Monday, January 16, 2006

Weekend update

Weekend poker consisted a very large number of small stakes LHE hands at Party, Stars, and Cryptos to work off various bonuses and/or level up in VIP status. No live play this weekend as I can't justify the time expenditure given the current online promotions. Instead, for some variety, I squeezed in exactly 1 MTT, the $500k guaranteed at Stars.

There were just shy of 4k entrants today! Who says that the poker boom has peaked? I cashed, but unfortunately in the absolute bottom tier.

I was pretty disappointed because I had average chips for a decent portion of the 3rd hour, but couldn't get any further (primarily due to losing 4 preflop coin flip or better situations to short stacks). I probably played too conservatively with between 500 down to 400 players remaining with a ~10x bb stack.

I didn't actually count, but I'm pretty sure I broke my record today for the most number of table changes in a single MTT - fairly annoying.

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There was one somewhat interesting small stakes LHE hand that I want to give more thought to. The basic premise is what to do when you have a decent hand plus a good draw, but are caught between a clearly better hand and a maniac who keeps pushing with likely the worst hand?

(edit: after writing out my thoughts on this hand, it is not very interesting after all, but I since I already spent the time, I will leave it in the post anyways...)

hand #1
Party $3/$6 10 seated, BB is a very tight, solid straightforward player who only raises with big hands, button is somewhat of a maniac who severely overplays his hands.
- preflop: fold, fold, UTG+2 calls, folded to button who calls, I complete in the SB w KhJh, BB checks. (4 players, 4 small bets)
- flop: KcQhTh: I check, BB checks, UTG+2 bets, button raises, I flat call, BB 3 bets cold, UTG+2 folds, button and I call. (3 players, 14 small bets)
- turn: KcQhThKs: I check, BB bets, button raises, I flat call, BB 3 bets, button caps (and has only $7 behind), both call. (3 players, 19 big bets)
- river: KcQhThKs8c: I check, BB bets, button raises all in for $7, both call. (final pot: 22.5 big bets)

I know, I know...I played this hand extremely passively. When the action came back to me on the flop, I was very conflicted on whether or not to 3 bet. In almost any other circumstance I will 3 bet here, however because of button's tendency to overplay his hands, I decided to "gamble" and get a certain chance to check raise the turn.

I believe the majority of the time the button has a weak K, but he may also raise with a flush draw (but he does not have the nut flush draw because he would have raised preflop 100% of the time on the button with a suited A), 2 pair (the only 2 pair hand he could have is QT as he will raise any big K on the button) or an OESD. I'm 100% sure that if no one bets the turn, he will bet (he never takes his free card).

Is it a mistake for me not to 3 bet the flop when I should feel confident that my pot equity is high? A blank on the turn will drop my perceived pot equity, so it seems safer for me to try and get more money in on the flop (prior to BB's action defining his hand).

Given that the BB was so tight, I assumed BB was not a factor, and that the large majority of the time I am ahead of both UTG+2 and button and that between them they have a max of 8 outs, but probably less because of my flush draw. During the actual hand, I forgot to consider than UTG+2 might have the nut flush draw - a pretty big oversight on my part. (I think the reason for this oversight is that I had too much of my attention focused on button's play - and also perhaps because I was 8 tabling at the time)

When BB 3 bets cold, I am almost 100% sure he has a straight (the only other small possibility now that I think about it is a set of Ts), and understand that I must improve.

On the turn, I'm caught between a certainly better hand and a maniac who is likely overplaying his hand.

How do I count my outs on the turn? A number of my outs are likely to result in a chop (An A often has me chopping with BB, and a Q or T often has me chopping with button). Absolute worst case is when BB has Tens full likely giving me 5 outs to win (3 for pairing my kicker, and 2 for the straight/royal flush) and 3 outs to chop.

How should I have played this hand?

Anyway, what were the results?:
BB had AJo (broadway straight) with no hearts, and button had that monster hand K2o.

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