$Freeroll NLHE MTT: ATo bluff and 88 postflop vs short

[b1ackb0ne]

Hello. Can someone help with analysis for this hands:
https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3vM0e
Was it a good bluff?

https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3D7mQ
Should I put more pressure on short stack?

 

[ssbn743]

Hello. Can someone help with analysis for this hands:
https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3vM0e
Was it a good bluff?

https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3D7mQ
Should I put more pressure on short stack?

Hand 1

Pre
I just paused the re-player at your open to $330 pre-flop

I don’t like this open – this should simply be an open-fold:
1. It’s pretty light from this position – really looking AJo+ here
a. Now ATo, or AJo, is splitting hairs – but see next bullet
2. There are two stacks, 7BB or less that can re-shove on you here
a. Their possible shoves put you in a very, very bad spot a great deal of the time
3. Why are we opening to 2.25x here? With so many short stacks, any open should be a min-click IMO

Flop
We absolutely need to C-Bet this flop as played. I’d suggest $1K-ish C-bet, and I think you’re going to take this down more than often enough to be profitable.

Turn
The delayed C-bet here is not as strong as it seems. Additionally, the sizing is way too small. Betting on here, on any street, needs to ½ pot at a minimum. In fact, I’d be ok with a .5/pot here simply because of the brick turn. Still, I prefer 2/3-ish here.

If I were in the SB or BB here (and I can’t really think of a hand I would be with) I’d be raising this turn bet probably nearly 100% of the time.

This is a standard case on stab-itis. There are few hands you play as such, maybe KTs(non-club), 9Ts, 88 – everything else is air.

On another note – the SB is an absolute donk.

River
As played, I’m not against the bluff – you really have no choice at that point other than to shut-down and let him scoop it. However, the sizing isn’t very good IMO.

Now, when bluffing, it’s a constant exercise of risk:reward, so smaller bet sizes can be just fine if villain calls more often that he probably should. But this is player read type stuff – again, I vastly prefer 2/3 pot here unless we have a reason to try something smaller like the $900.

And honestly, as played, I think check/fold is the best line (Just based on the 3 streets I’ve seen, the SB is a bad player, and we never want to bluff a bad player). We have not played this hand well from the start, let’s just cut and run.

Recap
- Based on all the shorties, and I mean mega-shorties, I thing open-fold is the best line here
- If, if we choose to open from some reason, we need to fire flop
- We need to fire turn as well, the brick changes nothing, so continue with the same action we used pre-flop
- Probably just shut down if we make it this far, or use a much bigger bet-size here – In fact, a river shove would be super-polarizing – but it comes as the risk of getting busted by donk-tastic in the SB.


Hand 2

Pre
Interesting spot. We have a donk limp-open with 3BB back, 88 in the CO and another 10-ishBB stack in the SB, and too other players that have us covered – Hmmm – good stuff.


Ok, well, we can’t allow a 4BB stack to limp, especially when we have position on him – so we really don’t have a plethora of options here.
1. I think you need to decide right now if you’re playing for the SB’s stack or not – we already know we’re playing for the donks’ stack
a. I don’t see a reason not to play for the SB’s either, so it’d be strictly player specific if not, and would be a fold if not
2. Then, I can get behind 2 different lines
a. Min-click with full intentions of calling off versus SB (comes at the risk of allowing BTN or BB in, and the BB
almost certainly has to call a min-click)
b. Or, raise to something like $1,400 here with our 20BB stack

I think I prefer 2B, but I can get behind 2A if that’s what you want to do.

We absolutely can never do what you did and overcall 88 here. The limper only has 3BB’s back, this is not a profitable set-mine scenario and that’s what you’ve turned your hand into. Now, what do we do if the flop comes out K94 and he jams 3BB’s? We can never overcall here. The 5/10 rule helps us with set-mine scenarios, or really any speculative type hand scenario.

If you want to check out the basics of the 5/10 rule:
https://www.tournamentterminator.co...er-mathematics/effective-stacks-rule-of-5-10/

This is just a quick article I googled real quick, there are much deeper articles on the 5/10 subject.

Flop
Not the greatest flop, however, not the worst either – and somehow we end up HU with the donk. So, at this point, it doesn’t matter, we’ve already consigned ourselves to playing for his 4BB stack.

So, if you want to call flop here – fine, but we really shouldn’t be here.

Turn
I mean…..I guess we can fold…although I’m not good enough to do so I can tell you right now. As played, we are probably beat, but it’s 2.5BB’s for 8BB’s.

Tough spot, but for 2BB’s? Feels like we have to look this donk up – and probably double him up, but with anyone that will open limp a 4BB stack, I don’t mind giving him a few chips to play with.

And….and we could have just committed them pre-flop, which, I think, is by far the superior play, and we should be doing so with our entire range here.

 

[fundiver199]

In the first hand I am just checking down with intention to fold to any kind of pressure. 4 people saw the flop, and you dont even have any kind of equity other than your overcard. Especially multiway you dont need to fight for every single pot, just because you were the preflop raiser.

In the second hand I am simply shipping all my chips in the middle. 88 play poorly multiway with these stack sizes, so I really want to isolate the limper and hopefully knock everyone else out of the pot. If someone behind wakes up with a hand, it just is, what it is.

 

[ssbn743]

In the first hand I am just checking down with intention to fold to any kind of pressure. 4 people saw the flop, and you dont even have any kind of equity other than your overcard. Especially multiway you dont need to fight for every single pot, just because you were the preflop raiser.

Well, this is fine thinking and I’m actually ok with it here, in these low-limit deal-o’s. However, we have to keep in mind that we need to make sure and balance. By that I mean, we have an equal amount of value hands and air.

First, as I said here, I think we should simply fold pre-flop.

However, if we did open, we have to fire flop and probably turn – we have air here it’s true, but we also have all the big Kings in our range. Sure the donk callers may show up with some random Kings from time to time, but we’re the only range with AK (I think anyway – although you never know for sure in these donk shows).

So, I think this is a fold pre, or a 2-barrell bluff if we choose to open. Simply checking down after we open does not balance our range at all. If we’re worried about going multi-way (and we should be) we should simply be folding pre-flop here.

In the second hand I am simply shipping all my chips in the middle. 88 play poorly multiway with these stack sizes, so I really want to isolate the limper and hopefully knock everyone else out of the pot. If someone behind wakes up with a hand, it just is, what it is.

I’m not 100% against this thought either, however, we do have 20BB’s, which is more than enough to make a run. By jamming here, we allow all villains to play optimally against us – they can simply fold all but they’re strongest hands. Meaning we win 4BB’s from the donk, or go busto.

Change our stack to a 15BB stack and jam is by far the best line, but 20BB’s – 3.5x should accomplish our goal of isolating to the donk a large percentage of the time. If we get jammed on we can simply fold, and if we get called we can simply play poker and see what happens.

This hand is interesting because it’s a perfect example of letting meaningless action change the way we play our hand. What I mean is – if the action folded to us with 20BB and 88 in the CO – do we open limp? I hope the answer is no. Do we fold? I hope the answer is no. We would 2.25x every time - so why do we let an open limp from a meaningless stack change that?

Bottom line – I think jamming 20BB’s is sub-optimal, although probably still +EV. But the optimal line here is simply to play our hand like donk-tastic isn’t even there.

 

[fundiver199]

I think, it is very suboptimal to worry about balance in a freerool. These guys are not even paying attention to, what we are doing, and if they have anything, they are unable to fold it. So there is zero need to prove to them, we can have bluffs in a 4-way pot. They are going to pay us anyway, when we have value.

The second hand with 88 kind of suck. The presence of the limper does change things, because he is rarely going to limp-fold, and stack sizes are just awkward for any line. But I guess, we can also put him all in for his 4BB, and then make a decision, if someone behind come over the top.

 

[ssbn743]

I think, it is very suboptimal to worry about balance in a freerool. These guys are not even paying attention to, what we are doing, and if they have anything, they are unable to fold it. So there is zero need to prove to them, we can have bluffs in a 4-way pot. They are going to pay us anyway, when we have value.

The second hand with 88 kind of suck. The presence of the limper does change things, because he is rarely going to limp-fold, and stack sizes are just awkward for any line. But I guess, we can also put him all in for his 4BB, and then make a decision, if someone behind come over the top.

I don’t think it’s ever sub-optimal to practice playing like you would at the ME final table. I understand it’s a freeroll and it may be moot, and I am most certainly on-board with tightening down all of our ranges with opponents that play too many hands and can’t fold – but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive to balance the smaller ranges we’ve settled on.

“Keep your elbows off the table – you never know when you might be having dinner at the White House!”

 

[Vilgeoforc]

1 hand. It's a bad bluff on the turn. It's a bad bluff on the river. If you had to bluff, it was on the flop. Given that this is a freeroll, I did not do a continuation bet on the flop. There are a lot of draws on the board, we are out of position and we have to make three players spool. I'd play a check on the flop, like you did and a check fold on the turn.
2 hand. Minraise pre-flop isolated the players in the blinds, though I'm not sure about that. But with luck, you'd be spared that headache on the flop. You would have forced the villain to put the rest of the stack and everything would have been decided. On the flop here you already have to make a decision based on the villain's limp spectrum. I think that there are a lot of aces in it, and broadway cards too. He's got a lot of outs. I'd fold on the flop.

 

[alienat3d]

Hello. Can someone help with analysis for this hands:
https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3vM0e

Was it a good bluff?

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I think, it wasn't. There are better spots and hands to bluff with. Basically you're telling a story you hit 9 at 4handed action. Which is statistically a weak hand. And another problem is that even a weak King from early 2 positions BB & SB would probably call us, as they think we have something like 9 or Tens or Jacks or Queens or Flush Draw. Another problem is that there is still one player behind to act, who can re-raise us. So at HU is okay, but at 4handed action way too risky, IMHO.

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https://upswingpoker.com/hand/?pokeit=124m3D7mQ
Should I put more pressure on short stack?

I would re-raise about x4 pre-flop with 88, because nobody showed strength yet. And it was actually such a good flop for a pair, so I would continue aggression on flop as well. I think it's a better way to do, until you have any reads.