Poker Stars Hot $22 MTT

PokerStars - 25/50 Ante 6 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 101.68 BB (VPIP: 14.29, PFR: 4.17, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 28)
MP+2: 84.62 BB (VPIP: 10.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 86.26 BB (VPIP: 50.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
SB: 102.22 BB (VPIP: 25.81, PFR: 18.52, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, Hands: 31)
Hero (BB): 108.42 BB
UTG: 113.06 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)
UTG+1: 95.6 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)
MP: 110.2 BB (VPIP: 20.00, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 10)

9 players post ante of 0.12 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.58 BB) Hero has 5 3

fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 raises to 3 BB, CO calls 3 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 2 BB

Flop: (10.58 BB, 3 players) Q Q 5
Hero checks, MP+2 checks, CO bets 4.24 BB, Hero raises to 14.82 BB, fold, fold

Hero wins 19.06 BB

Didn't want to give V a chance to hit a stronger second pair, so XR OTF. Any comments on this line?

How do u play 66-99 here?

Fold pre.

move down stakes

Good question! I think that with 99, 88 it would be XC, but 66 and 77 XR - the logic is the same as in the played hand...

hmmmm....
pot odds to see the flop : 4.3-1
stack : > 100B
hand : 35s

Aren't these good enough reasons to call pre??

Thanks for suggesion! In fact I recently moved from $7 buy-in tournaments because it became super-boring, most of tournaments ended up with bad beat or lost all-in with short stack, rest ITM, so I decided to move up, see how it works and learn new tricks..this is how we progress, don't we?

Bluffcatching in small pots>protection

Also you’re c/r way too wide if you include 5x and small pairs.

I’d rather c/r polarised w/ stuff like 64hh,67ss,Q5s,55 etc. JT,KJ etc w/bdfd is good in a sense that you block Qx but many cards that we barrell ott also hit villains fh range so we have some rio. especially otr making a straight is way worse w/ say JKhh than 64hh.

I think I’m defending (calling/3betting) this pre but it’s marginal and wouldn’t fault you from folding this either.

Very interesting idea on 3-bet pre! Do I understand it correctly that we could do that because our hand is within the bottom of our defending range and we 3-bet with the top of it and the bottom of it to make our play unreadable?

That’s roughly the idea, yes. Although playability>hot and cold equity when choosing the hands to defend with.

Here is another hand where I XR'ed OTF all-in because I had two overcards plus bdfd and the pot was already half of my stack...BB called with TPTK and it seems absolutely crazy...any comments on this x/r and his call?


PokerStars - 20/40 Ante 5 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 122.5 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
CO: 130.37 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
BTN: 151.35 BB (VPIP: 44.44, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
Hero (SB): 113.25 BB
BB: 103.9 BB (VPIP: 66.67, PFR: 11.11, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG: 116.87 BB (VPIP: 11.11, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
UTG+1: 133.52 BB (VPIP: 55.56, PFR: 55.56, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 9)
MP: 124.75 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 2)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Q K

fold, UTG+1 raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 10 BB, BB calls 9 BB, fold

Flop: (24 BB, 2 players) 2 9 5
Hero checks, BB bets 30 BB, Hero raises to 103.12 BB and is all-in, BB calls 63.77 BB and is all-in

Turn: (211.55 BB, 2 players) 4

River: (211.55 BB, 2 players) 2

Hero shows Q K (One Pair, Twos)
(Pre 45%, Flop 27%, Turn 32%)
BB shows A 9 (Two Pair, Nines and Twos)
(Pre 55%, Flop 73%, Turn 68%)
BB wins 211.55 BB

his preflop play is very bad, his flop sizing bad, his call off when you jam is standard.
your postflop play is terrible, your opponent has clearly indicated he has a strong holding at multiple decision points and you still xrai.
would strongly suggest moving down or playing some low stakes zoom while you work on fundamentals.

In general (in HU pots) if u don't want to overfold, you don't want ur c/c range to be this close empty imo...if u c/r most of ur 5x;66;77 then u will have to add a lot of offsuit combos of A3-A4 to support ur c/c range (22-44 should be folds so u shouldn't include them.)

If ur check/call range is too weak then u can easily be exploited since 88;99 make up such a small % of ur preflop range (~2%.) With an SPR of 7 to 1, IP can stab 40% with his entire range and auto-profit. He can also barrel turn with minimal equity after u float flop and auto-profit since u won't be able to continue at minimum defense.

In this specific spot, having a very narrow c/c range from BB might actually be fine. Not sure if 88;99 will suffice but it's prob not far from optimal when we're getting squeezed btwn CO's stab and MP2's calling/raising ranges.

That said, your c/r freq should be significantly reduced when the pot is 3-ways. MP2 should be checking most of his strong hands here, so he is not capped and u shouldn't treat his check like a give-up. So a reasonable c/r range (vs these positions in a 3-way pot) might be: AQo; KQo; QTdd+; QTo/w diamond and 55 (33 combos), balanced by: JTs; J9s; 54s; A4s all w/BDFD (11 combos.) We want ~26% bluffs since we are laying CO 2.8 to 1 to call our c/r.

Before i ran the Sim I was thinking A3s-A4s w/BDFD would be our best c/r bruffs since we block the strongest Qx and AKs w BDFD and we can barrel turns when we pick up equity.

If ur HU, then u can use a wider c/r range and u can c/r some of ur 99 combos:



A prerequisite for c/r 5x combos is having a BDFD, can't c/r wout being able to barrel turns when we pick up a BDFD. You can obv include some Qx in your c/c range to bolster/add combos but u lose EV as u add > Qx combos.

All this

Also:

[x] fold pre
[ ] call oop in spots we are not sure how to play post