Three hands you can hate on

[Fnord]

Late night, all the cash games suck. Can't even find a good Omaha game, so I bit the gambling bug at a small stakes SnG.

My opponents are a mix of wanna-be TAggs, system players with a couple action players thrown in.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

UTG+1 (t2510)
MP1 (t1295)
MP2 (t2195)
CO (t1085)
Button (t2265)
SB (t430)
BB (t2560)
Fnord (t1160)

Preflop: Fnord is UTG with 8, 8.
Fnord folds

Button is a push-bot.
SB plays absurdly tight
BB is the table action. Really loose pre-flop, likes to float and stab at pots.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (7 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Button (t2360)
SB (t1195)
BB (t2195)
UTG (t1085)
MP1 (t2695)
MP2 (t1450)
Fnord (t2520)

Preflop: Fnord is CO with T, J.
3 folds, Fnord calls t150, 2 folds, BB checks.

Flop: (t375) 9, 9, Q (2 players)
BB bets t150, Fnord calls t150.

Turn: (t675) A (2 players)
BB checks, Fnord bets t400

About an orbit or so later. I haven't played another hand since.
CO is the push-bot
BN is the rock
SB is our action
BB is the second most active player at the table and has decided that it's cool to push over people pre-flop.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (6 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO (t2660)
Button (t2205)
SB (t1670)
BB (t2845)
UTG (t1450)
Fnord (t2670)

Preflop: Fnord is MP with A, A.
1 fold, Fnord calls t150, 2 folds, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (t450) 6, 7, T (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Fnord bets t400, SB calls t400, BB folds.

Turn: (t1250) 4 (2 players)
SB bets t450, Fnord raises to t2120

[taipan168]

1. 88 - this one is an easy shove. I shove 77+, AJ+ in this spot.

2. JTo - I dump this one preflop. Limping is meh, raise or fold only once blinds hit 50/100 (unlesss you're trapping) and with your reads on the players still to act (particularly SB and BB) I choose fold.

3. AA - maybe I play too ABC, but I raise this every time preflop (mostly because by the time it gets to this stage I would have been raising quite a bit so it's not as if it screams "monster!"). As played, I think this is fine but the fact that SB led the turn for 40% of his remaining stack means that a) we have zippo fold equity and b) we will most likely need to hit one of our 11 outs to win this hand.

[Da GOAT]

1-this is close enough that folding is ok given your ranges.

2-dont like it. fold>raise>limp. Tho its ok if they are passive/tight behind you, ie. get position on the blinds who you can outplay IP.

3-just raise, BB likes to go over PFRs so let him do it

[taipan168]

1-this is close enough that folding is ok given your ranges.

If you're not shoving this one then you've been playing cash too long. I can never get this one to go -EV. The looser opps call, the more +EV this becomes.

[Da GOAT]

1-this is close enough that folding is ok given your ranges.

If you're not shoving this one then you've been playing cash too long. I can never get this one to go -EV. The looser opps call, the more +EV this becomes.

no excuse, ill have to play a SNG to load through SNGPT

[TLR]

Hand1: by the time blinds pass you you will be down to about 1K chips, I think I take my chances with 88 here

Hand2: I think I raise preflop, I like the represnetation of the A on the turn

Hand3: raise pre

[TLR]

BTW Fnord, which buy-in do you play ?

[fdnypoker]

Limp with AA vs Donks = trouble

I try to make it a habit never to limp w AA or KK regardless of position. Maybe a leak in my game but I want the small suited connectors and small pairs out of the hand.

Only time I would think about limping is 2-3 handed where one person is pushing the action EVERY hand.

[Fnord]

If you're not shoving this one then you've been playing cash too long. I can never get this one to go -EV. The looser opps call, the more +EV this becomes.

Unless you think 22-77 call here a lot, I think you're very wrong.

Do you like our chances to money after passing here more than our chances to win a coinflip?

[Fnord]

2-dont like it. fold>raise>limp. Tho its ok if they are passive/tight behind you, ie. get position on the blinds who you can outplay IP.

It's hard to out-play people if there isn't much money behind. I want money behind against this guy and a minimal pre-flop commitment. The other 2 guys don't want to play post-flop poker anyway.

3-just raise, BB likes to go over PFRs so let him do it

Limping is more likely to induce a pre-flop action than a raise. No one knows me and I've already shown that I'll limp middle blind levels.

[GatorJH]

What is the buy in here Fnord?

[Fnord]

What is the buy in here Fnord?

$25+$2

[K2 the ArmA]

If you're not shoving this one then you've been playing cash too long. I can never get this one to go -EV. The looser opps call, the more +EV this becomes.

Do you like our chances to money after passing here more than our chances to win a coinflip?

No, I don't.

[Fnord]

No, I don't.

I think you're panicing too early, still a lot of poker left to play.

55-88ish UTGish with a nearly full table to act and 10-15bb deep stacks has probably bust me out of donkaments more often than any other spot. Quite often getting the worst of it. I think we're at about the worst possible stack depth for hands like that. I'd rather call a button push with Q9s 6bb deep (due to rising blinds.)

[K2 the ArmA]

No, I don't.

I think you're panicing too early, still a lot of poker left to play.

55-88ish UTGish with a nearly full table to act and 10-15bb deep stacks has probably bust me out of donkaments more often than any other spot. Quite often getting the worst of it. I think we're at about the worst possible stack depth for hands like that. I'd rather call a button push with Q9s 6bb deep (due to rising blinds.)

I'm sure it's a quite even play either way. The probability of you picking up the monster you are waiting for before you blind out to 6bb or less vrs. the probability of you pushing and the table folds or calls with you 80/20-70/30. I'm folding here if I have seen the blind players who will call much more loose than the norm. This isn't going to happen as often as the players in the blinds need Group1 hands to call... I think. Good post.

[|~|ypermegachi]

hand 1: instapush. there's 8 players left, and blinds are 50/100. this suggests the table is tight as hell, thus you're not flipping too often here. some people will fold AJ to your push. the only person who has a reasonably wide calling range is SB, since he is very short. you crush his range.

hand 2: ugh. hate the preflop limp. as played, it should work well if your read was accurate.

hand 3: raise preflop.

edit: just read your post about you getting whooped with 55-88 UTG. this is a turbo. you have <5 minutes until 75/150. <10 minutes and you're 100/200. you don't have time. stick it in.

[dsmrolla06]

Hand1: I agree with others that you should push here with 88 with 11x bb and being in the bb next hand.

Hand2: I probly fold this, but would rather raise than limp. As played i think it was fine.

Hand 3: I raise this to 3x, expecially with your read on the bb and and the sb being laggy (im assuming this is what you mean by hes the action of the table).

[taipan168]

If you're not shoving this one then you've been playing cash too long. I can never get this one to go -EV. The looser opps call, the more +EV this becomes.

Unless you think 22-77 call here a lot, I think you're very wrong.
Do you like our chances to money after passing here more than our chances to win a coinflip?

This is a pure SNGPT problem. It doesn't matter whether they call you tight or loose, this is never -EV. The only time you would consider passing up a +EV situation is if the edge is very narrow (say +0.1-0.2%) and you honestly believe that your skill level is well ahead of the table average such that there will be better spots later.

The real issue here is not the fact that if we're called we're often flipping or dominated (but remember that if BB is loose he may well call with hands that we're ahead of) but the chance that everybody folds and we add 13% to our stack.

[FlyingSaucy]

what amazes me most about this thread is that fnord is posting in the sng forum.

1. push
2. muck preflop or raise to 400 and be prepared to take a risky cbet if called.
3. standard 400 raise pre, these donk games you're likely to get one of the big stacks to limp behind you and blinds to complete/check. last thing I want 6 handed with mid M range is to go to a 4 way flop with a pot that is a 25% of my stack.

[Fnord]

2. muck preflop or raise to 400 and be prepared to take a risky cbet if called.

I think I have too much value to fold and raising just sets me up to play 1 1/2 streets against a guy who would happen to play well against a straight aggro line. Put more money behind and I can punish him when he spews off because I trust myself to make way better decisions playing back at him, getting it in when I figure to be good or getting out of the hand.

last thing I want 6 handed with mid M range is to go to a 4 way flop with a pot that is a 25% of my stack.

A) We're not seeing a flop 4 handed often enough (see reads).
B) All the times they make a scrub whatever to beat me are more than off-set by all the times they get it in with a worse hand on the flop, I suck back out or I induce one of them to get cute pre-flop with a hand I have crushed. If I had Jacks, Queens or maybe even Kings I would agree. But with crap for money behind and a very high paranoia level I have no problem slow playing the Aces for a round. Usually the biggest problem is the play has no balance.

[gingerwizard]

1. I like the fold.

I'll bet SNGPT would tell you to "consider other options" other than shoving. ICM may be important and especially for beginners, but it is not a great model really. Lots of poker left to be played and chances to aquire chips without needing to race, especially for a good player such as fnord.

You run this through the old Skill ICM model (again not a superb model but one that at least values your skill) I came up with and it's a blatent fold.

2 and 3 though were pretty much no-nos preflop. I like the way you played 3 after the flop though.