Three Tournament Hands.

ollyk1

Something for the tournie fans to discuss!

The first two hands are from the SE €200+€20 game on Saturday.

I made a mistake playing this game as I hadn't the discipline to cop on and realise I'd be very tired near the business end and that's not a good long term strategy. :rolleyes: Be that as it may I had two semi interesting hands that I'd like to get views on.

HAND 1

I agonised on the final call quite a bit in this hand and I though it was a very close call. Looking for other opinions.

It's level four (100/200) and I've been pretty active (I've had a few good hands to be fair ) and my stack is ~10k (not all my good hands have been holding up!) so I decide to give the raising a rest when I get 9s9c in MP2. We're 9 handed by the way.

The CO limps and the blinds check.

The flop comes 7d5d2c and Eddie the Eagle bets out 600 (from a 5.7k stack) and I flat call. Everybody else folds.

The turn comes the Qh and Eddie pushes all-in for 5.1k. He's giving of a lot of reverse tells like he wants me to call. So do you call? Is this an easy call? What do you think of my flat call on the flop? My image is probably not too bad at this stage and I think Eddie would consider me to be a tight enough player.

HAND 2

People who were there know the result of this hand but the result isn't terribly important at this stage I'm wondering if my line is optimal and as I've taken to not putting in reraises with big pocket pairs quite a bit more recently in decent structured tournies I'd like opinions on my post flop play with big pairs as a result.

200/400 level with a running 25 ante.

Playing 7 handed. Tightest player at the table by some distance (Newish boards poster Wreck) suspiciously limps utg. He has flat called a few raises in position or from the blinds but he's generally raising or folding. He seems to know what he's doing except he's defending a little too much oop and folding to c-bets (he has ~21k).

The second tightest player at the table raises to 1600. He's kinda known to me and whilst playing tonight at this table he appears pretty tight he has a reasonable range here in general.

I have 15k on the button and KK. I ask the raiser how much he has in his stack as he's been covering it carefully for the last two orbits. He reveals ~15k after the raise.

Now I don't like the utg limper but I can't fold the second best preflop hand cold here can I? :eek: Of course I can't.

I decide I'm only going to flat call and see what the limper does. I can see myself folding if he makes a value raise to reduce the field to one (at least I think I can).

He cuts out a call and a ~ 3k raise from his stack and mulls it over. I'm convinced he has the boots and is hamming it up. If he makes the raise I'm going to fold. If he doesn't then its QQ+ imo.

He finally flat calls after 30 seconds.

The flop comes Js9s2h. This hasn't helped the limper I don't think but he leads out for 3.2k into a 5.6k pot. The original raiser folds.

Now I've lowered the chances of him holding AA here because he hasn't reraised preflop (is this a good idea in general?) so I decide I've got to play it like he's got QQ or KK (I really don't feel he's got JJ) and I'm either a monster favourite or splitting the pot. I don't have a spade. The best way to get it all-in is to flat call making my hand maybe look like a draw. I'm almost 100% ruling out AK here.

What do you think so far?? TBH I'm silently funking a king. :rolleyes:

HAND 3

Fitz 50 rebuy game with two rebuys.

We're in the FO period and the blinds are 200/400. We're playing 10 handed.

I have Alan Gibbons on my immediate right. He's playing pretty tight oop but he's not afraid to reraise limpers either.

I don't have a tell on him as such but I can sense when he's committed to a hand.

Now tilting but generally decent player limps in utg+1 (6k stack). Alan in MP1 raises to 1600 (he has ~15k). I have 10k and look down at QQ in MP2.

I feel Alan is pretty committed to this hand. That means 99+ or AK or maybe AQ sooted. He may fold the worst endf of this to a push. I rate his play pretty highly when he's not tilted.

Flat call or raise?

I flat call because

a) I think Alan will either push or call my raise and then I'm pretty pot committed.
b) The secondary reason is someone could always wake up with an absolute monster behind me and we are in early enough position.

The limper now calls after its folded around to him.

The flop comes 9d7d3s and the limper pushes all-in. Alan reluctantly folds looking at me. Standard call for me I feel.

The preflop play here is what I'm wondering about. Was I right to smallball this hand until the flop hits or should I have taken my chances and reraised. I probably won't fold to a rrai from Alan preflop. We're a long way from the money as its a big field and its still early doors.

Hectorjelly

Hand 1 I would probably raise the flop, I dont really know eddie the eagle and I have no idea whether or not Id call his turn bet

Hand 2 is fine allthough I would reraise preflop, and I would definitely just push all in on the flop

Hand 3 is fine allthough again I would reraise preflop. Im definitely calling that guys all in

sikes

hand1: i dont know villain, but its looks like a panicking 2 pair. fold.

hand2: call flop and let him hang himself. if he hits his set/ has hitten it fairplay.

hand3: reraise preflop if you think alan is commited preflop and thats his range, get it all in, dont worry about someone waking up with a monster.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Flushdraw

I was at the table for the 99 and KK hands and this how i seen them.

Against Eddie, even if you raised with 99 he would have called from the blinds and lead out on the flop..his standard play. Flat calling preflop at least keeps his lead bet small so you can re-evaluate your hand. I dont believe Eddies bet on the flop shows any kind of strength and i cant imagine him going allin if he hit the Q on the river because he does like to slowplay a hand if he hits it.

I had the same gut instinct as you about Wreck's hand. He looked really strong and i do think you would have folded had he had reraised.Personally i would have reraised preflop. As played, When Wreck leads at the flop, and you flat call, i dont see how you can fold from here on in so i would have just stuck it all in or fold (if you still read him for AA). Its also very strange have 2 players tighter than Ollie at the table!

Against Alan in the fitz, i reraise with the QQs. Even if Alan RRAI i still call. As played i call the allin. He probably has A9

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

ollyk1

Hectorjelly wrote:

Hand 1 I would probably raise the flop, I dont really know eddie the eagle and I have no idea whether or not Id call his turn bet

Hand 2 is fine allthough I would reraise preflop, and I would definitely just push all in on the flop

Hand 3 is fine allthough again I would reraise preflop. Im definitely calling that guys all in

Okay just a few comments and results. I'll post up the results tomorrow on hand 1.

Hand 1

As a general rule I wold raise preflop at least 75% of the time in this spot. But its still early and I'm looking to win a big pot not take down blinds. I've been raising quite a bit and someone might be tempted to play back at me or they could reraise me with a genuine hand. It's hard to tell the difference with 99. I want to play a flop. I'm limping this one for deception and to mix it up a bit.
I think thats okay occasionally.

The rest of the hand does play out a lot trickier as a result, I don't mind that necessarily. I've got position on 3 of the 4 players and i'm confident in my decision making ability.


I think Eddie's push on the turn is interesting.


Hand 2

This one is hard to get across on a forum and I apologise for that. 95% of the time I'm making a serious raise with kings here preflop. I'm not that tight or weak!! lol Plenty of chips to take down and with opponents showing strength I want to get the money in there if I can. To be honest I should have gone with my gut and folded on the flop but I ignored the preflop evidence and decided since my opponent didn't reraise preflop I'd play it like there was a good chance he had KK or QQ and let him pot commit himself on the tunr.

Luckily for me a big fat red King fell on the turn and as my opponent happily pushed I had to commiserate for cracking his aces as I scorched the felt getting my chips in.


It was a strange hand and while I was prepared to fold preflop i just couldn't do it on the flop so I decided to play it like my opponent could have hands I was splitting or beating. i really didn't think I'd see JJ or AK in 1 in 500 hands here.

Hand 3

Alan had AK here and the tilted player had 8d5d for a pair and a gutshot straight draw. Whilst Alan's raising range includes pocket pairs I dominate I think if I reraise he might fold everything except JJ+ and AK which isn't good for me. I was going to raise preflop but I took a little too long and maybe over thought it. (I do take advantage of this occasionally but this time I have a real hand should. So should I just reraise anyway? probably seems to be the verdict)

The flush filled on the river and that cured the other guys tilt fairly quickly. lol

ntlbell

hand 1 is k7 here obviously olly

I'm calling Eddie here every time..

Wreck

ollyk1 wrote:

HAND 2

People who were there know the result of this hand but the result isn't terribly important at this stage I'm wondering if my line is optimal and as I've taken to not putting in reraises with big pocket pairs quite a bit more recently in decent structured tournies I'd like opinions on my post flop play with big pairs as a result.

200/400 level with a running 25 ante.

Playing 7 handed. Tightest player at the table by some distance (Newish boards poster Wreck) suspiciously limps utg. He has flat called a few raises in position or from the blinds but he's generally raising or folding. He seems to know what he's doing except he's defending a little too much oop and folding to c-bets (he has ~21k).

The second tightest player at the table raises to 1600. He's kinda known to me and whilst playing tonight at this table he appears pretty tight he has a reasonable range here in general.

I have 15k on the button and KK. I ask the raiser how much he has in his stack as he's been covering it carefully for the last two orbits. He reveals ~15k after the raise.

Now I don't like the utg limper but I can't fold the second best preflop hand cold here can I? :eek: Of course I can't.

I decide I'm only going to flat call and see what the limper does. I can see myself folding if he makes a value raise to reduce the field to one (at least I think I can).

He cuts out a call and a ~ 3k raise from his stack and mulls it over. I'm convinced he has the boots and is hamming it up. If he makes the raise I'm going to fold. If he doesn't then its QQ+ imo.

He finally flat calls after 30 seconds.

The flop comes Js9s2h. This hasn't helped the limper I don't think but he leads out for 3.2k into a 5.6k pot. The original raiser folds.

Now I've lowered the chances of him holding AA here because he hasn't reraised preflop (is this a good idea in general?) so I decide I've got to play it like he's got QQ or KK (I really don't feel he's got JJ) and I'm either a monster favourite or splitting the pot. I don't have a spade. The best way to get it all-in is to flat call making my hand maybe look like a draw. I'm almost 100% ruling out AK here.

What do you think so far?? TBH I'm silently funking a king. :rolleyes:

ollyk1 wrote:

Hand 2

This one is hard to get across on a forum and I apologise for that. 95% of the time I'm making a serious raise with kings here preflop. I'm not that tight or weak!! lol Plenty of chips to take down and with opponents showing strength I want to get the money in there if I can. To be honest I should have gone with my gut and folded on the flop but I ignored the preflop evidence and decided since my opponent didn't reraise preflop I'd play it like there was a good chance he had KK or QQ and let him pot commit himself on the tunr.

Luckily for me a big fat red King fell on the turn and as my opponent happily pushed I had to commiserate for cracking his aces as I scorched the felt getting my chips in.


It was a strange hand and while I was prepared to fold preflop i just couldn't do it on the flop so I decided to play it like my opponent could have hands I was splitting or beating. i really didn't think I'd see JJ or AK in 1 in 500 hands here.

As I said in another thread I felt I played this hand atrociously. I had been playing very tight as I felt that due to the excellent structure there was little need to gambol. Managed to build up an ok stack without much stress and felt things were going well.

A few hand earlier I had been dealt KK and stuck in a big reraise against Tony (guessing that’s Flushdraw), this hand was playing on my mind as I was sure he was pot committed
but he folded. So when I got AA I was determined to make it pay. I was delighted when the tight player to my left raised my flat call, and very surprised when you called. I couldn’t work out what you could have to flat call there. I was then torn between going all in and ending the pot there (didn’t realise you were so strong) and putting in a large enough raise to get heads up with either of you.

Trouble is I couldn’t work out how much that raise should be. And my inexperience with live play lead to me basically cracking and weakly flat calling. I think the bet on the flop was ok, but I didn’t even think about the bet on the turn, just shipped in the chips.

For your part I’m still amazed that you had such a good read on me pre-flop – fair play .

ollyk1

ntlbell wrote:

hand 1 is k7 here obviously olly

I'm calling Eddie here every time..

Close Brian!

Initially Eddie seemed confident after shipping in the chips and I wasn't sure what he had. He was really giving off the impression that he had me beat so I decided to ask him if he had a flush draw like QdJd and had backed into top pair in order to reveal that I had a "real" hand as it were and not a flush draw myself which my hand may have looked like. After making a joke in response I realised then that he wanted me to fold so I made the call. :rolleyes:

He had 88.

I'm still not sure if its a good call in the long run but I'll take the short run for now.