elvida
Forum Replies Created
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So here’s my take…Presuming no significant pay jump anytime soon given the number of people remaining…
QJo is probably a fold, as it is at the bottom of your range. If you are going to open it, I think that a min raise is fine with a plan to fold to a 3b!. If you are not going to fold to that 3b! then just jam pre and take advantage of fold equity. If you DO still call, the SPR is ~2. Any bet is committing, so if you are going to bet you might as well jam but I think checking and seeing what happens is a better route.
Bottom line is I am not sure you want to be in this position as there are likely better spots. Probably best to fold pre.
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I don’t have much to add to Taylor’s summation. It is solver approved, and I guess it seems odd to fold on a blank turn to a jam. To do so is a large exploit that leaves you pretty vulnerable. Better have (as Taylor said) a pretty damn good read.
Reason for my post though is that @Aceragoff I get being afraid of posting because you feel you are “not a great player.” Understand that if that was a criteria, I would also have to keep my mouth shut, and that is not going to happen (just ask @Binkley) . So post away. Discuss what you think. Accept that someone may say your line is faulty. Consider that what you say may be what someone else is afraid to post, and they will be grateful for your sacrifice for knowledge and understanding.
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Since it is essentially a free roll, you call. If you paid money, It gets closer to a fold given the strength of the cold call. But your goal in a Satt is to find a spot early to get up big a then tighten up. You won’t likely have a better opportunity.
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I agree with Binkley on the preflop play. That said, the dreaded “Fold Pre” always left me feeling a little bereft. Further, he posted WHILE I was typing this out (jerk), so I am going to post it anyways. Thus, I will ramble on about some other things that I think were in your post. I had less work today than I thought. (Still way too much, even were I employed by Elon Musk, should my federal overlords be watching).
I think that the one piece of advice that comes to mind (attrib. to Andrew Brokos) is… “Don’t fold to bets that haven’t come yet.” Reads can be helpful, but the cards matter as much as the reads of the players. I feel you made this play despite your cards (you essentially turned 2 pair into a bluff…) Once you get to the flop as played, the bottom line is that in this hand you are playing out of position in a bloated multiway hand with a stack to pot ratio of 1.4 with a monochrome flop and no club in your hand (Say that five times quickly and the Poker Jinni will appear and grant you zero wishes…it probably is not surprising that the Poker Jinni can be a jerk). Yes, you have a made hand and outs, but you have TWO people to act after you and TWO cards to come. You have neither the nut nor range advantage on this board. Donking into two players OOP on such a board rarely is the best play.
Further, this board scares the hell out of EVERYONE. Except maybe K9cc and Axcc. So, save for one of those two hands, the players may be more cautious than you think (and as such, see Brokos Wisdom above). I would check and see what develops. However, if you are unwilling to fold this hand no matter what (i.e., I FLOPPED two pair on this STINKING board and I am GOING to SHOWDOWN) then by all means jam and pick up whatever fold equity you have, but consider that a check-raise may look stronger. If, no matter what his holding, villain-McJammyJam is going to jam (jammers gonna jam, am I right?), then check/fold lets you play on (Garth) rather than taking the lonely walk back to the car or to the cage. However, you have to accept that with this hand you have a good chance you will lose money; either what you put in the pot already, or if you are behind, or get drawn out on. (Enter lecture here on the philosophical underpinnings of The Art of Losing in Poker Without Losing Your S&%$).
Results oriented, you gained a lot of information on this player. He must have called with some draw (since he lost), so what does it matter what you have. It is a weird comment. I wouldn’t listen to him. To make money at this game you have to make plays others don’t, which will open you to “ridicule.” EMBRACE IT! Be CRAZY JOHN. The mild- mannered MANIAC on the felt. One, it’s a lot of fun, and two they’ll call you down when you bet with your value. Even if it is a suboptimal play, advertising that chaos makes you harder to play against. That said, this is where poker arguments get fun. People can tell you that you “got lucky” but that is determined based on what your opponents will do. Some of the most “heated” arguments get going over some form of the following statement “Do you really think the villain will fold (call/raise/jam) in that spot?!?” Prediction to human nature is fraught (FRAUGHT I TELL YOU) and as a result there is no answer to any of these questions that is actually “right.” Uncertainty is part of the game. People (like Yamel) get their AA cracked all the time, but that doesn’t mean that if you win with KK, you should feel badly that they were lucky in that spot. Refine your game and revel in your luck. The money you win is worth the same.
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Hey Buchr,
First welcome to the forums! Glad you are here.
I think that Chris and John have given you lots to think about in the hand and how to approach these spots. One thing I will say is one of your goals is to let the other players make mistakes. It is tough for players to NOT play hands in these games. Think about your situation. It is HARD to not play 77, though it is the right play. But your goal is not to accumulate chips, it is to have 1 chip left when the bubble bursts. Since these are not killers by-and-large, waiting for THEM to stumble will be more profitable than taking riskier spots. In fact, there are spots where folding AA (and not just on the stone bubble) is the absolute right play. If you are tracking your hands (highly recommended) I think you be surprised how few hands you need to win in these tournaments in order to cash. Satellite play is a different animal from MTT with its own strategy and recognizing just that fact will give you an edge on the table.
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I think when I am playing my A game I am folding here. With two people interested in a 3! pot with so many hands that could have gotten home, plus the number of draws that could easily complete with two cards, I think this may be too gambly a spot to continue. Your Q outs could be dirty (as you would lose to KQ) and possibly even your T outs (KT). I don’t see two pair good here often enough, I don’t see much fold equity given the interest in the pot, and I don’t see the drawing odds as being sufficient to warrant putting more money in. I think you should be able to find a better spot later, particularly if you can get some play style reads on your opponents.
my 2nl.
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Not for a 1/3 pot bet. I mean, you could fold for the 10 bucks, given that they always have it. But what they have might be QQ, JJ, TT, etc. I think you probably can find 25% of hands that you beat that he might think are value.
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Happy wife and all that. I certainly understand that concept.
Seriously consider buying in short then (say 50bb)? It limits your exposure on these instances, eases the decisions, and if you double, then you have a full stack with which to play. If you bust, you have another stack (or two) to bring out and navigate. Either way you can play more correctly (also less “scared”). Plus it can make pros wary of you as it can be hard to play against a competent short stacker. Since most of your play seems to be in tournaments on Rec, short stacking would give you continued practice on the important skills in the tournies and the frequency of cards would slow your walk out the door (barring preflop run good/postflop run bad catastrophes). Not buying in for a full stack could mark you as a nonpro, but so what. Use that to your advantage, b/c the fact that you are here (Rec Poker, studying) will make you a better player than many at the table.
Another part of this will be to develop a poker bank roll like you are a professional player. Since the stakes are too high given spousal prerogative, creating a bank roll that the two of you decide is the money you can run up or down will be a better approach than bringing “pocket money.” I have found that when my wife feels that I am not threatening my kids college education, I can spend the money I need to be profitable more easily and not have her face floating in front of my vision when I am taking a thin value spot. Further, when I win, that money doesn’t get spent. It stays in my “roll.” Understand that while I am not independently wealthy, I have sufficient money that playing live regularly would not impact my lifestyle significantly. This is more navigating the house politics related to where expenditures of money occur.
This podcast was done by a friend/coach and I think it is quite good and one of the few on the topic. https://redchippoker.com/for-poker-players-loved-ones/
One other option is always plan to have some other activity that you can do at the casino or along the way as a backup. Seems silly, but I always have a plan (if I am playing live) since my drive is about an hour. Restaurant, movie, six gallon drum of ice cream. Whatever it is I need/want. The alternative gives me something to do and lessens the sting of busting. I play better if I am not folding good spots to the fear that I will hit my stop loss too early. If I am playing online, I just fold laundry or something.
My 2nl.
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Bluff catching with 2nd pair is dangerous. For villain to triple barrel and put his whole stack in with air (or an underpair) is maniacal. Probably doesn’t happen all that often. And if it does, it may not happen often enough for calling to be profitable. Thus, even if you can’t logically get there based on your read, it may be better to get bluffed off a single pair then to walk home saying he shouldn’t have had that hand. (i.e., A5 shouldn’t have played this way, but as you say, people do a lot of things they wouldn’t do in a real money game…like calling off with TT on an A7348 board…)
That said, poker is a game of incomplete information. You made a read, you trusted your gut, you were just wrong. It happens.
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Couple things. Don’t waste your time telling people what you had. It is just their opportunity to feel superior by making you feel bad about a tough spot. the action was quite strong behind you and even if you SHOULDN’T have folded, in the end you were right (not that we are results oriented). Plus the pro may just want you to call with more speculation later because of outs. Never trust a pro. Not because they aren’t helpful at times, but they may have an ulterior motive. Bring the hand back here or to the discord. We are nice. We are not trying to take your real money. Unless you are at my table at a casino. Then beware… 🙂
The other thing is if you can’t feel comfortable losing a buy in right away when it is the right spot, the game may be too big for you. Dropping three buyins is not unheard of when playing really well. You can take lower variance spots, but then it is probably not worth it to ask whether something was the right play, because the optimal play will likely come with the risk of ruin (for your bankroll for the session). It is hard to add the variable of “its in the first few minutes that I got here” to determine if a play is plus EV. If it is, then the EV you are talking about is not money. It is time you get to play. If the EV IS time that you get to be at the casino, short stack, and only play QQ+, AQ+, and play them aggressively. That will probably give you the most time at the table, as those hands don’t come around very often and you will likely be able to make that profitable in the long run. However, you are a smart, good player that wants to do more than that, so it may be that you will need to manage your bankroll more correctly to feel comfortable if variance does not go your way. In the end, to play well, you CANNOT play with scared money. If you are, you should get up from the table and come back when you are no longer fearful.
(P.S. As with most poker concepts, it is something that I have had to learn the hard way. I like to talk (and in my early days embarrassingly gave away info I probably shouldn’t have) and used to go to the casino under bankrolled. I have changed many of those things to be better, but I am a work in progress on all of these fronts.)
My 2nl.
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So I have some bad news for you. Apparently this means…
…you are human.
And that diagnosis is apparently terminal (unless you know something we don’t).
I think what strikes me about much of the current thought process concerning poker is that there is someway to train your brain so that the feelings associated with losing that are frequent in poker are avoidable. Many sites/instructors speak as if the pros have developed some form of zen like elimination of the emotional side of the game through mindfulness, vegan diets, frog poison, self-affirmations, etc. If only you follow their path, you will be free of those pesky feelings. I find the whole concept..ludicrous…well, really a number of other words that might get my post moderated…so I will stick with the genteel “ludicrous.” If you don’t care about the game, you won’t care about the outcome. If you do care, you WILL experience those emotions and there is not much you can do about it.
Psychologists often talk about their annoyance with the effects of grief. Intellectually, you can anticipate the effects that it has on you and know why it is occurring. The annoying thing about it is that when you experience an event that leads to grief, you can’t avoid it simply because you know what to expect. You still have to go through the process to feel better. Often this means you have to think about what occurred and experience the emotions that come with those thoughts. Very annoying. Most people would much prefer to “Spock” it, but I will remind people that Spock is a character in Star Wars, and is not real. (And for a certain percentage of you now have to try to deal with the negative emotions associated with that last statement…because Spock was a character in Star Trek). Some of the approaches that people recommend may reduce the acute nature of the effects (mindfulness, relaxation training, cognitive restructuring) and can help reduce their impact, but elimination in the short run is unlikely. (For those of you still fuming about my Spock joke, deep breathing will help).
In poker terms there is no real way to avoid the irritation that happens when you have AA and the guy that called your jam with Q7o hits a Q AND a 7, leaving you with with nothing but the empathic looks of others at the table (or your dog if you are playing online). It is frustrating and it feels unfair. No avoiding it. That is just how your brain works (stupid brain). You may be able to ignore those feelings for awhile, but they only go away with time and/or winning experiences when you get back in the game (of course those winning experiences are not guaranteed).
What we can avoid is the negative behaviors that can accompany these feelings that will only worsen our situation. Tilt is not the emotional response you experience when you lose. That is inevitable. Tilt is the behavioral response where we punch in our stack into the middle with ATo in a 4-bet pot because we are upset. How we behave outside of poker is a form of Tilt, even if we are not on the felt. (In general I would avoid punching anything in response to losing at poker on or off the felt).
Luckily, there ARE ways that we can manage our behavior and this may decrease how our feelings will impact us. We have already talked about the commonly suggested psychological approaches to decreasing negative emotions. The second, you have already identified. Recognition of WHY we are feeling angry/frustrated/depressed will help decrease the negative way we could potentially treat ourselves or others around us by allowing us to take steps to not blast our “canon of irritation” indiscriminately. Kicking the dog because chance cracked your aces is not appropriate. Recognition that we are in a negative emotional state may suggest that maybe “no poker today” or “no more poker today” is good idea, particularly if the emotional swing is great. I think that Tommy Angelo’s greatest contribution to poker particularly for Rec players is the concept of Quitting. Not playing when we are significantly angry/frustrated/embarrassed is probably the best thing we can do. Quitting when we are ahead is also great if you are happy. If we don’t have to make our living playing, then why continue to punish ourselves with it when we are not enjoying it or require ourselves to play until such time as we are unhappy? In other words, if you are in a hole, stop digging. If you are on top of the pile, stay up there and enjoy the view.
Poker is difficult, mean, bastard of a game. It is not designed to make you feel good long term. To be honest (and unpopular) for those out there with significant mental health issues, I do not think that Poker is fundamentally a great idea. For those of us who do not have such issues, we need to manage its effects carefully. James “SplitSuit” Sweeny talks openly in his podcasts that he has had to manage his poker playing given that he did not like how he treated people around him when he lost. Making sure that we quit (“vacation” if you don’t like the term quit) before we punish those around us is one of the best things we can do.
I also think that it is important to have an alternate hobby to poker to fill time when we quit/vacation. I play guitar. When I practice guitar, I get better at guitar. I rarely feel that I have gotten WORSE at guitar after putting in a long playing session. There is a direct correlation between my playing guitar and my getting better (ask my wife…well, maybe DON’T ask my wife…but I know I am at least somewhat better). As such, when I am sick of poker or at least sick of losing, I go play guitar and get better, and nearly guarantee that I will enjoy my free time. It is true for poker as well (the more you play/study the better you will get), but with guitar playing, no one comes 80 percent of the time when you are about to triumphantly tear into the lead for Layla cuts your E string. In poker, that is expected.
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I guess the summary of this long post (I know, shocking that my post would be long) is give yourself a break. You are like the rest of us and there is not that much you can do about it. We LIKE having you in the club. The more you play, it will sting less, but it will never go away and the emotional response will always be greater than you wish. It is kind of what you sign up for when you decide to improve at poker. You could not care about the game, and it still can be fun so long as you don’t mind losing your money (and if you don’t, I would like to invite you into my home game!) You chose differently. The annals of competitions are not filled with the successes of those who did not care about the sport/game they were playing. In fact, those at the top of their field are usually lauded for how much they hate losing (and often what jerks they are about it when it happens). Truth is no one likes to lose at something they value and I doubt that hatred of losing really separates them from us.
My 2nl.
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I think that you have to take spots in tournaments when they come if they are good spots. Early in the tournament you want to accumulate chips. Although playing tight is preferred, that doesn’t mean not playing. And if you are playing well, you will be putting your stack at risk (unless you are just playing ‘Bingo Poker’). You just need to make sure the risk that you are taking is justified by the potential reward. Playing more poorly to save your tournament life early will only lead to less money (or points) overall if you turn down spots to get it in ahead.
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Just as a followup, I posited the question of the use of the term to some well known poker coaches/commentators concerning the use of the term bluff and value. They said that the use of the terms bluff and value outside of talking about the river by knowledgeable people is just short hand. Their argument was that the further you are from the river the less the terms apply. At the river, in all but the most extreme of situations, you will know whether your bet is for value or as a bluff (i.e., getting better hand to fold or getting worse hands to call you). However, that is the only time that the terms in their opinion that it applied. All other times, essentially (to quote The Matrix) there is no spoon.
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Rough. It was almost like the poker gods were toying with you on that one *shakes fist at poker gods*
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Seems like a way ahead or way behind spot. I think the calls are fine, you pick up equity every street except the river. You lose to the straights, flushes, boats and boats. Bluffs are hard to find to call the river shove, 78? AQ? If he is shoving with those hands on this runout he is insane. While it is feasible you got bluffed, it is significantly more likely that you lost the minimum. KJo can put you frequently in spots like this so it must be played with care.
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So the SPR is 2. You have second pair when the action is raise from a tight player and a cold call of a three bet from someone described as aggressive, which I think strengthens his range. Those actions scream strength from two players. They may not have AA or KK, but QQ is a possibility as is 99 and they are going to have a bunch of strong, likely suited Ax hands. Then on the flop the player on your left donks into TWO players on an A high flop….
I think the players (not the poker gods) gave you the gift. This is an easy fold. If you call this bet (particularly after the 2nd player calls) and a off suit 2 comes on the board. What do you do? Jam? Call? you are in the same spot with 2nd pair in a 3b! pot with an A high board. The minute that the A hit and you face a bet you are bluff catching. I just don’t think they are bluffing that often.
I think it was a good disciplined fold that some can’t make.
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So it seems Taylor that then you are advocating any 2 in this spot?