Some Limit hands
Jun. 28th, 2006 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksHere’s a couple of hands that I think that I misplayed, partly because I had only been sitting down for half an hour and I was still getting to grips with the table.
Both are 10-20 euro full ring games on Virgin.
Hand 1:
I am in MP1 with Kd Td.
UTG, a loose player who isn’t very good and who tends to overrate his hand (particulalry overpairs) limps. UTG+1 passes.
Of the other dramatis personae:
MP2 is tricky. I’ve seen him at lower levels call raises cold with 96s, raise with 75s, flat call a big pair, reraise with big pairs, cold-call raises with big pairs.
MP3 is also a quality player, but is less tricky. He raises limpers liberally, but his position here probably means that any raise wil be genuine, partly because...
CO is a loose player who will cold call a raise as soon as call a single bet. Weak, chaser, loser, but a pain in the arse when in late position to your raise, because he could be cold-calling you with anything.
Button, small blind and big blind are tight players.
Do I limp, raise, or fold?
Hand 2:
I pick up Ks Kh in UTG+1. UTG folds and I raise. I am flat-called by MP1 (see description of tricky MP2 above) and three-bet by MP2 (see description of good but less unpredictable MP3 above)
Flop comes Td 9d 4s.
I check, MP1 bets and MP2 raises. I call. MP1 calls.
Turn is 4h.
I check.
Comments appreciated, even the normal “raise at every opportunity” type.
Both are 10-20 euro full ring games on Virgin.
Hand 1:
I am in MP1 with Kd Td.
UTG, a loose player who isn’t very good and who tends to overrate his hand (particulalry overpairs) limps. UTG+1 passes.
Of the other dramatis personae:
MP2 is tricky. I’ve seen him at lower levels call raises cold with 96s, raise with 75s, flat call a big pair, reraise with big pairs, cold-call raises with big pairs.
MP3 is also a quality player, but is less tricky. He raises limpers liberally, but his position here probably means that any raise wil be genuine, partly because...
CO is a loose player who will cold call a raise as soon as call a single bet. Weak, chaser, loser, but a pain in the arse when in late position to your raise, because he could be cold-calling you with anything.
Button, small blind and big blind are tight players.
Do I limp, raise, or fold?
Hand 2:
I pick up Ks Kh in UTG+1. UTG folds and I raise. I am flat-called by MP1 (see description of tricky MP2 above) and three-bet by MP2 (see description of good but less unpredictable MP3 above)
Flop comes Td 9d 4s.
I check, MP1 bets and MP2 raises. I call. MP1 calls.
Turn is 4h.
I check.
Comments appreciated, even the normal “raise at every opportunity” type.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 07:25 pm (UTC)Hand 2,
I would have 4 bet preflop, making the more unpredictable player pay 2 bets cold (again), also forcing the more predictable reraiser to call with his probable good/great (but still inferior) hand.
I don't mind checking the flop (although I would have bet there with a flush draw and reasonable straight draw present) if you are pretty sure it will get bet behind you. Then I would check raise. If they reraise back, I would have just called. On the turn, I would bet out again. If anyone raises after that, I'll just check/call them down. If no one raises, I'll bet out the river unless either a) an Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Eight or Diamond hit, or b) it is down to headsup and I think I might elicit a bluff by checking. If a K hits, I'll probably checkraise against these opponents, but with less information I would have bet out the river, too. If I am forced to check the river by a scary card, I am definitely calling, the pot is too big to risk folding.
something like that.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 07:50 pm (UTC)Since I cannot know what the opponents had, we have to assume here. If middle pin calls the two bets, (and three-better calls), we are going for a high variance hand with me OOP. But the increase in EV from the four-bet pre-flop (if middle player calls) outweighs this, to my mind. Similarly, if middle player folds to the two extra bets, I've got it heads up, which is probably a more preferable situation, given my renowned weakness in multi-wayers....
But, given my mistake in not four-betting, i think the check is reasonable on that flop. My plan is for the last player to bet and for me to check-raise, this making middle-player pay to chase. Unfortunately middle player spikes this by betting out. End-player two bets it and I call.
This was mistake number two. I should three-bet here. The end-player's raise is (with hindsight) an attempt to drive me out (of whom he is scared) and to isolate middle player (who he suspects of being on some kind of draw).
The three-bet could well drive middle player out. No matter one way or the other, given the turn card. Once I've three-bet on the flop, I can bet out the turn. Even if End player has Aces, he is going to start worrying about TT at this point.
The key to the hand here is the range of the end-player, I think.
I agree spot on with the rest of your analysis. That's how it should have panned out.
OK. So far we know that I've already managed to misplay this hand twice, and we are only at the beginning of the turn. Impressive, huh?
PJ
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 09:35 am (UTC)On reflection, that's probably just me trying to look cleverer than I am. Against players most of whose ranges I'm going to be killing, I'm betting the crap out of this.
BTW, I assume that was you finishing 2nd in the 20+2 Razz on FTP last week? It was me luckboxing my way to 1st. And did I need the confidence boost.
Mike
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 10:24 am (UTC)I think that the call pre-flop is an example of Gary Carson's line (in a different context) that "What you are doing is making a big mistake now in the hope that it will cause your opponent to make a small mistake later on".
I may actually return to that Carson concept later, because it's one that I have a lot of sympathy for and it explains some of the discomfort I have occasionally felt of Sklansky's conventional wisdom line. Unfortunately, any criticism of the God Sklansky is a bit like any criticism of some of the more stellar "names" on their blogs. It brings out an army of acolytes who try to beat you down in an attempt to curry favour with their leader.
Sometimes, even at higher levels, simple is best. I'm thinking of writing this in big letters in crayon on the wallchart.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 08:07 pm (UTC)2+2 vs the world is an interesting battle. I'm pleased to be more-or-less neutral, although I sympathise with the World - they're more likely to come up with something original.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 02:19 pm (UTC)2 hands
Date: 2006-06-28 07:44 pm (UTC)It will be interesting to see how you and your more experienced correspondents view the 2 hands.
For myself, I would fold the first hand in that position on the principle that there is too much unknown coming after me. The second hand I would bet each time. However having recently succumbed to the temptation to play no limit that you mentioned in another recent post, and had my KK's hammered by AA's for my pains, I can see why you are reticent.
Re: 2 hands
Date: 2006-06-28 07:56 pm (UTC)There is an argument for just playing the KK completely unsubtly, and raising at every opportunity and then betting out at every opportunity unless and until the aforementioned Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Eight or Diamond hit. At that point you check-call or (if the card is a king) check-raise.
If I knew that both opponents had as much of a handle on me as I had on them, and if I had been at the table for longer, I might well have played it this way, if only becuse the battering ram approach has its own inherent deception here. It makes you look like AA rather than KK.
I'll let you know what I did with the Kd Td later. It's a tricky one.
PJ
Re: 2 hands
Date: 2006-06-29 09:59 am (UTC)Your 2 Hands
Date: 2006-06-29 08:55 am (UTC)In hand #1 I would fold versus tight limpers but sometimes call after looser ones IF the table wasn't so aggressive I had to fear a raise behind most times. Also naturally I would be willing to fold TPNK postflop versus reasonable players.
In hand #2 I wouldn't 4 bet it pre but just call to disguise my hand a little. However on the flop I would have gone for the checkraise as you did and 3 bet it when MP2 raises and then led out on the turn. The pot is too big from the preflop raising not to try to get it headsup rather than having to contend with 2 hands that might together would have more chances to draw out when you aren't already beat badly by a set.
BluffTHIS!
Re: Your 2 Hands
Date: 2006-06-29 10:20 am (UTC)Since this is one of those cases where I can see a case for all plays -- a limp, fold or raise, there's a good chance that each of them is marginal.
My first guess was that there was an 80% chance of a raise, with a 10% chance of a three-bet, and a 20% chance of it being limped round (and, no, that doesn't add up to 110%. Think about it). But this might be like remembering bad beats. Since I don't limp that often these days, I don't have the Pokertracker stats available in sufficient numbers to see how often a raise comes behind at $5-$10 or above whe you limp in situations such as this.
Let's suppose that I AM being too pessimistic. I still think that there is a 60% chance of a raise. Of that 60%, half the raises would come from the player immediately to my left, a majority of the rest from the player on his left, and about 20% of them from some other random player who woke up with a real killer. Now, if that's the case, I think that a limp is probably right, especially if you lead the flock and get seven players limping in. Even if there is then a raise in late position, you have a nice multi-wayer that is easy to get away from if you don't hit the flop really well.
The nightmare scenario is a raise immediately behind you, followed by all folds to the original limper, who calls. You then are three-way, in the middle, with a loose passive player on your right and a clever powder keg on your left. Horrible.
______
I thought that you might have mentioned one of your favourite points here, Bluff. That being, table position.
Although the conventional wisdom is that you want a loose player on your right, I far prefer having this kind of player either two or three seats to my right. My stats bear this out.
In other words, my table position in this apparently good game is a piece of crap. I came to this conclusion shortly after the KK hand, and I left. If I'd had time to spare, I would have gone back on the waiting list in search of a better seat, preferably diametrically opposite to wear I was sitting!.
As it happens, I folded the Kd Td. Player on my left did raise, and all passed to original limper. Flop was something like A83 no diamonds. Loose player bet out and tricky player folded. But that's just being results-oriented. Overall, I like the limp.
_______
In hand 2, your line of thought follows mine pre-flop (at the time), but in retrospect I'm not sure that this isn't a case where disguise is undesirable. I like the cap better.
The three-bet on the flop is so obviously correct I should have been shot for not doing it. It was a case of I should have counted to five before clicking "call". This probably cost me 3 big bets as well as the madness of letting multi-wayers in against me for a bargain price.
As it happens, after my check on the turn, both players checked behind me. I now intend to bet unless a scare card (see above) appears on river. Unfortunately the river was a diamond. I checked, it was checked twice behind me, and I took it down. But I played it like a dick and I know it. Hesitancy at the higher stakes and insufficient desensitization.
PJ