12k Guar: Too aggressive three handed here?

[ckoop]

Guh...I have not been able to close out this tourny yet despite finishing in the top 4 my last three times out of 5 (only once getting heads up). This level of aggressiveness is what netted me this amount of chips in the first place once we got to the final table, but I wonder if I should reel it in since I have over the half the tournameny chips? Opps have seen me win mostly with made hands and very little bluffing, but I've been laggin it up a fair bit in the last 20 hands or so.

1st hand: opp has been pretty quietly picking up pots without showing down much

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t6000 (3 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

SB (t114539)
BB (t115774)
Hero (t278687)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, K.
Hero raises to t20000, 1 fold, BB calls t14000.

Flop: (t43000) 6, 5, K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t38100, Hero calls t57674.

edit: this isn't converting properly, BB moved allin on my bet

Turn: (t138774) J (2 players)

River: (t138774) 7 (2 players)

Final Pot: t138774

Results in white below:
BB has Kc Qd (one pair, kings).
Hero has 9s Kd (one pair, kings).
Outcome: BB wins t138774.

2nd hand:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t6000 (3 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

SB (t128539)
BB (t215548)
Hero (t164913)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, 8.
Hero calls t6000, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (t18000) 8, 6, 6 (3 players)
SB bets t20800, BB folds, Hero calls t20800.

Turn: (t59600) Q (2 players)

River: (t59600) A (2 players)

Final Pot: t59600

Results in white below:
SB has Qd 8s (two pair, queens and eights).
Hero has 9c 8c (two pair, eights and sixes).
Outcome: SB wins t59600.

edit: this total isn't converting correctly, it should be sb wins 263000 or so, crushing me down to around 30k. he bet 40k on the turn and i raised him allin which he called.

[chardrian]

1st hand - hard to get away from top pair 3 handed.

2nd hand - I don't like open limping.... ever.

[Sprayed]

First hand, when he pushed I would probably fold. But it would be a tough decision. Second hand, raise preflop. You are hoping to steal here.

[ckoop]

thanks for the replies...yeah first hand i think was tough, he's used the reraise push move a bunch of times without getting called down, so it seemed likely that he was pushing a draw or something weaker...second hand i regret not raising here because this is a hand i always raise with, but, and i think this is big hole in my game, i had been raising most hands recently regardless of holdings and my opps were starting to call so i thought i'd switch it up a bit. i've found that if i've been raising a lot of consecutive hands, even with what most opps view as legit raising hands, i start to get self-concious about the raises and get worried that opps won't respect the raises, so i'll reel it in and end up not raising with real hands. i think this is huge hole that i need to plug up.

[Sprayed]

thanks for the replies...yeah first hand i think was tough, he's used the reraise push move a bunch of times without getting called down, so it seemed likely that he was pushing a draw or something weaker...second hand i regret not raising here because this is a hand i always raise with, but, and i think this is big hole in my game, i had been raising most hands recently regardless of holdings and my opps were starting to call so i thought i'd switch it up a bit. i've found that if i've been raising a lot of consecutive hands, even with what most opps view as legit raising hands, i start to get self-concious about the raises and get worried that opps won't respect the raises, so i'll reel it in and end up not raising with real hands. i think this is huge hole that i need to plug up.

Don't back down or be results oriented. Always be the aggressor on the button with a legitimate hand. If you aren't going to raise it in this situation, then you need to fold.

[Easy17]

ok i'll defend the limp

its ok to limp the draw, but here the thing you are drawing - 98 suited you are looking for str8, flush draws or 2p, 3 of a kind. If you hit your draw you can destack him. If you raise him out, you just get the blinds.

the problem is you crawfish into top pair weak kicker and try to bet it. Even short handed this is not such a great hand, a couple overcards like JQ have decent outs against you, and any other 9 is likely better. Fold this hand if the draw doesnt hit, period.

[chardrian]

ok i'll defend the limp

its ok to limp the draw, but here the thing you are drawing - 98 suited you are looking for str8, flush draws or 2p, 3 of a kind. If you hit your draw you can destack him. If you raise him out, you just get the blinds.

the problem is you crawfish into top pair weak kicker and try to bet it. Even short handed this is not such a great hand, a couple overcards like JQ have decent outs against you, and any other 9 is likely better. Fold this hand if the draw doesnt hit, period.

I'm not trying to be an ass, but if this is your thinking, then I think you need to practice playing some shorthanded games.

Your argument has some (I still don't think a lot, but some) merit at a full table, early on when you can play hands and then drop them with no real effect on your stack. But we are three-handed here and no one is super deep stacked. DO NOT OPEN LIMP in a short-handed game!!! It's a leak if you do.

[Easy17]

i disagree, sometimes its ok to open limp draws even shorthanded, unless you cannot afford it.

here, in second hand, hero has what 164,000 with blind at 6000? Its ok to limp here - furthermore if you raise the draw, get callers, miss the flop as most draws do, then you lost more chips when you fold (you will fold a missed draw right?)

are you going to make more chips driving out the Q8 with a raise or limping your nice little suited connectors and trapping him? I dont know, theres more than one way to skin a cat as it were, im not saying raising every hand you play is wrong, its not its pretty good actually but limping and trapping is ok too in my book. I want the Q8 in there, i want him to catch his Q or 8, or better both of them while i have a good draw for the destack.

I think the only problem here is that he caught a piece of the flop and suddenly forgot why he was playing the suited connectors, you should fold draws when you dont have outs on the flop and its bet to you.

[chardrian]

The problem is you are taking the appropriate mindset for limping at a full-table and applying it to a short-handed one.

You are right, at a full table with a whole bunch of limpers, you want to be able to let go of that flop. But with a 3 handed table, that's just silly. You only catch a piece of a flop 1 out of 3 times with non-paired hands. When you catch the top piece of that flop, three-handed, you should be good.

You DON'T want 8T-8A in there. You want them OUT!!! That's why you raise preflop. The other problem with limping shorthanded is that it gives you absolutely no read on what range of hands your opp's have. Whereas a 3xBB raise will whittle that range down much more.

The basic factor in getting reads online is by betting patterns. Although sometimes you can get a read down to a specific hand; usually a 'read' online is a range of hands. The tighter you can whittle your opp's range, the better. Limping preflop does nothing to cut that range down; it's like trying to cut down a tree with a pocket knife.

[Easy17]

<pauses chipping away at the oak tree with his old-timer>

hmm this is true, limping gives up the opportunity to gain information on your opponents hands, however when i limp a draw like 98 suited, i am playing this hand for a specific result, a flush or a str8 both very powerful hands. If i make my hand I really dont care what you have and if i miss it i fold; the only hands im worried about are higher str8's and flushes - which do happen rarely but not enough to be a factor here.

dont know what this has to do with limping/raising, but i think poker is all about perception. keeping my good perception of reality while distorting yours. It does not matter if you think i am better than you and have "lucky" cards, or you think i am worse than you and i am a total fish. Either way, this allows me to take your chips. The one thing i dont want you to think is that our cards are similar, since this is the truth.

[Sprayed]

<pauses chipping away at the oak tree with his old-timer>

hmm this is true, limping gives up the opportunity to gain information on your opponents hands, however when i limp a draw like 98 suited, i am playing this hand for a specific result, a flush or a str8 both very powerful hands. If i make my hand I really dont care what you have and if i miss it i fold; the only hands im worried about are higher str8's and flushes - which do happen rarely but not enough to be a factor here.

dont know what this has to do with limping/raising, but i think poker is all about perception. keeping my good perception of reality while distorting yours. It does not matter if you think i am better than you and have "lucky" cards, or you think i am worse than you and i am a total fish. Either way, this allows me to take your chips. The one thing i dont want you to think is that our cards are similar, since this is the truth.

With only three people in and you are on the button, it's always a raise unless you hold a big pp and the blinds are aggressive players and known to raise when you limp. You can limp early or later in a tourney when others limp and you have a stack that allows it, but never when you are in this situation.

[chardrian]

when i limp a draw like 98 suited, i am playing this hand for a specific result, a flush or a str8 both very powerful hands. If i make my hand I really dont care what you have and if i miss it i fold.

All of this is fine and good - except for the fact that this doesn't work nearly as well at a shorthanded table as it does at a full table.

The only reason there is some merit to the limp preflop is that you might be able to destack someone when you hit your draws. But the reason you usually destack someone is because there are so many other people in the hand with you and one of them catches a good piece of the flop as well. This isn't as likely with just three players.

The other reason I don't like it three-handed, is that you really want to up the aggression short-handed and the limp/fold is the antithesis of that.

I can tell you a big part of my thinking this way comes from the fact that my money game besides MTTs is a shorthanded Limit game. One of the quickest patches to my game happened when I took Fnord's advice and just completely abandoned open-limping as an option. Just doing that took me from a break-even Limit player to a winning one. And I think the same applies here.

[zenbitz]

Don't open limp short handed. You can check an OK hand from the BB, maybe even complete from SB if stacks are deep (which they never are 3-handed in a tourney).

I wouldn't even limp on the button if CO limps 4-handed.

There is one legit reason to open-limp here... and that is for deception on a very tight table with deep stacks (i.e,. you expect to go many orbits - 50-hands or so!) so you can limp AA/KK/QQ/AK and get action.

Aside... and it might matter... are the blinds capped at 3000/6000 here + ante?
That makes limping slightly worse. But 3 handed your implied odds are still in the crapper. No matter what. In order to get your straight/flush paid off, opps have to hit at least TP, prefereable worse straight/flush or set. That's just flat out improbable 3-handed. PLUS how likely is it that YOU are the short end of the flush here?

You are better off limping A2s (never do this).

[ckoop]

thanks for the discussion!

no, the blinds aren't capped and there are no antes (it's the party 12k)

open limping here or not, i think the main thing is i played the hand poorly post flop. i had been pushing my weight around pretty easily and thought i could do the same by just calling the flop and putting the opp allin once a high card fell on the turn. i think i couldve done this had i raised preflop, but since i limped (as i was trying to adjust my image, maybe unneccessarily) i shouldve just played for the straight or flush and got out when i missed. in hindsight, i likely wouldve had a fold here from the opp as he was playing very tight short handed...so i guess the lesson here is to keep the aggression up preflop until the opps take a stand.