Bad beats or stupid play?

Edmundo

Hi All,

I was playing online last night trying to get some pratice and ended up playing the following hands in a £5 STT. I have thought about how I could have played them differently... but still think I played the correct way. Am I right?

Hand 1:

I had accumulated about 2500 chips and was dealt AJs. I raised pre-flop to 500 and the guy to my left raised all in for another 1000. I put him on a high pair.... but with the top three getting paid I seen an oppurtunity to get somone out and thought I was somewhat committed to the pot as well... I called and board came up with nothing his QQ held up.

Hand 2:

The very next hand (you won't believe this) I am dealt????? you guessed it a pair of BITCHES! (because that's what they are tome ) I called all in with my remaining chips (1000) hoping to double up but got called by A,10o and the guy hits an A on the turn to send me packing.

Should I have played these hands differently????

Hand 3:

I decided to go again in another £5 STT and was dealt K,10o the flop comes K,10,Q after no real betting. A guy to my right goes all in for over 1000 chips and I call all in with about 800. He had K,J and hit an A on the river to knock me out....

This hand I'm thinking I could have folded but with 800 left I thought it was worth playing.

I think this is maybe where I am lacking the skill at the moment... how could I have read him.. to put him on a that hand potentially had 11 outs?????

Any comments/suggestions appreciated.

Cheers,
Edmundo.

karlh

putting 1500 of a 2500 stack in preflop with AJ is madness whatever way you look at it. If you don''t respect a reraise, then you may as well stick all your chips in the middle any time you think you're better than 50/50 preflop.

after that, all in with the QQ for the rest is a no-brainer, had to.

a flop like K 10 Q should ring alarm bells. its similar to a preflop call coz at best you'll get luck and your 2 pair will hold up. you have to put them on at least a combo hand, maybe a pair with a straight draw (as he had). by 'no real betting' was there a raise at all? I would be very worried about limpers with maybe J9....

as always, the hardest thing to do is lay down a nice looking, worst hand.

Hectorjelly

Dont raise with AJ, you're very unlikely to be called by anything you dominate.

K10 is a mediocre hand, I wouldnt even call the blinds with it if I were you; in the hand in question you were behind KQ, virtually tied with KJ and a almost drawing dead against AJ or Q9, Id fold there but a call isnt terrible against poor opponents. You were slighly ahead and got unlucky. It happens.

The QQ hand was just luck again.

Hectorjelly

Edmundo

If you want feedback on hands save the hand history and give us the whole hand, youll get better feedback that way.

Good luck

Daragh

Lafortezza

Hectorjelly wrote:

Dont raise with AJ, you're very unlikely to be called by anything you dominate.

Depending on how many are at the table, 5 handed or less and its an automatic raise unless I'm UTG or have an obvious read on someone. I'd also raise in cutoff or button with maybe one limper ahead of me plus the blinds.

/picky

Juan Pablo

Eddie

First two are coin flips (if your thinking you AJs give you two overcards to a middling pocket pair, also he only had 500 left so I'd take a chance, would muck it if it was putting me all in for another 2500 though) that you lost both times, thats nolimit for ya! (And why PL is better, especially when you play with four cards ).

Dunno about the third one. Its marginal either way. AJ or J9 has the made straight, any knave gives him the open ender. I dunno if its the omaha in me but I probably would have belived him for the made st8 and laid it down rather than risk all my stack, knowing I would need to find one of the remaing K's or T's or some dirty runner runner situation. Its one of those "follow your gut instinct" situations.

Edit: Upon rereading the post, dunno if i would have committed another 1k with AJs (500 maybe, if he's all in). He could have been holding something unbeatable like K7o!

Hectorjelly

lafortezza wrote:

Depending on how many are at the table, 5 handed or less and its an automatic raise unless I'm UTG or have an obvious read on someone. I'd also raise in cutoff or button with maybe one limper ahead of me plus the blinds.

/picky

AJ is not good enough to be a raising hand at a full table, sure once it gets shorthanded it raises in value, but Im assuming we're talking about a full table.
If you raise from the cutoff or button with AJ, you are essentially bluffing; and your also increasing the size of the pot when you have a hand that wants to keep the pot small. Raising with AJ pushes out the hands you dominate (A10, A9 etc) and gets called by hands that are either 50/50 or dominate you. (99, AQ etc).

Iago

Edmundo wrote:

Hi All,

I was playing online last night trying to get some pratice and ended up playing the following hands in a £5 STT. I have thought about how I could have played them differently... but still think I played the correct way. Am I right?

Hand 1:

I had accumulated about 2500 chips and was dealt AJs. I raised pre-flop to 500 and the guy to my left raised all in for another 1000. I put him on a high pair.... but with the top three getting paid I seen an oppurtunity to get somone out and thought I was somewhat committed to the pot as well... I called and board came up with nothing his QQ held up.

Having raised 500 you were probably commited to a certain extent by both the cards you held and the fact that he was all-in for an extra 1,000, so you wouldn't have to put any more chips in after it. Personally I've taken to generally limping in with Ax in most online STT's with a buyin of less than $25, too many players will call any raise with any two cards and invariably hit. I don't think you played this badly, apart from the decision between limping in or trying to take the pot before the flop.

Hand 2:

The very next hand (you won't believe this) I am dealt????? you guessed it a pair of BITCHES! (because that's what they are tome ) I called all in with my remaining chips (1000) hoping to double up but got called by A,10o and the guy hits an A on the turn to send me packing.

Should I have played these hands differently????

At this point you were reasonably short stacked and while you could wait for a hand with QQ you have to bet big, again you don't really want a caller because if they are calling you would expect that they have a strong hand. Again I don't think you played this badly, in fact your bet should have taken the guy with ATo off the hand. ATo is a raising hand not a calling hand, imho. What worked against you was the size of your stack, a bigger bet might not have been called, or if you had chips remaining..

Hand 3:

I decided to go again in another £5 STT and was dealt K,10o the flop comes K,10,Q after no real betting. A guy to my right goes all in for over 1000 chips and I call all in with about 800. He had K,J and hit an A on the river to knock me out....

This hand I'm thinking I could have folded but with 800 left I thought it was worth playing.

I think this is maybe where I am lacking the skill at the moment... how could I have read him.. to put him on a that hand potentially had 11 outs?????

In this situation you have to ask yourself what does the player have? With no raise preflop he could have anything, although if he had the nuts or close to the nuts, i.e. a straight, trip Q's, KQ or even KT then would he have gone all-in or check raised? Again your shortstacked and you've hit two pair including top pair on the flop with no A in sight, if you aren't willing to go all-in on this you shouldn't be playing the game! You have to assume your ahead and when you're shortstacked with a good sized pot to play for you have to be in it.

Again I think you were more unlucky than anything else but it happens. Swings and roundabouts

Lafortezza

Hectorjelly wrote:

Raising with AJ pushes out the hands you dominate (A10, A9 etc) and gets called by hands that are either 50/50 or dominate you. (99, AQ etc).

I don't play much on line at all, but in the live tournaments I play, 99 or AQ will be coming back over the top of a smallish raise from the button with AJs.

As always it depends on the situation and players involved.

Samba

karlh wrote:

after that, all in with the QQ for the rest is a no-brainer, had to.

The QQ hand was just luck again

Personally I would not have risked the remainder of my stack, I would have raised for half of what i had left, when the flop came, was there a K?

Had you raised half your stack, he would not have put you all in with A10 and would have flat called, come the flop and there is no A, had you then banged the rest of your chips in, in my opinion he would have promptly folded.

Edmundo

There was no K on the flop...

Thanks guys for your replies... I think I should be looking at a few charts explaining the value of my starting hands, and the situtions that would change that value...

Cheers,
Eddie.

Hectorjelly

Hectorjelly wrote: »

Dont raise with AJ, you're very unlikely to be called by anything you dominate.
.

LOL, came across this old thread and thought this was very funny!

hotspur

Hectorjelly wrote: »

LOL, came across this old thread and thought this was very funny!

I didn't realise it was a bumped thread and thought you had lost the run of yourself

HoLLLLLaments

haha thats was awesome
lolhaahaha
wtf

Tight Ted

Very good stategy discussed here for once.

I'm going to copy some of this stuff to my blog and discuss it more indepth.

Thank you.

zuutroy

hotspur wrote: »

I didn't realise it was a bumped thread and thought you had lost the run of yourself

haha me too...

cooker3

Jesus, I thought I was in a twilight zone reading this