MATH, BBT and a Cash Game Hand
Well, it's another Monday, and that means it's time for another Mondays at the Hoy tournament on full tilt!
So tonight's MATH will be the first BBT tournament of the month of June, the last month of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments. Technically, the final regularly-scheduled BBT event will be Don's Big Game on Sunday, July 1, but you know what I mean. We are really headed into the home stretch here, although the good thing about the regular weekly tournaments is that basically anybody anywhere on the BBT leaderboard right now can still make a run with a couple of big wins this month. And, if you take a quick look at that BBT leaderboard you will notice some interesting things:
Looking at the top 5, you have to admit it's kinda interesting that Bayne and oossuuu, the only two players to have participated in all 27 of the BBT events so far, are also #1 and #2 in the current standings. Of the top 7 players in the current standings, all 7 of them have made the BBT points in at least 14 of the 27 tournaments so far.
Moving on to some individual players on the leaderboard, I also see that NewinNov has squeaked his way into the top 5 for the first time with a great performance last week. Waffles is still in 7th place thanks to his final table at Riverchasers last Thursday, despite going busto about a week ago in his full tilt account. jeciimd has slipped to 10th place, still in great position but starting to fall a bit as the weight of no BBT cashes is starting to be felt. It's amazing, really -- everyone in the top 55 spots on the BBT leaderboard has cashed at least once for some amount of money over the past two months' challenge, except for jec. Meanwhile, he has been in the top 10 all the way through the challenge. That is a very interesting statistic right there. And meanwhile, our current leader Bayne has been to a whopping 8 final tables during the challenge, blowing away the competition, the next closest of which is 6 final tables, shared by Iggy, Alan and DDionysus. Lastly, you may also notice that I have managed to inch my way up to 28th place after a chop-first and then a second place in consecutive Riverchasers events. Despite my consistent climb up the leaderboard over the past month or so, I still remain the lowest-ranked player of anyone who has played in more than 18 tournaments. So lame. Oh and lastly, I also see that 16 players, myself included, have already crossed the 20-tournaments-played plateau, meaning that the 16 of us have already automatically qualified for the big BBT freeroll coming up in about a month or so (exact date TBD), which again will be available to all those players who are in the top 50 on the BBT leaderboard or who have participated in at least 20 of the BBT events by the end of the challenge. From the looks of it another 3 or 4 players could reach the 20-events mark by the end of this week, between tonight's MATH and Wednesday's Mookie tournament. A Mookie which I will not be able to play in, btw, since I will be on a plane heading to a little place I like to call Las Fuggin Vegas. Awesome.
Btw, before I forget, did you all happen to see my edit from last Friday afternoon where I mentioned that Al found out that it was in fact the 12-year-old son of a Riverchasers guy who went and won that Riverchasers tournament last week, playing as "MysticJoe"? Yep, that's right. A 12-year-old won the last BBT blonkament. Is that rich or what? I love it.
Anyways, make sure to come out tonight for the latest MATH tournament, which again is on full tilt at 10pm ET, with a password as always of "hammer". Now, back to some poker.
This weekend, I got stacked at the cash tables. Repeatedly. Without mercy. It was so sick, I had to log in this morning just to review my hand histories and my screenshots just to make sure it was even real. I mean, playing cash games by definition is going to have swings. I've had several nights myself where I've swung from down two buyins to up 2 buyins over the span of just an hour or two. And at 2-4 nlh, that means from down $800 to up $800 or more in just a short part of one night. Not that those are huge numbers necessarily, but I only bring this up to illustrate that I understand there are swings, I know the swings and I have dealt with them regularly. But this weekend was just out of control, easily my worst weekend in a 5 weeks or so I've been playing cash games earnestly, and it really was just one of those weekends. Every time I raised, I got reraised. Every pocket pair, someone else ended up with a higher pocket pair. I flopped a set and got stacked by a higher flopped set (always a fun one, in the cash tables or otherwise). I flopped top two pairs and got stacked by a guy who called my flop bet with a shitty low pair and then managed to turn a set that I couldn't possibly have foreseen. And naturally, every bluff I tried, I got called or worse yet, raised. I even jumped up in limits like a donkey to try to chase my losses -- is that brilliant or what? -- and fucking two hands in, I made a miracle backdoor flush on the river, only to lose to a higher runnerrunner flush! That's when I knew it was time for me to stop for the night on Sunday. I mean it's one thing to lose with a low flush to a higher flush when the flush draw is on the flop. I still find that a very, very difficult hand to get away from -- a losing flush with no pair on the board when I'm using both of my hole cards to make that flush -- but how is it even recockulously possible to get away from a runner-runner backdoor flush on the river in a pot where your opponent has bet on previous streets? I just couldn't believe the stuff I saw happen to me this weekend in cash games.
There was one hand that I'd like to share with you guys and ask if you think I should have played it any differently, because it was a great example of my weekend at the cash tables.
So I am dealt AKo in the small blind at a 2-4 6-max nlh table, and ahead of me before the flop we've got a pot-raise from middle position, and then the button calls that $12 bet right before the action gets to me. With AKo, I figure I have to see a flop here, right? Any of you
Just the middle position guy called my $51 bet. I'm praying for an Ace or a King as the flop comes down:
As you can see, on the paired, 2-suited-cards flop, I checked my AK to see what my opponent wanted to do with the hand. To be honest, I expected a bet, but if he was on a hand like AQ or a lower pair I could see him checking as well if he's a pussy.
Happily, my opponent checked behind, and I was able to see a free turn card:
Bingo! Now I've got TPTK on the turn, and I'm going to make this guy pay for letting me see that turn card for free. I had to think for a second about the flush possibility on the board, but #1 I had a club in my hand as well, thereby limiting the odds that my opponent also had two clubs since the board contained three more itself. And #2, the club in my hand was also the Ace♣, so I know at the worst even if my opponent had just made a flush, I still had a roughly 15% chance of sucking out on the river. But it had to be highly unlikely that he had the flush anyways, in which case I couldn't see how that King on the turn had not just given me the best hand given the action so far. His preflop play seemed like a medium Ace or a medium pair, either one of which were now in big trouble against my hand here on the turn.
So I bet out solidly on this flop:
and to my surprise I get raised big:
Now in retrospect I probably should have figured I had just gotten effed just given the way my weekend at the tables went. But do you lay this down here? I've got TPTK and the nut flush draw with one card to come, in a situation where my opponent's preflop actions indicated either a medium Ace or a medium-high pair, both of which I am dominating here. And again, that Ace♣ in my hand means I have a redraw to the nut flush which will be the nuts on this board assuming my opponent is not holding a miracle boat. I was about 98% sure I had to be ahead here, so I reraised allin, figuring he would call and I would beat his KQ or his QQ, probably with one club as well:
He called, and showed me this:
Sweet. Naturally for this weekend, no club on the river and that was just one of many, many stackings I received on the weekend. One thing I've noticed very prominently in these cash games is the play of sooted donk cards. I mean, the bottom line is that a good portion of the times I've gotten stacked are when players have made hugely donkish moves in calling large preflop raises with sooted shit -- such as my opponent's clearly -EV call of a $51 bet preflop with JTs into what is going to be a heads-up pot -- and then go on to hit that shit on the board. How the eff can I be expected to put this guy on a Ten here? Sure he could have had ATs or something, but again calling the $51 reraise preflop with one other raise-caller still to act with AT (soooted or otherwise) would be truly fidiotic, so I can't put him on that hand. And what the hike else could he have had here? I will say with confidence that not folding in my situation in hands just like this has been a significant source of my cash winnings since I've been focusing on cash game play on full tilt, since at the level I'm playing at there are donkeys all over the place pushing hard with KQ in that spot. Happens every single time I sit down at the tables. But the bottom line is, making inarguably poor calls of preflop raises has its place it seems in the cash games. In most stages of nlh tournaments you can't possibly defend this kind of a play since your chip stack is limited and you must protect your chips at all costs since you can't get any more once your stack is gone from you calling a bunch of preflop raises with sooted donk cards. But in cash games, I just can't escape from the fact that I get stacked a lot when donkeys make donkey calls, nail the flop hard with their sooted donk hands, and then of course I can't possibly put them on being that big of a donk preflop so I end up getting stacked. I'd be interested in hearing others' thoughts on this, and on how I played this hand in general, in particular if you feel differently from me about the above discussion.
OK that's all for today. I still can't believe it, just two days until I leave for Vegas. You bloggers who aren't going should be drawn and quartered as far as I'm concerned. At least make sure to play in the WPBT online tornament that is running on Saturday afternoon in parallel with the live event that I will not be attending due to my playing in the WSOP on Saturday afternoon -- I'll have more up about the details of that online WPBT event later in the week before I leave. But before then, I'll see you tonight for Mondays at the Hoy!
Labels: BBT, Cash Games
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 6:07 PM
23 Comments:
I recognize my consistent ineptitude for the game, but with that action preflop, when he check behinds on the flop, I think something's up, and when he pops it on the turn, I would not at all be surprised if he showed me the ten. I agree he'd bet the flush draw and he probably should bet a ten there, but I think I'm beat when he raises the turn.
Thats just a hard board to invest your whole stack on, not that i haven't made the same play. I just hate investing my whole stack with paired overs on the board.
I would of CC bet the flop, and if he called the hand would of been over, even with the king on the turn. That is one of my beefs with RR pre-flop, it builds a monster pot, with a vurerable holding.
I didn't put him on a 10 because I don't consider 9T sooted a raising hand. I'd fall into the same trap.
As for MysticJoe winning Riverchasers: a 12-year-old wins a BBT event. My best result is a 4-way chop from months ago. Lovely indeed.
12 year old kid....lol....
Thats a tough one. It is one of the many reasons you almost must C-bet, after you raise preflop and get heads up. That way you find out where you are at much earlier. Assuming you played it like you did, and checked the flop, I think a case can be made for check/call the turn. You are not concerned if another club falls with the redraw, so you are managing the pot on a dangerous board when you only have a pair. This leaves you the chance to get away on the river.
Hang in there, this was bound to happen. Take a couple days off from the cash games, and start fresh again when you get back from Vegas.
Don't take this personally buttt..
Give me a freaking break.. you said last week about "How great" your top pair hands were.. well.. they are not that great, and you have been getting lucky.. That was a HORRIBLE play.. not by your opponent but by YOU. Twelve bucks to make 800.. ya thats -EV. What the hell do you beat there? A made flush? No? Trip tens? No? Anything? Err.. A total bluff.. yeah, thats what he has, when he Jams me I will rejam all in because you can not do that to the Great and Wonderful Hoy! Take off the blinders or your going to get stacked a lot more. Remember also 2000 hands is statistically bullshit.. and lets see where your top pair falls over 20,000 hands. Anyway if you keep playing like that I will keep a seat open at the 6.60's for you.
A 12-year old? Priceless.
I think a 10 is a very real possibility given the way he played that through the turn. I personally wouldn't raise 9-10 soooted preflop, but considering he did raise it, his call of your re-raise isn't that far-fetched. Checking the flop, then raising the turn looks like a flush or a set to me. KQ is also a possibility.
I guess the thing I don't like about this hand and I would have played differently is getting so much money into the pot pre-flop with AK out of position. AK is a nice starting hand, but it's still only an Ace-high hand, and your opponent will have position on you the rest of the way. He knows you have a good hand considering you re-raised him, so he probably thought it was a good opportunity to win a big pot. He didn't have good pot odds to make that call preflop, but he had pretty good implied odds to call, even as a dog.
I dunno, just seems like too much went in preflop considering the situation, so that when you did actually get a hand on the turn, you couldn't get away from it, even though it was only TPTK.
Why would I take that personally, Waffles?
First comment, like the blog. Glad to see more cash game talk as well.
You mentioned nothing about reads? Did you have any?
I wonder if some of this play was tilt induced. You found a fold in a older post where you had AQ (TP) and faced a 3/4 pot size bet. Curious why you feld you should jamn your TPTK here but fold there ?
i think i would just call the re-raise (and not re-raise myself) and agree w/ those who recommend cbetting after flop to find out where you're at. i agree the K on the turn makes it difficult to lay down, but if you get re-raised on flop you can get rid of hand easily (pre-K), and if he smooth calls, you check turn and he bets big, i think the three to flush and possible trips make it easier to get away from. he also may not have bet big on turn, thus pricing you in for possible nut flush.
this is coming from someone who is currently losing at .25/.50 limit, though, so take it for what it's worth.
It's actually very interesting to see everyone's different take on this hand... so here goes mine.
Preflop, I don't really care. You can call with AK to conceal your very good starting hand at the 6max or reraise because a guy raising in the 6 max could really have anything, IMO. But, on the same token, unlike most people here, I am not surprised with the raise from CO with 9-10. I wouldn't be surprised with any suited connector for that matter. I think the play on 6max is waaaaaaaaay looser than full ring and one thing I noticed was that people raise with a lot...
I also hate the c-bet advocators. What do you accomplish with a c-bet? On a x-x-y flop, you c-bet, you're almost always gonna see a raise from a guy with position. Wouldn't you if you were in his shoes? Of course. I would and I'm tighter than most of the bloggers here. If you get raised on a board like that and fold, you're too tight/playing poorly, IMO. So, I like Hoy's check on the flop to see whether the initial raiser will c-bet. I would even consider a check raise if he does.
However, his check when you give him the green light to me seemed fishy... If he had any pocket pair like you mentioned (QQ or below), he certainly would have had to bet because a) it's vulnerable and b) there's a flush draw possibility and c) to find out if he's up against a bigger pair. The fact that he checked made me wary.
K comes on the turn and you bet big. And then he reraises a big amount, basically committing himself to the pot. As I was reading the blog, before it got to the screen, the two hands that I narrowed down to after that check on the flop was JT or AA. In other words, he wasn't afraid to give you another card and when it looked like you hit (esp with the reraise, you already advertised you had a hand like AA-QQ/AK), he shows great strength? I'm not sure I could fold there either (with the flush redraw) but at least that was the thought process I had.
As for the 12 yr old... well, that explains it... K3 sooted.... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... that still cracks me up.
Also, hoy, my blog site is not recessrampage.blogspot.com. It's pokertachi.blogspot.com (I realize this is shameless advertising). Alan = RR = pokertachi.blogspot.com. I know, makes no sense but it is what it is.
9T are exactly the kinds of hands you should get used to facing in cash games. 9T sooted is the kind of hand that cracks Aces, you can float it in position to steal, and it's also a hand thats easy to discard if it misses or faces aggression.
If he puts you on something like AK or AQ he's 41% and he's getting 2:1 to call never mind the implied odds. So no way would I ever consider this a donk call on his part.
I think you played the hand fine until you faced that major aggression on the turn at which point its probably better long term to dump it. If the guy bluffs you oh well, but I think with that board its more likely that he has a hand.
Cash is a different world than MTTs. Raising and calling hands have a much greater range and implied odds take way more meaning. Unless I have a very good read on a player, its rare I'm going to the felt with TPTK.
Also, more often than not I see people getting felted making calls. While not exactly the case in your hand since you reraised, its basically the same thing because you didn't let the hand go.
I've learned that so much of deep stack cash is making big laydowns not making big calls. When in doubt muck your hand and wait for a better spot because there will always be a better spot sooner or later.
Solid arguments can be made for or against almost all of your moves in this hand. I don't think you did anything wrong until the turn. If it were me, I would have made a small continuation bet on the flop just because paired boards tend to scare people.
The only real problem with this hand is pushing the turn. After the K hits, I think I would check-call to control the pot size, then try to find a fold on the river. Tough hand.
Preflop is completely standard. Not RR'ing AK in 6 max to me is just asking to get run over.
Flop I CB, not to find out where I am BS that people spew, but this flop misses a lot of hands. If he has some smallish pocket pair, its not going to be easy for him to call. Check-folding is fine to here depending on reads.
Turn lead is fine, but I like to bet closer to 1/2 the pot in this spot. Betting 3/4 basically puts you in a spot where almost all worse hands fold and all better hands call\raise. Not a fan of that spot. $65-ish I like better, but its nit picky I know.
You get RR'd which is basically never a bluff here. Getting it all in here isn't bad, b\c you have decent equity against even a tight range. Its obv not a great spot to be in though. Long haul, calling and folding here aren't much different IMO.
I don't think his call with 9T soooted is that bad preflop. It's a deepish stacked game, and is he hits the flop hard, he gets all your chips. If he misses, he's done. Pretty standard cash game play, looking at the odds of winning the opponent's entire stack rather than just the chips in the middle. I wouldn't have been surprised with suited clubs as far down as 78, or JT sooted or AT, suited or not. I pretty much hate the re-raise on the turn, though, because he's either making a play at the pot or he's got your balls in a vice. And the number of times you're gonna be crushed is far greater than the number of times he's bluffing.
Just my couple pennies, see you this weekend!
I've been reading your blog for awhile, but this is my first real Monday free. Do I need to be blogger to play in tonight's MATH tournament?
I'll be honest and say I haven't read through the whole hand, but I have read the comments.
You maybe need to go to the next level of thinking here. What does he think you have? If you've been showing strength, raising with big hands, etc, then his call pre-flop is pretty legit. It's exactly how I would play it with a deep stack in a cash game against someone I've put on playing only premium hands.
I agree with Don and Falstaff here. It's an easy hand to get away from, and a great hand to stack you with. At the end of the day, this isn't a tournament, his life isn't on the line if he goes all-in. But you already know that's the difference between cash and tournament play.
Does he do the same thing with 23s? Probably not, but middle pairs, and middle suited connectors can make someone a mint in cash if they've been paying attention to their competition.
Don't have a lot to add, per se, but if you're just looking for opinions one way or another, mine would would pretty much be what Don said.
Andrew -- no need at all to be a blogger in order to play tonight in the MATH. Just sign up at full tilt, use the password and you're in. Hopefully we'll see you tonight!
Everyone -- love the comments here as always. Obviously I played the hand poorly -- mostly because I lost the hand -- and I really appreciate everyone's two cents.
And FWIW, I am definitely not saying this guy should not have played JTs for his raise preflop. Especially from the button in an unopened pot, there is no doubt whatsoever that I raise in his shoes just like he raised it up here. Nonetheless, the difference between how I play this hand preflop and how my opponent played it is that I would almost surely fold to the $39 reraise preflop. Although I don't have any calculations or computations to back up this statement, I cannot see how it is anything but -EV (probably significantly so) over the long run to put in $51 before the flop against a preflop reraiser in 6-max nlh. Everyone is obviously 100% correct that this is a perfect hand to crack a big pair -- probably literally the perfect hand to do so -- but that doesn't mean you go around putting in $50 preflop with it and expect to be profitable. I would guess that you will lose that $51 -- a full 1/8 of a buyin at these tables btw -- probably more than 90% of the time, and then let's just say for simplicity's sake that you stack your opponent the full other 10% of the time. In reality that 10% number is probably far too high, but just to make the calculations easier, that means that you lose $51 nine times for a total loss of $459, and that you win $400 one time out of every 10. The more I think about the actual numbers, the more sure I am that this is a good hand to fold here. Sure JTs is a great Ace-cracker of a hand, but to suggest that that means that you call any raise or reraise with it preflop is sheer folly.
Do you see why?
I have twins and a toddler, so I don't believe I need to be drawn and quartered. I'll be there in December. Can't wait you to meet you if that's the case.
OK. I have not yet read anyone else's comments, and given by play, it's possible I'll just repeat what everyone else says.
I, too, had a hard time putting him on a 10 there. I guessed QQ or KK, but I also thought he would bet those hands on the flop.
But here's the thing. His call isn't as terrible as you might think. He probably put you on a high pocket pair or A,K and figured he could bust you big with his sooted connectors. He was right. I love sooted connectors.
Now do I make that play? No. Do I usually call big raises with scs? Never. Do I call raises with them? Yep, if they're 3xs and I know the guy is tight (I don't know if he thought that of you).
But he did have the odds, with the implied odds, to call. I don't like his check - you could have had draw there - but it worked.
I also don't like your play. You have a pair and a draw to the nut flush. I would try to play that as cheaply as I could. I might be tempted to check there.
The bottom line is a lot beats you. A flush beats you. The board is paired, too, so your flush may not even be that good. Any 10 beats you. KK beats you. AA beats you. Only two hands don't beat you, Q,K and QQ, and I don't put him on Q,K there (I didn't put him on 9,10 either though).
A bet isn't a bad play, but I pitch it when I get raised.
You're a great player Hoy and I'm a nut peddler, so that's what my advice is worth.
He thinks you're tight. You are reraising with AA-QQ, AK. Half the time it will be one, half the time the other, roughly. If the flop comes without an A or K, and you make a halfpot bet, he can raise you off it and win it right there when you fold. If you check, he can check behind and chuck it on the turn if he hasn't spanked the flop.
His read on you might be wrong but that's probably why he called the reraise. That and because he only calls $39, not your whole bet. You must have forgotten in your calculations that the first $12 is dead money and he doesn't count that in. He doesn't lose his money anything like one in ten times against the kind of player he's read you for.
The three things I'd take away from this hand, rather than just assuming the other guy is a donkey are these: First, why does he read you that way? Do you play that predictably? I find that unlikely because you've said and shown you mix it up. You like to chat though. Have you berated any bad plays? Players who do that usually pride themselves on their good play, and will tend to be tight. Have you folded a couple of cbets to raises in this session? Second, if your read was correct, he is folding both a "medium ace" and a medium pair on that turn, unless the medium ace is AT. When you get raised, you're beaten, and you need to put your big swinging dick away and suck it up. You're playing for money, not swaggering rights. In the past, you've posted about your fantastic reads -- when basically you've had the best hand and nothing in the action suggests otherwise, but here you've ignored your read because you want to punish Mr Silly for checking behind the flop and letting you catch your king. Third, the kind of player you are looking to make money from is one who recockulously overplays top pair. That's the guy who when raised on the turn, pushes. But dude, like Waffles said, you're only beating a bluff, which folds. Everything that calls crushes you, and a 6 to 1 redraw means, well, you do the maths, but it's not going to make you a winner long term.
Miami Dons read on your play carries the most water with me since his insight is backed up by the fact that he's making a living at the tables and betting windows in Vegas. He's right about looking for a better spot.
See Dr Zen's comment on why your math is wrong here Hoy.
Your re-raise, even if you've been seen as mixing it up pre-flop, says you have SOMETHING and want him gone or pushing. And it is only $39 more for him.
So he calls. Nobody here is going to play suited connectors every time they see them, but they will if the situation is right. This is a case where the situation was right. I'd think this improves their EV.
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