$Freeroll NLHE MTT: ACR Freeroll turn shove didn't work out

Here's a hand that didn't work out for me. I'm trying to analyze it post mortem, so please your feedback on my thoughts and choices and analysis.


Winning Poker, Hold'em No Limit - 30/60 - 8 players
Replay this hand on CardsChat

UTG: 4,191 (70 bb)
UTG+1: 5,613 (94 bb)
MP: 1,525 (25 bb)
MP+1: 5,924 (99 bb)
CO: 1,365 (23 bb)
BU (Hero): 1,665 (28 bb)
SB: 1,290 (22 bb)
BB: 1,345 (22 bb)

Pre-Flop: (90) Hero is BTN with T♣ J♣
1 fold, UTG+1 calls 60, 3 players fold, Hero raises to 150, 2 players fold, UTG+1 calls 90

Flop: (390) 6♠ Q♠ A♦ (2 players)
UTG+1 bets 390, Hero calls 390

Turn: (1,170) T♥ (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets 1,125 (all-in), UTG+1 calls 1,125

River: (3,420) 9♠ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: 3,420

Showdown:
BU (Hero) shows T♣ J♣ (a pair of Tens)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 65%, Flop: 46%, Turn: 80%, River: 0%)

UTG+1 shows 5♠ 8♠ (a flush, Queen high)
(Equity - Pre-Flop: 35%, Flop: 54%, Turn: 20%, River: 100%)

UTG+1 wins 3,420

Okay, so early in the game. Just a note, in this freeroll it seems people are just playing any hand (there's a lot of limping going on and they give up on the flop all the time, or by the second bet from my side. also a lot of times there's a few limpers and after I raise 2.5 or more everyone folds).
UTG limps, I raise, blinds fold. So far so good, I think.

I flop an inside straight draw. UTG bets the pot. Okay, perhaps connected somehow. At the time I don't think I even notice the possible flush draw. So looking at it now, strong bet from UTG, trying to scare me away if I have one pair (he might have AQ or AA?).
Here I should have folded. I think I was consulting the outs chart and looked at the open-ended straight draw instead and figured I can call here.

On turn come 10 and I now have a weak pair and still tiny hope to get my straight.
I'm thinking there's very little chance my weak pair will be fine at the showdown.
UTG checks. So I'm thinking okay he's slowing down, maybe he had a draw or just has an Ace or a Queen and so trying to get to showdown cheaply. I can check and hope to get my straight and give up on the river (would that be correct?). Instead I think okay, it is possible I had AQ with a flush draw, or QQ, or AA, and have chosen to call (although maybe I would've reraised?) or KsJs (so then with an inside straight and flush draw that would've been good enough odds to call). I did raise preflop. So I thought I'd just shove representing a straight. My shove was just under pot size anyway.
UTG calls, shows 5s8s, and completes his flush on the river.
I groan.
Now knowing UTG's cards, it confirms that people play all sorts of hands, even 58s from UTG, and often don't give it up after a raise pre-flop (so these are the ones who usually would fold after the flop - but it probably works out for this freeroll. I did read something about entering lots of pots early in the tournament, but they were talking more about from later positions and maybe not as loose as two-gaps-connectors from UTG).
I guess with a flush draw it was good for him to bet strong, but was calling my shove good decision? pot odds not good enough, - so did it look like I had absolutely nothing and he was just catching my bluff? (but with what? a hope for the flush?)

Appreciate any comments on my analysis and what I should have done.

First of all, this is a freeroll and you'll find players playing anyhow anyhand ... so let's assume it isn't and try to find where you missed it.
UTG limp can be tricky i see a lot of players limp with pocket AA or KK and hoping that they will get action behind and jaming after one raise, unless you have a read on Villain. So maybe a limp was better in my opinion with JTs (limp behind the limper) cause there was 2 players to act behind and one of them could squeeze with a big hand.
When flop comes and V donk bet, generally it's a sign of weakness, and he made it pot sized bet, so with your gutshut you only have 4 outs if he had and A or a Q. he's giving you 2 to 1 and mathematically it's incorrect to call you should fold.
On the Turn when you hit a Ten, you have to check behind and hope that your hand will improve or if Villain is bluffing you have some showdown value.
Hope that my analysis could help you a litle bit, gl.

You decided to play from a good position, the button, a good hand, but you were unlucky at the river1

rastapapolos said:

First of all, this is a freeroll and you'll find players playing anyhow anyhand ... so let's assume it isn't and try to find where you missed it.
UTG limp can be tricky i see a lot of players limp with pocket AA or KK and hoping that they will get action behind and jaming after one raise, unless you have a read on Villain. So maybe a limp was better in my opinion with JTs (limp behind the limper) cause there was 2 players to act behind and one of them could squeeze with a big hand.
When flop comes and V donk bet, generally it's a sign of weakness, and he made it pot sized bet, so with your gutshut you only have 4 outs if he had and A or a Q. he's giving you 2 to 1 and mathematically it's incorrect to call you should fold.
On the Turn when you hit a Ten, you have to check behind and hope that your hand will improve or if Villain is bluffing you have some showdown value.
Hope that my analysis could help you a litle bit, gl.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I did figure out later that it was incorrect to call on the flop (mentioned in my wall of text under the hand history) - I just mixed up the odds with the ones for open-ended, and thought it was okay at the time.
Thanks for your input.
I think I was deliberating just limping, but then thought well, this hand is not the strongest, so maybe those guys wouldn't be as motivated to limp as well (which in that freeroll a lot of people do). Probably if I only limped though, V wouldn't try to be as aggressive and bet lighter or even check, so it makes sense.

Probably this opponent was a maniac. Not a good choice bluff against maniacs. You should bet value against them.

He made a donkeybetpot on flop and probably never would fold on turn and river.

These types of hands are hard to analyze since we know based on the results that the villain is one of those types and we know what I am talking about. In freerolls like these where everyone is limp calling I think you can actually just limp yourself depending on the players in the blinds. If they are not aggressive preflop then I think it is perfectly fine to just call and see a flop in position with the hand you have. If you do decide to raise I would go a little bigger than what you went to punish those limp callers who will be calling with any two cards but at least now you get more value from their bad calls.

On the flop when the villain leads pot I would think it is either air or an ace every time. Many people donk lead when they hit top pair which makes no sense to me but they do it anyway. Calling on the flop is fine since there is so much air in his range but once I call here I am not looking to get it in on the turn unless I hit something huge. I would be more inclined to check back the turn and let this guy bluff the river. Yes there are two spades but in game I would not be worried about it (turns out to be wrong) but I would be more worried about how I can get this guy to fire his stack off with nothing. I don't like the turn shove but it turned out to be the right move but with just bad luck.

Preflop
I love isolating limpers, but in this spot stack sizes are a major issue. The limper is one of those "big stack daddies", presumably a bad player who got lucky in some spots. And basically this mean, you probably have to go exceedingly large to make him fold anything, which for him was good enough to limp. A 2,5BB raise is certainly not getting him to fold anything, and in fact I am shocked, you did not pick up someone from the blinds as well.

For that reason I want to only raise hands, I am happy to stack off on most flops. A hand like JTs on the other hand is perfect to limp behind and play a small pot with position on everyone. This also keep you away from getting pot committed very easily, which is good from an ICM perspective. So while I often advocate preflop aggression, this spot is one of the few exceptions, where I think, a more passive line would have been better.

Flop
He donk bets for the size of the pot, which does look a bit wild and try hard. But on the other hand you have J high with nothing going on other than a naked gutshot. There is even a flushdraw on board, which mean, you only have 3 clean outs. So for me this is a pretty easy fold.

Turn
Whenever we bet, it mainly has to be either as a bluff or for value. So the first thing, you need to ask here, is, what a bet would realistically accomplish? I dont think, someone like this is ever going to fold a better hand in a spot like this, so I am not excited about trying to bluff him. And while he might call with some draws, you are hardly ahead of his entire calling range, so this is not a good jam for value either. Checking behind is therefore the best decision.

River
Assuming you had checked behind on the turn, he would likely have put in a big bet now, and for me this would have been another easy fold.

fundiver199 said:

Preflop
I love isolating limpers, but in this spot stack sizes are a major issue. The limper is one of those "big stack daddies", presumably a bad player who got lucky in some spots. And basically this mean, you probably have to go exceedingly large to make him fold anything, which for him was good enough to limp. A 2,5BB raise is certainly not getting him to fold anything, and in fact I am shocked, you did not pick up someone from the blinds as well.

For that reason I want to only raise hands, I am happy to stack off on most flops. A hand like JTs on the other hand is perfect to limp behind and play a small pot with position on everyone. This also keep you away from getting pot committed very easily, which is good from an ICM perspective. So while I often advocate preflop aggression, this spot is one of the few exceptions, where I think, a more passive line would have been better.

Click to expand...

Yeah. I certainly didn't pay attention to the stack size there I think. I was just going with a standard raise because in that freeroll it was often enough to get limpers to fold their nothing. I figured I didn't want to throw the hand away, and thought raising standard 2.5 will scare enough people away for my hand to still be playable.
I see how it would've worked out better if I just limped - perhaps there would be a couple more people with air, but then this guy would probably just run away after the first tiny bet from someone. Yeah, that freeroll is pretty extreme - either people are running away from tiny raises or just shoving left and right.

Assuming a 3-4 ways limped pot you would have had an even easier fold on the flop to significant action ahead of you losing only a single blind. Alternatively flop would have checked through, and you could then easily have gotten away on the river while still only losing a small portion of your chips.

I'm ok with the open here - even on a shallow stack but our sizing has to be larger with one limper in front. Minimum 3.5x - when we go 2.5 we give the limper and BB incredible odds to see the flop with the extra dead money in there. That said i also think over limping is very viable here as well and keeps our losses down to a minimum.

Our first big mistake here is on the flop we call a pot sized bet - which is 1/4 our remaining stack - for a bare gunshot...we have no spade draw, and when most opponents donk out here, its generally a pair rather than a bad flush draw so this is big mistake number 1. I generally don't pursue gutshot draws for bets over half pot. We simply don't get proper odds to realize our equity and see turns.

Mistake number two is definitely shoving turn...what are we doing this for? Are you value betting or bluffing? If you are value betting, what hands that are worse are calling you off? Just a bad play here on the turn that we shouldn't even be seeing. So when we find ourselves here and we actually pick up a pair, we should check back and try to get to showdown cheaply - when villan bets the river we should be folding when we don't improve because its so unlikely for our villan to be bluffing in this case. The fold allows us to minimize damage from a poorly played spot and we live to fight another day rather than stacking off in a spot where we are going to be beaten the majority of the time.

Don't get hung up on being results oriented and thinking you made the right moves simply because this time you happened to have the best hand - that will cloud good thought processes and more often than not in this spot, you are going to be beaten. Freerolls are great to help us build a roll from nothing and establish good fundamental play - BUT we must also be weary of picking up bad habits that you do not want in real money games. They will cost you in the long run.

Jon Poker said:

I'm ok with the open here - even on a shallow stack but our sizing has to be larger with one limper in front. Minimum 3.5x - when we go 2.5 we give the limper and BB incredible odds to see the flop with the extra dead money in there. That said i also think over limping is very viable here as well and keeps our losses down to a minimum.

Our first big mistake here is on the flop we call a pot sized bet - which is 1/4 our remaining stack - for a bare gunshot...we have no spade draw, and when most opponents donk out here, its generally a pair rather than a bad flush draw so this is big mistake number 1. I generally don't pursue gutshot draws for bets over half pot. We simply don't get proper odds to realize our equity and see turns.

Mistake number two is definitely shoving turn...what are we doing this for? Are you value betting or bluffing? If you are value betting, what hands that are worse are calling you off? Just a bad play here on the turn that we shouldn't even be seeing. So when we find ourselves here and we actually pick up a pair, we should check back and try to get to showdown cheaply - when villan bets the river we should be folding when we don't improve because its so unlikely for our villan to be bluffing in this case. The fold allows us to minimize damage from a poorly played spot and we live to fight another day rather than stacking off in a spot where we are going to be beaten the majority of the time.

Don't get hung up on being results oriented and thinking you made the right moves simply because this time you happened to have the best hand - that will cloud good thought processes and more often than not in this spot, you are going to be beaten. Freerolls are great to help us build a roll from nothing and establish good fundamental play - BUT we must also be weary of picking up bad habits that you do not want in real money games. They will cost you in the long run.

Click to expand...

Thank you. Yes, the flop was the obvious mistake, like I wrote before, I think I just mixed up the outs odds and thought they were better than I thought. Being more careful now!
Yeah, I read somewhere here before about picking up bad habits from freerolls, and definitely keeping that in mind - just focusing on practicing calculating pot odds, thinking through opponents' ranges, trying to observe patterns, etc.

Stop trying to overcomplicate things for yourself when you are still making basic mistakes.

Your bet sizing is a bigger error than most would think - so we need to sew up problems like that and have a solid gameplan laid out that we stick to all tournament.

Secondly, instead of trying to calculate odds and making some mistakes - just go with a few known odds rules - we need a bet of 1/2 pot or less to realize gutshot draw equity on a flop :: we need to get 15:1 on our money to set mine - and so on. Studying ranges is good - but not thinking about relative hand strength or effective stack sizing is so much worse...ranges are no good if we are not playing properly to begin with. In the micro stakes - there are not a ton of real patterns, so idk what there is to observe.

I just believe you are over thinking your game right now - and trying to add lots of good aspects to it without having the necessary basis to do such a thing.

To build a strong house that will last a lifetime, we must first lay a good, solid, strong foundation - otherwise it cannot stand.

I hope you find this useful.