J
jasonv12
Enthusiast
Silver Level
I was at a final table 9-handed 500/1000 blinds. I get dealt 9/9 utg. I have 14 bbs, avg stack is 17-18 bbs putting me in 6/9 chip stack wise, not that that's very relevant.
Up until this point, I had been only double betting to enter pots (the 3 players behind me were so tight, that was enough for a normal blind steal), so if I varied from that I figured it would give off alarm bells to the type of hand I had. And because the players had been playing rather tight, especially right behind me, so I was by no means desperate in that regard.
I could have just folded, but the hand looked so pretty I would have felt I had missed a lot of important value.
I figure if I just open shove, I might as well have had a 2/9 off since the only hands that might call that don't already have me crushed are flipping like AK, AQ, etc., but more likely bigger pairs.
If I deviate from double betting, I'm afraid I'll be raised out of the pot by a certain player who I felt was capable of doing so with complete air knowing my typical range in a spot like that, of course I could call that raise too, but that still puts me in an awkward spot if he wakes up with a hand.
So finally, I decide to follow through with the route I had been following by double betting.
I find a caller in the cutoff and another in the big blind.
The flop was about as safe as it could be considering it had an over card. It was 10 uc uc (uc = under card).
My first train of thought is that most of the range these players were playing included 10, J, Q, K, and A (+A9 but with my 99 that's unlikely) with the higher end of this being more likely. Plus, I obviously don't hold any blockers to these 19 cards (the one 10 out), so I figure about 20% of the hands these guys were playing to be of danger to me immediately. With 2 players, closer to 36-37%.
I am out of position so I have to make a feel cbet in order to test my hand strength and to not allow over cards to get there (or hit the board in general). The problem is, such a bet would require me to bet out almost a third of my stack, at which point I'd be almost pot committed to a raise. I decide to bet out as conservative of a bet as isn't transparent, and the cutoff double bets me.
My notes on this play have me seeing him doing this same move with AK high before (with very different stack sizes tho) and my first train of thought is that he is likely doing this again and with 2/3 of my stack invested, I have to call at this point and of course, it was a J10s, that would have folded (or should have) to my all in, but I gave great odds to call preflop.
The leveling game I had with the player that I thought could raise a non-standard raise by me dictated a lot of my play that hand unfortunately and I feel I did play that hand rather poorly, but upon further review, I find that I don't even think I know the proper way I should have played this hand.
As of right now, I'm leaning towards open folding and just waiting for a betting spot without so many uncertainties, especially since 6% of hands beat me or are AK, AQ, AJ, or KQs and with 8 players behind me and two cards out from my hand, about 57% of the time, someone will have one of these hands behind me. But folding feels wrong too in the sense that I need to continue to chip up to go very much deeper (considering the risk for spots 1-3 where the most money is being worth more than the tiny increments or whatever until that point).
In any case, this hand was extremely challenging for me and I'd really like some advice if anyone has any on a better way I could have played it. Advice would be great.
Up until this point, I had been only double betting to enter pots (the 3 players behind me were so tight, that was enough for a normal blind steal), so if I varied from that I figured it would give off alarm bells to the type of hand I had. And because the players had been playing rather tight, especially right behind me, so I was by no means desperate in that regard.
I could have just folded, but the hand looked so pretty I would have felt I had missed a lot of important value.
I figure if I just open shove, I might as well have had a 2/9 off since the only hands that might call that don't already have me crushed are flipping like AK, AQ, etc., but more likely bigger pairs.
If I deviate from double betting, I'm afraid I'll be raised out of the pot by a certain player who I felt was capable of doing so with complete air knowing my typical range in a spot like that, of course I could call that raise too, but that still puts me in an awkward spot if he wakes up with a hand.
So finally, I decide to follow through with the route I had been following by double betting.
I find a caller in the cutoff and another in the big blind.
The flop was about as safe as it could be considering it had an over card. It was 10 uc uc (uc = under card).
My first train of thought is that most of the range these players were playing included 10, J, Q, K, and A (+A9 but with my 99 that's unlikely) with the higher end of this being more likely. Plus, I obviously don't hold any blockers to these 19 cards (the one 10 out), so I figure about 20% of the hands these guys were playing to be of danger to me immediately. With 2 players, closer to 36-37%.
I am out of position so I have to make a feel cbet in order to test my hand strength and to not allow over cards to get there (or hit the board in general). The problem is, such a bet would require me to bet out almost a third of my stack, at which point I'd be almost pot committed to a raise. I decide to bet out as conservative of a bet as isn't transparent, and the cutoff double bets me.
My notes on this play have me seeing him doing this same move with AK high before (with very different stack sizes tho) and my first train of thought is that he is likely doing this again and with 2/3 of my stack invested, I have to call at this point and of course, it was a J10s, that would have folded (or should have) to my all in, but I gave great odds to call preflop.
The leveling game I had with the player that I thought could raise a non-standard raise by me dictated a lot of my play that hand unfortunately and I feel I did play that hand rather poorly, but upon further review, I find that I don't even think I know the proper way I should have played this hand.
As of right now, I'm leaning towards open folding and just waiting for a betting spot without so many uncertainties, especially since 6% of hands beat me or are AK, AQ, AJ, or KQs and with 8 players behind me and two cards out from my hand, about 57% of the time, someone will have one of these hands behind me. But folding feels wrong too in the sense that I need to continue to chip up to go very much deeper (considering the risk for spots 1-3 where the most money is being worth more than the tiny increments or whatever until that point).
In any case, this hand was extremely challenging for me and I'd really like some advice if anyone has any on a better way I could have played it. Advice would be great.
