I am BB with 11 blinds not including the ante. Blinds are 1500/2500 with BB ante.

Two hands ago with 114,000 chips I raised first in with TT was called by player to my left, BTN shoved with 41,000 chips (~16 blinds) and I reshoved to get it HU. BTN had seen me raise widely from EP. I lost to AK. Next hand I raise UTG with AK and LJ shoves for 43,000 chips (~17 blinds) I call and lose to QQ. I am definitely aggravated but I wouldn't say tilted.

HJ raises to 6500 (I had been raising to 5500). He is a rec player with about 14 blinds. I look down at 74o and will fold if anyone calls or raises. Nobody calls. I decide its Stop N Go time. Partly because when I shove it will take a huge part out of his stack so he might be inclined to fold more and partly because the table is super pre-flop aggro especially the guy to my right so I won't have a lot of opportunities to be first in. So I call.

My plan is if I have a pair or any type of straight draw I am going to jam. If I have a back door straight draw and a back door flush draw I am going to jam. If there is no card > T on the flop I am also going to jam (two back door straight draws). I might jam with a J or Q on board if I see Rec guy looking disappointed in any way or not looking down immediately at his stack when the flop is laid out. I will check with 2 pair or better...

Flop is K72r. I jam.

All thoughts are welcome.

Next to an Ace, the K is the worst card to see on the flop. He folds everything you beat and calls with hands that have you crushed. And on that flop with your hand, you have no redraws.

Given that he raised a bit larger, I wouldn't even defend the 74o.

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74o is the bottom of your defending range vs a min r. Its definitely a fold vs 2.66x.

Its pretty hard to fold a pair now that we have gotten here. Villain has ~11bb and the pot is ~7bb. I dont like the donk jam, because villain can pretty much just fold all non pairs and be fine. You do beat some non pairs but you lose to way more. I would rather let villain put money in with Ahi or worse and c/jam or call if villain just jams it.


Also, you say you arent tilted after losing a couple flips, but others may perceive you as tilting, so thats something to keep in mind when you are doing something out of line trying to exploit.

74o isn't even close to a defend, especially in a tournament scenario where we have small risk premiums. And especially against a rec opening off of 14 BB.

As played, stacks are so shallow here there isn't a lot we have to do to get the money in. I can go either way between check/call and check/raise, probably with our worst 7x check/call is fine.

Just fold pre, this is too weak.

As played you have to get in when you flop a pair unless the board is excruciating.

Also, even if you say you aren't tilting, you're coming up with reasons to play a hand you shouldn't in order to get back the chips you lost.

I totally get what you guys are saying. 74o isn't a good hand to call with. But the reason I wanted to do it had nothing to do with my hand. I was intending to jam most flops whether I hit the flop or not. I didn't think I was going to be able to raise first in unless I was UTG or UTG+1 and then my hands would be not likely be great but would get called. And the guy who raised was not a good player (he should have jammed) and his stack was the only one at the table I could put a major dent in.

The reason I jammed on the flop after actually hitting a pair was threefold: I didn't want to have to deal with two overcards to my pair getting a free street (in case he was checking it back),
if he had 88-QQ and I could get him to fold, and if he had 88-QQ and cbet I would not be able to get him to fold if I c/r'd and I would lose the hand if I didn't jam especially if he did. As it turned out he tanked and folded assuming I had Kx (either he had 88-QQ or a big Ax).

I did manage to get knocked out the next time I was BB with JTo. UTG limped SB called and I checked. Flop was J76 two clubs and I jammed after SB checked. UTG called with 98s (flush draw) and hit his straight on the turn (with a T) and I failed to hit my boat on the river. So 3 straight flip losses for decent size pots. Which in a $400 tourney was fine with me. I got to rest a lot for Day 1A of the WSOP Senior Tourney.

I had a vaguely similar spot in Day 1A of the WSOP Senior tournament when I found myself in the awkward situation (at my 4th table) in level 11, which is the last level of the day with 14 blinds and 32o on the BTN with everybody having folded (which was kind of rare at my table and people weren't limping at this table unlike other tables). People were not calling much unless they had AK or TT+ to jams of any significant amount. So I jammed. The woman to my left who played about 3% of her hands and had fewer chips insta folded. And the chip leader at the table looked at his cards and pretended to call by turning them over but he had absolute garbage and he mucked. Turns out I was wrong about mostly everything I just said here as well.

I managed to survive Day 1A with 3 hands left to play when I jammed 77 EP with about 11 blinds (I had not played a single hand since the 32o incident but I did have one walk when I was BB). The same guy (CL) who had been BB hesitated and called with ATo and it turns out a guy at the far end of the table folded AQo (so I was 1 for 2 on my assumptions which kind of sucks in the 32o spot because I was 100% wrong about what the CL would have called with). The flop was T85 all hearts and on the bright side I had red 7's and he had black ATo. The turn was a heart and when the day was over, the AQo guy told me he had folded a heart.

But in fairness to myself I didn't want to go to Day 2 with <12 blinds. I preferred to risk doubling up or buying in again to Day 1B.

74o is a little too weak to defend. I think it would defend 75o but not 74o. Hmm I think I would check jam if I think I have any fold equity post with stack size. I’m fine ripping 74o on this flop but annoying when you run into 88+ or kx. I would just fold pre though bc it’s hard to make top pair with 74o which is an ok stack off hand. Way too much fold flop with this hand when we are short. I would fold and look for better spot.

The JTo bust out hand worth a mention as well.


Theres 4bb in the pot and you are jamming 15bb into 2 people with med-strong hand? (assuming you didnt chip down during the last orbit)


When called you are going to be at best flipping vs a combo draw/fd+overcard, and crushed by 67s, J7s, 66,77,and better Jx. You are making it easy for your opponents to play well vs you with these types of jams.

Sure I get equity denial, but you are also missing out on value of getting worse hands to continue.

Good points. And in fairness to myself I had min raised with A4s and folded to a 3-bet and was back down to about 12 blinds on the hand.

Had I been against 1 opponent I would have bet about 2.5 bb's. I wanted to reduce the chance of being called by overcards. Turns out the SB folded a nut flush draw. I think with any other 98s UTG would have folded as well. I block J7s of which there were 2 left. I think they have some 6Xs/7Xs and I preferred to avoid that. I also thought it possible that UTG could have KQ/KT/QT/KXs/QXs which might call a small bet in position. SB could have hands like 85s/54/89. Basically there wasn't going to be a turn card other than a 2 that I was going to be happy about vs 2 opponents except for a J.

The other thing is that while UTG can have 66/77 I didn't think SB could. The types of hands that I was behind like QJ/KJ/AJ (if possible) were never going to fold and we would be all in by the river anyway.

Rick I have an exercise for you:

1. State your assumptions for IP opening range
2. Consider these random flops:

6s4h8d
Qs6c4c
Th8cKh
2hQs3s
2sTdJc


3. Guess what IP has to defend vs 133% pot donk ship on all these flops. Which parts of his range do you expect to play so poorly that it opens him up to exploitation?

You plan seems superficially horrible but I'm in a open mind kind of mood. Perhaps you can get some excess folds from underpairs and AQ-AK.


4. Describe what you're looking for. Are you sure that these are universal tells?

AJ+/KQ/88-99/KK+/maybe 77 I think he jams TT-QQ pre-flop but I could be wrong. He hadn't raised much at all and when he did he was very strong. So KQ might not have been in his range.

I think I jam all of them. I wouldn't normally jam the KT8 flop but I don't think he opens AT. Ironically even if he did he would probably fold that. The flops I don't jam would have Axx. The other thing about this guy is he would likely check back if he didn't have the A so i could jam the turn and likely take it down.

All of his range he plays poorly.
That is exactly what happened. He could have had an underpair or AQ/AJ.
There are several things I look for here. When the flop hits I am looking down but actually peripherally at his face. If his head goes down to look at his stack when the flop is laid out I know his plan is to bet. If he stares at the flop like it means something its more likely a miss. He wasn't looking at anything but the flop when he was in a hand and he didn't connect with the flop. And here he was just staring at the flop.

The other thing he did once or twice was go to pick up chips and then not bet when it was on him. Like he wanted people to think he connected with the flop.

The first is a universal tell. The second was about this guy in particular. But the thing about people looking down at their stack is described in depth in Mike Caro's Book of Tells. So there are many pros who always look down at their chips when the flop is laid out. So while there are some people who this is a tell for there are some who it isn't. But if you have played with somebody for hours then you know which camp they are in.