Today was the $300 Antes Up WCOOP event, which I think is just a fantastic tournament structure. For those who don’t know, the blinds stay at 5/5 for the entire tournament, but the antes increase with each level. So like the stakes could be 5/5/120, with a pre-flop pot of 1090 but blinds of just 5.
When you put players in unfamiliar situations like this, you can see quickly who is playing poker and who is just clicking buttons or parroting things they read in a book. Notice that in an unraised pot with the stakes I mentioned in the example above, a player will be getting 218:1 to limp into the pot pre-flop. There’s really no excuse for open folding ever, but people did it left and right. Likewise people had no idea how to size their pre-flop raises, how to play in multi-way pots, etc. It was awesome.
Here’s a big pot I won as a result of taking advantage of huge odds I was getting with a junk hand pre-flop:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 40 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP3 (t5725)
CO (t1471)
Hero (Button) (t5430)
SB (t7852)
BB (t4963)
UTG (t4855)
UTG+1 (t5175)
MP1 (t6062)
MP2 (t4005)
Hero’s M: 14.68
Preflop: Hero is Button with 2
, Q
2 folds, MP1 bets t25, MP2 calls t25, MP3 calls t25, CO calls t25, Hero calls t25, 1 fold, BB calls t20
Flop: (t515) Q, 9
, 2 (6 players)
BB checks, MP1 bets t397, 3 folds, Hero raises to t911, 1 fold, MP1 calls t514
Turn: (t2337) 7 (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero bets t1024, MP1 calls t1024
River: (t4385) K (2 players)
MP1 checks, Hero checks
Total pot: t4385
Results:
Hero had 2, Q (two pair, Queens and twos).
MP1 had Q
, 4 (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Hero won t4385
Getting 20:1, I’m playing any two cards on my button, even in a multiway pot. It’s a shame the draw had to come in on the river, because I think otherwise Villain was good for a big river bet.
Because I was limping into so many pots, and so many people were (correctly) raising relatively weak hands with limpers in the pot ahead of them, I also limped some big hands. This hand where I busted out is a pretty close decision pre-flop, but the two main Villains were by far the most active and aggressive at the table. My “cold” 4-betting range here is very tight, probably just AK, AA, and KK, so I guess if Villain wants to stack off with QQ, more power to him. Given that he did choose to stack off, I do like the way he went about it:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 5/5 Blinds 125 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t3658)
BB (t7978)
Hero (UTG) (t11203)
UTG+1 (t13120)
MP1 (t11426)
MP2 (t7202)
MP3 (t19402)
CO (t12010)
Button (t11744)
Hero’s M: 9.87
Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, A
Hero calls t5, UTG+1 calls t5, MP1 bets t550, 1 fold, MP3 raises to t1455, 4 folds, Hero raises to t3899, 2 folds, MP3 calls t2444
Flop: (t9488) 6, 5, 5 (2 players)
Hero bets t7179 (All-In), MP3 calls t7179
Turn: (t23846) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t23846) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t23846
Results:
Hero had K, A (three of a kind, fives).
MP3 had Q, Q (full house, fives over Queens).
Outcome: MP3 won t23846
What would you assign as a proper preflop raise size, relative to the ante? Something like 6x the ante (almost 2/3 pot)?
Also, were people getting away with raising so small (at least I think it is small), like to 550 in the the second hand when the ante is 125? I mean, that will still lay an enticing price.
Truthfully I’m not wild about the idea of “proper” or “standard” pre-flop raise sizing, either. I think it depends on factors like who is behind you, who is in the blinds, what your and their stacks look like, etc. What I liked about this tournament is that it punished all the players who just knew to always raise X in certain situations, because they saw JohnnyBax do it or whatever, but don’t really understand the reasoning behind it well enough to apply it in a different context.
And yeah, people were definitely folding too often to small raises.