$200 NLHE Full Ring: Blind Battle...all in shove by villain

shootwillus

shootwillus

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$200 NL HE Full Ring: Blind Battle...all in shove by villain

Here are the facts:

poker stars $1/$2 NL Holdem

The villain is short stacked and has gone all-in twice when I raised him from the small blind in the course of an hour. I don't have a tracker, so no stats. However, i'd say he wasnt playing badly, i just got the feeling he loves defending his BB. Also, and I don't know why ppl do this...he is playing intentionally short stacked because if he loses chips, he re-loads. No idea why you'd want to play with $40 in a room with a $200 max buy in...anyway...

Hero (SB) ($240.10)
BB ($43)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ks, Ac
5 folds, Hero calls $1, BB bets $9, Hero calls $7

Flop: ($18) 9h, 7d, 10c (2 players)
Hero bets $8, BB raises to $34 (All-In), Hero...??????


Ok, why didn't i raise with the AK? I know some ppl here are going to get on me about this...but, my logic was I know villain will raise anything if I call. If i raise and he has utter crap, he will probably fold. I was trying to trap him.

The board semi-scared me and I figure villain may be ahead with a pair but I am most likely holding two overs, and, my ace high may end up being good.


Do you call against this short stack?



Did I mention he was calling me a donkey and daring me to make the call?
 
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WurlyQ

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I don't play 200nl but pretty much what C9 said.

The villain is short stacked and has gone all-in twice when I raised him from the small blind in the course of an hour. I don't have a tracker, so no stats. However, i'd say he wasnt playing badly, i just got the feeling he loves defending his BB.

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ks, Ac
5 folds, Hero calls $1, BB bets $9, Hero calls $7

Doesn't compute.

Ok, why didn't i raise with the AK? I know some ppl here are going to get on me about this...but, my logic was I know villain will raise anything if I call. If i raise and he has utter crap, he will probably fold. I was trying to trap him.

The problem with this logic is this. You are up against an aggressive player out of position with a hand that hits the flop around 35-40% of the time. So basically when villain decides to go aggro on you, you will be faced with this situation 60-65% of the time. Basically, AK likes to see all 5 cards so aggro it up PF. Getting villain to fold here is not a bad result considering they already put in 21% of their stack.

Also, what is the point of the $8 flop donk bet? Villain folds to this like, never and if they float you, what do you do on the turn?

As per the actual situation, I think this is a fold. You need 30% equity to call this and with a lack of post flop reads, I err on the side of caution when the decision is dicey to reduce variance. You need to put in quite a bit of air, and a lot of 8x hands in their range to make this a profitable call. Your preflop play puts you in these kind of tricky situations.
 
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Zybomb

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Uh WHAT? He's come over the top of you the past 2 times that you've raised BVB and you decide to LImp AK?!?!!? Why? wouldn't you....um....RAISE....so he coul uh....COME OVER THE TOP ALL IN????

If for some odd reason you think limping is the play, then once he raises its an AUTO SHOVE. Your line of "trapping" with Ace high makes no sense, you're treating it as though your AK is AA! you will miss the flop 66% of the time. then once you miss on a super connected board you donk bet less than 1/2 the pot? I just don't understand this line at all

As played this is an autofold after banging our heads against our cpu desk for grossly misplaying the hand
 
Effexor

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Raise PF like you had been, then shove over top of him when he 3 bets you.

As played, fold.

Remember, just because you made a mistake in an earlier street doesn't mean you have to keep making mistakes.
 
shootwillus

shootwillus

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Ok...like i said, I know I am going to get some heat for not raising pre-flop. But, i do appreciate the analysis and the time anyone has taken to look this over.

I was a little bit frustrated with this guy and...what i was hoping for with my play was to limp (making it appear that I dont have a hand worth raising). I know he is going to raise my limp. I then delay delay delay and finally call. Then I bet when I see the flop. My hope here is that he was raising with nothing and my bet tells him I hit the flop (and then he folds).

I was planning on backing this up with the hope that I hit the A or K and actually get a real hand if he comes over the top....which of course he did.

So, in the end...I called.

Villain showed A10o giving him a pair of 10's.
I hit the king on the turn and won the pot. Villain went ape-shit.


I feel very confused about all this. I won and that is always good...but, obviously results are not always the residue of good play.


I have to try to imagine what would have happened if I had raised.

If I raised pre-flop:

1.) Villain folds. (this guy wouldnt fold A 10 here )
2.) Villain re-raises (he wouldnt re-raise this hand pre-flop)
3.) Villain calls...hits the 10 on the river, and shoves over top of my c-bet no matter what.

I think the thing here...for me, in this one particular hand, I absolutly knew a shove was coming. I suppose I didnt want to pre-flop raise maybe because I didnt want to commit too much money into the pot before I saw the flop.

Of course, once i saw the flop, which was no good for me, I still continued my semi-plan and that is a problem.
 
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WurlyQ

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Ok...like i said, I know I am going to get some heat for not raising pre-flop. But, i do appreciate the analysis and the time anyone has taken to look this over.

I was a little bit frustrated with this guy and...what i was hoping for with my play was to limp (making it appear that I dont have a hand worth raising). I know he is going to raise my limp. I then delay delay delay and finally call. Then I bet when I see the flop. My hope here is that he was raising with nothing and my bet tells him I hit the flop (and then he folds).

As stated before, a random hand doesn't hit the flop too often. Having an opponent believe that you hit the flop is thus, a tall task. Furthermore, you made a weak bet on a semi connected board which is very unconvincing that you have a good hand. If you did have a strong hand, you would want to bet strong (maybe $14-$16) to price out draws. Thinking that a weak cbet can just make your opponent fold is wishful thinking (it's not impossible but it requires intricate opponent manipulation through a complex leveling game and even then, you can't do it too often).

One thing that may be useful to know is that the flop shows 3/5 board cards and drastically changes equity a lot of the time which is not the case with the turn and river when only one card comes. Thus, even weak hands preflop can become a big favorite post flop. This is why AK is a very strong hand preflop but not necessarily the case on the flop.

I was planning on backing this up with the hope that I hit the A or K and actually get a real hand if he comes over the top....which of course he did.

When you have AK and villain has a dominated Ax, the chance there is an A on the flop is ~12% (which doesn't include another ~2-3% of him having two pair+). Thus, the chances of you stacking him because you both made top pair is quite small.

So, in the end...I called.

Villain showed A10o giving him a pair of 10's.
I hit the king on the turn and won the pot. Villain went ape-shit.


I feel very confused about all this. I won and that is always good...but, obviously results are not always the residue of good play.


I have to try to imagine what would have happened if I had raised.

If I raised pre-flop:

1.) Villain folds. (this guy wouldnt fold A 10 here )
2.) Villain re-raises (he wouldnt re-raise this hand pre-flop)
3.) Villain calls...hits the 10 on the river, and shoves over top of my c-bet no matter what.

I'm assuming 3.) meant the flop. I'm not sure villain doesn't just ship it in over you preflop but if he calls, you just fold because he outflopped you and you don't have the equity to continue.

I actually don't dislike your limp preflop from your read as long as you shove over his raise.

I think the thing here...for me, in this one particular hand, I absolutly knew a shove was coming. I suppose I didnt want to pre-flop raise maybe because I didnt want to commit too much money into the pot before I saw the flop.

Yet you don't mind stacking off when you miss the flop? You have great equity against villain's range preflop. AK on a T97r board has terrible equity against villains shoving range. You have to get money in when you have an equity edge and fold when you don't have the equity to continue.

Of course, once i saw the flop, which was no good for me, I still continued my semi-plan and that is a problem.

Having and continuing a plan is not a bad thing unless the plan is flawed to begin with which it was in this case.
 
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Zybomb

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I think the thing here...for me, in this one particular hand, I absolutly knew a shove was coming. I suppose I didnt want to pre-flop raise maybe because I didnt want to commit too much money into the pot before I saw the flop.

If you don't want to commit 20 BBs preflop BVB with AK then you should move down in limits. WAY down to the point where you'd love an opportunity to do this.... You should LOVE this spot.

your two moves here would be to raise/call (if you expect him to 3 bet you a lot as you said) or limp/shove (if you expect him to auto raise your limps as you also said). Regardless there should be no flop play when a shorty has 20 BBs, the $ should be in pre.

Again if I took your line pre, Id CHECK AND FOLD this flop. Betting out a coordinated board with no pair no draw is not good, and call his shove is even worse.
 
shootwillus

shootwillus

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I appreciate what everyone thinks here...thank you all very much for your responses and devoting some of your time to helping me improve my game.

So, despite the favorable result, which i would have had no matter what as thats how the cars fell...here is what I would do if I played the hand over again:

1.) raise to standard 3x BB...get called, c-bet the flop and then fold to villains shove (as i missed the flop by a mile).

or

2.) open limp and then shove over top of the villains raise putting him all in.


I think either choice would have been more strategic overall....i sort of picked a line that was sloppy and fell somewhere in the middle. It was sort of muddled and just plain crappy.


I really appreciate this forum in that I have no one I can talk to outside of the internet about poker...thank you.
 
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