I want to get good at unlimited texas hold them. Therefore, I'm looking to do some serious hand analysis in order to improve on my game. This means analyzing hands Hero has butchered or played really well, and the reasons behind it. None of us are flawless, and I figure this will be a great way to both improve on my game (as long as you girls and guys co-operate, obviously) and to contribute to the forums with some half decent posts.
I also figured it could be nice to have others comment on my thought process and other things you find interesting. I hope these threads will improve the quality of posts in this forum and the quality of those players reading and contributing to the inevitable discussions.
If you want hands analyzed like this, send me a PM and we'll talk.
Hero flops a flush draw on an all broadway flop in a re-raised pot versus a good, thinking player
http://weaktight.com/491193
This hand is in “The Butchery” because Hero, as Hero is known for doing, killed this hand. I will go through why this hand was butchered, and how Hero should’ve played this hand. Also, stack sizes are a bit awkward in this hand. This means that bet sizing (both Villain’s bet sizing, and Hero’s bet sizing) should play a key part in how Hero decides to play the hand.
First off, we will go through some reads that Hero has on Villain in this hand. Villain is a standard tight player, and seems to be pretty straight forward. Hero knows Villain re-raises pretty frequently from the blinds (which is a pretty common thing to do). This would suggest that Villain is positionally aware and wants to decrease Hero’s edge (the advantage of position increases as the depth of stacks increases) in the hand. He also knows that Villain is quite selective about the hands he chooses to play from the blinds, so Villain should be re-raising for value a very high percentage of the time. However, Villain had re-raised Hero’s open-raises a couple of times (Hero folded) and Hero figured 5-7 suited in position was a hand he could defend in this spot here. Given the size of Villain’s re-raise ($3,75), Hero also figured he got a good price to crack a big hand. Calling pre-flop is cool as long as Hero is capable of robbing Villain post-flop at times.
One fact Hero has to recognize before calling a re-raise with a suited connector, is that he must be willing to stack off very light post-flop. He must be willing to try to squeeze out every single % of folding equity there is, and that means shoving gutshots, bottom pair with a backdoor draw and any kind of combo draw.
Also, please recognize that stacks are about 150 big blinds deep. This means that there are approximately two or three bets left in the effective stacks to go in at this point. This will obviously depend of bet sizing, but if we assume pot sized bets as a default, there will be one pot sized bet for the flop and one pot sized bet left for the turn + some money left behind for the river. If Villain bets the flop, Hero raises and Villain shoves, Hero is getting between 3-1 and 4-1 on a call, given that both are close to pot sized bets.
Let’s start out by assigning both players a range. Hero has been playing a standard tight aggressive style up to this point, and he open-raises from the cut-off. Hero probably opens between 20 % and 30 % of his hands from the cut-off. It folds to Villain in the small blind, who decides to re-raise. Let’s think about Villain’s range in this spot. Assuming Hero raises about 1/4 of all hands from the cut-off, Villain’s re-raising range could be pretty wide. However, Villain is in the worst position possible now. He is in the small blind, and will be first to act on all later streets. This positional disadvantage should narrow his range down considerably, and he is probably pretty strong. Also, given the reads that Hero has on Villain, we can assume this re-raise is mostly for value. We can not discount suited connectors and smaller pocket pairs, but we have to weigh Villain’s range towards stronger hands.
Hero’s hand looks a lot like a small pocket pair, a suited connector, maybe a suited ace. Given the fact that Hero chose not to re-raise pre-flop will weigh Hero’s range towards medium strength hands pre-flop. An aggressive player would probably not flat-call a hand like A-K or a pair of kings in this spot. Hero’s range looks like pairs deuces through aces (with more weight towards the middle part of those hands), suited connectors (hands that are trying to crack bigger hands) and hands like A-Q and other hands that have good high card value (those kinds of hands are pretty cool to play in re-raised pots, because pairs go up in value as the size of the pot increases).
On the flop, things get interesting. The texture of the board is very wet, and this is a prime example of an action flop.
Hero picks up a slight tell from Villain’s bet sizing and Villain’s timing. We weighed Villain’s range towards stronger hands before the flop, and the flop is a flop that probably hits Villain in the face. Hands we expect Villain to have in this spot, are hands that we shouldn’t expect to fold on this flop. Now, Villain bets $6 into a pot of $12. Let’s evaluate the range Villain sizes his bets like this with. Certainly, Villain would bet in order to get value. His bet sizing tells us he isn’t worried about his hand. This translates into him either having a monster hand or “nothing at all”. Given that we weighed his range towards stronger hands, a raise seems pretty futile in this spot. Let’s look at why.
Let’s start off by look at stack sizes. There is about $60 left in the remaining stacks after Villain bets $6 on the flop. If Hero decides to raise, he will probably raise to something like $20 - $25 in order to maximize folding equity (A red A-K and/or QQ might fold to this size). If Villain re-raises all-in over Hero, Hero has to call about $40 more into a pot of around $100, effectively paying $60 in order to draw for a flush that initially cost $6 on the flop. This is especially valid when Hero picked up a tell on Villain.
In this spot, Hero might as well sacrifice some of that folding equity in order to draw for his flush. Given that Villain has a range that seems stronger rather than weaker; Hero should take the 3-1 pot odds in order to draw for his flush. There might be some strong implied odds in this spot as well, as Villain probably won’t be laying down any set or a straight even though a spade hits the turn. Regardless of whether or not Villain has a hand and strong implied odds at the current time, the long term expected value of a flop call far outweighs the expected value of a flop raise (a raise might even have negative implied odds, given the reads we have on Villain).
If Hero misses his draw on the turn, he still has position and can make good decisions depending on Villain’s actions on later streets (this will usually involve a lot of checking and folding).
Ooohjoy's Butchery is a series of threads where I will analyze hands and talk about why I think some plays are better than others.
