$1.10 NLHE MTT: Could I've extracted more value?

Early stages of an MTT. Only 15 hands played and I already tangled in a pot with JJ and lost to a set of 9s earlier. Didn't go nuts 9 high board and a club flush, so lost only 9.63 blinds at the time. That's the only information most of the players have on me.

Though appears to be a maniac and doesn't generally C-bet often, the sample size is still very small. He could just have easily have had a small A, which I felt I had very little chance of getting him to fold.

Though I'm satisfied with the way I played it I want to know if there were possibilities here to extract more value.

PokerStars - 20/40 Ante 5 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 80.35 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 12.50, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 8)
UTG: 74.87 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
UTG+1: 87.35 BB (VPIP: 58.33, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 12.50, Hands: 12)
MP: 80.22 BB (VPIP: 13.33, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
Hero (MP+1): 62.42 BB
CO: 61.77 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
BTN: 64.05 BB (VPIP: 22.45, PFR: 18.37, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 51)
SB: 114.3 BB (VPIP: 26.67, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)

8 players post ante of 0.13 BB, SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 2.5 BB) Hero has Q♠ Q♣

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, Hero raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, UTG+1 calls 3 BB

Flop: (10.5 BB, 2 players) A♦ 9♣ 6♦
UTG+1 bets 5 BB, Hero calls 5 BB

Turn: (20.5 BB, 2 players) J♥
UTG+1 bets 3 BB, Hero calls 3 BB

River: (26.5 BB, 2 players) 3♣
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks

I would raise bigger pre cause he looks like a station. And raise turn the diminishing bet sizeThe river is meh. He might or might not call a bet depending on the turn action. But You can find a bet there after calling the small turn bet.

That's what confused me too. He bet pretty small on the turn. Would he have called a re-raise? But I definitely should've bet 25-33% on the river to try and extract some value instead of letting it go. Should've capitalised on that slight possibility even.

I would raise turn, that's a classic fish play, donks a "scary" flop because of the ace and as you called, he is scared of the ace himself now lol. Small turn bet and 60/17 stats are giving a clue.

Got to try it out. Guys like this generally don't generally let go of anything they've hit I guess. He might even think I'm bluffing with air seeing his weak bet. By floating I repped strength that might make a river value all the more difficult.

darthdimsky said:

He might even think I'm bluffing with air seeing his weak bet. By floating I repped strength that might make a river value all the more difficult.

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This might be irrelevant but this is a psychological poker issue I've been dealing with.


There are times where we (at least I) get irritated with these kind of fishy plays, I try to aggro & bluff to make the V fold. Sometimes it goes way overboard to risk our tourney life by committing the entire stack or same in cash.


It works at times but you'd not know for certain what the fish would do it makes you look like an idiot when he calls down with middle pair or top pair on a FD etc.


But at the same time we are overthinking the same spots where we are trying to get value out of them. We get scared with our value hands not exactly knowing whether we are beat or not.
Either we try to not blow a V out of a hand & gets very little value than we should've or, we are scared of getting coolered we try to keep it to a minimum. (At least myself)


So I've been thinking why I don't feel scared when I'm bluffing & why I'm scared when I'm trying to get value?
I think finding the balance between the two is the best way to approach this mentally.

Alucard said:

This might be irrelevant but this is a psychological poker issue I've been dealing with.


There are times where we (at least I) get irritated with these kind of fishy plays, I try to aggro & bluff to make the V fold. Sometimes it goes way overboard to risk our tourney life by committing the entire stack or same in cash.


It works at times but you'd not know for certain what the fish would do it makes you look like an idiot when he calls down with middle pair or top pair on a FD etc.


But at the same time we are overthinking the same spots where we are trying to get value out of them. We get scared with our value hands not exactly knowing whether we are beat or not.
Either we try to not blow a V out of a hand & gets very little value than we should've or, we are scared of getting coolered we try to keep it to a minimum. (At least myself)


So I've been thinking why I don't feel scared when I'm bluffing & why I'm scared when I'm trying to get value?
I think finding the balance between the two is the best way to approach this mentally.

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You pretty much hit the nail on the head with what I've been struggling with for 18 months or so. But in trying to tone down that aggression I employed earlier I've become very passive. But recent success in getting some of that aggression back. It has proven to be extremely difficult finding that middle ground.

he he

Alucard said:

This might be irrelevant but this is a psychological poker issue I've been dealing with.


There are times where we (at least I) get irritated with these kind of fishy plays, I try to aggro & bluff to make the V fold. Sometimes it goes way overboard to risk our tourney life by committing the entire stack or same in cash.


It works at times but you'd not know for certain what the fish would do it makes you look like an idiot when he calls down with middle pair or top pair on a FD etc.


But at the same time we are overthinking the same spots where we are trying to get value out of them. We get scared with our value hands not exactly knowing whether we are beat or not.
Either we try to not blow a V out of a hand & gets very little value than we should've or, we are scared of getting coolered we try to keep it to a minimum. (At least myself)


So I've been thinking why I don't feel scared when I'm bluffing & why I'm scared when I'm trying to get value?
I think finding the balance between the two is the best way to approach this mentally.

Click to expand...

nice description , maybe you should write a book

Definitely too dangerous to raise with that Ace out there. You open yourself up to being bluffed by raising because what if he decides that's enough money in the pot for a semi-bluff for a flush or straight draw. If he gets wacky and pushes all-in, it would be one hell of a call for you to have to make.

iwont20 said:

I would raise turn, that's a classic fish play, donks a "scary" flop because of the ace and as you called, he is scared of the ace himself now lol. Small turn bet and 60/17 stats are giving a clue.

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so worse hands fold & better hands call? We're going to get move value here by raising turn when we're assuming he's weak & 'is scared of the ace himself'. Well if he's scared of the ace himself... what hand are we worried about here that we're trying to get him to fold?

Great post. I find myself in this situation regularly and don’t extract enough value myself. I think as played there is nothing wrong however if we had more info on the villain and know he’s a spew station a turn raise is good. However you were just getting a feel for the table dynamics so you didn’t want to put yourself in a tough spot if he were to re-raise. Sure you could’ve raised turn and he folds or MAYBE calls but getting him to showdown a pair of 9s while donk betting had to have been good information for the rest of your session!

Definitely don't agree with raising turn, that makes no sense, we don't represent anything, their bluffs fold, and they only call with better. On the river, in general I like your thought process on betting 25-33% especially against a non-thinking opponent who will look down at their cards and make a decision based solely on the strength of their hand. If we're playing against someone we respect and think is a decent player (very unlikely given the situation, but I'll explain anyway) I like a check here. Our 25-33% bet on the river makes our hand look like exactly what it is, tens, queens, eights, or a random jack that floated. We almost never have a weak ace here, and our good, thinking opponent will either call with their weak ace, fold whatever else, or correctly put you on a marginal hand and raise, putting you in a really awkward spot that you could have avoided by going to showdown with your marginal hand.

wp if raise turn. imo

well but often i will jam more preflop vs EP limper similar situation, make it like t5BB plus plus.

Ambur said:

wp if raise turn. imo

well but often i will jam more preflop vs EP limper similar situation, make it like t5BB plus plus.

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That's interesting. Both you and Alucard have mentioned raising more pre. Wouldn't 3-betting to 15bb against a limper is induce an instafold though. Adjusting it from a 4bb raise to a 6-8bb maybe when we're 80bb+ deep?

Which hand range could possibly limp on utg position 87 BB deep. I could assume drawing type hand or semi strong preflop hand. I mean i wouldnt limp preflop strong hand early stage utg position, since blinds are small. For example if my position is utg and holding for example AA i wouldnt like to limp early stage since people behind will call and strong made pairs does not play well on multiway on postflop OOP.



In general raise preflop standard bet x 3 . If it is t2bb than multiply it with 3 which makes it t6bb not less but not more than 1/10 % of your stack. Imo