Sunday, March 08, 2015

A Tale of 3 tricky spots

Hand 1:
History with Villain. In level 1, I make a huge mistake. I raise with 87 and he calls. Flop is TT7. He fires two barrels and I fold the turn. He had 66.

Level 1 100/200/0 with $10k stacks. I make it $300 from MP with 88. SB calls.
Flop is T55. SB check, and I c-bet $400 into $700. SB calls.
POT is now $1500
Turn is a 4 and SB now leads out for $800.
What are you doing?

Hand 2:
$200/$400/$0
Villain raises from the HJ to $1k (my stack is $14k). CO flats.
I am in the SB with 5s7s.
What are you doing?

Hand 3:
$300/$600/$50 (my stack is $14k)
EP limps
I make it $1800 with JJ from the button. Folds back to limper who thinks, then calls.
POT is $4700
Flop is Q78 with 2 hearts
he checks, I c-bet $3k and he thinks and calls
POT is now over $10k and I have about $8500 behind.
Turn is a black King. He now leads out $1200.
What are you doing?

4 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

Well, I may a big nit, but I fold all three. When they play Hand 1 this way, they want to get value and are afraid you'll check behind. Hand 2, I wait for a better spot. Hand 3, well what can you beat?

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

In Hand 1, I would guess you are likely ahead. I think the donk lead on the turn is not a line I would take with a strong hand but rather a vulnerable one, so I would guess you are ahead. A donk lead on the river I think usually indicates strength, because the guy doesn't want to miss a chance at a nice river bet, but on the turn there is still one more street to go so a donk lead like that I would generally not interpret as a confident, strong holding. I would probably call or raise there and see what the river brings, putting him maybe on a mediocre 10 that he is willing to fold, or more likely, a smaller pocket pair than yours. 44 is the biggest concern there, but it is hard to put a guy on that one specific hand just from his one bet out on the turn.

In Hand 2, I think raising with the 57s can be a profitable play, and there is no reason to expect an extremely strong range from either of the other two players still in the hand given their preflop action, but in the end you still have 35 or so big blinds and are not yet in push territory. I think the pace of the blinds plays into this decision somewhat though, as if this were a 15-minute blind-levels tournament, I would definitely consider putting in a solid raise there on the assumption that you can win the about 3k in the pot fairly easily without any more action, which would increase your 35 bbs to up near 45 bbs, a big increase for likely very little risk. In a well-structured tournament though, I would likely not be into risking potentially a lot of chips with such a spec hand and this many bbs left, so I would probably tend to fold under those circumstances. Not a fan of just calling off 1/14 of my stack in a tournament with such a hard hand to hit the flop with, and against only two others players, neither of which has shown any particular strength to speak of.

In Hand 3, we are looking at another donk bettor after the flop, but in this case the guy has already indicated some strength by calling with the Queen out there, and once he leads out again when the King falls, it is pretty likely given that line that you are beat by something. I would fold there absent a strong read to the contrary.

Yes, Mojo is a big nit.

Memphis MOJO said...

Some say my middle name is nit. I say it is "Stay out of Trouble."

columbo (at eifco dot org) said...

just to get closure, the villain in hand 3 had 2h5h for a semi-bluff.