Hand #1:
25-50 blinds, I have a 1800 stack, folded to me in LP with AJ, I raise to 150, CO calls the 150, both blinds fold.
Flop is KQ8 rainbow, I bet 250 and CO calls. Because of the size of my stack, at this point, most of the time I'm done with the hand.
Turn is an A, the pot is about 875 and I have 1400 left, I decided to check, he then bet 400, he had more than 3000. Pretty bad spot for me, the main problem is the size of my stack, there are not too many hands I'm beating at this point, I just don't see him betting something like KJ,KT with this turn, and a call in the flop with JJ-99 or 77-22 is not that likely; probably the only hand I'm ahead is something like AT, since because of his stack, he could call the flop with the gutshot; on the other hand, a hand like JTs make a lot of sense, preflop. flop and now in the turn with the 400 bet; 88 makes sense also, even KQ, but I prefer to raise the flop with KQ. After thinking for a while I decided my hand was no good to spend another 400 and folded. I think it was a good fold.
Hand #2:
50-100 blinds, 10 handed, EP limps, MP calls, I have As8s in LP and call the 100, button calls, SB calls, BB checks.
Pot is 600 and I have about 1700 left.
Flop is 9s2s2c; SB and BB checked, EP limper with just 1300 left open-bets 500. MP folds, 3 people still to act besides the EP, yikes, it's pretty hard to imagine him folding with just 800 left, so my fold equity is almost zero if I push, now I have the odds versus an overpair, but I don't like the fact the board is paired, specially with 3 people still to act. Again, I just couldn't call, I folded, the button pushed, and EP called. Button had A9 and EP had KsTs; so, looked like a good fold at the time; but at this time I'm not so sure and I think maybe the best play was to just push the flop.
The main problem was EP bet, if nobody bets I'm pushing the flop, if he bets 300 or less I'm pushing since I have fold equity, this is, there is a good chance of him folding with 1000 left, but he decided to bet 500, so he's basically playing the hand, I have to say that I have seen people folding for their last 800 or less in spots like this, but I'm always assuming some degree of mental sanity in my opponents (I know, I know, this is a mistake in general); if the board was something like 7s3s3d, I'm playing no matter what; if the board was something like 8d3s2s, I really, really want to go all in. But it was 9s2s2c, not bad, but not ideal, still I think the best play was probably to push the flop after the 500 bet, you need to accumulate chips in tournaments like this where the stacks are not deep, and it's just pretty hard to keep waiting for a better spot. In fact a level later I had to go all in with 55 in LP for my last 1700 or so, and I was called in the BB by Scott Fishman who had AT, I lost the race and that was it.
I think these are two pretty interesting hands; I'll appreciate any comments you have about them. What do you think of the play and the analysis behind it?
5 comments:
David,
First of all, I love reading your blog entries. Hearing you explain your thought process on hands is just so much better than wading through post after post of hands without anyone really giving reasons for their play.
I think you made good laydowns on both hands. I can't come up with anything but a pure bluff that you can beat on the first hand, and while it's possible, I think it's more likely you're behind.
The 2nd hand is a "feel" hand. Sometimes it just feels right and I'll go ahead and push, but I agree that I don'tthink you have much folding equity.
Anyhow keep posting, I hope to meet you at the end of the month.
Don't beat yourself up over hand 2, I really think you made the correct move there. Moving in without fold equity there is almost the same as calling all in, and certainly you wouldn't call if someone pushed ahead of you, right?
On hand #1 I think it's a lot closer. It's very tough because it's way too easy to go broke here, like you said, but it's also possible you have the best hand. With no reads though I'll often check that hand on that flop and see what happens. KQ8 is not really a great flop for AJ, and with the exception of the middle pocket pairs, most hands that call your PF raise there hit that flop in some way or another. On those kinds of flops I often think it's best not to c-bet OOP with hands like AJ. That doesn't necessarily mean I give up, but I check a lot of times to see how the CO reacts there.
I think you played these hands well, and I think in both hands you were right to look for a better spot, but I may have played hand 1 a bit differently.
-Rizen
david, good job on hand 2, ...
On hand 1, why check? for sure there is no AK,AA, KK out there, your worst case is KQ but i agree with you i would raise pre flop with that. I am almosy certain that you had him. you showed weakness with the check and he c- bet you out of it, with AJ there your worst enemy is AQ but not likely because he only called you on the flop bet....i put him on KT or K9s .... for sure we had outs but you were ahead at the turn and also with extra 4outs (tens)
best of luck..Eduardo G
I'm glad to see some of you guys think the flush draw was a fold; after talking with Colson and MLG they said it was a push, and that made me think I made a mistake; probably they're right, but looks like the decision is not that obvious. I went for the fold because of basically the reasons stated by Rizen and BPA. Probably it would be a good idea to continue this discussion in the forum.
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