PhilG86

I'd recommend Espen Sorlie and Paul Senter if you have essential membership. Your bankroll is easily big enough for small stakes. Good luck

With his other stats being 15/11 I don't see how he isn't opening at least that range. Maybe he just hasn't been catching cards in that position. 30 orbits isn't really enough to tell. It's closer than I thought against a tight player but at 12bb (I assume this a a turbo given stack sizes?) I'm looking to get it in every time.

I'm always inclined to fold these spots in soft tournaments and develop a read on the player. This type of player doesn't think about poker the way we do so I don't even try to get inside their heads. He could easily have a random 5. Best way to get these monkeys is to be patient and hope you catch them before someone else does

Giving villain a very tight range of 66+,ATs+,AJo+,KJs+,KQo,QJs where it would be correct to call your shove with his entire range it's actually tighter than I thought it would be. 88+,AJs+,AQo+ are profitable shoves. I think you'll find if your opponent is weak and given the damage you can do to their stack that you may get folds out of QJs,KJs which would increase the shoving profitability range.

Aside from poker I also do some trading and they are similar in a lot of ways, risk/reward etc. They're also very similar in that people go busto for exactly the same behavioural reasons! You're not alone and your behaviour isn't abnormal.

One of the first things I was taught in trading is that it's human nature to try and take profit (reduce risk) when you are winning and chase your losses (take more risk) when you are losing. You are just being human! The problem is that it's entirely the wrong way to be for a game like poker and life in general. You need to be playing more when you are winning and less when you're losing. I'd suggest setting a cutoff limit, say 10 buyins, (I don't know, I don't play cash) if you lose this amount you simply stop playing for a few hours or the rest of the day, maybe go study some aspects of your game. This applies whether you lose 10 buyins straight out of the gate or if you're crushing and are up 30 but then take a hit and lose 10. At this point you have to identify that you are losing and not try to chase your losses and get to where you were. Everyones tolerance for this is different and I know we hear stories of epic high stakes battles with wild swings each way but if the swings affect your play at all then I think having a built in cutoff point is the best way to protect your capital and ensure you're playing in the best state of mind.

I have a written set of rules for my portfolio that tell me when I'm allowed to take more risk (move up the stakes) and if I hit a bad patch I have rules to tell me to take less risk (move down stakes) until I can grind my losses back up. It's a hard thing to do and I struggled with it at first but when you see how much more profitable it makes you, you'll be converted.

Ultimately you're the only one who can hold yourself accountable to your rules so you have to be disciplined enough to follow them and not cheat.

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm pretty happy with my cash game blind defence but am interested mostly in mid-late stage tournament play where the stacks are shallower. A few of the coaches have spoken about it to some degree in their videos but maybe we'll see a blind specific video at some stage

Oh yeah, turnplay is supposed to be missing as I didn't want results to impact anyone's opinion. BB folded and utg3 called fwiw.

Sorry, I've had similar problems with previous HHs uploaded via a different method and I've seen other people have a similar problem. I'm not sure what's going wrong. All the figures except pot sizes are correct, it seems not to take antes into consideration. If you have any idea why this might be so please let me know. It's taken from PT4 software.

Thanks, that's nicely explained. Your point about most people playing straightforwardly is helpful, I didn't see anyone get too out of line at my table certainly.

I have no worries about jamming light, I'm rolled fine for these games so that's something to consider.

Hi, thanks for the insight. I actually didn't say I'd fold KQT turns, I might well float these again and hope to get to showdown. The question put to me was what would I do after calling turn. In this case I don't see how I can call a bet on a KQT river as they hit his range well also and I'm left with 1 pair and A high as opposed to when the board pairs and I have 2 pair top kicker. I agree that looking back at it maybe he was weighted quite heavily towards pocket pairs but at the time I felt he was making a move and resolved to call him down.

I didn't have him marked as overly passive either, as I said he has already donked twice into multiway pots vs stronger ranges.

Thanks for the reply, yeah AJo is bottom of my range here so probably not the best Ace high hand to choose to float. I can see with the reshove stacks that I should probably tighten up a bit. I still felt comfortable opening AJo as the table was fairly passive, my raises had been getting quite a bit of respect and only the guy on my direct left was really playing back at me with any great frequency.

After calling turn I was really hoping he'd just give up but I'd fold if a K,Q,T came. I think it was the board pairing that convinced me to call

Pre ante I normally go 2.5-3 depending on stack sizes but do most people go more than a min raise from utg with antes in play? Table standard had been min-raise at this point 

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately I only have the low stakes version of PT4 so I didn't have a HUD running to tell you stats but I can say that both previous pots where I mentioned he donked were multi way and at least one of them was vs UTG.

I agree he might only be barrelling nut flush draws which is why I thought he might try to blow me off a chop (assuming he thinks I'd float twice with A high). If I had the Ah I think I'd have been more inclined to fold turn or river

Yeah possibly I was a little tilted seeing AQo, AKo get flipped over. Small consideration but it wasn't actually pre-antes I know it isn't clear from the HH it was 60/120/15.

QQ is obviously a clear reshove, how do you feel about JJ?

I have recently made this jump having ground up my roll and I think the most notable difference I've found is a little more aggression pre-flop. There are still plenty of clueless players to take advantage of and with your current winrate at NL25 you should be fine. Good luck 

I can see reasons for both checking and c-betting flop. I guess it comes down to how you want to split your range. It's tough because unless your range is well balanced the check means you rarely have a strong hand and a switched on villain (maybe unlikely at NL25) could try to take the pot away with almost anything. For that reason I might prefer checking back some TpTk type hands with the intention of calling down. 

If you do c-bet I think you also should be calling a raise and continuing if you pick up more equity on the turn. If we just get called the way the board runs out in this hand I think we'd check turn and hope to get to showdown which we should do unless he rivers 2 pair as if villain had a big hand on the flop we'd likely have heard about it.

As played I think it's totally fine.

Yeah call a little on the loose side pre but whole table dynamic was very aggro and I thought I could win a big pot if I hit the set. 

I appreciate that at these stakes a diamond etc might kill my action on the river but actually I shouldn't have many suited diamonds in my range that I can call the flop with. Maybe AQs,65s,76s? 

In game I put villain all in and he tank-folded saying he thought I had KJ. I just feel my range is so heavily weighted towards full houses that I'd have to bet much smaller, like $10 to get a call from something like AA,AK

It certainly makes our decision easier in this exact situation when you 3 bet bigger as you'll be getting better pot odds but mostly it gives our opponent worse odds to continue with marginal hands. I don't think I'd say we want to get more committed especially when we're bluffing but it does make us look more committed.

I like the flop raise. The board is unlikely to hit the majority of our opponents range and we still have good equity when called. We'd obviously rather be doing the shoving so that we have fold equity but the way this hand played out we don't really get the chance.

If this opponent is prepared to shove with AA I think we can assume he'd also shove hands like KK,QQ,JJ. I stoved a range against this type of opponent and we're getting easily a good enough price to call.

I also looked at a range against an opponent who isn't shoving so many big overpairs but more suited aces,KQs,33 and some 88,77 combos (more like what I would be shoving) and it's getting closer to breakeven but still probably just a call. 

40% is only over a small sample as I said, I wouldn't take much notice of that but he might call J8s

I accept I'm ahead of a range like that I just don't think that all hands with trips are going to call a river shove when I could easily have a straight or full house given the way I've played the hand. I also think they'd check back the river. I know a lot of crazy things happen in the micros but it just didn't feel right in this spot, maybe just call it a soul read and on to the next hand!

I just figured based on the strength I showed on the flop and turn he will often show up with a J, most of which beat us because he probably isn't flatting J8 or worse. Straights are a possibility, they aren't folding, although on such a draw heavy board with a lot of scare cards I'd try to get the money in on the flop. I think he'd have to put me on a stone bluff to call with 2 pair or a bare Ace if I bombed the river. Busted flush draws possibly but they aren't calling whether I bomb the river or c/r the river.

I know fish can play it strange sometimes but I have no reads on this guy. Winning money at these stakes doesn't worry me I'm just trying to develop my hand reading skills and make good decisions. I wasn't sure whether my thinking made sense or not.

FWIW and not being results orientated villain had AJ.

Everyone seems quite keen to get all the money here on the river. My worry is that we have the weakest full house and have taken a fairly strong line on the flop and turn. If I was in Villain's spot I think I'd check behind with trips. I really don't expect to see any Jx that I beat when I call the river

A good tool for checking how your stats stack up is PT4's leaktracker. It's worth playing around with to see how far from the 'norm' you are. As the other guys said I don't think your stats look bad at all. WWSF is normally a bit below 50% especially if there are a lot of multiway pots going on. The key thing is to get max value from the pots you do win.