Queens in the Big Blind in Portugal

[Cyntaf]

Definately a flat....................SHOVE.......or are you allowed to check to a raise? Anyway, hope the Guinness was good in Portugal.

[pokerpops]

Have we shoved yet?

Speed of shove depends on how quickly our celebratory drink can be ordered and delivered.

[mporter123]

Clicking it back and seeing any flop (even Q-9-4 rainbow) is terrible.

Devils advocate - I don"t think clicking it back is terrible at all. If we think crazy villains will be randomly peeling 25% of their stacks with small pairs, or Ax type hands then I am happy making it 3400 or something similar. We could be missing value by shoving? Never folding and the shove is the obvious move of course.

[hi_am_chris]

Depends on the player but clicking it back can seem super strong? Hopefully get called lighter with the shove cos we have AK obv  and their 4"s are ahead ...  

[PHIL_TC]

I"m off with work again for a few days upto sunny Scotland... but heres the next part for deliberation.. I decided to play tricky like a plonker and attempt to extract the maximum by flatting, with the idea shoving the flop.. one of the  limpers comes along as well. So we have 3 to the flop... which is

10 3 3 rainbow...

We"re first to act. What next?

[Jon MW]

That"s a great flop for that plan - although the error in the plan is that A high hands fold, and lower pairs fold if the flop comes out with any T J Q K or A. So usually you"re going to miss out on chips when they just fold on the flop. Rather than extracting the maximum they get to keep chips which they would have given to you if they"d called your all in pre.

I"m guessing it was something sillier on this occasion like one of them had A3?

[jbworldwide]

slow roll bad beat or what... come on Phil

[duke3016]

slow roll bad beat or what... come on Phil

It provided endless hours of merriment over the weekend  

[WYoung83]

3 betting but NOT shoving is not good imo, as someone has said before it looks super strong, which it is super strong of course. And we are supposed to disguise our hand strength.
I just cant see the point at all in not getting this all in with you stack. I would also do this (shove all in) sometimes as a bluff and fold equity with hands like 97s for example  (only sometimes table and villian dependant of course), so QQs balances my shoving range perfectly.

Well whats next? Perfect flop for you. As played i am check/shoving this.
10x will bet and then call you for sure, because you almost never show up with overpairs in this spot. The guy who raised will most likely bet if checked round, then he will call your shove.

[PantsMan]

Easy fold.

He"s bet 5 times the big blind therefore he has aces or kings. Once you"ve made the mistake of calling it"s an even easier fold after the flop. You"re now up against a full house from the guy with the aces and the limper has pocket threes and has quads.

You never heard the phrase "tight is right"?

[TheSnapper]

Fairly standard table to date, no one getting out of line however seems the Portugese seem to love a call.

I make it level 5 ? so roughly 2hrs 15mins played. Trying not to be too harsh Phil but you really should have better reads than this on the individual players at your table.

With two limpers and a 5x raise in front...... including the blinds, I make that 8.5bb in the middle, and you have around 27bbs behind - shove and take it down = 32% stack increase.  Get called and win = lovely. Get called and lose = cooler, and more time at the bar.

Worst case scenario is raise small, get called, and then play an Ace high flop out of position with nearly half your stack in the middle already.

For me it"s either a shove, a shove, or sometimes it might also be a shove.

+1 to all of this, especially since.....

Portugese seem to love a call

[pables]

I"m off with work again for a few days upto sunny Scotland... but heres the next part for deliberation.. I decided to play tricky like a plonker and attempt to extract the maximum by flatting, with the idea shoving the flop.. one of the  limpers comes along as well. So we have 3 to the flop... which is

10 3 3 rainbow...

We"re first to act. What next?

I like Stu"s idea use the C word then act.................... irresponsibly  

[VBlue]

I like Mark Porter"s thinking, as we definitely want max value. 

However, I would shove for two reasons:

1) The 30% increase to your stack for picking up the pot now is too good to pass up
2) We can still get called by hands we crush, depending on your perceived image and what we know about the raiser.  If we are only ever picking up the pot now or getting called by AK/KK/AA it is still the right move to shove, as a profitable move.

[AAroddersAA]

Clicking it back and seeing any flop (even Q-9-4 rainbow) is terrible.

Devils advocate - I don"t think clicking it back is terrible at all. If we think crazy villains will be randomly peeling 25% of their stacks with small pairs, or Ax type hands then I am happy making it 3400 or something similar. We could be missing value by shoving? Never folding and the shove is the obvious move of course.

OK, I would argue, a small raise is not OK and indeed terrible due to how easy this spot actually is. It is the nut worst play (well apart from folding). If people are calling min raises light they are almost certainly calling shoves at least as light, especially as this is live.

Hands with one over card such as AJ or AQ we don"t much care if they call or fold when we shove (we like a call more). Let"s assume the limpers are going to fold as they almost always will in this spot. Some will have AA sometimes but that will be rare and there is nothing you can do about it.

If we shove and they all fold we will 8.5BB - great

If we shove and get called by an AQ/KQ type hand then we win on average about 20BB also good. We also get knocked out 30% of the time.

If we click it back thing get all complicated and we really didn"t need to make it so complex.

When we raise it another 7BB say loads of hands that would call a shove probably call here:-

99+
AQ, AJ, KQ.
Maybe 66 - 88
Maybe KJ / KT

Then we see of flop of say T-3-3 and the hand we beat fold but would have called the preflop shove

If we see a flop of A-4-9 we still can"t really get away from our hand with what is in the middle, we may pick off a few bluffs but will usually end up losing to the hands that beat us and sometimes lose our stack. We have created a horrible complex situation which is -EV

There are a few hands that will call a min raise that will not call a shove little pairs set mining incorrectly for example and TJ suited type hands who have heard of implied odds, but not enough to make up for the value we lose against hands that would have called a shove.

Phil,

As played CRAI - this hand is really simple. The flat is sort of OK btw (much better than a min raise) although a shove is still much better. What was you plan on a flop of:-

A-9-4 or
K-7-2

PS - for fun equity please tell me he had a two and a three that would be too good *lol*

[mporter123]

If people are calling min raises light they are almost certainly calling shoves at least as light, especially as this is live.

This is the bit I am not sure I agree with.

From my limited live experience, these types of players will merrily peel off 25% of their stack but when asked to call for their tournament lives - will tighten up significantly. If that is the case then I dont want to give hands that we crush a reason to fold.