$5.50 NLHE STT: Can you ever lay this hand down?

mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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Standard steal from the BTN against short stack in the SB and relatively tight player in the BB. standard Cbet. really didnt consider turning the straight.. I saw that I had the gutter obviously, but didnt figure that into my plan. Just figured if he calls my flop bet, ill check through the turn and see a free river and give up if i dont improve. turned the straight and his donk on the turn just smelled kinda fishy.. the diamonds had me worried, but would he really donk out like that if he hit the flush? can you lay this down?

iPoker - $5+$0.50|<> NL - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

BB: 17.98 BB (VPIP: 19.35, PFR: 10.00, 3Bet Preflop: 8.33, hands: 31)
UTG: 14.95 BB (VPIP: 32.26, PFR: 20.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)
CO: 10.88 BB (VPIP: 32.26, PFR: 13.33, 3Bet Preflop: 16.67, Hands: 31)
Hero (BTN): 18.78 BB
SB: 4.93 BB (VPIP: 16.13, PFR: 6.45, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 31)

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8:diamond: 9:spade:

fold, fold, Hero raises to 2 BB, fold, BB calls 1 BB

Flop: (4.5 BB, 2 players) 7:diamond: 5:diamond: Q:spade:
BB checks, Hero bets 2.25 BB, BB calls 2.25 BB

Turn: (9 BB, 2 players) 6:diamond:
BB bets 6 BB, Hero raises to 14.53 BB, BB calls 7.73 BB

River: (36.45 BB, 2 players) 2:heart:
 
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trent32la

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Personally I'm never folding here. Mathematically he needs to have a flush <40% of the time for you to shove here profitably. The lead out certainly is suspicious, however I feel our opponent can still show up with sets/2prs/pair-draws here enough of the time.
 
MoeJurphy

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This is a tough one, personally not huge on the open maybe open a bit larger 2.5x if we are just trying to steal and not wanting to see a flop. When we turn a straight its just sick if he has a flush, but yeah i'm never folding here unless given a sign to do so which he has not given us.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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it was at the 100/200 blind level, so i think 2x is pretty standard at that level.

generally big stack vs big stack at this stage of the game, i think he's going to usually try not to get involved in a pot unless he has a premium hand against me. hes not going to want to give away too much of his stack and risk getting bubbled when he can hold a comfortable second place until after the bubble. I dont think there's any hands that he's going to call 2x with that hes not going to call 2.5x with. keeps the pot that much smaller and makes my cbet that much cheaper.


feels like I got cooled, just wanted to make sure my shove was correct. I dont think I can ever flat here. if i flat here, its going in on the river anyway, might as well try to get some FE right?


while he was tanking before he raised, i was thinking I would check back the turn for pot control, and bet about 4bb on the river or flatcall a river bet. but then he put his chips in and ruined that plan
 
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AshTheGreat

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Poker is changing. The LAG/TAG meta game Antonio enjoys that Dwan pushed to its limits is starting to influence people's thoughts about their lines. I see this type of thing more and more where my opponent actually bothers ranging me and knows what bets look suspicious from both ends.

Personally, I'd find this fold for the same reason you wouldn't: There's no way my opponent puts me on a straight. Which leaves three options. Option A: They think I may have a Q. Option B: They think I may have a flush. Option C: They think I'm bluffing.
Option C isn't likely. They would've raised the flop to bluff check more times than not planning to shove the turn if I show weakness. Option B isn't likely. They wouldn't bet if they suspected I semi-bluffed and got there. Plus people who hero tend not to try it for 3 streets with their whole stack, so he had to have some sort of equity on the flop to just call. Option A is somewhat likely. The turn would be a standard push spot for many loose players. I'd evaluate how loose my opponent is and either decide to shove like you did or fold. Part of the range where they hope/assume you have a Q is AA with the A of diamonds or KK with the K of diamonds, which you're also ahead of. However, the flip side of Option A is that they do have the flush, and understand that raising you on the turn or flatting you on the turn and leading the river result in relatively easy folds for any good player. Thus, some players have taken to playing the dynamic and leading out in spots like this when they have a strong hand and weak betting image, Knowing it's going to result in max value vs. thinking players because it looks bluffy and result in statistically less folds than if they took an obvious value line.
Mathematically, if I'm against a competent LAG or TAG, I suck this up and fold. There aren't many times I'm winning when he doesn't have a redraw. And, despite what it looks like, there aren't many bluffs in my opponent's range, because he ALWAYS has to put me on at least top pair here. I'd personally have an easier time calling an all in shove on the turn (which looks unreasonable in all regards) than a lead for half my stack.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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If he was competent why wouldn't he wait until I bet? I don't think we're dealing with a solid tag or solid lag. He might have tricks that he's figured out work over a small sample, but donking is something that very rarely is ever a good idea for a skilled player.

Think of it from villains perspective. We have a flush on the turn, what hands does the other deepstack flat all our donk bet with? None, the other deepstack player is interested in preserving his stack and isn't going to risk half his stack on 1pair. The only options for the BTN is to shove or fold. With 3 to a flush, even sets and two pairs might be a fold. The only action we get here is with the straight or another flush...

BB is missing a ton of value here by turning his flush into a bluff

I think youre over thinking this situation... No multitabling reg is going to be thinking on level 3... And if he's a reg he's going to be multitabling or he's going to take his level 3 thinking to the mid-stakes games... He knows how to play tag preflop, but he doesn't know how to navigate postflop imo as is quite common with microstakes sng players
 
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WiZZiM

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well hand reading wise, it's pretty clear that card has changed something, he just calls both preflop and flop, meaning nothing, then bombs the turn when the diamonds hit. The problem you have here really is weather or not the players in your games will overvalue stuff like 2pair and play it similarly.

It's a bit of a tough one, personally i just call and call rivers to keep all his bluffs in, but i'm not overly happy about the spot, people play pretty straight forward in these games, so when they bet strong like that after the board changes significantly, you have to respect it. However we turned a straight and i'd say he can overvalue worse hands so i'd make two crying calls here i think jamming over is a small mistake, let him bet into us and keep his whole range in, or just fold if you feel like his range is weighted towards flushes and better hands. OVerall i think it's an ok hero fold spot, but again, very much read and player population based play here.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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well hand reading wise, it's pretty clear that card has changed something, he just calls both preflop and flop, meaning nothing, then bombs the turn when the diamonds hit. The problem you have here really is weather or not the players in your games will overvalue stuff like 2pair and play it similarly.

It's a bit of a tough one, personally i just call and call rivers to keep all his bluffs in, but i'm not overly happy about the spot, people play pretty straight forward in these games, so when they bet strong like that after the board changes significantly, you have to respect it. However we turned a straight and i'd say he can overvalue worse hands so i'd make two crying calls here i think jamming over is a small mistake, let him bet into us and keep his whole range in, or just fold if you feel like his range is weighted towards flushes and better hands. OVerall i think it's an ok hero fold spot, but again, very much read and player population based play here.

Good comments. There wasn't much to go on as far as read, I did check his 'went to showdown' was 1 out of 4.. The whole table was playing slow as it was already the 6th level 30 hands in..

I ruled out calling because 9 times out of 10 if I call here he's going to put me all in on the river. If I'm calling any river anyway, why not just put it in now and squeeze as much FE as possible?
Although thinking about it now I can see the flaw in that logic because he's only calling with the flush or a lower straight..

I think I justified it by thinking that players who are bad at postflop will turn made hands like tptk, or sets into bluffs if they are afraid of being drawn out on.. Maybe he thought I had a diamond and didn't want to get the "famous bovada suckout" on the river.. I think I leveled myself there and its probably better to just get in the habit of respecting donk bets since they are more often strong then not... Although I have totally punished a few people for donking the the flop lately, but those are usually dry flops that dont connect with their range
 
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mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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...wow... Realizing now how bad the shove was haha, I leveled myself by saying he's probably donking to turn his hand into a bluff... Meanwhile I shove to turn my made hand into a bluff when I've got tons of showdown value.... Woops..

Wizzim, you are totally right once again... Crying call all day
 
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WiZZiM

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yeah it's real easy to make these mistakes especially when you gain more knowledge. Like if you think he's bluffing, then shoving to get FE is a pretty bad idea haha.

The key in SNG is to not overthink things. it's a simple format so keep it that way. you make most of your money by not making mistakes/plugging leaks etc. id say 99% of your opponants in your games will not have a real clue about what they are doing, so i'd be sitting at level 2 thinking almost always, even vs the regs, if you get exploited so what, it's only going to be 1-2% of the time.

The biggest key with sng is to be able to play many tables at once, boost your volume and your hourly rate. streamlining decision making is a big factor in being able to play many tables at once. If you wanna make high stakes type decisions and lower volume, then you will be wanting to play at much higher stakes than this.
 
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WiZZiM

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in regards to your checking the showdown% it's basically a waste of time unless you have 500 hands on someone. Again just keep it simple, he had nothign on flop and turn then he wakes up and bets. this is rarely a bluff, so he's doing it for value almost always, what his value is depends on the player, however the flush is a very visable scary thing for bad players, so it's harder for him to overvalue tptk type hands or even two pair. Sure it will happen from time to time, but the overwhelming majority of the time here he's just making his cards transparent. It's so hard to fold in these spots. But overall i'd just call/get it in and keep a mental note on spots like this to see how the general player pool does things, if you notice it's mostly value you can start saving buyins and make hero folds like this.

The thing about making math based reads like trent is saying is that it's VERY dependant on this particular players range and more importantly dependant on the general population tendancies of YOUR games. So it's down to a little bit of your personal biases and what you experience in your particular games. Keeping notes or using trackers to find all in showdown situations similar to this one will help you to discover what the best move overall is.

Lastly before i babble anymore, keep in mind that even if you do fold the best hand here we're left with like 12bb which is plenty enough to cash or even win the SNG, sometimes saving spots like this is a better idea than the gain in chips, especially if you don't know how to use your stack once you gain a big chip lead.

hope this helps.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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Yeah, I'm trying to focus on my preflop game at the moment, watching zerosum79's videos on dtb.. Since so much of the money in sngs comes from making correct push/fold decisions, that should be my primary focus. I'll try to work showdowns into my game a little more, as in only betting when villains are going to call with worse or fold with better
 
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WiZZiM

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Sorry last thing, in regards to donk bets, it's all about the sizing and board layout. small donk bets tend to just be really weak hands, but the thing about people who bet small is that they tend to be sticky and will call lots. Best thing to do vs them is to just make a raise basically to find out if they are sticky or not. If the fold, note them as such, if they call note them as sticky and then increase your value range and overbet tons. If they fold, then emply really small raises very often.

Bigger donks tend to be stronger overall, and they are harder to play vs for the obvious SPR you tend to get stuck if you make plays vs them, so it's best to just let them have it early on and keep and eye on semi bluffing shoving spots.

When it happens on turns/rivers you have to basically respect the board more and see why they have changed their behaviour in the hand. In these low levels they usually just play their hand face up, so if he bets small here i'm almost always raising for value and to get it in as i feel he would be more likely to have a weak tptk or two pair hand. if he bets strong like he did here i would respect it way more, if i felt the population tendancy was to overvalue plenty of hands then i'd call, if i felt it's almost always the flush here then i'd make the laydown. If i didn't know what to do i'd err on the side of getting it in here though.
 
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WiZZiM

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Yes zerosums videos are good. And yes, unless you are playing regular speed games your focus should be almost 95% preflop shove/fold spots and understanding ICM and the bubble and how it all works. Second most important thing is the setup of your tables, increasing decision time and working to build the number of tables you play. this comes from a combo of experience and knowledge of the game, working with ICM tools etc.

but yeah overall his videos are a great starting point. making a shove/fold chart was pretty helpful for when i started out.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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Thanks, that's really helpful. So almost treat donk bets the same way I would as if he was in position and I checked to him

And yeah I play 9-man turbos, trying to slowly increase my volume. I'll be going through with sng wizard to make a push fold chart as soon as I put in the volume to roll over my deposit bonus.. For now I'm using jennifears mtt push fold chart which does the job, although I'm finding I have to make bigger adjustments since it's meant for 9 hands rather than 5 or 4

Currently I'm just playing two tables and feel I have plenty of time to make decisions, I'm going to wait until I put together a push fold chart before I try to move up to 3.
 
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WiZZiM

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yes treat them like what they are, him betting and what that means. In this case it looks to me like he's betting because the board changed something about his hand so he doesnt really care whta you are doing. so he's level 1 and being that we almost always think on lvl 2 in these low level games, we can see how our hand is pretty borderline vs his range, however your in game reads or general population reads might make this a shove/or call down spot so it just depends on what they show up with overall.

yeah i started with 2 tables, then increased to 4, played around 4-500 games then move up to 6, just play what you feel comfortable with, but overall you want to be playing minimum 12 tables at once, otherwise play games that are more suited to playing lower volume. or play games like HU sng and 1 or 2 table those.

I can see if i can find my old stt chart, cos that mtt chart is pretty much going to be too loose in most areas for SNG, especially if you are using it around the bubble, in which shove charts are essentially useless. shove charts as a guide are only really good for 5-6+ players and blinds at or below 200bb. Anything past that is too reliant on the stack setups and player tendancies and ranges. that comes from studying spots in depth with icm calcs. I can do my best to post ideas of how to train using trackers and icm software to make things easier, took me years to learn easier ways of doing things as i wasted countless hours studying in inefficient ways.

It's a tough one mate just keep learning and doing what your doing, it takes time.
 
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mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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Unfortunately as a U.S. player most sites dont have enough traffic to play that many tables..even if there was enough traffic, there's a 4 table max on most U.S. sites. The best I could do is play on multiple sites, like play 2 tables on ACR and 3 on bovada, and 3 on BOL.. I'll probably eventually transition to MTTs but for now STTs are what I like and I feel like its a good place for me to develop fundamental concepts that translate to other formats. HU seems to have lower traffic to where I could probably only play 2 or 3 in an hour.. but it is something I want to practice eventually to improve my ROI when STTs get HU.

Jennifears chart works she effective stacks are less than 10bb and its saved my hair more often than not in situations where I had some recovering to do from 3 or 4 bb. I don't use it above 10bb its definitely too loose then. I'd really appreciate it if you found your charts, but you definitely dont have to. I'll probably work out my own charts just for the practice anyway, but it would be good to have something to compare my results to and see how far off I am.
 
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WiZZiM

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ahh ok, yeah if you wanna make serious profits then volume is a must. didnt realize your restrictions. Also there will likely be software restrictions, but it is what it is. Best bet is to play higher stakes once you are ready to compensate or move into MTT. The background STT work you will do will help on the final table situations a lot regardless so it's not wasted time.

yeah the chart will be ballpark ok which considering your level of competition should be totally fine. But you would be leaking kind of hard on say pokerstars $7+ stakes.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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I mean a handful of states are making major progress in legalizing online poker, and my state is one of them. Hopefully they dont fence us in and restrict the player pool further. There's definitely hopes for being able to mass multitable in the states again soon. I think if I could eventually work my way up to 25$ SnGs I could make a decent $/hr at a low volume, but the swings would be brutal for sure
 
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matt0216

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Unfortunately as a U.S. player most sites dont have enough traffic to play that many tables..even if there was enough traffic, there's a 4 table max on most U.S. sites. The best I could do is play on multiple sites, like play 2 tables on ACR and 3 on bovada, and 3 on BOL.. I'll probably eventually transition to MTTs but for now STTs are what I like and I feel like its a good place for me to develop fundamental concepts that translate to other formats. HU seems to have lower traffic to where I could probably only play 2 or 3 in an hour.. but it is something I want to practice eventually to improve my ROI when STTs get HU.

It's definitely possible to play a lot of tables on U.S sites, but like you said, you'll have to be willing to multi-site.

Honestly, my problem is the fact that there are too many games to play and I like to register everything. So I end up playing 15+ tables when I really shouldn't be bothering with some of the lower stake games I play. Just to illustrate, I've actually played >1k games in the last 2 days. (I would not recommend doing that, it's not fun :D) Most of that volume was in hypers, but even if I only wanted to play Turbos I could easily play ~10 tables at a time on average.

Also, playing 4 tables of Bovada will always be important because they are very high value games. Just keep working and try to reach the highest stakes they offer (at whatever game you choose) and your hourly would be fine with just those 4 tables.

But, once you're ready, you can add another site because it's easy to play >4 games at a time. With WPN, BOL, or Merge there's plenty of games out there to play. You shouldn't have a problem consistently playing 8-10+ tables.

I'll probably work out my own charts just for the practice anyway, but it would be good to have something to compare my results to and see how far off I am.

You definitely should make your own at some point; the process of making a chart is far more important than just having one imo. Also, use ICMIZER over sng wiz if you can.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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It's definitely possible to play a lot of tables on U.S sites, but like you said, you'll have to be willing to multi-site.

Honestly, my problem is the fact that there are too many games to play and I like to register everything. So I end up playing 15+ tables when I really shouldn't be bothering with some of the lower stake games I play. Just to illustrate, I've actually played >1k games in the last 2 days. (I would not recommend doing that, it's not fun :D) Most of that volume was in hypers, but even if I only wanted to play Turbos I could easily play ~10 tables at a time on average.

Also, playing 4 tables of Bovada will always be important because they are very high value games. Just keep working and try to reach the highest stakes they offer (at whatever game you choose) and your hourly would be fine with just those 4 tables.

But, once you're ready, you can add another site because it's easy to play >4 games at a time. With WPN, BOL, or Merge there's plenty of games out there to play. You shouldn't have a problem consistently playing 8-10+ tables.



You definitely should make your own at some point; the process of making a chart is far more important than just having one imo. Also, use ICMIZER over sng wiz if you can.
Ah yeah I was looking at ICMizer, does it allow you to construct push/fold charts based on standard situations? Their push/fold quiz looks pretty handy though

Also, I imagine you use table tamer if youre playing that much volume? Do you know if they are going to add support for ignition poker? I tried it the other day and it didn't seem like it recognized the new site. A table manager is going to be really helpful when I move to 3 tables eventually so I can tile them properly on one screen and have my push fold charts on another screen
 
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matt0216

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ICMIZER should be able to do everything you need. I used it to make my own charts. And yeah, the 'sng coach' is kinda cool, but you can never follow those results blindly because it's all just based on nash ranges. As long as your aware of that and how to adjust it's fine, I like it.

I do use TableTamer. I think it would be impossible for me to play without out lol. But I haven't tried using it on Ignition yet, I'm staying on Bovada until I have to switch. From what I've heard, it should work on Ignition as is though.
 
mbrenneman0

mbrenneman0

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Cool thanks, what makes icmizer a better choice than sng wizard?

I'll look into table tamer again, maybe I didn't have it set up right when I tried it last... I used it on bovada 6max cash before I realized how bad I was at cash. Its definitely useful when you're trying to play any more than two tables
 
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trent32la

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So I end up playing 15+ tables when I really shouldn't be bothering with some of the lower stake games I play. Just to illustrate, I've actually played >1k games in the last 2 days. (I would not recommend doing that, it's not fun :D)
Was wondering why matt0216 kept showing up in all the $3.50 6max hypers I regged. :p

Re: ICMizer, definitely get a subscription to it. With the new version of it, it's easily the best program from turbo/hyper turbo SNGs out there and easy to use once you work out the basics.
 
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WiZZiM

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There's really nothing differant about the two programs, ICMIzer is just more user friendly i would say. I prefer SNG Wizard but i'm old school :)
 
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