A beginners hand; $10NL, AA UTG+1

[NineLions]

I don't know why, but this seems to me a good beginners hand. I think I played it fine, although I'm definitely open to critiques. This was my first 3 tabling one site session in some months, which is the reason for the short stack; I haven't rebuild my comfort level yet so I buy in 60% until I get a couple sessions in.


Stacks: - MP2 with $13.70 - MP3 with $13.05 - CO with $7.40 - BTN with $5.15 - SB with $4.20 - BB with $9.00 - UTG with $4.25 - UTG+1 with $5.80 - MP1 with $9.80

Blinds: $0.00/$0.00
Site: pokerstars
* - Dealt to UTG+1:A♥ A♣
* - Sklansky group 1
Preflop:
**- 1 players fold.
* - UTG+1 raises $0.30 to $0.40

Standard raise when no limpers in, no matter what the hand/position

**- 2 players fold.
* - MP3 calls [$0.40]
* - 4 players folded.
* - Total folds this street: 7
* - Potsize: $0.95
Flop:
* - Q♣ K♦ 4♦
* - UTG+1 bets [$0.60]

Standard flop bet, although I rounded down. Could have bet a smidge more. The only time I bet differently is to bet more to get value from a calling station or maybe less to try to entice a tight/weak player, but then not on a draw-y flop like this. I had only played one orbit and had no read at this point. I'm mostly worried about KQ; most KK and QQ would/should reraise preflop, plus they're statistically less likely. I want straight draws/flush draws to be making a mistake to call so I have to bet. Even if I'm concerned about KQ, checking and letting a draw have a free card would be a mistake.

* - MP3 raises $1.40 to $2

What does his decent sized reraise mean? What's my move?

Poker Hand Converter By Cardschat.com Poker Forum

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

With deeper stacks and reads we could find a case for 3bet-folding here, but given your stack the only option is to shove. Against an unknown at $10NL the flop raise could mean anything - 44, ~KJ-KT, draws, even ~QJ-QT type hands with the occasional random bluff are more likely than KK-QQ/KQ.

We have a short stack, we're ahead of villain's range, he's calling with a lot of his range (seriously given the fact it's $10NL and you're short villain may even wind up calling with QT or something), so we shove.

 

[Cheetah]

Spank, spank spank.


What is your thiking?

gambling with the idi0ts?

 

[tenbob]

Looking at the board texture this really isnt all that easy of a decision. Villian likely has KQ, 44, KJ, J10, a flush draw or hand like AK. Calling and seeing what he does on the turn isnt really that big of an option considering stack sizes. PT stats would be a great help here.

I could be convinced either way, but given that your short, I think i shove. Given the extra little big you gain against the drawing hands i think you can play here.

FYI this is much more than a beginners hand.

 

[switch0723]

Im insta shoving here, we cant flat call since we are out of position and showing weakness. Id say they realistacally have a,k, a,q maybe, a,j, maybe even a,t, k,q, k,j, k,t, j,t pock 4's or any 2 diamonds. Based on these possibilities, im insta shoving since we still have 15% (although not much its still there) to beat pock 4's and we will likely have 8 outs to beat k,q on river. We beat everything else so im insta shoving, getting called be a,k then fist pumping

 

[NineLions]

Heh, something, and I'm still not sure what, makes me associate this hand with beginners. It has something to do with it being $10NL, but maybe because of instructional value rather than simplicity?

Anyway, I was surprised to see DM and TB responding; I was hoping to get more beginner's offering ideas/thinking, but maybe TB's right; it's not a beginner's hand in terms of simplicity anyways.


Switch, I don't follow where we're showing weakness, or are you a flop-pot bettor as a standard c-bet? One of the aspects of this hand is that we are OOP. In position we have the opportunity to 3 bet preflop or be the re-raiser on the flop, but OOP we represented a hand preflop, on the flop we made a bet at the flop. He's said he has something worth seeing the flop with his preflop call, and on the flop he's either testing, semibluffing, or representing that his hand caught the flop. It's the strongest statement so far, but at this point I don't think we've had much opportunity to represent a big hand.


edit: I think I misread, Switch. I think you're talking about calling his raise as being weak whereas I read that we had represented ourselves as weak already. But, it gave me the opportunity to point out that we haven't been able to represent a big hand yet.

 

[switch0723]

edit: I think I misread, Switch. I think you're talking about calling his raise as being weak

Yep this is exactly what i meant since if you call here, your probably not going to like any turn card since even an ace completes j,t. Therefore by flat calling we are likely to be checking the turn. Thats what i was trying to mean by looking weak as that opens the door for worse hands than ours to steal

 

[WinPokerToday]

NineLions I'm only new to this forum, but consider myself a reasonably good player, at higher limits.

You seem like you have quite a good understanding of poker, why are you playing at such low limits? I don't think there is much analysis being done by many players at that level (apart from the minority, of which you're obviously one of)

 

[zachvac]

Well I agree it's a shove. What did you mean by beginner's hand? Most beginngers would push because they have AA and they can't fold it, even if the board were 4 cards in a row of the same suit.

 

[NineLions]

NineLions I'm only new to this forum, but consider myself a reasonably good player, at higher limits.

You seem like you have quite a good understanding of poker, why are you playing at such low limits? I don't think there is much analysis being done by many players at that level (apart from the minority, of which you're obviously one of)

Thanks for the vote.

bankroll management, plus for the past while I haven't focussed my playing. On 3 sites I have little money so I only play cheap tables, while on Stars where I have some money I haven't played much there at all since summer.

 

[NineLions]

Well I agree it's a shove. What did you mean by beginner's hand? Most beginngers would push because they have AA and they can't fold it, even if the board were 4 cards in a row of the same suit.

I'm still trying to clarify that for myself.

I think probably that it should be "An instructional hand for beginners" or something. As you say, most can't fold AA, or QQ/KK/AK/AQ/JJ/TT for that matter.


I wanted to point out my betting and the reasoning behind it; standard preflop bet in spite of a big hand, bet at the flop even though it's scary because of the draws and being OOP, things a beginner might not consider.

 

[NineLions]

As it turned out, ....

I shoved.

There were hands I was afraid of. Since neither of us had reads on each other, but it is $10NL, there is a fair range of hands that either of us might have had.

But if I was ahead and he was drawing and semibluffing, I didn't want him to draw cheaply. With a full stack, reraising would have been an option, but with my shortish stack, shoving was necessary given the pot size.

The rest of the cards came JJ I think, not helping either of us.

He had AK, reraising my flop bet to show that he had a hand and to challenge me if I had missed or was drawing myself.


I'm not fond of his preflop flat call myself; I would have raised with AK, but it's not terrible. I think his call of my shove is questionable because this is the first time I had an opportunity to show that I had anything more than a standard decent hand, so KK/QQ/AA are more in my range than his.

On the other hand, it's tough to fold AK on a KQ draw-y flop at $10NL against an unknown who buys in shortish.

 

[zachvac]

I'm playing this hand exactly as villain does if I'm in his position. I may have re-raised preflop, but I mix in calls with AK as well, if I hit the flop the only thing I need to worry about is AA or a set, neither of which I'm pricing out with a re-raise, and sometimes I face another re-raise, and I don't want to get committed with AK. If I hit the flop (as he did), I pretty much assume I have the best hand. If you had more chips in front of you, he could have gotten away from it, but when you're shortstacked like that, and with the drawy board, there's no way he can get away from TPTK, especially at $10NL, where all the way down to K8 is likely to shove this, along with sometimes even just a bare flush draw. Very similar hand the other day at $10NL only I had AA, villain got all his money in wih 27 with no pair, just a flush draw and ended up hitting it. If he knew you to be a solid player, he MIGHT have been able to get away from it, but you did expose the one downside to not re-raising AK PF and that's not being able to narrow down the range of opponent's hands. Either way, think you both played the hand fine, you're stacking villain 99% of the time here because most of the players just see TPTK and push it all in, and even the ones who stop to think about the hand still probably can't get away from it.

 

[SteelCtyVitt]

very good hand to look at actually.... need more hard laydowns / calls to be posted on this site I think