I got off to a bad start in this tournament and didn’t recover in time to survive a lost coin flip, but there was at least one interesting pot. My river bet here is about 1.5x pot. This is a somewhat “experimental” line, but I think there’s a fair chance Villain will (correctly) expect me to barrel a lot of my monsters on the turn, that his range will be somewhat if not absolutely capped, and that he’ll feel obliged to pay off with some Ax. Basically, this is pretty close to the top of my range after this action goes down. My main concerns with the play are (1) that it will miss value from too much of Villain’s range for calling, say, 75% pot; and (2) that Villain will wake up with A8/98/86/88 too often relative to the times that he calls with worse. That he might jam over the bet was not even on my radar. There are precious few hands I can see doing this for value (even small sets don’t seem good enough), many of them bet turn, and even if 75 or T7 are in his range pre-flop I’d expect those to bet turn as well. At the same time, this seems very unlikely to be a bluff. I don’t see any reason to call with AK, but it confused the shit out of me.
PokerStars Hand #135508416313: Tournament #1182218457, $1000+$50 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level I (10/20) – 2015/05/19 11:08:03 PT [2015/05/19 14:08:03 ET]
Table ‘1182218457 11’ 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: Ce$ar$pa (5560 in chips)
Seat 2: foucault82 (4990 in chips)
Seat 3: baeks22 (5050 in chips)
Seat 4: mahtipeluri (5000 in chips)
Seat 5: AsjBaaaf (5030 in chips)
Seat 6: dustin1980 (4670 in chips)
Seat 7: mandza17 (4970 in chips)
Seat 8: Gil3000 (5300 in chips)
Seat 9: Paris Dedes (4430 in chips)
Ce$ar$pa: posts small blind 10
foucault82: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Kc As]
baeks22: folds
mahtipeluri: folds
AsjBaaaf: folds
dustin1980: folds
mandza17: folds
Gil3000: folds
Paris Dedes: raises 30 to 50
Ce$ar$pa: folds
foucault82: raises 130 to 180
Paris Dedes: calls 130
*** FLOP *** [Ad 9s 6c]
foucault82: bets 185
Paris Dedes: calls 185
*** TURN *** [Ad 9s 6c] [2d]
foucault82: checks
Paris Dedes: checks
*** RIVER *** [Ad 9s 6c 2d] [8c]
foucault82: bets 1040
Paris Dedes: raises 3025 to 4065 and is all-in
foucault82: folds
Uncalled bet (3025) returned to Paris Dedes
Paris Dedes collected 2820 from pot
Paris Dedes: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2820 | Rake 0
Board [Ad 9s 6c 2d 8c]
Seat 1: Ce$ar$pa (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: foucault82 (big blind) folded on the River
Seat 3: baeks22 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: mahtipeluri folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: AsjBaaaf folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: dustin1980 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: mandza17 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: Gil3000 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 9: Paris Dedes (button) collected (2820)
Here’s the other somewhat large pot I lost in Level 1:
PokerStars Hand #135508968006: Tournament #1182218457, $1000+$50 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level I (10/20) – 2015/05/19 11:17:38 PT [2015/05/19 14:17:38 ET]
Table ‘1182218457 11’ 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Ce$ar$pa (5440 in chips)
Seat 2: foucault82 (3605 in chips)
Seat 3: baeks22 (5150 in chips)
Seat 4: mahtipeluri (5040 in chips)
Seat 5: AsjBaaaf (4960 in chips)
Seat 6: dustin1980 (4212 in chips)
Seat 7: mandza17 (5468 in chips)
Seat 8: Gil3000 (5270 in chips)
Seat 9: route666 (5000 in chips) out of hand (moved from another table into small blind)
Ce$ar$pa: posts small blind 10
foucault82: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Ts Qs]
baeks22: raises 40 to 60
mahtipeluri: folds
AsjBaaaf: folds
dustin1980: folds
mandza17: folds
Gil3000: folds
Ce$ar$pa: folds
foucault82: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [Js 4s Ah]
foucault82: checks
baeks22: bets 80
foucault82: calls 80
*** TURN *** [Js 4s Ah] [9h]
foucault82: checks
baeks22: bets 179
foucault82: raises 486 to 665
baeks22: calls 486
*** RIVER *** [Js 4s Ah 9h] [Jh]
foucault82: checks
baeks22: bets 1250
foucault82: folds
Uncalled bet (1250) returned to baeks22
baeks22 collected 1620 from pot
baeks22: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1620 | Rake 0
Board [Js 4s Ah 9h Jh]
Seat 1: Ce$ar$pa (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: foucault82 (big blind) folded on the River
Seat 3: baeks22 collected (1620)
Seat 4: mahtipeluri folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: AsjBaaaf folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: dustin1980 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: mandza17 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: Gil3000 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
This is a tough spot for me to check-raise, because Villain’s range is nuttier than mine. Combo draws without a pair are really the only bluffs I can see doing this with, and I wouldn’t even do it with all of them, but I do think it’s the right play with exactly this hand. This is a pretty terrible river to barrel, as Villain has AJ, possibly sets, and probably some hearts in his range, and even bare Aces may feel somewhat emboldened as it reduces the number of two pairs/sets I could have had on the turn.
I’ll make another post with hands from Wednesday and Thursday, and I took today off. It’s been a rough ride so far, but the final weekend is still to come. It will start, for me, at 11AM Pacific on Saturday with the $200 and $2000 (but not the $25K) high rollers. I’ll also play all three of the Super Knockouts at 2PM.
Regarding hand #1:
Lets forget our hand and look at the line from villian’s point of view. It looks extremely polarized and bluffy to a hand reader. I have been thinking and working on overbetting in tournaments for some time now and have a few ideas I would like to discuss with you. The main point with regard to this hand is the read on your opponent. Our line is highly volatile and you have to know if your opponent is capable of flipping the table and “putting us to the test” or if he is just value towning the nuts.