Blind V Blind

[George2Loose]

Raise on that flop to around 650 in position, If he"s raised pre with a bigger King pre then you"ll prob find out if you"re behind and save yourself the call call call down the streets and more chips.

Don"t do this.

Like the way you"ve played the hand thus far. Board is pretty dry so it"s a bit of a meh spot. Has he shown any tendencies to barrel off previously?

[Jon MW]

I"d shove pre as a semi bluff

If he folds (as he will most of the time) you"ve added over 10% to your stack, if he calls you"re "likely" to be about 2:1 underdog (hence why it"s a semi bluff not a value shove) - but you"re getting pretty short stacked, if you"re not going to take a risk now then how bad does your situation have to be before you do?

Never heard of a pre flop semi bluff

neither had I until the voices in my head told me about it earlier

[mporter123]

[Swinebag]

I think this is a pretty standard rejam pre with a 24BB stack.

As played, I like your calling down line as there is not much value in raising - By the river, you are pretty pot commited so call it off

[dwh103]

What"s the buy-in? Any other HEM stats?

As played - Can"t raise flop, or at any point in the hand (Grant, how could you? ). Decision here is on the turn. As George said, board is uber dry, what the hell does he think you have? Realistically I"d need a read on the opponent or an idea he might triple barrel.

Given your stack size if you call turn you"re already committing to call river. He bets 1k into 2310. You need to be good just under 25% of the time to make a profitable call on the river. But the decision is made on the turn - you have to expect to call the rest of your stack off on the river.

Jam pre is best. Even allowing a generous calling range (20% of hands) your equity is going to be around 37% and you"ll comfortably show a long term profit.

[mporter123]

A bit more detail on this one - dug out the hand history:-

Some errors in how I originally reported from memory..

Tourney Hand NL Texas Hold'em - Tuesday, October 11, 01:38:59 ET 2011
Table 451550796 43 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: viko73 ( $3249.00 USD )
Seat 2: S0lracNauj ( $10505.00 USD )
Seat 3: Alone46 ( $13085.00 USD )
Seat 4: Mark_Port157 ( $2685.00 USD )
Seat 5: FlyingLevi ( $2805.00 USD )
Seat 6: aeiouma ( $3700.00 USD )
viko73 posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
S0lracNauj posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
Alone46 posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
Mark_Port157 posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
FlyingLevi posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
aeiouma posts ante of [$10.00 USD].
Alone46 posts small blind [$50.00 USD].
Mark_Port157 posts big blind [$100.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Mark_Port157 [   Td ]
FlyingLevi folds
aeiouma folds
viko73 folds
S0lracNauj folds
Alone46 raises [$172.00 USD]
Mark_Port157 calls [$122.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ , , ]
Alone46 bets [$300.00 USD]
Mark_Port157 calls [$300.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ ]
Alone46 bets [$450.00 USD]
Mark_Port157 calls [$450.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ ]
Alone46 bets [$1000.00 USD]
Mark_Port157 folds
Alone46 wins $1000.00 USD
Alone46 wins $2004.00 USD from main pot

[mporter123]

So the buy in was $1+0.10. I dont think its fair to just automatically say call with that fact though. As previously stated, I thought villain was more than competent.

Given new information that starting stack was infact nearly 27 blinds.... can we still jam here? I, perhaps wrongly, had considered 24BB"s too much to jam here, is this the case for 27bb"s?

Villains Stats (108 hands):-

VPIP - 25
PFR - 24.1
3Bet - 14.8
Flop C Bet - 100%
Won $ @ SD - $100

I agree with the fact that once we call turn we are pot committed but do we just call river in this spot even if we are fairly sure we are behind just because of the odds? Can we ever fold the turn here? I may be over thinking this..

[dwh103]

For a jam pre, assume a very loose calling range of any Ace, QJs, KJ+ and any pair. Your equity is ~38% vs this range.

77% of the time you"ll win 382 (blinds, antes and his raise) = 294 cEV

23% x 38% you"ll double up and win 2825 = 247 cEV
23% x 62% you"ll bust and lose 2575 = -367 cEV

Overall profit = 174 cEV

Note this is almost certainly an underestimate. Narrowing the Villain"s range doesn"t alter your equity greatly and you get through pre more often, widening and your showdown equity increases with each hand you add.

Though this pretty much shows that aggression is the winner heads up, whether the upside is enough for you to risk shoving to add 15% or so to your stack - that"s another matter. For me that"s more than enough, you only have an M of 12/13 left after the hand - easily a shoveable stack heads up.

Meta-game might come into later confrontations (can slow him down for when the blinds mean something), or my major, major preference is that it"s a chance to work towards a stack - more reasons to jam. It"s an impossible strategy to exploit too.

With no further information and as played, I make an assumption that he"s a little over aggro according to his stats, and call river. Buy-in level does influence me, as does his stack size. Hard to gauge the true feel of being at the table with this guy, so I could definitely be wrong.

[noble1]

for the above calc, just take into consideration that dwh has based his model on villain open raising 100% of hands..

very similar to louis"s thread where he cc all the way to the river, again without much to go by, opinions as per played will sway from call to fold.. flip a coin on the river, sometimes you will be right, sometimes wrong..
as played plus with villains bet sizing and his stack size, i"d call on the river...
at micro and low stake mtts bet sizing can be a big give-away as the majority will not use the same line when bluffing as they do when they have a strong hand etc...

So the buy in was $1+0.10. I dont think its fair to just automatically say call with that fact though. As previously stated, I thought villain was more than competent.

why ask if its a call on the river then? i"d question competent in a $1 mtt, what is competent? i"m putting this bluntly, get rid of HEM, it will in the long run with practice hopefully allow you to get a better feel/gut instinct for the opponents... work harder at getting a read on a player, HEM will not tell you which lines and which bet sizes are a sign of a strong hand or weak hand, the bet sizing is often ignored, although it is one of the easiest ways to gather information about your opponent.... more useful than 25% vpip over 108 hands don"t you think?

other thoughts on river as played - if the value of the chips in the pot is most likely greater than the value of chips you will be left with then take a chance... eg - you fold then you will only have enough chips [approx 16bb"s] to survive a round or two of blinds [especially if the next level 75/150 is looming] you will almost certainly be pressed now to shove with just as mediocre hands and then be knocked out of the tournament.[agree?] even if you go on to double up, you still have to overcome major odds to build a stack.... just some noble logic to weigh up the decision

[Santino67]

Raise on that flop to around 650 in position, If he"s raised pre with a bigger King pre then you"ll prob find out if you"re behind and save yourself the call call call down the streets and more chips.

Don"t do this.

Like the way you"ve played the hand thus far. Board is pretty dry so it"s a bit of a meh spot. Has he shown any tendencies to barrel off previously?

Why not do this George? Mark has ended up calling off 850 chips by the turn only to fold on the river. Are you just gonna call this guy down every street and hope you"re ahead or would there be a different plan?

[deanp27]

Well raise folding top pair to "see where you are" is generally bad because you effectively turn a strong hand into a bluff. You would need to be 100% confident he would not jam worse to correctly fold which then also means he doesn"t proceed with his weaker hands which you want to get value from.

[Jon MW]

108 is an irrelevant sample, but doesn"t that say he c-bets 100% of the time on the flop? (or does that mean something else?)

Generally I don"t think this kind of software is ever likely to be any good in tournaments (unless you"re playing >4 tables at a time) - it will take a long long time to get a decent sample size on any opponents, and even when you do you"ll have met them at different points in the tournament so it won"t reflect a consistent background. It might be good for cash but I don"t think it"s worth it for MTT"s.

[samuel_9]

I"d shove pre as a semi bluff

If he folds (as he will most of the time) you"ve added over 10% to your stack, if he calls you"re "likely" to be about 2:1 underdog (hence why it"s a semi bluff not a value shove) - but you"re getting pretty short stacked, if you"re not going to take a risk now then how bad does your situation have to be before you do?

Never heard of a pre flop semi bluff

neither had I until the voices in my head told me about it earlier

little giggle

[George2Loose]

Raise on that flop to around 650 in position, If he"s raised pre with a bigger King pre then you"ll prob find out if you"re behind and save yourself the call call call down the streets and more chips.

Don"t do this.

Like the way you"ve played the hand thus far. Board is pretty dry so it"s a bit of a meh spot. Has he shown any tendencies to barrel off previously?

Why not do this George? Mark has ended up calling off 850 chips by the turn only to fold on the river. Are you just gonna call this guy down every street and hope you"re ahead or would there be a different plan?

I"m not hoping. When I play poker I make decisions based history/reads and game flow. You"re raising the flop not for value but for information which is effectivley allowing your opponent to play his hand perfectly against you ie: fold worse/call or raise with better or even worse getting bluffed off the hand by a capable opponent.

Don"t be afraid to play through the streets. Poker is about making correct decisions and playing a multi street pot and getting put to the test is something I very much enjoy about the game, especially when you make the right one. Granted it"s tough to know whether folding was the right one in this case but imo mporter played the hand well. I think jamming pre id fine but don"t mind a call here pre BoB either

[duke3016]

Sorry - but this is just silly old me - I am all in post flop - but then analysing is not my forte