Some Macau 1k Main Event Hands

Captain Tom

forgot to post these after the summer festival. i felt on the day i played pretty bad in general so would like to hear opinions on some critical hands.

Hand 1:

at this stage ive been hugely card dead so am probably seen as being somewhat tight although ive c-bet probably every hand ive played and taken almost every pot down without showdown.

Villian is a good aggressive player. has built a decent stack w/o showing down too many hands. hasnt been caught bluffing in any substantial pots.

at 100/200 i open to 650 in MP with JJ. villain calls in the cutoff.

flop: T53 2 hearts. i bet 1.2k. he calls.

turn: 8h. i have 6k left,villian covers.pot is 4k. hero?

as played i check,he bets 2k, 6k in the pot i have 6k left.

now what?



Hand 2:

ive started raising more frequently and have taken a hit to my stack and am sitting on ~5.9k.

villian is young scandi. has been opening frequently in position and is the most aggressive player at the table but has only 3 bet twice so far in about 6 hours play(1hr15min levels IIRC). once he took it down p/f and the other time folded after getting c/raised on a Qxx flop. has travelled over specifically for this tournament so is taking it quite seriously.

edit: actually thinking back another time he 3-bet a player who opened im MP a shoved over his c/raise on a rag flop when the player was almost certainly pot committed.

blinds 150/300.

EP limps i make it 1175 in MP with AKo.Scandi on the button makes it 2500 straight. hero?



Hand 3:

very interested in thoughts on this hand.

utg+1 is by a stretch the worst player ive come up againt in a 1k+ buyin tournament. id guess his range is any pair/facecards/ace rag/high suited cards/suited k's/q's etc. to say that his play has been irrational is a huge understatement.

MP is a Macau reg. he can appear very spewey sometimes but can play very well and at the best of times is a tricky LAG.

effective stacks are ~10k. blinds 25/50.

utg+1 makes it 150 p/f. MP calls. i make it 750 in the c/o with KK. utg+1 calls, MP calls.

pot is 2325.

flop: 345r. utg+1 checks, MP checks, i check.

turn: 8s. utg+1 checks, MP bets 1600, i call, utg+1 calls.

pot is 7125.

river: 9s. utg+1 bets 3k, MP folds, i call.


im particularly interested in the flop check here. at that stage im very willing to get it in vs utg+1 but am quite worried about MP. he plays his big hands strong so will c/raise this flop with a set always. however he'll also c/raise with 22/66/A6s which its very conceivable he has considering he likes to see lots of flops.i think pairs 99- are generally a large part of his range here. any c/raise committs me to the pot here in a tournament with a great structure in which i still have a very playable stack. FWIW me and MP have played a lot togethor and he probably sees me as a solid player capable of making moves.

is playing pot control too nitty here? should i just bet/get it in? bet/fold?

turn/river calls standard?


all comments appreciated.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Captain Tom

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Would I be correct to say that this is one of the rare occasions where you faced opposition to your flop c – bet? I mean, this is a beautiful spot for him to float you. C – betting the flop again just means that you have 100% of your raising range.

yeah this kinda bothered me. he hadnt been particularly out of line yet though. he may have been capable of floating here but i think if he decided he was going to try and take it away he would probably have just raised the flop instead. i think the flat call more likely indicates a marginal pair/flushdraw.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

The stack sizes make everything all the more awkward. If you shove, he will of course fold all bluffs and bad one pair hands. But you won’t be getting a better hand to fold here.

stack sizes are what what this hand so tough IMO. bet folding like 2.5-3k on the turn would be pretty horrible and deplete me stack greatly. check calling the turn kinda seems bad too cause there's a ton of cards that can potentially kill my hand. also this leaves me with 4k with the pot standing at 8k. feels like i might have to just shove the turn or fold but c/raising the turn is pretty bad for reasons you already stated. i hate poker.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

I don’t get away from AK ever when playing 20BBs or less and raising with any sort of frequency. All in.

i'd generally agree with this but i always get worried when people make such minimal 3-bets. also but the lack of 3 betting he's done so far. is this just a simple push with less than 20bb's regardless? does it not look like he's enticing action?

LuckyLloyd wrote:

When you say “spewey”, does MP ever stack himself on that flop with 77?

i was really unsure of this tbh. from playing with him so much i was almost positive he would c/raise with any pair+oesd combo (which he confirmed afterwards) but wasnt entirely sure what he would do with 77-99. this is why i felt pretty sick about betting. if i bet and he c/raised i really didnt have a clue what to do and didnt want to be in that spot.

LuckyLloyd wrote:

We shouldn’t want to take a turn against two opponents without inflating the pot a bit – and we will get paid off with rubbish from UTG.

i guess having utg in the pot makes it a lot easier to bet consider the wide the range of hands he'll pay us off with.


cheers for the analysis Lloyd. Much appreciated.

HiCloy

These are some really interesting hands and I'm surprised there haven't been more comments.

Hand 1:
Tough spot, but as weak as it seems i check fold the turn. Check calling is out with having half a pot left, and I don't think getting it in here is good

Hand 2:
If the player was mediocre I'd fold as this (just over minimum) raise would usually be AA/KK looking for action. Here I'd get it in as you say you've started raising more frequently he may see this as a good spot to test you

Hand 3:
I like how you played it. I don't like tht flop too much and would mostly check it. I think however UTG+1 has you beaten on the river a lot as he won't lead half pot into 2 players on the river with air very often, so it depends how "spewey" he is

Captain Tom

HiCloy wrote:

These are some really interesting hands and I'm surprised there haven't been more comments.

i guess i should make my posts shorter from now on.:)

HiCloy wrote:

Hand 1:
Tough spot, but as weak as it seems i check fold the turn. Check calling is out with having half a pot left, and I don't think getting it in here is good.

i hate this spot but i really hate folding too. against a capable aggressive player i think were ahead here a lot of the time. although i pretty much hate every possible line too.

HiCloy wrote:

Hand 3:
I think however UTG+1 has you beaten on the river a lot as he won't lead half pot into 2 players on the river with air very often, so it depends how "spewey" he is

Captain Tom wrote:

utg+1 is by a stretch the worst player ive come up againt in a 1k+ buyin tournament. to say that his play has been irrational is a huge understatement.

that spewey.

bops

howdy

hand 1: yuk - i fold here deffo

hand 2: i could easily find a fold here - i may just say fk it and lamp them in though! - actually looking at stacks/blinds i probably push and hope for a race

hand 3: i bet the flop 1600 and fold/push to a reraise depending on my gut - i'm very happy to take that pot down on the flop so early in a decent tourney

it looks like you had a poxy tourney, one of those one's that everything turns to sh*t - it never seems to happen in the 25 quid rebuy ones :rolleyes:

sikes

i think the reason there are so few respones is that these are horrible spots to be in and the right answer isnt very clear.

h1 - i fold if he is good.
h2 - i shove, theres a good bit of money in there at this stage though.
h3 - i would bet the flop, we only have a stack for two streets of poker, id prefer it to be the first two when we have a made hand that wont improve, especially considering the crap player n the hand, we dont want lower PPs going anyway if a overcard hits the turn. How would MP play 77-99 would be check/call? Either way, I prob get it in if he check raises, we prob have enough equity to do so.