So I had a pretty rough morning. Being from Australia and working full time means that I need to get up at 4:30 am, have a coffee and a roasted wombat for breakfast and sit down to play some poker. I do this a) because there is more traffic at this time and b) it is before my kids wake up so at least I get some peace and quiet. Anyway, these hands happened this morning and I would really like some feedback.

Hand 1 - Yeah, probably a pretty loose call but these two had been running at about 40/12 over 50 hands.




Hand 2 -



Hand 3 -

We prefer kangaroo down Sydney way, they let us keep the ones we hit in the city to take home to eat to save the council from having to pick them up.

Hand 1: I'm guessing BTN had AA. Min raise and calling every raise thereafter screams nuts. At 64BB there is no way you are folding against SB. Raise to 32bb is bad, you are putting 1/3 your stack in which commits you anyway, instead either shove, call or fold. At 2NL a 3-bet is usually very strong and I don't like calling with a player likely to come along behind (if I had position on both I probably call and see a flop) so I'm either shoving or folding. In the heat of battle I probably shove to try to make BTN fold and get it in with SB.

Hand 2: I either call the 3-bet or 4-bet/fold turning my AK into a bluff against his 3-betting range. I don't like calling shoves pre with AK, I'd rather be the one shoving if I'm going to get it in unless I have a read telling me they're getting it in light.

Hand 3: Why oh why did you call the raise on the turn and shove the river? He is either bluffing air in which case let him fire again, semi-bluffing a flush draw in which case it got there or has a monster in which case you are behind. Leading river only gets money in bad. Having said that, read up on Baluga theorem. At micro stakes a turn raise almost always means nuts and river raise practically always means nuts. Fold to the turn raise, and raise a touch more pre, I'd be looking at 0.16 or so. Otherwise lead flop and I check/call turn as you are now either solidly ahead or drawing very thin.

The last one is a clear blunder. Why are you calling the turn raise (or even betting the turn?) when your hand strength just took a nosedive? You really don't want to make a habit of getting pot-stuck with an underpair in a 3-bet pot.

In hand 1, I'd either fold to the cold 4-bet (with a read that villains are nitty/passive) or just shove as a 5-bet because of SB's stack size. I really don't want to play a multiway pot OOP with AK, so maximising fold equity can be beneficial, and there's enough dead money to use as padding if you're called and flipping vs one player. It's a disaster if both players just call the raise to 64c, as you'll hate 70% of flops, and have a really low SPR and a decent amount of your stack already invested.

Kind of similar spot in the 2nd AK hand. In general I don't mind shoving AK, but I hate calling off with it. In this spot I wouldn't mind just calling the min 3-bet (which is typically either a monster or air), and seeing what villain does on the flop, because 4-bet/folding is gross, but without a read that villain spew-shoves, so is 4-bet/calling off.

Results -

Hand 1 -
Seat 3: adelko88 (button) showed [9c 9s] and won ($1.33) with a full house, Eights full of Nines
Seat 4: byrek (small blind) showed [Qs Qh] and won ($3.84) with a full house, Eights full of Queens

Hand 2 -
Seat 2: Hotfrog5 showed [Kd As] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 3: bushpig33 showed [Ts 3h] and won ($3.50) with a straight, Eight to Queen

Hand 3 -
Seat 6: Sternpro (button) showed [Qs 2h] and won ($4.21) with two pair, Queens and Fives


Does this make any difference?

Does it make any difference? No

Hand 1
AK v QQ and 99 still has enough equity to get it all in? Obviously I didn't put them on those exact hand but I did think I was ahead of their range. But are you saying I should have just shoved instead of raised to 64c? I guess I was happy to either see the flop OR get it all in pre.

Hand 2
I was happy to get it in due to the read and stats on this guy. He was 100/70 over about 80 hands! One on those ones that I was really confident that I was way ahead of him.

Hand 3
Yeah, just terrible play by me really.

Having said that , my stats for the session came out as being down $9 with my all in adj as being up about $8.

Hand 1: If you see a flop you are investing 1/3 of your stack to see this flop. You will miss the flop 2/3 of the time. If an A or K flops then chances of stacking them greatly reduce if they have an underpair. This is bad.

Ok, should have shoved.

Do you think AA or KK is going to fold to a preflop 4-bet? AA won't obviously, and KK likely won't. The AK is doing fine against all other hands, so I'm unclear on why you are saying he should turn AK into a bluff.

I don't hate taking it down pre with AK especially if I'm not going to be IP on the field. AK is not an amazing hand to play multi way as we can't float as many flops as we could HU and there is less chance of the flop checking through. It contains blockers to both AA and KK which increases the chance of our bluff working. If an A or K flops we have little chance of getting stacks in against a weaker hand especially multi-way.

With hand 2 I was happy to get it all in due to his image. He was super loose and I'd seen him get it in with trash 2 or 3 times previously and lose. I suppose the question is, would it be more +EV to 4bet shove here instead of just call his all in? I don't think he was ever going to fold pre even if I shoved.

If you are the type of player who likes to gii with AK and flip around then great .. Please have the bankroll to do so.

The 3rd hand 'should' be pretty easy to get away from OTT .. This action is way different than a PF Bingofest. Obv you did 'fine' PF and are getting called by junk. This is either a function of the site, your image or just they way these opponents play and I applaud you for trying to take advantage of it. But unless you have a pretty good reason to suspect a min-raise is used to float hearts/bluff a very high percentage of the time just get out and use those chips in a 'better' spot. GL

results are always 100% irrelevant with respect to whether or not you played the hand well.

DON'T MATTER
Yes.

It means you're playing with results oriented thinking.

Stop it.