$Freeroll NLHE MTT: Interested in your opinions here

T

tzuriel

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I think I played this correctly.

Early in a freeroll at a fairly tight table so I am okay with this drawing hand in the LoJack. UTG limps and after 2 folds, I raise to 3.5BB fairly confident no one is going to 3bet here. I would have liked another caller besides the UTG player, but okay.

I flop middle pair and UTG donk bets full pot. I am not going anywhere even though he probably has an A. I have middle pair and backdoor possibilities. Pot was now big enough that I thought it made sense. Right or wrong?

Turn gives me 2pair and he bets about 3/4 pot. I shove and he calls. River is a brick and I pick up a nice pot.

What do you think?

Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem $0+$0 (30.00BB)
MP1 ($1500)
HERO ($1425)
HJ ($1545)
CO ($1485)
BTN ($810)
SB ($2235)
BB ($1500)
UTG ($1500)

Dealt to Hero: T J

UTG Calls $30, EP Folds, MP1 Folds, HERO Raises To $105, HJ Folds, CO Folds, BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Folds, UTG Calls $75

Hero SPR on Flop: [5.18 effective]
Flop ($255): J 9 A
UTG Bets $255 (Rem. Stack: $1140), HERO Calls $255 (Rem. Stack: $1065)

Turn ($765): J 9 A T
UTG Bets $574 (Rem. Stack: $566), HERO Raises To $1065 (allin), UTG Calls $491 (Rem. Stack: $75)

River ($2895): J 9 A T 5

UTG shows: 6 A

HERO wins: $2895
 
F

fundiver199

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Preflop
With 5 players left to act behind you, JTo is a fold. JTs would be an open, but you need to avoid these bad offsuit hands from early and mid position. The fact, someone has limped, makes it even more of a fold.

Flop
When he bet full pot, you are not getting a good price to call with second pair. Your outs are also not particularly clean, since a T will put straights on the board, so you are mainly looking to hit a J. Reads are somewhat important here, but unless you have seen this guy do a lot of wild bluffing, then I prefer to just let him have this one.

Turn
You did improve, and if you continued on the flop, you obviously cant fold now. There is also no point in just calling with so little left behind, so as played get it in and role the dice.

Results
You got pretty lucky in this hand, but I dont think, it was played particularly well. Preflop was a fairly clear fold, and I also prefer folding on the flop without reads.
 
T

tzuriel

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Gee. I thought I made the right decisions considering the players at the table. Everyone was really tight and I thought I should loosen up slightly.
 
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fundiver199

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I mean.... its not the worst open in the world but still. And what does it mean, that "everyone was really tight". In a freeroll? Personally I have never seen that happen. Just be carefull you are not looking for excuses to play hands, because you feel bored ;)

The more important part of this hand is the flop though. When he bet full pot, you need 34% equity to continue based on raw pot odds. Do you have 34% with second pair? People love to limp-call crappy AX, and he can have some two pair and sets as well. So as I said already, I think, this is kind of optimistic.

You also need to factor in, that when he bet this large, he is probably going to do something similar on the turn, and then you cant continue, unless you improved. So you might be paying full pot to see only one card. In fairness you are ahead of bluffs, which makes this different from calling with a draw. But on the other side your implied odds are not the best, as I already mentioned.
 
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tzuriel

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Your insights are always appreciated. Most of the time you are correct that in the freerolls it's crazytown. This particular table had been pretty tight and I thought my timing was right. You are right, of course, that I was optimistic on the flop. This time it worked out but I don't expect to get lucky like this very often!
 
jaworek1405

jaworek1405

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Hello, I agree with fundiver that jto it is fold pre flop. As played - in freeroll tournament with second pair we can call one time bet, to see what opponent will on the turn card. On the flop he can bluff you, top pair is possible, but not always. The turn card is good card for us, we two pair in freeroll tournament I don't see any escape. If the turn card isn't good for us and opponent bet, we should fold second pair, because he represent Ace. This time you win this hand, but you should be carefull in the future. GL :)
 
Jon Poker

Jon Poker

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Alot of good points already made in this hand example. I also agree with the fold pre flop with JTo - we only want to widen ranges when we feel like we have the edge post flop and can outplay our opponents - that said, there is a difference between thinking we have an edge and KNOWING we have an edge - your pt4 should tell you how well you are playing overall and post flop. Secondly, we are talking about the table being fairly tight - and our villan is limp/calling and then stacking off UTG with A6o - so I think our perception is a bit off here.

Anyhow, what it comes down to is just play good solid poker - its a freeroll, these guys will give you their $$ if you are patient enough to pick the right spots to get it. Villan could be limping with allllll the better Jx and better Tx than us and certainly limping with a ton of Ax. What I'm eluding to here is that if he's limping KJ or QJ and we flop top pair with our J - then we are going to lose alot of chips when we don't need to because we shouldn't have even been in the hand. The same almost occurred with us anyhow - I DO think I am calling the pot sized donk bet, its hard to make a pair in holdem and it's easy for me to fold turns to a second bet if I do not improve my hand. Once I hit 2 pair, I am going broke still expecting to lose a decent amount of the time. Even in freerolls there aren't a ton of full pot donk bets with a single pair holding.

Anyhow, I like the idea of the iso raise and I like the sizing you chose, I just think we have better hands to do this with. Focus on playing good solid poker rather than trying to exploit your table tendencies. Doing this will make us much more money long term, especially in freerolls. Once we are certain we have a good solid winning BB/100 edge in our fields, we can start to exploit much more and deviate a little from conventional strategy.
 
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