Twice today

[TheRifle]

Twice today in freerolls, I feel that I have been unlucky - does happen I guess. The two hands were similar so I will only quote one. This is a freeroll rebuy, I have shown QQ and AK only so far during the tournament, each time betting about 4BB and showing the cards when everyone folded.

About half an hour in, I am in mid-position and have QQ. Everyone folds till me, I bet 4BBs (120 out of 1400 chipstack) Everyone folds up to big blind, an erratic player with about 1100 chips, who calls. The flop is Jh 5s 9h. I bet 360, thinking I am probably in front. BB raises to 720 and I move all-in, he calls. Turn 5d; river 6c. He turns over 5h Kh and I lose.

I have limited experience but I don't think he was correct in calling pre-flop and certainly he was bold re-raising on a draw plus low pair. My main question is could I expect the same sort of play in say a 30$ STT or MTT? If not, at about what level of buy-ins, do the majority of players stop playing like this?

Please feel free to criticise, analyze, commiserate or even try to answer my question...

Thanks,

 

[alan1983]

Actually he was a 51% favourite to win after flop.

Any heart (9), any 5(2) and any king (3) wins him the hand. Thats 14 outs.

Add to that the chance that you could have missed flop with say AQ and AK.

Id re-raise if i was him too, specially when im short stacked. Since hes 51% favourite the least he could do is call, and since its 360 and he has 1100, its the right move imo for him to go all-in.

 

[TheRifle]

Sort of agree with you after the flop although 51% favourite is not something to write home about, and in my opinion if the blinds are at 30, I would be tempted to call hoping for a heart, in the knowledge that I wasn't betting my tourney against someone drawing to fullhouse or higher flush.

My real query is was he right to call my "big" raise pre-flop with Kh 5h? In televised tourneys, hands like Q7o are thrown unless a player has to make a move because he's short stacked. Personally, even in freerolls in the big blinds, I am folding these type of hands against big bets. Would you see players calling 4BB with hands like K5s or Q7o when the buy-ins are much higher? Is there a cut-off at which these pre-flop calls are not made?

 

[alan1983]

51% is 2% more than what you had

Theres no such thing as right or wrong imo

Is it a profitable move to call all the time with k5s? no its not.

But everyone will mix up their play.

Maybe not early in a tourney since they dont think its worth sacrificin their chips at that point, but a lot of ppl will for example call you with 76 suited sometimes, and outflop you.

If you think youre going to only get called by AA and KK, then its never like that.

 

[reglardave]

As you described it, I'd have called you in a heartbeat post flop. Not sure I'd have stayed in preflop, but, hey, every situation is different.

 

[DrJ]

I don't know that you're ever going to get away from people playing these hands entirely. Some play them to vary their play, some play them because they believe they can steal your money when you miss flops and just generally outplay you post flop.

And when you're advertising that you're only playing top cards, and then actually are only playing top cards, you do become easier to outplay postflop....

I wouldn't have played it the way that he did post flop either, but I think some players might. AK and AQ are in your possible holdings and the only holding there that he's not well ahead of is AQh. AA, KK he's got a decent shot, probably about 40%. JJ he's hurting some, but still has about a 1 in 3 shot. QQ and TT, he's about 51% on. Overall, he has pretty good equity against your range of holdings. Even if extends the range down to KJ - he's doing well against AJ, probaly a little under 50%, KJ he's at about 40%, and he blows KQ out of the water.

He'll have a shot (a good shot) if you have a high pair, and he's crushing you if you're playing something like AK and AQ.

So, his thinking goes like this: I have a shot against everything in that range, so I'm going to be willing to play this hand down if it comes to it. If person is playing AK or AQ, they're likely to fold if I bet. That sucks. Let me try and extract a little something out of those cards by checking and allowing them to make a continuation, which I will of course raise. If the person happens to have one of the trouble hands, I still have a good shot at winning this thing.

Not sure I'd play it this way, and I seriously doubt someone playing in a freeroll was going through this though process, but that's a way to logically justify this play... And I would guess that some of the people playing at higher levels are thinking this way.

 

[TheRifle]

Thanks for the reply and analysis. I agree that he had lots of outs post-flop and I think my betting was OK then given that he was prepared to re-raise and bet his tourney on making an out. As for advertising, I will bear this in mind in future although given the quality of the opponent here (finished 600+ in this tourney and doesn't feature in the databases) I don't think he was probably even thinking about outplaying me.

As this is early on in a freeroll. I think I have basically two ways to go in future as people like this guy are not respecting 4BB raises. Firstly, I can go all-in pre-flop with a hand like QQ - in this case it was a 71% favourite - or secondly simply call. In the second case, I have to be prepared to act sensibly if either a K or A appear on the flop, or if the flop allows people to draw to a straight or flush. This is pretty much counter to what I have read in most books but used to be the way I played PPs up to and including QQ. But the way I bet the hand pre-flop and my opinion of my opponent, meant that I was pot-committed after the flop except if the flop paired or had an A or K. I would be interested to see what would have happened if I had simply checked the flop - the 5 on the turn would certainly have set alarms ringing - and I may have walked away only losing 160+100(if he had bet the flop).

I guess I will have to wait until my BR increases enough to see if these type of hands are played at higher buy-ins.

 

[DrJ]

Thanks for the reply and analysis. I agree that he had lots of outs post-flop and I think my betting was OK then given that he was prepared to re-raise and bet his tourney on making an out. As for advertising, I will bear this in mind in future although given the quality of the opponent here (finished 600+ in this tourney and doesn't feature in the databases) I don't think he was probably even thinking about outplaying me.

As this is early on in a freeroll. I think I have basically two ways to go in future as people like this guy are not respecting 4BB raises. Firstly, I can go all-in pre-flop with a hand like QQ - in this case it was a 71% favourite - or secondly simply call. In the second case, I have to be prepared to act sensibly if either a K or A appear on the flop, or if the flop allows people to draw to a straight or flush. This is pretty much counter to what I have read in most books but used to be the way I played PPs up to and including QQ. But the way I bet the hand pre-flop and my opinion of my opponent, meant that I was pot-committed after the flop except if the flop paired or had an A or K. I would be interested to see what would have happened if I had simply checked the flop - the 5 on the turn would certainly have set alarms ringing - and I may have walked away only losing 160+100(if he had bet the flop).

I guess I will have to wait until my BR increases enough to see if these type of hands are played at higher buy-ins.

I'm pretty new myself, so I've wondered the same thing. I play in $1 - $5 MTT's, and while people are certainly tighter than a freeroll, there are more than enough extremely loose, non thinking players to go around.

The impression that I get is that you're going to find this at every level of online poker to some degree...

I wouldn't change the way you play QQ's as a result of these types of hands though. Even if you find that you're going to get called by a loose player, you've managed to isolate with your hand and give yourself very favorable odds. You call, you're inviting everyone after you to call by giving them better pot odds, and then you're going to have virtually no clue where you stand post flop.

I'd say that you played the hand fine, and them's the breaks. Just because you lose your chips doesn't mean you did the wrong thing. You had to bet that flop with a flush draw on the board, you had to call his raise unless you knew he had AA, KK, JJ, 99, or 55, none of which were all that likely given the betting sequence. If you were going to call the raise and be pot committed anyways, a push gives you at least SOME chance (remote given his raise, but there is still a chance) that he would fold and you aren't going to back down at this point to anything anyways.

You played it well.

 

[alan1983]

TheRifle you say he put his tourney on an out, and this is true but.

When you say 51% vx 49%, then its no longer as much of a "take a chance" thing as you think.

Your hand is made already but holdem isnt just hole cards and flop.

I think when you say youre 51% ahead, you have 2 treat that sometimes as a made hand, specially since when you take bets relative to stack sizes, he doesnt have the luxury of calling to see if he hits his draw.

Say you flop a straight flush draw. Youre 60% to win. Someone with top pair goes all-in. Are you gonna call or not? I would. My hand isnt made but im still a favourite over him. Get my point?

Secondly you said your opponent is erratic. So maybe on his blinds you couldve raised more. But it doesnt mean raising 4Xbb is a wrong move even in freerolls. You have to adapt.

I havent had much experience in high buyins but ive played a few 30$ tourneys and people call with all kinds of hands specially when theyre on the blinds.

 

[Irexes]

You are going to find donks at any level but they will drop off as you move up. Not to disparage freerolls at all, but you are going to find the ratio of players prepared to call yor preflop raise here far higher than at even a $5 buy-in.

Personally I think there is quite a change between the $22 and $33 level and another noticable change between $33 and $55. Anything less than $22 and it's going to be donkcentral a lot of the time. THat said there's also going to be some decent players wherever you are.

Trick is not to get discouraged and while you should adapt your game to suit your opposition don't let the donks lure you into their bad habits because they get lucky occassionally.

Stick to a solid game and it will pay off.

 

[Ronaldadio]

1st thing - I would not have called your pre flop raise.

Having said that, when he did, he did hit a decent flop.

If you think about it, u both went all in for the right reasons IMO, even if u guys did not realize.

1. It a freeroll
2. Some players are loose, so you have to accept a lot of players call with any sooted cards pre flop/ any connectors/ any pairs/ any Ace/ any 2 paint.
3. After the flop, u still have top pair.
4. The other guy had a pair and almost the nuts flush draw.

I would not eat yourself up. I have learnt not to concern myself about the way others play - K5s will not be a winning hand in the long term, so if he calls all of the time with that he will lose.

Good luck

 

[TheRifle]

alan1983, you hit a bit of a sore spot with:

Say you flop a straight flush draw. Youre 60% to win.

That was the other hand that bugged me today, don't really want to run thru all the details. But holding QsJs, flop 10s 9s Ad. Called all-in, beaten by Ks5s via a flush. Therefore not my day.

Irexes, hope to play at that level someday. (Very Off-topic: By the way with the PP 300K, did you qualify via the 3$,11$ or buy a ticket? - been tempted by the 3$ qualifier but it seems pretty mad with lots of re-buys,etc.)

Ronaldadio, I think when you have a few of these in quick succession, you do question what you are doing. I guess I have to accept its a freeroll and these things happen and just move on.

WITH THAT I'D LIKED TO CLOSE THIS THREAD if that's ok - i'm sure there will be another interesting hand soon...

Thanks again for all replies.

 

[Irexes]

Qualified for via the $11 rebuy. If you are prepared to spend a few buy-ins there's a lot of dead money, sure there's even more in the $3. Made it third time in a row for this Sunday

 

[SoCalCardPlayer]

I notice to see that most players risking $20 or more will tend to play more of a tight than loose game.The hand u reconstructed was an horible play on the other players part but thats what u have to expect from some games.Theres always gonna be thoose "idiots" that cant lay a hand down.Well let luck be on your side.