Coincidental 3000th post - WiZZiM reviews a donkey's STT video

That donkey happens to be me,

A couple weeks ago I talked to WiZZiM about reviewing some of my past tournaments, and we came up with the idea of making a video. So what we decided to do was I would record a session, and then both of us would provide our commentary on it. That way you can see my thought process from when I was playing the tournament, and you could also get a good analysis and explanation of STT play (and my many mistakes obv).

Just as a warning, both of these videos are a little long - mine is about an hour long, and WiZZiM's is about two hours. If you were to only watch one I'd suggest WiZZiM's video, cause he breaks down the spots really well, using SNGWiz and other awesome tools. But I would really appreciate if you all would watch both videos, and ask any questions that you may have, as well as give feedback on my play.

So without further ado, here are the videos!

CJ's video: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SL5ZTAMX

WiZZiM's video: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=DZNSOZRQ

I'd also like to thank WiZZiM a million times over for doing this - I know it was a lot of work, and we had to mess around a couple times with Camtasia to get the quality looking good, but I'm really grateful for it. And the video turned out great!

And seriously, I didn't plan on making this my 3000th post but it worked out that way,

So I guess I'll go ahead and get things started - I've obviously already watched WiZZiM's review, and have a few questions.

77, UTG- can you elaborate a little more on why raising is bad?
JJ, UTG - based on how you think we should play the 77, is there merit to limping here?
A5, SB - since villain is kinda crazy and likely to raise a limp, call or 3-bet a raise, make a move on the flop, etc., is there merit to folding instead of trying to steal?
K9, CO - I know it said the guy was disconnected, but in game he came right back. How much does that affect our decision, especially with the maniac still to our left?
K6, about an hour thirty in - raise size?
AQ, BTN, on bottom left - I think I raised 2.5x, should I have raised smaller? I don't think I would have called a shove with it so I wonder if that was correct sizing.
A6, BTN - so the BB is pretty much committed, but I'm afraid that if I shove the big stack in the SB will call and the BB will fold. So I guess I could raise/fold to the SB or raise/call the BB. But I was wondering, ignoring my fear of getting flamed, is limping really awful? That way we can fold to the SB, or call the BB. If they both see the flop we can still get away cheap. If I go heads-up with the BB we'd still call any bet on the flop from the short stack, but maybe he checks to us and we can bet. I dunno, I was just wondering if that might work or if it was too spewy.
AQ facing t2800 raise - I was mega confused here, very excited to hear what people say about it.
T6s, BTN - I understand that when we shove we're not really affecting our equity a whole lot, but folding and allowing ourselves to hit the blinds means we're gonna lose a lot of our equity, so at least for me, I feel like there's a little bit of give and take there. Still, when I reviewed this the first time I realized this shove was a little on the loose size, I am prone to these types of spewy shoves from time to time hehe.

I also have some questions about my HUD - I've made some changes, but want to focus on the hands first, and give everyone a chance to make comments, etc.

oh sick, looking forward to watching

Worse 3000 post thread ever.

Ok here's my views on some of the hands. Watched about half the vid and made notes. These are the views of a very tight player early on so maybe you won't agree with what I got to say.

33 in BB - fold due to bad implied odds. 80 is too big to call also and you're not showing any pre flop strength, and so it'd be hard to bluff at the pot on later streets, so you will usually only win 11% of the time.
AQ in CO - This is a tricky spot and i'd probably also call my process of elimination (i'd like advice on this play too).
Folding is pretty tight and you could well be dominating him or atleast be 25% against even KK, so seeing a flop is favourable.
3-betting would allow you to narrow his range and maybe avoid tricky post flop decisions, but IMO it's a bit spewy and we don't need to risk chips this early in the SNG.
Call - by process of elimination. Re-evaluate after the flop being weary of sets and AK if super agression is shown.
33 - you limped UTG+1, but i think this should be a fold instead.
77 UTG - folding this. We're still 8 or 9 handed (cant remember) with low blinds. UTG low blinds we should only really be opening premiums like QQ-AA AK AQs (JJ depending on table)
JJ UTG - this is a tricky spot too. Limping is out of the question, but you have to think would you call a shove if you raised? (probably not) Would you call a 3-bet? If so, how big. etc
Also raising UTG will usually get callers with broadways, and so if you do flop the overpair, villian would have totally missed the flop and your chance of a big pot isn't there. So IMO the implied odds of even one caller isn't that great either. Thoughts appreciated on this hand though.
JQs in HJ - good fold.
A5 in CO - for my personal game, i wouldn't steal. I'm pretty risk averse in low blind stages and I think blinds were 25/50. This isn't really enough to want to steal (correct me if i'm wrong). However, with the BB sitting out, I would steal with a wide range (30 - 40%) as its the BB you have to worry about calling (if SB or BTN call, it's easier to leave the hand and spew less chips as they probably have an OK hand). So in this exact spot i'd also steal.
8 10o - you considered min raising but IMO that looks really weak. If someone min raises my BB I sometimes raise back BIG, or float the flop to take it away on the turn. Yes, they could be trapping, but it's rare and seems to work for me.
QKs in SB - I thought that hand was a good chance to re-steal. Firstly, there is over half your stack (450) in the pot already and you have a solid hand with good showdown value. Button has only min-raise a limper in position, and so no real aggression has been shown by any player. However I don't know if you have much fold equity over the big stack, who only needs to pop in another 700 to call you. So it's marginal, but I think i'd take the risk here when you've only got 9BB anyway.
QJs - good fold on BTN
99 - I'd bet into that flop. If someone calls or re-raises, you're likely beat and can leave the hand (can't remember stack sizes, maybe if your short this isnt a good idea).
K9s in CO - All i've written is "ship it". Can't remember stack sizes etc but I think you've gotta shove a hand this strong here with 5(?) BB's.
88 - I think this is a fold. You're flipping at best against over cards and probably dominated by an overpair. Ax (x < 9) is unlikely as the shove is UTG+1 and its not a great place to shove that kinda hand.
AK - definitely call that all in. At worst your flipping and if you loose you will still have an OK stack size. At best (and more likely) you have him dominated (K10+ A9+) is a wide range of hands you crush and if you win you'll be big stack and can aggress on the bubble and probably win if played correctly.
KQ with a min raise UTG by a loose player. Although you have no FE I think this is a spot to gamble as you are very short and UTG is opening wide (IMO). Pop it in pokerstove

I can't remember the rest of these hands, but i'll look them over when i get a chance.

Also i'd like to say that doing a video like this was a new experience, and i'm sure i screwed up with my thought process a bit. I'll attempt to rectify that in this thread. One hand off the bat was a BVB situation, we had 92offsuit, with 900 in chips, the pot was 500.

I think an alternate line postflop would be to bet out 200 chips. We still get him to fold out a lot, and we can fold if he shoves as we have absolutely no showdown value whatsoever. It looks more legit than just shoving as he might look us up wider thinking we're stealing. It's hard to judge if losing the 200 chips is more detrimental than winning the extra chips, but i feel it's a better alternative than just shoving, or checking.

Only had time to watch CJ's video so far, here's my notes on what I thought were the noteworthy hands:

77, UTG, table 2. I definitely hate calling, and I probably open fold this. We stand to win a lot when we hit a set but our position makes life difficult for us and we hate pretty much all overcards if we don't hit a set. As played I tend to agree that the flop we got isn't too bad for our hand and I probably take a stab at it too with only one villain left to act. Putting SB on a range is difficult, a weak king might take this line, so might 6x running a trap. Flush draws are a possibility. Depending on the villain this can sometimes even be Ax and underpairs are also possible. What I'm wondering is whether it's worth bluffing the turn as well... I think a bet can probably push out Ax, draws, weak underpairs, maybe even weaker kings but not many strong hands other than AA/KK/AK make sense for our line. Difficult one and I'm probably overthinking, which is why I like folding preflop and avoiding the spot I think :P

JJ, UTG, table 1. There's a big difference between JJ and 77 for me in this spot - namely there's a lot more undercard flops that can come out and we can v-bet them with greater confidence. Plus we're more likely to get paid big when we hit a set on a board with high cards because it's more likely other players will have hit something like top pair or a high draw that they're willing to stack. Postflop I take pretty much the same line you do and take notes if it turns out this is how villain plays a set (or that this is how villain overplays Ax).

QJs, HJ, table 2. Maybe it's bad but I'm REALLY tempted to call behind on this one. Hitting a flop strongly means there'll be other big cards out, the kind that villains like to stack, and we've got lots of customers to pay us off so the implied odds are probably a lot sweeter than something like 76s in the same spot. The fact that we don't have a full stack isn't ideal but I think I'd probably still take a shot at it. Related question, what do we do with a medium pair in this spot?

A5o, SB, table 4. Given your read and with blinds this small I think I just give villain a walk rather than flatting. Flatting opens us up to nasty spots preflop and short of flopping a wheel or two pair we can't ever really like our hand that much. We don't gain much when we raise preflop and villain folds, we've got the same problems as above just in a bigger pot of we raise and villain just flats and obviously we're hating life if we raise and villain three-bets. Call me nitty but I think giving him a walk just makes life easier here. Note my action changes a LOT when blinds are higher and effective stacks are smaller.

T7 full house, table 3. I almost definitely just call again on the turn and wait until the river to bet / raise. Basically I'm thinking there are still very few hands in villain's range that he can call a raise with on the turn so raising is almost never going to achieve our goal of building a bigger pot and getting more value - most of the time it just ends the hand. There are hands in his range that might bet the river again though if we just flat (weak made hands, high cards that think they have to bet to win) and he might even catch up enough to call a raise on the river. It's largely a moot point since we almost never get paid big on this hand but I think raising the turn ensures we almost never get paid any more.

KQs, SB, table 2. I probably ship this hand given all the dead money out there and given our chip position I don't mind being called in a flip, figuring that by the time we find a better spot we'll probably have a much smaller stack and stand to win a lot less. That might say more about the spewtard side of my game than it does anything useful about yours though :P

K9s, CO, table 4. I've pretty much got to shove this one too, whether or not the big blind is active. Even maniacs have a hard time cold calling a bet this size so I think we still have a reasonable amount of fold equity and even if we get called we shouldn't be in terrible shape. Plus the situation isn't going to change - the maniac has chips so we'll be stuck with him for the rest of the game and it'll only get harder to steal from him as our stack shrinks.

AK, UTG+1, table 1. I call this, and I make the raise planning to call a shove. We're rarely dominated, we're often dominating, there's dead money in the pot and we're in a dominating chip position when we win.

A6o, BTN, table 2. If the objective is to get heads up with the BB in this hand I think raising to say 900 might be an OK line. Raising small as opposed to shoving in this spot usually screams of a monster that wants value - if SB recognises that then we gain extra FE. If SB shoves we can still get away and someone will be putting the BB at risk should he choose to call. If SB folds we can obv call off the rest of BB's stack. It also avoids the spot that did happen, where SB basically just gives BB free money or gives him a walk when we fold.

AQo, BTN, table 3. I dunno what to make of villain's line there leaving the 15 chips behind, I've gotta assume it's a misclick and he meant to shove (I'm used to Full Tilt's software and the max button where this kind of thing is less likely). I think it's one of those spots where it seems like a call is OK because we're probably doing pretty well against villain's range but it's probably OK to fold and preserve our chip position as well.

Thanks for all the replies so far guys, they're really great, keep them coming There are already some things that I want to discuss (e.g. the KQ hands) but it's late over here so I'm gonna wait until tomorrow.

77 UTG- Yeah agree with OZ that folding here is a good option. However in the $3.40's i think we can justify open limping, as there are usually lots of pots played multiway, if one starts limping so do others. In the $11 + games you are playing OZ, open limping in these spots is unprofitable, unless you have a known fishy table.

Adding to the postflop play. Also when we do hit our set, and the board is like AK7. players may fold out kings and even weak aces, since we raised UTG, they may put us on AK (players like to do this) or something strong, and we miss getting paid on our set. However if we just limp, it's possible we get 1-2 even 3 streets of value with our set.

Subscribing.

bump

So while I'm finishing my report that's due Friday I'm gonna try to rewatch this video (which pretty much means I'm not gonna be writing my report at all), see if I have any new thoughts on it.

In the meantime I wanted to talk a little bit about HUD use for STT's. WiZZiM commented on my HUD in the video, saying it was a little bit basic, I really can't argue with that. With my old computer I had a slightly better HUD, but when I got my new one I reinstalled PT3 and hadn't gotten to reconfiguring my HUD.

So, excuses aside, I played a little with my HUD after the video. For a little while I was using this setup:

bb's eff/vpip/pfr/af
fb/rs/3b/f3
ats-sb/btn/co/hands

I used this while I was playing at Stars, and it was nice, but I felt like it was a little too much information, and I wasn't using all of the stats. Plus I recently moved back to Tilt, and there is a lot less room for HUD stats. So I switched it up again:

vpip/pfr/afq/bb's eff
ats/3b/f c-bet/hands

I feel like this is a little better for me. The attempt-to-steal (all positions) stat works just as well for me, and I like having fold to c-bet a lot. The effective bb's stat isn't quite as useful as it is on stars, where there are antes that need to be considered. Maybe I can switch that out with Fold BB to Steal. Actually, yeah, I'm going to do that.

So any thoughts/suggestions on this?

Also, the more I think about it, would the resteal stat be more useful than the 3bet stat?

That looks a heap better than just the standard one you had up.

Also, if your playing a lot of the same game type with the same players, filtering out certain stages is going to be really helpful. I can get more into this if you like, but i'd definately advise filtering out the early game, the mid game, and then ITM for 9 man SNGs.

I'm not sure how PT3 does this however.

Here's a screenshot of my HUD setup. It's a bit bigger than i'd like right now, as i'm in the process of adding custom "pop ups". But this works for me, even though it seems like it is a lot.


So mine is:-

VPIP/PFR/Limp/AggFreq/Hands
CB/FVFCB/Donkbet/CheckRaise/Showdown%
3Bet/3BetvsSteal/FoldvResteal
CO%/Btn%/SB%/Fold to steal in SB/Fold to steal in BB

I've tried to bunch the stats up into differant stages of a tournament. So the stuff near the top i use the most. Then it's early game things to help with postflop decisions. Then it's the restealing and stealing stats to help with mid-finish of the tournament.

I also setup my HUD so that it shows my VPIP/PFR and stealing %. This just gives me an idea of how aggressive i've been vs the blinds at that particular table. If it's a close decsion and i've been stealing a lot i may opt to fold.

Having the table averages is really helpful too.


CJ- on the 3bet stats or resteal. It's good to have both. If the 3bet is low, and the resteal is high, it means that if we are in late position, he's more likely to resteal against us. If the 3bet and resteal are similar, then we can expect he will just raise with that same range, usually tight.

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