REAL hand examples, insight into my play

[chrisdione]

playing that hand was the first mistake. In a PO game playing Q10 off is not a hand I would get involved in unless it was a short table or the FT. Sorry, you started this hand all wrong. Then raising 7x BB was the second mistake. Better luck next time.

[MovingFlea]

how many people would have made the call on hand 2?

[TheHaversham]

Well, I see many problems here, tbh.

First off, your raise is ill-timed for the situation. If an early limper is trapping you, your raise will never get a fold. Additionally, many people limp with hands better than yours, such as AQ, KQ, and QJ, not to mention pairs lower than TT. Consider that QTo is a hand that plays very well in multi-handed pots, but loses value considerably against one or two opponents - assuming they are playing only somewhat correctly. So to raise to 7x here does very little to define opponents' hands, and puts you in the uncomfortable position of playing a bloated pot with a marginal hand.

The ONLY thing you have here, really, is position. Position is a powerful weapon, but unless you're in the blinds it's not likely to change in later streets. My point is that if you are going to wield the weapon of position, there is no need to swell the pot before doing so. If position is going to win a pot for you, your cards are irrelevant, but so is the need to make the pot larger.

Which leads to the issue you seem concerned with: pot size. In these freerolls, stack sizes dictate much of the action. For example, A8o is a weak hand with 100+ BB's, whereas if you only have 8 BB's, A8o can be a monster. A 7x raise, pre-flop, with Q-hi, is begging for trouble unless you feel there is a good chance you will take the pot down there. But in freerolls, that is incredibly unlikely. Most bad players make mistakes on later streets, but once they have committed much of their stack to the pot those mistakes are actually "less-bad." So when you have enough chips to overcome a small mistake, there is no need to exaggerate that mistake by swelling the pot and justifying even more bad play from your opponents. (For example, in limit poker almost ANY draw can be justified after the turn if the pot was capped pre-flop and/or on the flop.)

Keeping the pot size manageable is good advice for almost any player at any stage. Your hand strength and opponents are good barometers of how big you want a pot to be. Do you find yourself playing a lot of big pots with marginal holdings? Perhaps you are over-valuing position. If you're worried that some donkey is going to call a smaller bet and beat you, I would submit that there are plenty of donkeys who would also call a larger bet and beat you. Control what you can control. Is it better to lose 3-5 BBs to a donkey, or your whole stack?

Once you've put in 7x, what is your plan if someone behind you raises again? Or if one of those limpers re-ships? You've put yourself in a fairly uncomfortable position. In your description, you sound as if the pot swelled by itself, but the size of the pot is a direct result of your huge pre-flop raise. You can punish limpers AND still maintain a manageable pot.

The turn bet is not disastrous, altho since the pot is so large by that point any bet you make puts you in a vulnerable spot. When you et called there you should be praying to NOT hit the river so you can fold easier. But alas, when the river hits you (that's what's called a kill-card) you erase action til now from your memory and simply call on your hand strength, which is still pretty weak. Consider that you've indicated that you have a big hand pre-flop, but then checked a small-texture flop and bet another small turn card. What hand are you selling at that point? I would have likely played my QJ exactly as the Villain did here, since it is likely even my top pair is no good. But on the river, when I make a 2nd pair, I'm suddenly HOPING my opponent has AA or KK and cannot fold.

My advice? Until you get a better grasp on the concept of smallball (if not for yourself then for how to defend against it vs others), you should just be folding QTo pre-flop in this spot.

[TheHaversham]

Hand 2: I don't see folding any A in that spot, tbh, even if you know your opponent to be tight. The fact that he is loose is actually an argument for folding, except you are so short.

Just for fun, to see an interesting dynamic, the next time you have 15BBs, re-shove into ANY raiser with 30-40 BBs. You will likely be surprised at the weakness of their holdings as well as the success rate of this move.

Counter-intuitive to some, at the effective stacks in Hand 2, both yours and his plays are completely justifiable, as the cards become irrelevant.

[TheHaversham]

Good analysis, you're clearly playing better than your opponents, although I would challenge you to try to think for yourself. Sure the 3x + 1 per limper is deemed standard, but the PO games are not a standard format. By which I mean, the players play a wider range, aren't able to reason, the format is turbo, stacks are shallow, etc.

Play optimally for beating your opponents, rather than the "book" play. That's a big tip for beating games like this.

Just my two cents, good luck.

Yes, I agree. You played like a "Harringbot." When a smallballer sees you raise like that, his mouth begins watering, fyi.

"I raised that much because that is how much you raise. 3X the BB + 1 BB per limper." <---this is sort of silly if you think about it, and extremely exploitable. The sizing of someone's raise is one of the greatest indicators of hand strength/playin style I know of, at least online. If you have a pattern, or if you are doing something because "that's just what you do," then you can bet keen players are onto you.

[MovingFlea]

Hand 2: I don't see folding any A in that spot, tbh, even if you know your opponent to be tight. The fact that he is loose is actually an argument for folding, except you are so short.

Just for fun, to see an interesting dynamic, the next time you have 15BBs, re-shove into ANY raiser with 30-40 BBs. You will likely be surprised at the weakness of their holdings as well as the success rate of this move.

Counter-intuitive to some, at the effective stacks in Hand 2, both yours and his plays are completely justifiable, as the cards become irrelevant.

nah trust me ppl dont fold here in these games. i would need a hand to do this with.

[TheHaversham]

Almost everyone LOSES. See the connection? lol jk. Yea I should have checked the turn, I just didin't know that at the time. the fu---- was slowplaying me.

Which you induced. Consider that he puts you on the strongest pre-flop hand, AA. Flop comes J-high, he may be pondering a check-raise to get you off pairs below J and/or AK/AQ. If you continue, he knows where he's at. But you CHECKED the flop. That was another mistake, and now his hand has value as a bluff-catcher. You're not folding overpairs, so no real need for him to bet the turn, but AK/AQ and TT and lower would almost ALWAYS bet, so no real need for him to fold. If he bets out instead of check-calling, he gives you the opportunity to shove, which puts him in an awkward spot with top pair and flush draw. It makes much more sense for him to keep the pot under control (see what he did there?). By the river, he can be fairly certain to be ahead, so the biggest bet he thinks you'll call is justified.

[MovingFlea]

Which you induced. Consider that he puts you on the strongest pre-flop hand, AA. Flop comes J-high, he may be pondering a check-raise to get you off pairs below J and/or AK/AQ. If you continue, he knows where he's at. But you CHECKED the flop. That was another mistake, and now his hand has value as a bluff-catcher. You're not folding overpairs, so no real need for him to bet the turn, but AK/AQ and TT and lower would almost ALWAYS bet, so no real need for him to fold. If he bets out instead of check-calling, he gives you the opportunity to shove, which puts him in an awkward spot with top pair and flush draw. It makes much more sense for him to keep the pot under control (see what he did there?). By the river, he can be fairly certain to be ahead, so the biggest bet he thinks you'll call is justified.

He's just luckky as shit I didin't have AQ, AA, KK, QQ, JJ. I've tightened up my game lately, so I wont be making this mistake next time with QT.

[TheHaversham]

Well, if you have it all figured out, why do you ask for advice?

How about YOU trust ME? It's a freeroll, what's to lose?

Rarely are you going to get a better hand than yours to fold, but there are enough freerollers hoping for a min-cash that you'll see this play succeed. What you are not getting, I suspect, is the math of the situation. If they are only calling your 15 BB shove (1/2 to 1/3 their stack) with the top 25% of hands (which is generous), the math is clear that you will win from behind often enough to overcome the times you are behind.

I've only been around PO a little over a month or so, so I understand if you don't think I know what I'm talking about. My results, however, speak for themselves, methinks. One sign of a player who's not overcome that "hump," is to be too results-oriented. Make the right decisions, let the results come. Don't 2nd-guess a good decision just because an idiot got lucky.

[TheHaversham]

Well, if you consider that if you had AQ, AA, or KK you would also have lost (did he not make two pair on the end?). True, you may have flopped top set, or rivered a set, but as played that is quite unlikely.