10+1 Stars SNG, did I play this correctly ?

[gordo426]

Prologue - I had not played a single hand this whole SnG, extremly cold cards. Read on villain is hes a straightforward player for the most part. I just wanna know if I played this right?

PokerStars Game #11324952509: Tournament #57462946, $10+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2007/08/05 - 15:04:37 (ET)
Table '57462946 1' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: L Vez (3240 in chips)
Seat 2: sjustice (1360 in chips)
Seat 3: fly99 (2825 in chips)
Seat 4: HappyChild78 (1670 in chips)
Seat 5: macace911 (335 in chips)
Seat 6: Chicagopush (2275 in chips)
Seat 8: GoGetta420 (1795 in chips)
HappyChild78: posts small blind 50
macace911: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to GoGetta420 [Td Jd]
Chicagopush: folds
GoGetta420: raises 250 to 350
L Vez: folds
sjustice: calls 350
fly99: folds
HappyChild78: folds
macace911: folds
*** FLOP *** [4c 8d 9d]
GoGetta420: bets 1445 and is all-in
sjustice: calls 1010 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [4c 8d 9d] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [4c 8d 9d Ac] [Tc]

Anyone would have done anything differently, other than not playing these cards in the first place? The way I see it I was ahead on the flop, please critique/correct me if im wrong

Thanks!

[badgers]

Foooollllldd preflop. Easy easy fold, raise is way -EV.

With 850 in pot and his stack of 1k, shove is OK here. We need to bet as we are likely ahead here, only bet can be a shove.

But why did you raise JTs UTG+1?

[gordo426]

I raised mainly to blind steal as i hadn't done anything all tourney but check/fold and won a small pot with nothing a few hands earlier. The table had been playing tight, I thought a raise would get a little respect considering I had not played a hand all tourney. The villain had pocket kings, so I don't blame him for calling. So, I guess my only mistake was playing that in the first place. Thanks for the criticism, I should probably be more patient with cold cards.

[gordo426]

While we're on the subject, could anyone possibly explain to me ICM and EV calculations? I've been playing poker for about 9 months, and I understand most concepts besides those. I'm not quite a winning poker player, but if I'm not tilting I feel that I know what i'm doing. I am very open to criticism though, so if someone could please explain EV and ICM to me, I would appreciate it.

[badgers]

Blind steals work best in later postions as there are less players to act who could haveto pick up a big hand, as you found to your cost here.

EV is everything. It stands for expected value, the single most important concept in poker, and any form of gambling. It is the amount of money you expect to win on average.

eg. My friend is an idiot. He offers $2 everytime a flipped coin is a head, in exchange for $1 if it's a tail. If the coin is fair, I expect 50c every flip.

Buy Theory of Poker by Sklansky to learn more. It should make back its' value very quickly.

ICM is more complicated. There's a good explanation by Taipan in the sticky. I advise getting SnGwiz or SNGPT if you're serious about beating sngs.

[taipan168]

I raised mainly to blind steal as i hadn't done anything all tourney but check/fold and won a small pot with nothing a few hands earlier. The table had been playing tight, I thought a raise would get a little respect considering I had not played a hand all tourney.

At low buyins, forget about your table image unless you have seen that players are observant. They're mostly just playing their own cards, they're not paying attention to whether you're playing loose or tight.

[gordo426]

EV is everything. It stands for expected value, the single most important concept in poker, and any form of gambling. It is the amount of money you expect to win on average.

I know what it stands for, I just am not sure how to calculate it.

At low buyins, forget about your table image unless you have seen that players are observant. They're mostly just playing their own cards, they're not paying attention to whether you're playing loose or tight.

I think this is one of my problems, I read way too much poker literature and have trained myself to think deeply but I'm not rolled deep enough for it to mean anything.

[bjsaust]

EV is about guesswork (unless you have certain information).

A classic example comes from ToP (I think), which is whether theres greater EV from shoving the nuts on the river or making a value bet. So for instance I have 1000 behind on the river and I have the nuts, and villian has me covered. I guess that if I shove he calls 20% of the time, but if I just bet 200 then he calls 50% of the time.

20% x 1000 = 200EV
50% x 200 = 100EV

So if my guesses are correct then its more +EV to shove than to value bet, even though the value bet gets called more often.

Any EV calc begins with estimations. The better you get at making those estimations, the better your EV calcs will be, and the more you should win over the long term.

How you calculate EV depends on the situation at hand though. There is no "THE EV CALC!".

I think you're probably referring to EV in an ICM sense though. Really, the best way to learn is to pick a hand you wonder if you should push, and manually do the calc as explained in the stickies above. Pick a hand you want to shove, and hand where someone has raised and you want to shove over, and a hand where someone has shoved and you want to call, and do the calculations for each one.

[drmcboy]

It is not possible to have 'read way too much poker literature' and not know what EV is. You can safely throw away any book you own that doesn't discuss EV. read HOH and then Theory of Poker.


Don't feel bad, FTR people throw out '-EV' and '+EV' all the time but usually they mean 'I think this play is good/bad'.

Easy easy fold, raise is way -EV.

Here is an example, this statement is absurd with no details around it.

[badgers]

Easy easy fold, raise is way -EV.

Here is an example, this statement is absurd with no details around it.

But it is.....? Maybe I should have said really bad, to avoid needlessly spouting jargon.

[drmcboy]

What range would you raise here?

What range do you suppose your oppoenents will call with? Shove over with?

That's to start with, we can talk about what happens when we get called next if you want. Determining the EV of a bet is so much harder than a call because we have FE.

Changing to 'really bad' at least prevents people from assuming you have done elaborate mathematical justifications of pre flop raise ranges but the questions above should be answered either way before you categorically call this or really any raise (short of one that has no reasonable expectation of not being called) a bad play. As Mikey Sexton always says, /hillbilly accent "It's one thing to BET a gutshot draw, but it's quite another to call with it". /hillbilly accent off

You can be an OK poker player memorizing an opening hand chart and sticking to it 100 % of the time adding 5 opening hands per position or whatever, but the idea that that's the only way you can win is simply false.

[Geanosssss]

Use hand history converter tool please...

[Geanosssss]

Quote:
Easy easy fold, raise is way -EV.


Here is an example, this statement is absurd with no details around it.

I agree. I wouldnt nessacarily say that this play is -EV, you dont really have enough information to judge this. I wouldnt reccomend this play, but you dont have enough information to label this play -EV.

[badgers]

Interesting post drmc, without specific information about the players behind, it is of course very difficult to calculate the EV of a situation like this, and would require as bjsaust said, an awful lot of guesswork. If the players behind were all super rocks this could be a good play, adjusting to our oppenents etc, but I can't see it being profitable at an $11 SnG without reads, not by a long stretch.

Quote:
Easy easy fold, raise is way -EV.


Here is an example, this statement is absurd with no details around it.

I agree. I wouldnt nessacarily say that this play is -EV, you dont really have enough information to judge this. I wouldnt reccomend this play, but you dont have enough information to label this play -EV.

With any reasonable calling or shoving ranges there's no way this raise can be profitable imo. This discussion has got quite a bit off topic, but readless, it is a poor play at a $11 SnG when we need to preserve our stack for push/fold poker. I may have just been humbled by a far better player but I stand by that fact.

(^Avoids the phrase -EV like the plague )

[Geanosssss]

With any reasonable calling or shoving ranges there's no way this raise can be profitable imo. This discussion has got quite a bit off topic, but readless, it is a poor play at a $11 SnG when we need to preserve our stack for push/fold poker. I may have just been humbled by a far better player but I stand by that fact.

It isnt the best play but you'd be suprised by how much it works. With the blinds this high they're certainly worth stealing. And yeah you'd rather do this from LP but doing it from EP with a hand like J10s can be proffitable on a tight table.
Your EP raise will get get more respect and you can hit the flop hard with your suited connectors. There is also quite a big chance that you'll be in position post-flop as you'll be up against the blinds.

Obviously this play would fall into the creative category (which im not a huge fan of), although its not really as bad a play as it seems.
I doubt I would make this play very often, if at all. But I can understand the reasoning for it.

[drmcboy]

This discussion has got quite a bit off topic,

it isn't at all off topic. The only thing to discuss about this hand is pre flop, we aren't folding an open ended SF draw (again, OP, I don't what books you have read, but go get HOH). If you considered folding, you should just fold pre flop. This is not just a good flop, it a great flop.

but readless, it is a poor play at a $11 SnG when we need to preserve our stack for push/fold poker.

This is kinda why I like popping it sometime in this orbit. If someone shoves, we can fold and still have a stack with pretty much the same FE as before. If someone calls, we have a nice flop hand. If they fold, hooray.

I just don't think the difference between a 1400 stack and 1800 is so substantial that we can say whether or not this is a good play just based on that (NB, I would raise 250 or 300 here so in my case even less). This steal keeps our stack in a spot where we can still raise/fold if we want, that has a lot of value too. And if we happen to pick up a hand in the next orbit or so we may open up calling/shove over ranges for the other players.

Folding here is just fine and 'standard' but if you never consider opening the pot here with something less than a hand you're going to call a push with, I think you should re-evaluate that. Whether it's JTs or 27 or 56 or 22 is more a matter of style.

[gordo426]

thank you all for your input and constructive criticism. I have not read sklanksys but i've read phil gordons x2, hohx2, i read FTR everyday and also read cardplayer magazine, so i'm a bit of an addict. I have begun getting better at putting opponents on ranges. My pre-flop play was a loose one, but it was not done without thought put into it. On the flop I shoved because I was ahead and had fold equity. I do not raise everytime I get JTs oop, was just a play based on how the table was playing and I decided i had to play something sometime with the blinds rising.

[bjsaust]

PF I dont like it. Whilst I agree with drmcboy about sometimes making a play like this (and like he says, it really doesnt matter what cards you're doing it with since its basically a bluff from beginning to end), at the current blind level, and with 5 players still to come, I think the chance of running into a proper hand is too high to justify. I'd prefer this closer to the button, but with our stack, even if we're feeling card dead, I dont think theres a need to make this move here. We're still in mid-chip position (3 with less, 3 with more), which is fairly comfortable at this stage of an SnG.

Post-Flop is perfect.


Heres a slightly OT question. Just how much better is an OESD + SFD than an OESD+FD? Is there much discernable difference between the two?

[Fnord]

Hand is played fine if you're going to play it.

It's just clear you're not familar with what brings home the money in SnGs.