OneTime1Time

I've been mixing flop checks into my game a lot more in spots where betting would be "standard". Just something i've been trying out.

Full disclaimer - I didn't realize I posted this in the more cash centric forum until I couldn't find my topic in the MTT mistakes forum. That's what I get for posting hands when i'm really tired.

I agree in a cash game this is 100% snap call, but I'm not 100% sure it is in a tournament. I think in game we probably always call, but I'm not really finding many hands that he just bets turn, then plans to check raise bluff river with. I also don't see a lot of reason to be shoving sets like this.

If this was at a micro or even low stakes tournament, I wouldn't give much thought to it, but it's one of the bigger bounty builders. The play is generally a lot better there.

I'm still struggling with thoughts on this, my coach said he thinks it's a fold, but would never fault a person for calling. The general consensus though is that it's a call, especially with his bounty on the line. He doesn't have to bluff/have worse value very frequently to make it profitable. I do think it's a lot closer than originally expected though.

Pretty sure i'm never folding this without some sort of a live read that's giving off that he just has QQ here. I've played Barca the last two years, and seen more punts than a full NFL season. I'm never shocked to see V roll over KQ/AQ here honestly.

Sizing seems fine... could bet river larger. I'd probably go more like 11k vs this kind of opponent. They aren't exactly known for folding, and it's a seemingly great spot to go for max value. With the right opponent, I'd seriously consider open shoving. It's probably better to bet/call than open shove though.

Commenting mostly to follow :)

Like you, I'm on a journey to become a winning online player. While I've had decent results live, I've not done so well online - only a winning player because I smashed the shit out of a few Sundays.

I wish you the best in your adventure, and hope to learn a few things along the way!

I can second what MrSneeze said here about using live reads when you are confident in them. Being a primary live player, who has been trying to move online for a long time, I realized how heavily I rely on reads and queue's that I've picked up over the hours at the table.

Timing tells have lately become a tactic for players to devalue/strengthen their look - IE raising/shoving quicker to rep strength, or taking an absurdly long time when they have the nuts.

As for his betting motion, this one is super player dependent, but you will often find players are more "protective" of their bets when they are bluffing. It's difficult to show without pictures, but just try to watch how a person normally puts in chips, and you will learn to see small things that often add up.

For some players it means everything. For others, it doesn't mean anything.

Without being in situation, I can't say it would change my decision I listed above, but it very well might have been enough to push me into a call in game.

I agree that flatting his 3b would be a very viable option, and it's one that we rarely lose our entire stack on. I think we lose more than the 2400 a large % of the time though.

I personally thought his hand plays a LOT better as a flat to my 4b than it does as a 5b. Especially given that it's literally the first hand.

There wasn't really a rational plan to showing the hand. It was just a reaction. If he was bluffing, congrats to him. If he wants to take hyper aggressive bluff lines this early and this deep, all the power to him. He tried that later, and it didn't work out so well for him. Had I tanked and thought about it, I likely wouldn't have folded face up, but that's more just because I was tanking. I literally snap folded. I guess if I had to have a reason for it, it would have been an unconscious way of setting up future dynamics. It undoubtedly makes me look like I can easily be bluffed, which is rarely the case because I hate folding.

People don't tend to do super spastic things with 5 hands left in a day. The majority of people are already mentally bagged up, so 3b pre would of been the preferable line.

Given how we played hand, I'd have checked hand on turn, and evaluated on river. It just doesn't seem to make sense to check flop and bet turn. We are way better off betting flop and not letting everyone see a free turn card. We happened to hit one of the few cards that is unlikely to improve anyone.

As played, the worst thing we can do is call river. That may be V's plan with this hand, but AQ is just not a great hand to call off for like 70BB here. We can fold, realize we played it sub optimal and still have a lot of chips tomorrow.

I ended up snap folding, face up. Literally just tossed the cards in the middle without a care. Told him "if you are bluffing, congrats on being a hero".

I then proceeded to get my 2400 + 8000 interest back over the next hour.

My rationale, right or wrong, was simple. I can not win the tournament on this hand, but I sure as hell can lose it here. Doubling up on the first hand isn't going to guarantee me making the money. It only makes my chances mildly better, as it's Day 3 before we reach the money.

I still like my decision to 4b, but I wouldn't fault anyone for calling the 3b. The reason I didn't flat the 5b was that puts 11k in the middle, with 25k stacks. Flop peels off 9 high, he bets 6k, and we see a turn with 23k in the middle and 19k behind. We have a VERY tough spot on turn/river when he decides to shove and it's cost us a minimum of 1/3 of our stack to reach this point. I think 6b or shove are just atrocious. I haven't found many people who think he ever has anything other than AA here. There are going to be so many more opportunities over the course of this tournament that are better for us.

This hand would of played much different 3 hours into the tournament than it did here. I'd have history with him, and it's likely the chips would of ended up in the middle.

I ended up busting near the end of Day 1 in a set over set spot. As I was getting up, V told me that was the sickest snap fold he's ever seen, and that he had AA.

It's beyond huge punt here to put in 300bb with KK on the first hand. This is a tournament that takes 6 days to win.

Like many of the above posters, this was the first time I managed to get through an entire CRev video. It was engaging enough, and I personally enjoyed watching as you worked through what hands Hero/Villain should/shouldn't have in each spot, and which hands could be used in different ranges.

Loved the spot, and realized that I have to move some hands around in my ranges in these spots, as I'm likely playing them a bit wrong. I'll load part 2 onto my tablet and watch it on my next flight, quite excited for it!

I don't disagree with MrSneeze here, but I'm probably just folding in game. Really, the 20bb loss isn't a huge deal to your stack, and mathematically we shouldn't be too horrible of shape.

Fold and find better spots. Worst hand V is showing up with is AK, and we really have no rational reasoning for flipping for 60BB.

Given stack size of CO, you could consider flatting this hand sometimes. I've moved TT/JJ/QQ into my flat range a bit more heavily pre flop, and so far it's been interesting.

I've seen this sort of structure in lots of pub/home leagues and around casino's with poker room managers who are stuck in the prehistoric age.... I've always avoided them because of scheduling issues.

From your description, I can't see it being too much issue for you to get to the final SNG, and your chip count vs rest of field is going to dictate your style of play there. Honestly, I'd probably ramp up aggression in the last few tournaments once you are sure you can make the final.

A key thing to watch is which players are trying to squeak into the final. Pick on them relentlessly. You will find so many people start playing for points. I see it all the time in the local casino leagues when we get close to the year end free roll. It's as if people stop caring about the actual tournament, and just play horribly in order to get more points for the free roll....

While I agree that V is going to do that, it's a super rare situation. His flatting pre range is still going to be wide-ish... So, I'm never check folding flop. That's just opening yourself to be massively exploitable. V can just bet every single time you check to him after opening pre, and he will be printing money.

If you check fold this flop, you have to ask why you opened 88 in the first place? What was the goal of opening it? What flop did you want to see?

I think check calling the flop is a bad idea. This board will get checked back to us a high % of the time. Vs a rec, this bet should get through a large % of the time, when they completely air the board. Rec's will float with some broadways, but we are crushing that (most common is JT, and we block 8s). It's a good price to charge flush draws.

Shoving turn I would think is pretty standard? We only have a bit more than pot and likely have the best hand - At this point, we aren't so much shoving for value as we are shoving for protection. We do get value from some rec's who can't fold flush draws, but mostly we should be happy with picking up the pot.

It was really the chip movement and playing that put me off guard. Being a primarily live player, I pick up on things like this, and this was way out of the ordinary for him.

In the end, we had more than enough chips to find better spots.

Thanks guys. I was really confused in game, and for a few hours afterward. I did end up folding.

Largely, I'm reaping AK at an absolute minimum, so he should have better than that when he's shoving. Since KT is the next up in my value range, it's almost never going to be good.

I agree that we should probably go into x/call mode from the turn forward. Try as I might, he absolutely refused to talk about the hand, even after he had busted on Day 2. Oh well. Sometimes we aren't meant to know.

Vigorous range... I like that. I'm going to have to define my range as that a bit more often.

I actually support this a lot more than I do tanking for several minutes before shoving. Not sure if it's a perception thing, or just because it's more rare - but it goes over way better at the table. You can sit there for same time length, but it's broken up so it seems shorter.

He might play missed spade draws like this as well, if he's really super aggro. It seems half nuts, but I seen some super spazzy stuff in that tournament.

As played, this is a call in my books. I agree the sizings could be better, with both flop and turn being smaller. If you are taking the "charge draws" line, then you should be betting more - the sticky players in that field would pay full pot for draws.

He definitely has JJ/66/AK in his range. He might have AQ here, but that's going to be quite unlikely. He could also be putting you on something like KQ/KT/missed Spades and know that the A is a good card to blow you off the pot. Could very well be AXss.

Thanks guys.

I knew that shoving was basically rolling my hand over as super strong, but I knew that BTN was super strong and not one who was likely to fold. This all being said, there was zero chance original raiser was betting again, or calling anything at this point. I could see the look on his face when that river rolled of. He wanted to puke.

It's likely a smaller bet sizing gets the crying call from button, so I'll for sure keep that in mind. I'm not 100% sure button does anything but check back river. It's a weird spot for him if he has a set. Some guys will spazz right out, but some guys will just roll over the showdown value on a very connected board.

This is a tough flop for any of the ranges to really hit, so when you check flop, it's really repping that you have some showdown value and are wanting to control pot size with it.

Bet flop, collect chips, play next hand. We have less than 20bb at hand start... Why get crafty for extra value?

I like the way you have reasoned through the hand... but like Vip, I'm not a big fan of the shove. It's too light. Any of the 4 players can wake up with a hand. It doesn't matter if you/they are TAG or LAG, when they see AK/AQ/99+, chips are going in.

Given that the two blinds are really tight, if I'm doing anything other than folding, it's a 3b. We can then fold to a shove from them, or a reshove from Villain. As you mentioned, you don't like 3b/f with this stack, so then just fold. I'm ok with 3b/f here. It isn't my fav option, so honestly I probably just fold. Flatting just seems like it would end up being a disaster and we end up in a lot of really stupid spots post flop.

We are obviously on a pure steal, so I admire the heart... this might be one where you are trying to hard. 22bb is enough chips to be safe for a while.

I also wanted to maintain a 15BB+ stack order to keep my shoving stack as "dangerous" as possible. <<<<----Would love for someone to explain to me if this thinking is wrong?

To address this... your thinking isn't really wrong, per se. You always want to have as many BB as possible when you are re-shoving, but for most stacks 12bb and 16bb are going to have the same "danger". For EX. 28bb stack opens, and we shove 12bb. He calls and loses he has 16bb left. We shove 16bb, he calls/loses he has 12bb left. These situations are going to be pretty close to identical for him, and not really enough to swing the call/fold decision purely on that. For anyone under a 20bb stack, you having 12 or 16 is irrelevant.

It's the 40+bb stacks that it will have some effect on, because the players who don't do math just start thinking it's too many chips for them to hero off vs.

For that reason, folding the borderline hands isn't really detrimental to us in slow fields. A double with either stack size puts in a "safe" range, while we don't gain a lot of FE from having a few more BB.

Without reading previous replies, here are my thoughts;

Hand 1 - Probably nit folding. This is going to be a spot where it matters on your specific play style, but really... calling off 60bb pre with AKs isn't at the top of my list, especially when it's some super senior putting the chips in the middle. I doubt he's ever light. With the 3b behind us as well, I think we are probably going to find better spots, so I pass this one up.

Hand 2 - I'm shipping turn, as played. If he's young and aggro, he's going to double barrel a lot here, especially if he thinks you are capable of floating him on this flop with your entire range. He's still betting AK/AQ, 44/55/77/88 and possibly a lot of other random junk. I'll have to do some math on this though, because shipping might be a mistake. We might be better to call and evaluate river. It would leave us 15bb if he shoves river and we have to fold....

Hand 3 - For me, this is a fold... KJs is going in, KQo is going in... but these are at my cutoff and I'll probably look for a better hand. KTo is just too weak and doesn't have great blockers. ATs is probably going in. Not sure what I do with ATo. Would be a table dependent decision.