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Defending BB $350 MTT & My Thought Proccess
Hey all!
Just posting a hand that I played in the recent tournament that I found interesting. This hand comes from my $350 Second Chance Megastack Tournament that I played during the APLPT Series in Sydney, Australia late January.
Humble brag but I walked away with the trophy, reviewing the hand histories and listening to the podcast paying off 😛
Context
There is only 1 table at this point, the tournament was incredibly slow to get off the ground, and with only 1hour of late reg, there has only been a total of 11 entries so far (a couple of busted) and we have a table of 6.
Also, the structure of this tournament is a little abnormal; people can sit down with a 30K starting stack but also get a lifeline, this lifeline can be exchanged at any point during the tournament as long as you’re not in the hand and you get another 30K stack – I elected to sit down from the very first hand with a 60K (cashing my lifeline) essentially playing this as a $350 freeze. If you busted with your lifeline you get another 30k starting stack.
My table while small is a relativly known field, a lot of strong but young Sydney grinders are all vying for the win; first place not only will get a few thousand but also there are ICM implications with the $100,000 free roll tournament that is qualifiers only for next year.
Hand
Preflop
I am in the BB with an effective stack of 90,000. Our table is currently 6handed.
8s4s
The button just under my stack would roughly have a stack of 80-85,000. They are early twenties, competent & GTO-trained / knowledgeable.
Perhaps a loose defense, but I know my opponent could be raising with medium hands and not just the top left of their chart. I’m still learning 6max defending from BB so please tell me how wrong I am here. I still am perhaps a little too egregious with defending my blinds, especially to such a small sizing with my ante out in the middle.
Blinds are 1000/2000/2000 (BB Ante)
Villian, Button: Raises 5500
Hero, BB: Call 5500 8s4s
Flop
8 10 6 hss
Villian: Bets 5000
Hero: Calls 5000Pot: 22,000
I think this is pretty standard to call a middle pair with frontdoor spades, I think 6-handed this hand perhaps can raise the bet also; ranges are so wide open 6handed even the early position isn’t super defined.
Let me know if this flat is ok? Considering my hand it’s a pretty good flop.
Turn
4 h
board: 8 10 6 4 hssh
Villian: Check
Hero: Bet 9000Villian: Thinks and calls.
Pot: 40,000I think with my sizing I want to keep possible heart combos in this hand that now have picked up backdoor potential, I believe this small sizing shows strength but I’m thinking on reflection this is a blunder. I think I need to go bigger here with such a weak hand that has turned incredible amounts of equity, should I be going larger and trying to get my chips in?
River
4 d
board: 8 10 6 4 4 hsshd
Villian: Check
Hero: All-In effective 55000
Villian: Snap CallsShowdown QQhs vs 84ss
Hero has Fullhouse: 8s full of 4s.Rivering the 2nd nuts makes me confident my hand is just the nuts as pocket 10s in my mind would check-raise to pile chips in on the turn; there are a lot of wide ranges from the button here still in 6max and I’m leaning to Villian having more of the upper left; AA,KK, AKh, KQh, KJh etc. While pocket 10s does lean itself into this range I think BB defending has more 10s in range 6-handed, or should in theory but I could be wrong here.
Wanting to go for value I’m looking at the board, looking at my opponent, trying to figure out the right sizing, and decide this is a board I need to polarize; there are exactly 3 combos 10s and dozens more of so many bluff-catching hands.
My read is right and Villian snaps me off with QQ covering both suites, Villian wasn’t happy to bust to 84 suited, but sometimes you just catch the wildest hands in the big blind.
Conclusion
I think my table image especially 6-handed gets me paid here; I am identifably a LAG player especially when I have chips; I like to bully and create a polarized image of myself at the table.
Just thought i’d share a hand I thought was interesting, I am more than capable of risking my tournament on a bluff here; never be scared to put chips in is my motto and i die by that sword. But 6-max or 6handed tables are something I’m wanting to explore more so anyone with more experince on building these ranges that could chime in and give general advice would be great.
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4 Replies
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I wouldn’t defend against a solid player with a hand this bad, especially out of position and when stacks are not that deep. With less than 50BB and a solid opponent who has position on you, this can’t be a profitable defense. The raise is also too big to defend against. Almost 3x means that you make your money against him by playing a bit tighter and 3 betting more often.
I don’t see any reason why you think you might defend differently or see an opponent as having a different range if it were 6max. He is raising the button with the same range in 6max or full ring.
Don’t worry about whether your opponent would have played TT differently so you know he doesn’t have it. You know you are going broke if he has TT, so treat it as impossible because you can not do anything but go broke if he has that combo and you can worry about hands where you can affect the outcome.
I love that he paid you off with QQ. Not as solid as you thought if he’s dumping that much money in the pot when you can never be betting one pair and aren’t bluffing nearly often enough to make it a call.
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The flipside of the blocker coin is a thing called bunching. At a 10 max table that folds to the button you can eliminate all the cards the previous players folded (hands not good enough to play). This makes the chances that the button has a hand that they can open slightly better at a six handed table, they are opening a 40BB button range either way. The odds of you calling (the same range) are slightly higher when more cards have been folded beforehand, also. After that, it all plays the same. With a 1BB ante, your pot odds are actually better, so you can defend more than the charts below, which are both calculated without an ante in the pot.
No need to bet larger on the Turn. Your bet sizes are determined by your nut hands in the range compared to your bluffs. You (optimally) offer your opponent pot odds at a ratio of value:bluffs. If you bet half pot, you are offering 3:1 odds, you should have one bluff for every 3 value hands against a good opponent. Of course, no one plays optimally, so you need to adjust from this baseline. If your opponent is a calling station, I would use a 2e bet, this is the smoothest way to get it all in. If they like to attack weakness, check-raise. If they are a nit and see monsters under every bed, bet a smaller size that you think they will call. 10% is better value than checking.
The question I have for you- what are your bluffs when you over bet the river, or are you one of those guys that “always has it on the river?” You mentioned polarizing, but you didn’t mention with what. If you have no bluffs here, then you are way over valuing the skill of your opponent who called you.
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Not enough edits for someone with as poor grammar as me. The flipside of the blocker coin is a thing called bunching. At a 10 max table that folds to the button you can eliminate all the cards the previous players folded (hands not good enough to play). This makes the chances that the button has a hand that they can open slightly better than at a six handed table, they are opening a 40BB button range either way (1326 possible hands minus 7 folds 10 handed, vs 1326 possible starting hands with 3 folds at 6-max.) The odds of you calling (the same range) are slightly higher when more cards have been folded beforehand, also. After that, it all plays the same.
With a 1BB ante, your pot odds are actually better at a short table, so you can defend more than the charts below, which are both calculated 9-handed without an ante in the pot.
No need to bet larger on the Turn. Your bet sizes are determined by your nut hands in the range compared to your bluffs. You (optimally) offer your opponent pot odds at a ratio of value:bluffs. If you bet half pot, you are offering 3:1 odds, you should have one bluff for every 3 value hands against a good opponent. Of course, no one plays optimally, so you need to adjust from this baseline. If your opponent is a calling station, I would use a 2e bet, this is the smoothest way to get it all in. If they like to attack weakness, check-raise. If they are a nit and see monsters under every bed, bet a smaller size that you think they will call. 10% is better value than checking.
The question I have for you- what are your bluffs when you over bet the river, or are you one of those guys that “always has it on the river?” You mentioned polarizing, but you didn’t mention with what. If you have no bluffs here, then you are way over valuing the skill of your opponent who called you. -
This isn’t a good hand history and as a noob here it’s alarming to me that nobody corrected you.
#1 You are not the effective stack. The short stack is the effective stack.
#2 Playing 40BB deep never fold any suited hand from the BB vs a single raise unless there is a hefty amount of risk premium involved or they are using an unnecessarily large open size. In this case maybe something over 3x.
#3 You are out of position post flop vs the button so they can not check to you on the turn and river.
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