Small-Ball troubles in the Sunday Million

[FriskyPirate]

Here are two hands I am seeking advice on. I was following the Negreanu's small-ball approach to the Sunday Million and it was working well. Blinds were 400/800 so I had fallen under 30x. Oaclaf took a lot time to call the initial min bet. How would you proceed with this flop? I decided to push to discourage chasing. Oaclaf is 29|11. In the second hand, would you call this all-in with AK. Blinds were 300 600 and I had 30,000 and the all-in was a little less than 1/3 my stack. Zorro is 17|13

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$200+$15
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG ZorroDk (20712)
UTG+1 brockage1122 (12427)
MP1 Hero (21158)
MP2 daphishermen (23066)
MP3 Oaclaf (10505)
CO Barbiekim (15500)
BTN JuggernautCA (30746)
SB Wambaa (12238)
BB mixmixmix (13024)

Blinds: 400/800

Pre-flop: (1,200, 9 players) Hero is MP1
2 folds, Hero raises to 1,600, 1 fold, Wambaa says "nh", Oaclaf calls 1,600, 4 folds

Flop: (4,400, 2 players)
Hero (19,558)?


_____________________________________
Hand 2

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$200+$15
9 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:
UTG daphishermen (20666)
UTG+1 BarneyR2005 (9775)
MP1 Barbiekim (8450)
MP2 JuggernautCA (6023)
MP3 animos1 (2850)
CO mixmixmix (15985)
BTN ZorroDk (8646)
SB brockage1122 (11927)
BB Hero (31704)

Blinds: 300/600

Pre-flop: (900, 9 players) Hero is BB
6 folds, ZorroDk goes all-in 8,646, 1 fold, 8,046 to Hero (31,104)?

[bigspenda73]

you know I love ya but if you don't know what to do in hand 2 you shouldn't be playing the million.

[baudib]

Hand 1:
Um, bet. Half the pot, obviously shove over a reraise.

Hand 2:
Um, call. You have his range crushed.

[chardrian]

hand 1 - fold preflop.

hand 2 - snap call.

[FriskyPirate]

I called the AK hand and villain's 77 held-up. I hate how AK can make or break you. In the flush hand I believe I over-played the hand and pushed all-in. Villain instant called and showed A6c which was unfortunate. I tend to think I should of played that hand slower to minimize the damage to players chasing the club draw?

[baudib]

Calling the late-position shortstack shove with AK is like the most standard play ever. He has Ax/two broadways a lot more often than he has a pair.

[mcatdog]

1 - Bet 2/3 pot and don't fold under any circumstances. Even if he calls the flop, and the turn is another club, I'd probably still check-call. Preflop is obviously super bad and you can't even argue that the table was tight enough to steal since you got called by A6.

2 - Call.

[FriskyPirate]

Preflop is obviously super bad and you can't even argue that the table was tight enough to steal since you got called by A6.

I know a lot of people think this way and normally I play a tight style as well, but this is how Negreneau plays and teaches. It his style choice...for people that think I'm full of it, you can watch his videos at pokervt and he is currently showing "deep in the sunday million" where he is min-betting small suited one, two and three gapped connectors all day.

[bigspenda73]

Preflop is obviously super bad and you can't even argue that the table was tight enough to steal since you got called by A6.

I know a lot of people think this way and normally I play a tight style as well, but this is how Negreneau plays and teaches. It his style choice...for people that think I'm full of it, you can watch his videos at pokervt and he is currently showing "deep in the sunday million" where he is min-betting small suited one, two and three gapped connectors all day.

that's nice, are you Daniel Negraneau?

[mcatdog]

If I decided to open shove 72o 100% of the time I'm dealt it, I could call that a "style choice" which doesn't change the fact that it's flushing money down the toilet.

You should always be able to justify your plays with logic, you can't just play crap hands and have no reason other than "It's my style." I'm guessing if you asked Negreanu to go into more depth about why he was raising those hands, he'd say first of all the table was playing really tight, and second of all he plays well enough postflop to maneuver through any tricky spots. Neither appears to be the case for you at this table so you shouldn't play hands like this.

[FriskyPirate]

that's nice, are you Daniel Negraneau?

No :P Are you saying there is only one correct style for tournament play? :P There is more than one way to play a tournament. Lededer, TJ, Hellmuth and others are effective playing the TAG style. Hanson, Negreneau play more LAG style. Others play positional poker like Annette Obrestad who was famous for winning a 180 person SNG, never looking at her cards.

If it was a super bad play...then it was a super bad play but I like learning new things and was trying to put new ideas into practice. I don't know what the odds of a single caller flopping flush over flush are (1 in 5?), but aginst most ranges, I think I would be ahead.

I'm guessing if you asked Negreanu to go into more depth about why he was raising those hands, he'd say first of all the table was playing really tight, and second of all he plays well enough postflop to maneuver through any tricky spots. Neither appears to be the case for you at this table so you shouldn't play hands like this.

In Daniel video he states...
47s. it's a suited connector and I know it's far apart but it's not that far apart. It's not far enough where we can't make the nuts.

Daniel goes on to say...
now here is a theory that might interest you. ok when you raise on the button people assume you are stealing more than when you are under the gun. So if you have JTo on the button, you are going to get a lot less credit. When you have it in early position, you get more credit so that sort of neutralizes the positional disadvantage that you have because people are more likely to fold anyway. So the further you go away from the position, the more likely your steals will actually work. And because we don't risk a lot on our steals, it evens itself out really.


For the haters
23s UTG+2
47s BTN

[baudib]

There are plenty of people who play small suited connectors. This isn't anything new. If anything, suited connectors are now overplayed, esp. in MTTs where you can't really afford to burn chips. Most of them don't play as well as Daniel Negreanu, who's maybe the best in the world at reading people's hands.

He's also capable of making incredible laydowns -- there was a hand at the WSOP Main Event a few years ago where he flopped the nut straight and folded on the river once a third spade hit. Do you think you can make that play?

[FriskyPirate]

Do you think you can make that play?

No I don't. So using your logic, because I can't make that play, I should not try and learn from Negreneau? Because I can't read people's souls, I should never read a Phil Hellmuth book? I'm a noob...where did I ever say I was not? But as a noob, I like learning and I read poker books, and watch poker videos, and hire poker coaches because I would like to play better...I do not want to be a donk forever...and so I hope it's ok to try new things. I didn't pull 25s out of my ass...I am trying to learn new ideas from PokerVT and enjoy Negreneau as a teacher.

[mcatdog]

now here is a theory that might interest you. ok when you raise on the button people assume you are stealing more than when you are under the gun. So if you have JTo on the button, you are going to get a lot less credit. When you have it in early position, you get more credit so that sort of neutralizes the positional disadvantage that you have because people are more likely to fold anyway. So the further you go away from the position, the more likely your steals will actually work. And because we don't risk a lot on our steals, it evens itself out really.

That's all well and good, but you still have to pay attention to your table and decide whether it's actually a table where UTG steals get too much credit. Your early position steal got called by A6, that right there should tell you that you could've just thrown that whole paragraph out the window at this particular table and not raised any crappy hands from early position. I can't imagine that the whole table was playing really tight and all of sudden someone called an EP raise with A6. My guess is you just think that seeing Negreanu open raise 74s on PokerVT is an excuse to open raise with that hand whenever the hell you want and not pay attention to your table.

[baudib]

Do you think you can make that play?

No I don't. So using your logic, because I can't make that play, I should not try and learn from Negreneau? Because I can't read people's souls, I should never read a Phil Hellmuth book? I'm a noob...where did I ever say I was not? But as a noob, I like learning and I read poker books, and watch poker videos, and hire poker coaches because I would like to play better...I do not want to be a donk forever...and so I hope it's ok to try new things. I didn't pull 25s out of my ass...I am trying to learn new ideas from PokerVT and enjoy Negreneau as a teacher.

I'd like to see where DN advocates raising with 52 in EP with about 25 BBs. It's not a matter of style but of mathematical probability. The likelihood of getting reraised is so high you're going to waste chips a great many times.

Just looking at your table, there are a lot of shortstacks with around 12-20 BBs who could decide at any moment that their A9s or 66 is good enough to risk their tournament lives on. Also, the biggest stack at the table is on the button and can call you with a wide range of hands (all of which, presumably, have 52 crushed).

Also, if you're going to play at all, your minraise is ridiculous. If you really want to steal, make it at least 3xBB. But again, you're going to get three-bet so often that you're just going to burn 10% of your stack way too often. Just fold.

Position and starting hand requirements are two basics you have to understand before incorporating more advanced LAG-style plays. You should learn to fold AJ here before mixing it up with 52.

[FriskyPirate]

I'd like to see where DN advocates raising with 52 in EP with about 25 BBs. It's not a matter of style but of mathematical probability. The likelihood of getting reraised is so high you're going to waste chips a great many times.

He generally suggests continuing with small ball until the raise is 10% of your stack. 1600 < (10%x21158). Once you hit 10% range he suggests limp then push mode.

if you're going to play at all, your minraise is ridiculous. If you really want to steal, make it at least 3xBB. But again, you're going to get three-bet so often that you're just going to burn 10% of your stack way too often. Just fold.

Again, I didn't make this up...Negreneau min-raises (2xBB) at the start of the tournament and then 2.5x the BB when antes are introduced. I was one of the tightest 3 players at the table and was effectively stealing blinds with min-raises.

In both screen caps I posted of Daniels Sunday Million play, he is 2xBB.
http://twiddler.typepad.com/.a/6a00d...6a1f2ae970c-pi
http://twiddler.typepad.com/.a/6a00d...69a178c970b-pi

[baudib]

I'm the resident expert on raising with 32 and I wouldn't recommend it...

[chardrian]

the thing with following someone else's logic is that you have to play the hand the same way s/he would from start to finish. Justifying your open because DN would do the same thing there doesn't make it right when he would never throw all the value of his hand away when he actually hits a monster flop by just shoving.

there's also a big difference between effective playing styles early in a tourney versus late in a tourney.

the fact that you know so many different styles and are eager to learn is a great sign. Just make sure you don't dismiss advice given here just because it is not given by DN.

[baudib]

also, frisky, keep in mind these guys like mcatdog, drmcboy and chardrian have a great track record of success in huge MTTs. The stuff you'll learn from these guys is as good as anything you'll read in a pro's book.

Everyone would love to play a LAG style; it's very seductive. But the fact that so many other people play garbage hands is the reason why ABC/TAG poker works.