Hey guys,
I've been a member of the forum here for quite a while now, however I've been more of a lurker than a poster over my time here.
I am determined to improve my game, and so I'm trying to force myself to actively analyze hands and discuss plays/theories etc. with the intent on improving my game and becoming an all around better player. So I've decided to post hands and take part in discussions, broaden my insights on the game. The hand is pretty long, but I want to give a good detailed breakdown of the situation and my thought process throughout the hand in order to give you guys as much information as possible.
This is a hand from a weekly €25 F/O which I play quite regularly at my local GAA club most Friday nights.
Blinds:
400/800
Relevant Stack Sizes:
Hero - 52,000
Villain - 49,800
Average Stack (roughly) - 40,000
Play is folded around to Villain on the button who raises to 2,000. Hero looks down at 77 in the small blind.
History:
Now it is important to note the dynamic between myself and Villain. We are both very good friends who play cards together quite regularly and often discuss theory/hands together. There is a real sense of competitiveness when we are on the same table and we are always trying to "get one over" on one other. He is a solid player, and the only player at the table who I feel has any read on my game. He has a tendency, however, to play either super super TAG, or extremely LAG; and on this occasion it was the latter. He had built up his stack through series of big hands, aggressive play and getting paid off at the right times. He was opening 60-70% of hands at the table (is not more) and was the self appointed table captain. He was taking down most of the pots he was involved in - He tends not to let go of a hand easily when playing his LAG style and will make it expensive by exerting maximum pressure on his opponents - When he is playing this style, he is capable of turning up at the river with just about anything from the nuts to three high.
As for myself, I had been playing pretty snug so far (I too tend to have two polar opposite styles of play, similar to the Villain's TAG and LAG styles, and he knows this very well). Early on I managed to lay down JT on a board of JJQ54r to a river shove and tabled my cards after being shown QJ. This got the respect of the table and I had managed to chip my way back up through a number of small pots up to this point in the tournament. I hadn't stepped out of line so far, and had been showing down a number of stronger hands so far, KQs, JJ, AQ.
Back to the hand:
I have the option of raising or calling and so I elect to call (bad?) for a number of reasons:
I don't want to put myself in an awkward spot by 3-betting, as I know Villain is never folding to a 3 bet from me, and he will always expect a C-Bet from me, regardless of the board, when I 3 bet pre. If I were to 3 bet and get called, what would I do on a A T 8r board? He is the type of player that could very easily represent an Ace, but that doesn't mean he actually has one.
Villain is quite capable of 4 betting extremely light vs me in this situation. I want to avoid putting myself in an awkward position by committing 15-20% of my stack pre, especially if the board were to run out A T 8r. Is this too Nitty?
If I decide to play the hand with the intention to set mine, I want to bring the big blind in, and hopefully increase my chances of winning a big pot if I spike a 7.
Big Blind calls and we see a flop.
Flop: 872 (Pot 6,000)
Hero checks, Big Blind checks, Villain bets 5,000.
I elect to call, Big Blind folds. I was tempted to raise to 12,500 to semi-protect my hand against the flush draw, but also give him the opportunity to ship it and try to blow me off the hand (He's very capable of making moves like that, especially in his LAG mode). I decided not to raise as I didn't want to give him reason to fold, and I knew he would keep firing again on the turn and river regardless of the what comes, and the bigger the pot swells, the more his urge is to take it down.
Turn: 6 (Pot 16,000)
Hero checks, Villain bets a fast 10,000. Hero calls.
Again, I felt that regardless of what comes on the river, he was capable of firing a big bet. The 6 did complete a potential straight on board, and it was a very wet board with two flush draws out there, so I was in two minds of thinking before I called. One was that if he doesn't have the flush draw or a made straight and I ship, he folds and I lose potential value from the hand. Secondly, however, was that if he was indeed on a draw, did I want to get all the money in here, rather than let the river come, and allow him to get away from the hand if he bricks his draw. Did I want to get his money in while his hand was still live? I'd be very interested to hear a number of thoughts on this situation.
River: 3 (Pot 36,000)
Hero checks, Villain insta-ships for 32,800.
The 3 completes the flush. It's a pretty tricky spot, as he raised pre and bet all three streets very aggressively. I knew this was the risk I took when I decided to slow-play my hand against a very aggressive player like him. From my read on him, as I mentioned in his description, his range here is very polarised. He either has me crushed, or he has complete air. He's not the type of player to make this sort of play with a medium strength hand. I knew he was trying to represent the flush, and it was the perfect card for him to bluff at (although I felt he was possibly shipping regardless of the river due to his style of play), but the question was did he actually have it or not? There was quite a bit of meta game going on here, as he knew I knew the 3 was the perfect card for him to bluff at, and I knew that he knew this, so it threw me a little in trying to decide what line he was taking here. He was one of only two other players at the table I felt were capable of playing on this sort of "level of higher thinking" and that added even more to the confusion.
Result:
Should I have perhaps been looking to get it earlier in rather than play the hand for set value?
I'm generally a very aggressive player, but lately I've found that I have had more success (less varience beats) by playing hands more passively preflop, yet it feels like I'm playing "wrong" or that my game is after taking a step back with all this talk over the last number of years that good play is aggressive play. All the videos I have watched encourage aggressive poker, but personally I feel more comfortable with my postflop game, and I have found that I have much more success playing passively preflop, and aggressively postflop. Just an observation. What do guys think?
And where is the line drawn between playing a pocket pair passively for set value, or playing it aggressively and looking to get in pre in situations like this one? 99 for set value? TT for the ship?
I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts/comments on the hand? Any replies would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
I've been a member of the forum here for quite a while now, however I've been more of a lurker than a poster over my time here.
I am determined to improve my game, and so I'm trying to force myself to actively analyze hands and discuss plays/theories etc. with the intent on improving my game and becoming an all around better player. So I've decided to post hands and take part in discussions, broaden my insights on the game. The hand is pretty long, but I want to give a good detailed breakdown of the situation and my thought process throughout the hand in order to give you guys as much information as possible.
This is a hand from a weekly €25 F/O which I play quite regularly at my local GAA club most Friday nights.
Blinds:
400/800
Relevant Stack Sizes:
Hero - 52,000
Villain - 49,800
Average Stack (roughly) - 40,000
Play is folded around to Villain on the button who raises to 2,000. Hero looks down at 77 in the small blind.
History:
Now it is important to note the dynamic between myself and Villain. We are both very good friends who play cards together quite regularly and often discuss theory/hands together. There is a real sense of competitiveness when we are on the same table and we are always trying to "get one over" on one other. He is a solid player, and the only player at the table who I feel has any read on my game. He has a tendency, however, to play either super super TAG, or extremely LAG; and on this occasion it was the latter. He had built up his stack through series of big hands, aggressive play and getting paid off at the right times. He was opening 60-70% of hands at the table (is not more) and was the self appointed table captain. He was taking down most of the pots he was involved in - He tends not to let go of a hand easily when playing his LAG style and will make it expensive by exerting maximum pressure on his opponents - When he is playing this style, he is capable of turning up at the river with just about anything from the nuts to three high.
As for myself, I had been playing pretty snug so far (I too tend to have two polar opposite styles of play, similar to the Villain's TAG and LAG styles, and he knows this very well). Early on I managed to lay down JT on a board of JJQ54r to a river shove and tabled my cards after being shown QJ. This got the respect of the table and I had managed to chip my way back up through a number of small pots up to this point in the tournament. I hadn't stepped out of line so far, and had been showing down a number of stronger hands so far, KQs, JJ, AQ.
Back to the hand:
I have the option of raising or calling and so I elect to call (bad?) for a number of reasons:
I don't want to put myself in an awkward spot by 3-betting, as I know Villain is never folding to a 3 bet from me, and he will always expect a C-Bet from me, regardless of the board, when I 3 bet pre. If I were to 3 bet and get called, what would I do on a A T 8r board? He is the type of player that could very easily represent an Ace, but that doesn't mean he actually has one.
Villain is quite capable of 4 betting extremely light vs me in this situation. I want to avoid putting myself in an awkward position by committing 15-20% of my stack pre, especially if the board were to run out A T 8r. Is this too Nitty?
If I decide to play the hand with the intention to set mine, I want to bring the big blind in, and hopefully increase my chances of winning a big pot if I spike a 7.
Big Blind calls and we see a flop.
Flop: 872 (Pot 6,000)
Hero checks, Big Blind checks, Villain bets 5,000.
I elect to call, Big Blind folds. I was tempted to raise to 12,500 to semi-protect my hand against the flush draw, but also give him the opportunity to ship it and try to blow me off the hand (He's very capable of making moves like that, especially in his LAG mode). I decided not to raise as I didn't want to give him reason to fold, and I knew he would keep firing again on the turn and river regardless of the what comes, and the bigger the pot swells, the more his urge is to take it down.
Turn: 6 (Pot 16,000)
Hero checks, Villain bets a fast 10,000. Hero calls.
Again, I felt that regardless of what comes on the river, he was capable of firing a big bet. The 6 did complete a potential straight on board, and it was a very wet board with two flush draws out there, so I was in two minds of thinking before I called. One was that if he doesn't have the flush draw or a made straight and I ship, he folds and I lose potential value from the hand. Secondly, however, was that if he was indeed on a draw, did I want to get all the money in here, rather than let the river come, and allow him to get away from the hand if he bricks his draw. Did I want to get his money in while his hand was still live? I'd be very interested to hear a number of thoughts on this situation.
River: 3 (Pot 36,000)
Hero checks, Villain insta-ships for 32,800.
The 3 completes the flush. It's a pretty tricky spot, as he raised pre and bet all three streets very aggressively. I knew this was the risk I took when I decided to slow-play my hand against a very aggressive player like him. From my read on him, as I mentioned in his description, his range here is very polarised. He either has me crushed, or he has complete air. He's not the type of player to make this sort of play with a medium strength hand. I knew he was trying to represent the flush, and it was the perfect card for him to bluff at (although I felt he was possibly shipping regardless of the river due to his style of play), but the question was did he actually have it or not? There was quite a bit of meta game going on here, as he knew I knew the 3 was the perfect card for him to bluff at, and I knew that he knew this, so it threw me a little in trying to decide what line he was taking here. He was one of only two other players at the table I felt were capable of playing on this sort of "level of higher thinking" and that added even more to the confusion.
Result:
SPOILER
Should I have perhaps been looking to get it earlier in rather than play the hand for set value?
I'm generally a very aggressive player, but lately I've found that I have had more success (less varience beats) by playing hands more passively preflop, yet it feels like I'm playing "wrong" or that my game is after taking a step back with all this talk over the last number of years that good play is aggressive play. All the videos I have watched encourage aggressive poker, but personally I feel more comfortable with my postflop game, and I have found that I have much more success playing passively preflop, and aggressively postflop. Just an observation. What do guys think?
And where is the line drawn between playing a pocket pair passively for set value, or playing it aggressively and looking to get in pre in situations like this one? 99 for set value? TT for the ship?
I'd be interested in hearing people's thoughts/comments on the hand? Any replies would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
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