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$200 recollections
Mar. 10th, 2009 12:59 pmI've been thumping away at $200 buy-ins for the past few days, with modest success. I've also learnt a couple of things, which is always helpful.
Some hands from last night, in chronological order. It's pure coincidence that I carved the first beyond belief.
$200 Full-Ring Buy in Party Poker, 4.30pm
Hero (SB) $320
Villain (BB) $430.
Mistake Number 1. I was still at the table. I'd won a nice pot and stayed. This is one of the problems with $200 buy in on all but the most liquid sites. You have to take what you can get. There were only four tables in progress, and I four or five-table. So, it was either stay, or play 6-max. The third option would have been to leave and put myself back on the waiting list.
The error in staying was simply because LHO was a good player, and we were both relatively deep-stacked. I was in strange territory here
Hero: Ad Ks
Villain:
All passed to Hero, raises $5 to $6
Possibly mistake number 2. But in fact it worked okay.
Villain. Reraise to $20.
Hero: Call:
Horrific error, the worst of the hand in my view. I spent the rest of the hand trying to recover, with the horrible feeling that I was in a car crash in slow-motion. And it was all down to the deep stack. With $150 or less I push instantly. $200 is slightly harder. I must make up my mind about this. Either reraise to $60 or push are the choices I like.
Flop: Kh Td 4d
Hero: Check:
Villain: Bet $25 or thereabouts.
Hero: Raise to $50
Mistake 3: I'm not prejudiced against the check-raise for value. It's a nice way to merge your ranges and in this situation the hand is much stronger than people seem to think. However, I really ought to either shove here or, even better for value extraction, raise to $100-$125.
Villain: Call
Turn: Qd
Hero: Check.
I'm just a blithering idiot by this point with no game plan at all apart from trying not to stack myself off.
Villain: Check.
River: Th
Hero: Check
Villain: $60
Hero: Call.
Villain shows JcTc for three tens.
Villain wins $240.
OK, I only lost $120 of my $320 stack, but I absolutely hated the way that I played this hand, and even after thinking about it, I can't see any really comfortable way to play it when deep-stacked.
As I've muttered before, AK online is the new AQ, but I suspect that I'm still okay to shove pre-flop here. Most of the time I will get a fold (against opponent's range, surely 80%?). Of the remaining 20%, I'm 40% EV or 25% EV or 10% EV, which I'll randomly average out at 30%. That gives me a net return over 100 hands of $20*80 ($1600) when opponent folds and a loss on the hands I am called of an average of 6*$318 - 14*-$318, which equals, wow, more than $2600. So perhaps the shove does not work deep-stacked. But a smaller reraise also creates horrible problems, and perhaps has an even greated negative EV. That would indicate that a fold to thre reraise might be cheapest. But that feels wrong too.
The conventional wisdom would be to put in a reraise to something like $80, and the advantage of espousing this cause is that it is hard to gainsay the claim that this is best, because it is also the most complex to work out. However, the problem with this is that you are almost certainly causing difficulties for yourself on anything but a perfect flop.
++++++++++
The next interesting hand (same table, different opponent)
Hero (MP2) $190: Ac 3C
Villain: Big Blind
Hero raises $4 to $6 (as pointed out before, I do a lot of these)
Villain calls:
Flop Ah 2h 5c
Villain checks
Hero bets $7
Villain calls:
The half-pot CB is a favourite of mine, be it a wet or a dry board. I'll shift the amount up or down based on opponent's stack, but not on the shape of the board. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom, and I like it that way.
Villain's call is almost certainly top pair medium kicker.
Turn: 4d
Gives me the straight.
Villain bets $25
Hero raises to $80
Villain thinks. Villain calls.
River: Qc
Villain checks:
Hero all in for about $82
Villain calls.
Hero shows Ac3c for a straight. Villain (not a notably loose player) shows Ad 6s for a pair of Aces. Hero wins $390.
+++++++++++
Different table, different site (Pacific).
Hero ($260): Button: 4d 4c
Big Blind: $243.07
UTG raises to $7. One other player calls. Hero calls. Small blind folds, Big blind calls. $28 in pot
Flop 4h 3d 2d
Gives me top set,
Checked round to Hero. Bets $25.
Big blind raises to $100.
Hero is all in for $260
Big Blind calls
Big Blind shows Qd Jd
Flop 7d, River Ah
Big Blind wins $483.14 with a flush, Queen high.
The really interesting thing about this hand was that, apart from am "Oh FUCK!!!" noise from me when the diamond appeared (this site shows the cards before the turn and river in all-in situations) I suffered virtually no emotional reaction at all. I just carried on playing. This would certainly not have happened a year ago.
+++++++++++
Same table as the above "bad" beat (it wasn't really that bad).
Hero MP1: $200: 6h 6s
Big Blind (reasonably competent): $200
Hero raises $4 to $6.
Big blind calls.
Flop 6d 2h 3h
BB checks
Hero bets $6
BB calls
Turn 9s
BB checks:
Hero bets $24
BB calls
River Qc
BB checks
Hero bets $75
BB calls
Hero shows three sixes. BB mucks
+++++++++++++++
There is an interesting technique seen rarely at $100 and only a bit less rarely at $200, which mainly consists of an all-in bet considerably larger than the pot size, either pre-flop or on the turn. I like this line, mainly because it shoves the conventional players out of their comfort zone, but I also need to have a think on (a) whether to use it myself and, if so, with what ranges on what boards, and (b) how to counter-play it. The logical counter-play is to decide your range on particular boards. The heavy overbet will nearly always be on a wet board because, well, because most poker players have read it somewhere and don't have much imagination. This widens their range considerably. They will usually have some kind of draw -- it will rarely be an outright bluff. All these snippets of information allow you to narrow down opponent's range to a level where your calls can be profitable.
++++++++++++++++
Sorry if there are any errors in the cards or bets above. It's all from memory, since I am at work.
Some hands from last night, in chronological order. It's pure coincidence that I carved the first beyond belief.
$200 Full-Ring Buy in Party Poker, 4.30pm
Hero (SB) $320
Villain (BB) $430.
Mistake Number 1. I was still at the table. I'd won a nice pot and stayed. This is one of the problems with $200 buy in on all but the most liquid sites. You have to take what you can get. There were only four tables in progress, and I four or five-table. So, it was either stay, or play 6-max. The third option would have been to leave and put myself back on the waiting list.
The error in staying was simply because LHO was a good player, and we were both relatively deep-stacked. I was in strange territory here
Hero: Ad Ks
Villain:
All passed to Hero, raises $5 to $6
Possibly mistake number 2. But in fact it worked okay.
Villain. Reraise to $20.
Hero: Call:
Horrific error, the worst of the hand in my view. I spent the rest of the hand trying to recover, with the horrible feeling that I was in a car crash in slow-motion. And it was all down to the deep stack. With $150 or less I push instantly. $200 is slightly harder. I must make up my mind about this. Either reraise to $60 or push are the choices I like.
Flop: Kh Td 4d
Hero: Check:
Villain: Bet $25 or thereabouts.
Hero: Raise to $50
Mistake 3: I'm not prejudiced against the check-raise for value. It's a nice way to merge your ranges and in this situation the hand is much stronger than people seem to think. However, I really ought to either shove here or, even better for value extraction, raise to $100-$125.
Villain: Call
Turn: Qd
Hero: Check.
I'm just a blithering idiot by this point with no game plan at all apart from trying not to stack myself off.
Villain: Check.
River: Th
Hero: Check
Villain: $60
Hero: Call.
Villain shows JcTc for three tens.
Villain wins $240.
OK, I only lost $120 of my $320 stack, but I absolutely hated the way that I played this hand, and even after thinking about it, I can't see any really comfortable way to play it when deep-stacked.
As I've muttered before, AK online is the new AQ, but I suspect that I'm still okay to shove pre-flop here. Most of the time I will get a fold (against opponent's range, surely 80%?). Of the remaining 20%, I'm 40% EV or 25% EV or 10% EV, which I'll randomly average out at 30%. That gives me a net return over 100 hands of $20*80 ($1600) when opponent folds and a loss on the hands I am called of an average of 6*$318 - 14*-$318, which equals, wow, more than $2600. So perhaps the shove does not work deep-stacked. But a smaller reraise also creates horrible problems, and perhaps has an even greated negative EV. That would indicate that a fold to thre reraise might be cheapest. But that feels wrong too.
The conventional wisdom would be to put in a reraise to something like $80, and the advantage of espousing this cause is that it is hard to gainsay the claim that this is best, because it is also the most complex to work out. However, the problem with this is that you are almost certainly causing difficulties for yourself on anything but a perfect flop.
++++++++++
The next interesting hand (same table, different opponent)
Hero (MP2) $190: Ac 3C
Villain: Big Blind
Hero raises $4 to $6 (as pointed out before, I do a lot of these)
Villain calls:
Flop Ah 2h 5c
Villain checks
Hero bets $7
Villain calls:
The half-pot CB is a favourite of mine, be it a wet or a dry board. I'll shift the amount up or down based on opponent's stack, but not on the shape of the board. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom, and I like it that way.
Villain's call is almost certainly top pair medium kicker.
Turn: 4d
Gives me the straight.
Villain bets $25
Hero raises to $80
Villain thinks. Villain calls.
River: Qc
Villain checks:
Hero all in for about $82
Villain calls.
Hero shows Ac3c for a straight. Villain (not a notably loose player) shows Ad 6s for a pair of Aces. Hero wins $390.
+++++++++++
Different table, different site (Pacific).
Hero ($260): Button: 4d 4c
Big Blind: $243.07
UTG raises to $7. One other player calls. Hero calls. Small blind folds, Big blind calls. $28 in pot
Flop 4h 3d 2d
Gives me top set,
Checked round to Hero. Bets $25.
Big blind raises to $100.
Hero is all in for $260
Big Blind calls
Big Blind shows Qd Jd
Flop 7d, River Ah
Big Blind wins $483.14 with a flush, Queen high.
The really interesting thing about this hand was that, apart from am "Oh FUCK!!!" noise from me when the diamond appeared (this site shows the cards before the turn and river in all-in situations) I suffered virtually no emotional reaction at all. I just carried on playing. This would certainly not have happened a year ago.
+++++++++++
Same table as the above "bad" beat (it wasn't really that bad).
Hero MP1: $200: 6h 6s
Big Blind (reasonably competent): $200
Hero raises $4 to $6.
Big blind calls.
Flop 6d 2h 3h
BB checks
Hero bets $6
BB calls
Turn 9s
BB checks:
Hero bets $24
BB calls
River Qc
BB checks
Hero bets $75
BB calls
Hero shows three sixes. BB mucks
+++++++++++++++
There is an interesting technique seen rarely at $100 and only a bit less rarely at $200, which mainly consists of an all-in bet considerably larger than the pot size, either pre-flop or on the turn. I like this line, mainly because it shoves the conventional players out of their comfort zone, but I also need to have a think on (a) whether to use it myself and, if so, with what ranges on what boards, and (b) how to counter-play it. The logical counter-play is to decide your range on particular boards. The heavy overbet will nearly always be on a wet board because, well, because most poker players have read it somewhere and don't have much imagination. This widens their range considerably. They will usually have some kind of draw -- it will rarely be an outright bluff. All these snippets of information allow you to narrow down opponent's range to a level where your calls can be profitable.
++++++++++++++++
Sorry if there are any errors in the cards or bets above. It's all from memory, since I am at work.
