of the regs here are "bad regs" imo they make a lot of betting/calling mistakes and are exploitable so i classify them as fish anyways. Oh also the rake in Montreal > Alberta.

Im not 21+... if i was i would never choose to grind live games in canada even for online thus is my reason for choosing to be here. The states has way softer places to grind live, softer online pools, and USD > CAD.

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A little bit off-topic but i've playing live long enuf to notice a significant edge that you gain in regards to information that you cannot gain *for the most part* whilst playing online which def comes in handy in some spots.

I) Gameflow Factors: Mainly talking about tilt/emotions/momentum at the table and how certain players are doing in regards to recent events. Say someone loses a big pot/spews recently, their bluffing frequency/range may widen up compared to say before... and they will likely be taking more marginal spots/have more bluff combos in spots or start making more calling mistakes. Conversely if someone is running good they will try to "lock it up" or take less marginal spots.
This type of thinking really only applies to fishy/incompetent players who are inconsistent, but i think it's much more easier to tell live vs. online if someone is letting their emotions effect their A-game/play given the gameflow.

II) Live tells/Bayes Thm vs. Unknowns: Another really useful piece of information to tell who's incompetent/doesn't know what they are doing vs. someone who is a decent hand reader/knows some theory. Going by some pop tendencies in certain spots is what i usually do, but sometimes you can tell immediately based on how the player portrays themselves/behaves at the table if he is going to float the flop, have "enuf value" here, have well constructed ranges or have a x-raising range etc... Generally most guys who don't talk much/are the silent type are usually the most competent/you can expect to be a solid player.
There is a lot of stereotyping in live poker and generally most of it is true (lol), such as old guys/old asians tend to overplay hands or middle-east guys spazz out randomly (lul) etc...
Also usually headphones are a dead give-away that they are *usually* some sort of reg.

^^

Have you read any live tell books...I'm thinking Mike Caro's specifically, which I've got but never read as I don't play live enough to warrant the research.

I think you make a very astute observation, which is well known but often forgotten because there are so many more purely online players (like me).

Here's a wee interesting observation to go with yours...the Canadian playing pool (micro stakes cash and low buyin STT/MTT) has always struck me as very weak. Even the regs seem to play 2007 type poker. Given you comments about live being tougher than the states, kinda interesting no?

PS Zero nationality bashing here...the UK online micro stakes pool is pretty fishy too

subbed and gl

following gl buddy

My 2p on your hands:

AA- Villain is straightup terrible if he makes it 60 oop pre against a 25 open+flat, idk if I'd call him bad LAG or just, you know, huge spot. QJ7, it'd be very useful to know if he just rips 300bb with QQ pre or not, but either way I think both cbet and x behind otf are fine. Turn is quite bad and I like check, river... Well, I struggle finding bluffs in his range. If he turns Jx into a bluff we may be able to call... If he somehow bets AQ (and has AQo in his range pre) as well; That's very villain dependent though and against a good player I'd probably end up folding.

JJ- Your only reason ever to limp should be that V1 will ship a very high frequency of the time. I like the reraise to 300 and when he makes it 500... It sucks. lol. Ima still stack off anyway cause lol odds.

QJcc- We're probably beat often and we block Jc which is relatively important. However we have to pay 250 to win 1160 so have to win like 1/5th of the time and thus I'll just be a pay off monkey and call.

T9dd- Like to check flop with some FDs, wp. Turn call. River when he checks I'd bet like 30, really small, as they'll always pay off w/ a pair and these spots will increase your winrate quite a lot actually.

QJdd- wp

Also I just realized these hands happened quite long ago... Still gonna leave this here cause I wrote it already

glgl

Thanks lads. Haven't updated this thread in a while because yeah downswing for 1st month basically ran badly + played badly almost finishing up my 2nd month here in montreal and will post an update/monthly live graph soon.

Keep the feedback coming @ Kronincken really awsome advice you gave in the post really preciate it, also i'm sort of on the fence of putting in 100k hand samples @ micros coz i have 1 month left minimum in montreal and not sure if i'll be staying or leaving canada so yeah.

Yeah the AA hand was played really badly, river's a fold for sure. Yeah we called and won vs. AJ i think, villain with shortstack is def shipping a lot in this spot so i think it's fine to limp here. QJ pretty sure i rem villain over-bluffing the flop a lot with any pair+ and it depends on if he is going to be over-bluffing the K here and i thought he would with a lot of his bluffs. T9s is close, i don't think people bluff SDV in this spot when they x the river like they wud bet their entire range OTT here and i think T9s is ahead of enuf of that range given river run out to v-bet.

With the QJs hand i struggle to bluff... honestly finding marginal bluffing spots is incredibly hard for me and just not my style i'm more of a nit/TAG who will try and exploit by calling + folding. I have no idea of what spots are +EV to bluff, and when i try to bluff it never works out well for me...

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@ Kronincken if you could give more feedback on some of these hands i played recently that would be great i'll just post a few coz yeah for time's sake...

2/5 ($10 straddle, 50bb effective)
(UTG) $950 V1: TAG reg
(BB) $800 V2: Loose passive/whale
(MP) $475 Hero: TT
Preflop: 1 limp in EP, Hero raises to 50, V2 flats 50, V1 raises to 185, Hero 4-bets AI to 475?

2/5
(UTG+2) $600 Hero: AA
(Button) $800 V1: Bad reg
Preflop: Hero raises to 20, V1 calls 20, everyone else folds

Flop, Pot = 45 (2 players)
T25
Hero...?

2/5 ($10 Straddle, 6-max)
(MP) $900 V1: Bad reg
(UTG) $1800 V2: Bad Lag
(SB) $1250 Hero: KQ
Preflop: Villain raises to 30, Hero 3! to 90, V2 folds, V1 calls

Flop, Pot = 195 (2 players)
986
Hero bets 105, V1 calls

Turn, Pot = 405 (2 players)
K
Hero...?

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Feel like i still have a lot of leaks in my game, mainly not folding more + missed value bets in some spots. Bought CREV few days ago figure it's cheaper then PIObasic and yeah idk how much it'll help me but it's fun to use.

Also sort of wanna quit playing altogether for a multitude of reasons...

"Also sort of wanna quit playing altogether for a multitude of reasons..."

Sup bro ?

I took a month off from all poker in October and I think it was great for my mindset due to lotsa drama in my personal life.