ferrari1f

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have either a) freeplay, b) slowplay, or c) multi-way pot situation. (Post your hand in the Hand evaluation board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)

Villain is a fish when you see the hand but it is a slow play on my side. Not really sure if my play on the turn was correct (raise sizing for example)...

Poker Stars $10.00 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 2388294
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

UTG: $11.37 - VPIP: 22, PFR: 14, 3B: 8, AF: 7,8, Hands: 183
CO: $11.95 - VPIP: 23, PFR: 16, 3B: 3, AF: 4,4, Hands: 182
Hero (BTN): $10.34 - VPIP: 18, PFR: 15, 3B: 6, AF: 3,6, Hands: 233288
SB: $8.08 - VPIP: 65, PFR: 29, 3B: 3, AF: 15,5, Hands: 65
BB: $10.00 - VPIP: 16, PFR: 12, 3B: 6, AF: 4,8, Hands: 314

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BTN with J J
UTG raises to $0.30, 1 fold, Hero calls $0.30, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($1.20) J 8 8 (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets $1.00, Hero calls $1, SB folds, BB folds

Turn: ($3.20) K (2 players)
UTG bets $2.00, Hero raises to $4, UTG raises to $10.07, Hero calls $5.04 all in

River: ($21.28) 7 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $21.28
UTG shows A A
Hero shows J J
Hero wins $20.32
(Rake: $-0.07)

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members. (Choose a hand from the Hand evaluation board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)

See before...

Question 3: Consider the following situation:

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I would raise for pure value. He's a calling station and I expect him to call with plenty of worse hands like KJ or KQ, Ax hands (which are no 2-pair), maybe even flush draws, and straight draws like KJ and KQ (gut shots), but note that KJ and KQ are somewhat made 1-pair hands. Since he leads out into 3 opponents, I expect him to have a made hand more often than a pure draw.

On the other hand, it would suck quite hard to raise-fold in this spot. If we get 3-bet on this flop, I think that we have to fold which really sucks. So this makes me think that raising this flop is not ideal and that we maybe just have to call here.

I'd like to see what coaches have to say about this hand

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation where you have played on a 6-max table (short-handed). (Post your hand in the No Limit: Hand Evaluations forum, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)

See before. I only play 6-MAX. I used to play FR before, but I switched to SH because of the more dynamic/difficult plays. Love the challenges and eager to learn

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members (Choose a hand from the No Limit: Hand Evaluations board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)

See before.

Question 3: Consider the following situation:

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On this flop, when we just expect all our outs to be clean, we do have 15 outs (every :heart:, every ace and every 6). However, since BU calls the all-in after CO raises all-in, I really expect that our FD outs aren't clean anymore, which means that at best we only have 6 outs (every ace and every 6 which are not :heart:). Typically in such spots, we are facing a flush draw and sets, so this one is an easy fold... We have to pay 8,8 $ in a pot of 22 $ which means that we need 40 % equity and we never have this equity against such hands.

To prove this.

Let's say we are up against:
villain 1: AA-KK (overpair)
villain 2: 22-33 (a set)
We have 37 % equity, villain 1 has 5 % and villain 2 has 57 %

Let's say we are up against:
villain 1: AhTh (flush draw)
villain 2: 22-33 (a set)
We have only 17 % equity.

Best case scenario, our outs are clean and we are up against an overpair and a set... Even then we don't have enough equity but it is very close in this scenario...

Question 4: Consider the following situation:

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First of all, it's a multi-way pot. But I would just call. If we decide to raise, we are definitely stacking off, but our opponents won't raise/stack off with worse hands here. I expect them to fold all their worse hands, even some Ax hands, so therefore I would just decide to play it passively and just call. We should give villain(s) a chance to fire again with his weaker Ax hands on the turn, or at least give them a chance to check/call with those so that we can extract maximum value from his weaker hands.

Question 1: Post a hand for evaluation. (Post your hand in the No Limit: Hand Evaluations board, and provide a link to your hand in your private thread.)

Poker Stars $10.00 No Limit Hold'em - 4 players - View hand 2388302
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $33.20 - VPIP: 15, PFR: 8, 3B: 3, AF: 1,7, Hands: 84
SB: $7.68 - VPIP: 30, PFR: 20, 3B: 0, AF: 2,0, Hands: 30
BB: $4.17 - VPIP: 55, PFR: 13, 3B: 8, AF: 1,3, Hands: 31
Hero (CO): $16.14 - VPIP: 18, PFR: 15, 3B: 6, AF: 3,6, Hands: 233288

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is CO with 9 9
Hero raises to $0.30, 1 fold, SB calls $0.25, BB calls $0.20

Flop: ($0.90) 3 8 2 (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $0.55, SB calls $0.55, BB folds

Turn: ($2.00) J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.95, SB raises to $2, Hero folds

Final Pot: $3.90
SB wins $3.72
(Rake: $0.18)

I think that betting the turn for value is too thin ? But what made me think a bit more is what kind of hands that villain could have here?

Question 2: Evaluate one of the hands submitted by other members. ( Choose a hand from the No Limit: Hand Evaluations board and post your own evaluation in the thread. Post a link to the hand you have evaluated in your private thread. You can evaluate as many hands as you want, but try to choose hands not yet evaluated by other users first.)

As before.

Question 3: Consider the following situation:

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I would bet again here, for value. I don't think that checking behind for pot control (and bluff-induce) is better. We have a strong hand here and we shouldn't be too scared to get it in with since he still could have weaker draws/hands to check-raise with.

BONUS Question 4 (optional question): Consider the following situation:

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Let's first list the factors and concepts. We are in a multi-way pot here, more specifically, it's a multi-way 3-bet pot since CO 3-bet us. On the flop, the play is rather straight forward: we check it to the last pre-flop aggressor with the nuts. It's kind of a slow play since we plan to check-call. No real need to check-raise in this spot since we want villains with overpairs to bet again on the turn and/or river. What is a bit strange here, is that not CO c-bets, but BU... We all call and see a turn. I still think that CO easily can have an overpair here and decide to check-behind with these hands (way-ahead way-behind). On the turn everybody checks again. On the river, hero is clearly value-betting here. However, we get raised-all in by CO, who is the original 3-bettor. I don't see how he can raise-bluff-all in here. Even though our absolute hand strength is strong, we don't beat KK and QQ which definitely can be in his range. We cannot forget that he is a TAG and that his value-3 bet range looks like QQ+ - AK. He would never bluff with AA or AK on this type of board just because he'll never get called by worse hands, so I really expect him to make this move with a better full house....

Well done,

It looks like you kept busy over the holidays.

After the new year I'll go through your hands one by one and give you some detailed replies.

Happy new year.

Thank you Bogdan !

Also, I remember that we can do a quiz after all the courses. Could you tell me a bit more about that please?

I am planning to start playing again on one of the tracked sites, to get access to the Silver video's. There are plenty of them, but again here it's not so easy to figure out which one to watch first. Are there other kind of learning paths available on PokerStrategy? Something like "intermediate 2" and "intermediate 3" and so on ?

What I really noticed on NL 16 compared to NL 10 is that I don't get payed off so much anymore by marginal hands. It makes me think that I should value bet smaller or use different lines. At 10 NL it's really easy to get payed of by lot of worse hands that should fold in fact, for example me having AK versus hero having KT or sometimes KJ on a flop K25 turn 7 river 2. On such kind of boards I can bet three streets for value and still get payed off by even KT. The board is so dry so it makes no sense for me to bluff 3 streets with a worse hand and villain should also realise that I am not betting without a worse hand, so he should be able to fold easily on the river (or turn maybe).

Also, let's say that I have 22 and we go heads-up to the flop vs MP (UTG+2) opener. The flop comes Ac9c2h. Flush draw out there. I check to the PFR since we expect him to c-bet this flop almost 100 % off the time. Often enough, I check-raise this kind of boards just to get as much money in the pot as possible. Also there is a possible flush draw out there and another club is scary for us (maybe also for villain). If villain folds, they don't have an ace and it will be difficult to get payed off anyways. Let's say if they do call and the turn is an 6s, we bet our set and we bet around 55 % pot, villain finds the fold button very often with an ace (and sometimes even showing the ace). It must be a weak ace in this case, but compared to NL 10, they just pay you off on the turn once again. The river is a bit trickier, sometimes they find the fold because they realise they are beat, but often enough you'll get payed off here.

So this makes me think that we should start using more trickier lines, like checking on the turn, to induce a bet and just check-call the turn bet and on the river of just bet ourselves since most people will check behind their ace...

So what I am trying to figure out here, is what other lines we could take to hide the strength of our hand a bit more and on which types of board we can do this profitable, because often enough we don't want our opponent to draw for free, but on the other hand, they won't call anymore 2 streets with a flush draw (flop and turn) and they will just fold on the turn.

All in all, NL 16 is not really working for me while I am really crushing NL 10 hard now over 40 000 hands - even though it's only 10 000 hands on NL16. It's getting a bit frustrated to move up to NL 16, loose 4 BIs and move down again. But that's the nature of the game and BRM.

Hoping to get some nice advice !

Thanks a lot to the coaches once again.

The site does have a new strategy section (which is not 100% ready) which can be found here: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/strategy/

They are not really looking at the quizzes anymore but you can still take it as a test.

I have quite a few videos at the silver level and since I do not really watch many others at that level I can't recommend you specific ones.

If your feel is that they don't pay off too light you can reduce your value bet range and possibly adjust some sizes.

As far as the 22 example goes you can also lead into them or bet the turn bigger (where you may look more bluffy with a draw). Betting 55% is actually pretty small on a wet board and to soem that looks like pure value rather than a semibluff so they fold more.

The key here would be to get info on your opponents and based on that you adjust. And unless everyone is tighter and makes big folds (or a vast majority) don't adjust your default game yet or you risk losing value.

And the sample you have is really small still so I'd play more there.

Best regards,

Bogdan

Originally posted by BogdanPS
And the sample you have is really small still so I'd play more there.

Not really sure if someone is interested to keep reading updates, but for now, let's go for it. If it's nice for you to read, I can continue doing it :).

Thanks for the feedback, but feels and looks like this one is the true reason because of multiple reasons:

1) I start to get used to the strange sizes
2) I was really not running so hot

Besides those excuses ♦ :f_cool:, I also kept working besides the tables and I analysed some situations where I stacked off and I really don't understand what I was thinking, so that helped me a lot. Just spewing money and stacks...

Last 5 days / sessions it's going up (+6 BIs) and it really felt like I am playing my A game again. I am still a loosing player over the sample size that I have (almost closed the gap whoohoow :]), but I feel like I am getting there which is obviously very good :).

I also started to read "The mental game of poker", which really seems to be a must-read. It's an eye opener for sure and I can recognise myself as a mental fish :P. I am sure that one will help me improve further as a player and reach my 2014 goals :).

I am glad to see you were able to find some spots you were spewing in and that you are actually doing well now.

So keep doing that

Best of luck,

Bogdan