1 steal attempt 1 hand maybe overplayed 1 semibluff

Too Agresso? Is this overplayed?
Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t20/t40
10 players


Stack sizes:
UTG: t2000
UTG+1: t2000
UTG+2: t2000
Hero: t2000
MP2: t2000
MP3: t2000
CO: t2000
Button: t2000
SB: t2000
BB: t2000

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is MP1 with A Q
2 folds, UTG+2 raises to t80, Hero calls t80, 3 folds, Button calls t80, 2 folds.

Flop: 4 Q 4 (t300, 3 players)
UTG+2 bets t40, Hero raises to t500.
Uncalled bets: t460 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: t380


Stealing
Party Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t50/t100
9 players


Stack sizes:
UTG: t1870
UTG+1: t1200
MP1: t2990
MP2: t1501
MP3: t3880
CO: t2639
Button: t1960
Hero: t2290
BB: t1670

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is SB with 8 9
7 folds, Hero calls t50, BB checks.

Flop: 4 T Q (t200, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets t100, Hero calls t100.

Turn: T (t400, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets t100, Hero raises to t300.
Uncalled bets: t200 returned to Hero.

Results:
Final pot: t600


Stealing.. Couldnt convert this one.

***** Hand History for Game 3758482452 *****
0/0 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 21091015) - Thu Mar 16 21:32:28 EST 2006
Table Speed 1183214 (Real Money) -- Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: DiamondRiver (8140)
Seat 6: Ryan_F1 (2062)
Seat 7: dewbird (6708)
Seat 9: fasin8ing1 (3090)
fasin8ing1 posts small blind (300)
DiamondRiver posts big blind (600)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to fasin8ing1 [ 4d, 4c ]
Ryan_F1 folds.
dewbird folds.
fasin8ing1 raises (2790) to 3090
fasin8ing1 is all-In.
DiamondRiver folds.

Hand 1 - His cont. bet is weak as piss, so you are right to stamp all over it, but I think a smaller re-raise (say, to 250-300) achieves the same aim and gives you an avenue of escape, just in case you ever need it. AA and KK are coming back over the top of you and, the more you invest now, the more stuck you might get to the pot.

Hand 2 - I might raise pre-flop to legitimately call it stealing. This seems more like detecting weakness and taking the pot away.

Hand 3 - I'm ok with it to a degree. My only concern with this hand is that you are pushing into the big stack who may not need that big of a hand to take you on. Then again, any significant raise commits half your stack anyway. Be interested to see what the others think on this one.

1: Here his lead bet is really weak, but you have a made hand that is probably the best hand here. Even if you wanted to take the pot down here, why would you do so with such a huge raise? I like raising to the size of the pot, especially when the bet is so small. However, here I would probably raise to 160-240 and hope for a call, you dont want to push villain off the hand here.

2: On this hand Id raise preflop and be happy taking it down there. On the flop I dont mind the call, your raise on the turn is somewhat weak mainly because BBs bet was weak. With their bet I dont mind the smallish raise, however, Id still raise to closer to the pot.

3: Pushing is definitely standard here, with blinds at 300/600 you have to push.

Originally Posted by andy-akb

1: Here his lead bet is really weak, but you have a made hand that is probably the best hand here. Even if you wanted to take the pot down here, why would you do so with such a huge raise? I like raising to the size of the pot, especially when the bet is so small. However, here I would probably raise to 160-240 and hope for a call, you dont want to push villain off the hand here.

40 tells me .. Im trying to steal... Or I like two clubs on the board, please give me odds. I raise that much not to push villain out.. But to ensure hes calling a raise with real shit odds. I dont really think I am playing this overagressively.. I think Iam playing this hand hoping villain is a fish and has two clubs and calls anyways. I dicked this hand up ... Instead of raising 500 , I should have invited him to see the turn at the very least with a smallish raise.

In hand 1 worse hands fold and better hands call/push over. No need to push him off if he has a weaker hand, no need to put too many chips in if he has a stronger hand.

In hand 2 I don't like check-calling the flop, especially since you don't know if the Jd is clean. Come the turn, I dont think I like the c/r-bluff. If you had a T, would you risk giving him a free card? Also, if you had a T, would you check-call the flop?

Originally Posted by HalvSame

In hand 1 worse hands fold and better hands call/push over. No need to push him off if he has a weaker hand, no need to put too many chips in if he has a stronger hand.

In hand 2 I don't like check-calling the flop, especially since you don't know if the Jd is clean. Come the turn, I dont think I like the c/r-bluff. If you had a T, would you risk giving him a free card? Also, if you had a T, would you check-call the flop?

No .. I wouldnt check call that flop with a pair of tens. K 10 A 10 .. yes .. I would. Great point on the J d. I thought about this.. And thats why I decided I would check raise to end it. If I were to make my straight , I dont even know if it would be good... He may have a PP hit trips and then slow play... Hey may be onto a flush draw. I wanted to see what kinda aggression he would take. He folded. I would have liked to see the river. I may have made my hand and bet for value.

Originally Posted by fasin8ing

And thats why I decided I would check raise to end it.
...
I would have liked to see the river. I may have made my hand and bet for value.

You're contradicting yourself. Also, you may have made your hand, but if he's on the flush draw there is a greater chance that he would have made his hand. So I think you should be glad to take the pot down here.

What I mean about the ten is that the ten on the turn should not have scared him. Check-calling that flop with middle pair is not how most people would play it, and check-raising with trip tens isn't either (it would be too dangerous with the flush draw).

That said, his turn bet of 1/4 pot is weak, suggesting either a made boat building the pot or a complete bluff. The flush draw will most often take a free card here and top pair will bet higher to give the flush draw bad odds. This invites you to take a stab at it.

I don't like the low reraise, though. If villain is building the pot with the flush draw, the t200 reraise gives him implied odds to see a river (because you're representing a hand strong enough to call a value bet if he hits his flush). So if you're going to reraise, you should probably make the raise bigger. And then you have suddenly invested too many chips to make it worthwhile.

So I take a stab at it on the flop instead, betting out half pot and check-folding the turn if I don't hit my straight or get the odds to see a river.

(And yeah, it is easy to over complicate things when going over a HH.)