Good instincts, or lack of thought?

[Andy Watson]

Hi all,

Not been around for a while- sorry! I will make more effort!

Would like some feedback on a hand I played. I know my thinking wasn't as clear as it should have been during the hand, but that my reasoning felt coherent. I'm trying to work out if I found the right line? Thought process in red.

S 200k
B 2500/5k/5k
P BB
H 84o

We are 28/about 200 on day 2 of a £200 regional competition. 20 get paid. I am in a comfortable spot as we start to approach the bubble.


Folds round to the CO, who limps. CO seems to be a weak player who likes to see a flop, and then over values marginal stuff. He has about 80k and is effective.

Button limps. Part of a large group of poker playing 20 somethings who have been playing all over in big UK games. Don't know him, but knew a lot of the people he knew.

SB folds.

I check my option with 84o. I don't think there is any option with this hand except to see the free flop, despite the weakness of the preflop play.

Flop is 8 8d 10d (Pot 22k)

I check, hoping to induce betting. This might be a mistake in a limped pot, I could have led out to start building a pot. There are few hands that beat me, and lots of worse that will call. However I am out of position throughout the hand.

CO checks.

Button bets 16k.

I call. I thought about check raising- but I think that looks really strong. I remember advice from JL about recreational players only raising strong hands. I've been card dead for hours, so haven't made a raise since he sat at the table. If I had been more active I would have check raised here.

Surprisingly the CO calls behind.

Turn: Qx (Pot 70k)

I check

CO checks

Button bets 35k

I call- continuing to tell my weak story with a hand I expect to be best.

CO again surprisingly calls.

River 5x (Pot 175k)

I check.

CO checks

Button bets 50k.

I call. Although I have trips, I recognise this hand isn't that strong for such a big pot. I don't need to turn it into a bluff as it's too strong, but I don't think I would get called by worse. I think it's now a marginal hand.

CO calls and is all in.

Bet sizing/pot might be a little off due to fatigue!

[Guido]

Hi andy

i think i See several mistakes you did. Preflop no mistake also Checking Flop in sb multiways


mistake 1

when button bets you Need to raise here multiways, this is not a slowplay board , you want to discourage 9j, 79, every T or overpairs to hit later

mistake 2

side Note calling turn when 9j got there which could easily in both players range is no mistake

but mistake 2 to my mind is calling river when button bets (especially this kind of smallish value heavy ) into 2 marginal (as both oop players check river ) to Medium strong ranges

you cannot ignore against how many Hands you lose

9J (16 combos and you Block nothing) , all better 8s, like 8A, 87,88,,86,98 , 55, QQ ,TT

I think folding here is the best play on river

I Know you tried out snowie which advises beeing very tight multiways

[reeeeeeper]

River is a blank, not sure how you can fold to a strong player who could be going for thin value against what could be seen as marginal hands. Yes, there's a lot you lose to, but a lot you beat and the price is very good.

[reeeeeeper]

Welcome back, I'm going to respond to your red parts...

Preflop: Yes there's another option, raise to 32500 and take the dead money. Like you said, 84o doesn't play well post-flop, the weak player showed weakness and the strong player showed weakness and you're last to act. You have a really good chance to pick up 17500 no fuss. That said, checking is fine.

Flop: I often lead in limp pots when I hit since everyone showed weakness preflop there's no expected c-bet. Check-raising is fine but check-calling I'm not sure what the plan is. There are many hands you'd check-raise there other than the trips you have, so get some money in the pot! Also, by calling you give the CO's draws a good price to tag along. I'd rather get this heads-up and make decisions easier.

Turn: Still no check-raise, I think that's ok since a draw came in, but that's what I meant when I said I don't understand the plan here. Again giving CO a good price to draw.

River: Call is right, you can't raise here because you'll mostly be called by hands that beat you, or be put all in by hands that beat you.

One question: you don't raise your strong hands, what do you raise? And why would you expect those other raises work if someone notices you don't raise your strong hands?

[Guido]

@reeper when andy says what villian has you probably can understand why I fold river . Lets see what he exposes

[reeeeeeper]

That's not fair, people only post when they lose.

[Andy Watson]

Thanks for the thoughts so far- I will leave it unanswered for today and see if anyone else jumps in.

But- a couple of thoughts.

1) reeeeeeeeper. Yes, a preflop raise is an option I suppose. And it's possible in this spot given my previous inaction, I suppose. It only needs to work 50% of the time. But I hate doing it with 84o. I think that hand is just too weak. I want some equity if called.
2) Missing out on value is also a mistake!
3) If you advocate a check raise turn or flop, at least one of the players will call. How do you proceed given the cards that follow?

[reeeeeeper]

The Q is the only scare card, but that's part of the reason you check-raise. Thinning the field helps you to not worry about scare cards as much because you knock out the hands they'd help or not even worry about the cards that come in.

So let's say you check-raise to 40k, there are many situations where both players fold and you pick up 40k, that's not so bad. Let's say in others the CO folds and the BU calls. We have a 100k pot on the turn and 150k behind. I'm always going to follow this up, and here I'd probably downbet hard, like 25k or something. We want to charge draws but also keep in TX, QJ and the like. Then there's 150k on the river and you have 125k. You can again lead small or check call. Sometimes you're beat by a better 8X, which is pretty cold, or the J9. But since you bet in such a way to keep the marginal made hands in, the times you pick up the pot make up for those losses.

[jamtay317]

Hello Andy, I think that I'm a bit newer than you, but welcome back!

I think preflop checking is the only option here.

Flop: I do like a bet, you do have a very strong hand and you can have many draws in your range to as you can literally have any 2 cards. I understand that its the bubble which isn't a bad thing. If you get one caller that plays back at you well then you have to deal with that. I would probably bet something like 14,500 which would keep Ts in and J9 79 Ax diamonds, Kx diamonds

and possible some hands like 99 77 66.

If they fold well that is okay too.

As played I think check-raising is much more profitable then check-calling. I personly feel that check-calling you're in an awkward spot out of position on the turn.

Turn: As played, I think the Q isn't as bad of a card as you would think. yes J9 gets there, but with that said, this can help lots of other hands that you still beat. QT Q9 AQ KQ QJ. I do not think you should donk the Turn, but I do think that you should Check-Raise it. if for no other reason to get the CO out of the hand. I do still think that you're value betting here.

River. I'm assuming that the 5 was not a diamond. With that said, I still think this is a blank. now I guess pocket 5s get there. but I just think that you have the winning hand the majority of the time here. I do not mind check-calling the river to allow the other player to bluff.

[CrazyEddie]

playing too much hand , not enough situation ... no need to call with a loser on river

[Andy Watson]

I did my best to cover the tell- people only post hands they lose to...……..

I was feeling really ground down by the time I played this hand. It took place getting towards the bubble of day 2. I had played some of my best poker during day 1, coming back to day 2 with a top 10 stack out of 50ish players. This hand took place with about 30 players left, and 20 getting paid. The 4 hours previously had been grim. Nothing bad, just dead. No cards, no spots, just grinding and maintaining my stack as the blinds accelerated around me. On top of this, I started the day feeling really tired. I was wired when I got back the night before and didn't sleep well. I then woke early, and tried to clear my mind by doing some building work in the garden in the rain. It kind of worked, but I still felt rough.

I know I made mistakes in the hand- I didn't really post it expecting people to tell me I played well!

I know I struggle in the game with sometimes losing track of my thought process. My mind goes blank and races. I can't regain control of it to make the best decisions. I make mistakes that can cause me to look back at a hand and wonder what the hell I was thinking!

So I have been doing some work on this recently. I've been back over Jared Tendlers excellent book "The mental game of poker", put some work in, changed up some of my pre game routines to reflect this aspect of the game. It seems to have been really effective, and I attribute my excellent performance to this effort (or maybe I'm being results orientated- but my thought process and execution was very clear during day 1). The tiredness and accumulated grind meant I made errors here I should have avoided easily, but didn't.

I post this hand for 2 reasons:
1) This is a very common problem with poker players, and is often under trained. I spend lots of time working on technical aspects of the game, very little on the mental game. Hopefully others on the forum will learn from my experiences.
2) By posting my shitty hands publicly, I get to own them and not just pass them off as bad beats or "one of those things". I confront them, and hopefully in this way I remember them better and am less likely to make the same errors again.

A full run down of the errors made (in my opinion!).

Preflop- I think this is fine, I'm basically done with this hand. Reeeepeeers idea of a 30k raise is interesting, and I've thought about it over the last day or so. It needs to work 2/3 times to be immediately profitable. This hand is very weak- I would prefer something with more playability post flop to pick for this play. If I make it with 84o, I think I make it with too many hands. I don't know what CO will do here- he seems to be one of those weak, calling station types. Button has position and a big enough stack to "see a flop" and go from there.

Flop- This is a strange one. Normally I would check-raise here. The problem is this looks really strong, especially since I haven't check/raised all day. I think this will lose me value. However, I am also making this judgement on a misread board. Well not misread, but I didn't recognise everything. I had been doing some work on different flop textures- and I simply saw the paired board. I did see the diamond draw, but missed the straight draw possibilities. With these in play, a check raise on the flop, or a simple open to a larger size becomes the right play. If the preflop had included a raise, I prefer the check/raise. In this case I think an open to 2/3-3/4 pot is better. There are a lot of draws to charge.

Turn- Can you see the problem here? I missed the straight draw on the flop, and so I didn't realise it had come in! I was purely concerned about TT or a better 8.

When the button bets again, I didn't stop and re-evaluate. I didn't. This is the mental clarity aspect of the hand that is causing me to post. This guy has limped from the button, giving him a range that actually brackets this flop pretty well. He folds many lower cards, and raises many higher cards. I can ignore his flop c-bet to a large degree, since he might just be taking a stab. But his second bet on the turn is again into 2 players, both of whom called previously. I need to take this bet more seriously. I think I still need to call at this point, as played, but if I had stopped, I think I see the danger of the straight. CO also calls.

River. When button bets again, I should have massive flashing red lights. There should be sirens. I got through day 1 by running away from other players aggression. Just about all players at these levels are completely unbalanced with value/bluffs. I should have recognised it as a clear value bet, and only from a very strong range. In clear hindsight, I should have seen that I actually beat no value hands whatsoever. I should have folded to this river bet, despite having a strong hand that was under repped and getting a decent price. The only possible value hand I beat is QT. This is a clear fold.

In the end, I turned over my 8-4, expecting it to be good most of the time, or at least on the wrong end of a cooler (which is fine). CO folded, so I guess he called down with a ten. Button flipped over J-9 for the straight. I had one of those what the f@*^ does he have? I won? What straight? F*£$%, F($"!, F@:{&. Try and look impassive. Look like I know what I am doing, whilst beating myself up!

So that's my confession.

It's mine. I own it. I might be more likely to recognise the aggression in future, and be more cautious when facing it- allowing me to make the right decision.

[reeeeeeper]

It happens to all of us Looks like you took a good lesson from it, which is much more than most ever do.

Also, I want to be clear that I wasn't recommending to raise preflop all the time there, not even most of the time, maybe 5-10% of the time against the right limpers, ones that are very likely to limp weak and run away from a big bet. Also, I like that 84 has no value, then it's easy to give up when anyone calls. You don't get into any more trouble, just take your stab and give up if caught. I brought it up because of the way you phrased that checking was the only play, I disagreed and so was playing devil's advocate.

In any case, I appreciated your analysis. I need to go back over Tendler myself.