Hello again. Back from my freeroll, busting out in 20th. Couldn't build a stack, couldn't fold 88 UTG with my last 5000....
Nothing too thrilling from today, perhaps just a quick lesson in good live poker etiquette.
In the third level, 50/100, I raise the UTG limper with AA to 400. The table folds to me and UTG makes the call. We see a 478 flop, and UTG is all in.
I have seen this guy be all in early before. It is a ridiculous overbet here. The pot is 1000. He has 4000. I have 3200. It is suspicious. I have AA. I call immediately.
I expect to see A8 or 99. He has 44.
This was a bad play on his part, and he was very lucky to get a caller. The game is early, why put me on a calling hand? Why protect a set? Some pros say bet big with a set after calling a raise, but you may recall my advice about playing sets: if not, look for it for more details. Even the pro advice does not suggest go all in. Make a good bet that can be raised by your opponent.
If I have AK, I fold to the all in bet. He has a hand that doesn't need protection. The straight draw is incredibly unlikely. There are few players who will raise 10-9 or 5-6 so early. He just got excited and overbet like a silly goose (premature ejaculation: there are pills for it. See your doctor!)
If I am the dude with 44, I either probe (value) bet, say 400 or 500 or less, or check and try to disguise my hand as the straight draw (like last blog with QQ hitting the set with the flush draw).
The A hit the turn. He paid off big, and I stacked huge.
Now, lets put me on AK here, and replay this hand from 44's perspective post flop.
I am assuming the raiser has strong mixed paint (QK) or a strong A(at least AJ), maybe a PP. I want payment. I want to know whether I have a good PP or a strong A here so I can determine how best to get paid.
If 44 checks or bets modest, AK continuation bets 65% of the time, just calls 25%, and folds 10%, depending on the player, and depending on 44's ability to disguise his huge hand. We all over-invest in AK, and will often chase the Ace post flop for the right price.
Here, a modest bet will induce a raise from my AA or similar PP. He will know I have a big PP which is not AA if I reraise: of course, AA isn't afraid of an overcard, and I may slow play it too to maintain a disguise. Almost all PP's KK down will try to bet out any chance of losing when the flop looks so favorable.
This is probably what I do. That A on the turn then tells 44, likely, that AK has hit his hand, and a check or weak bet will induce a raise. Of course with AA, I may attempt to trap here, or let him try to represent hitting his fraudulent A. Bottom line, is I would disguise my hand with AA here to generate a river bet too. Maybe I play it like my KK just got busted.
With AK, I may ultimately get away from this hand, but probably not without serious damage. If he represented a liking to the flop, and appears unfrightened by the A, a good player like me may put the guy on A8 (or a set) and want to slow things down (another example of set radar: the player who appears unafraid of the scare card on the turn has a reason to be unafraid). Lesser players will fall in love with their AA top kicker and pay off mighty.
Lets compare this to an earlier hand...once again I have QQ in position very early (25/25 blinds) and raise to 150. I get three callers. I get a flop of Q 10 2 two diamonds. I am first to act and check (why not, eh). Everyone checks and the turn is the 10 of diamonds. I have a full house, and fear nothing. I bet value, 200, and get one caller. The river is the J of diamonds, and bet 300 and get called by AK, confidently turning over a straight (maybe he had a diamond too, who cares). Its not a huge pot, but I beat a huge hand and got good value by misrepresenting.
Okay, point of etiquette. 44 was very gracious in my suckout. We shook hands. He has 800 chips left, I have a huge stack. 30-odd hands later, he is blinded down to 275 when finally, UTG, he has to push. I owe this gentleman a call, and say so and do so with Q9 clubs. He says thank you. The table folds except for the BB, who only has 125 more to pay. BB indicates that he will check blind by rapping the table before the flop is shown, implying he will check it down. I tell him I agree. I catch my flush on the turn, and I am tempted to bet, even reach for chips, but honour the agreement to check down.
The pot was tiny. This is another good reason to (a) call and (b) check down. We gave the all-in short stack some credit for a hand and some real respect (he had A8). In a game where busting people is the focus, a gracious winner who is also a good player makes friends at the table, not enemies. (Coincidentally, the gentleman I busted in 4th on Monday was also at my table on Wednesday, and being a courteous winner made for a friendly table next tourney (we got to share with the table his suckout story when he had 7000 and A3 UTG when my 100,000 chips and BB woke up with AA and had to apologize for calling...he caught 2 more 3s and managed to grind through into 4th...assisted by a massive bluff on my part with 73 all in into his A high BB the hand before I busted him with 88 in a race with A10).
I want to talk about that final table a bit, but offer some final comments on crisis time and late position play.
You will observe that the first 5 to act fold so often in crisis time, that the final 3, especially the cut off and button, tend to raise and steal. I have talked in early middle play about a number of hands, mixed paint, 88 or better pps, which make good raising hands in these positions as semi steals. It is very rare for me to attempt a steal with 73 or similar trash, and as a result, I can still represent a hand when stealing. From these positions, these hands offer you live cards and coinflips if reraised, but here are situations where YOU SHOULD NEVER ATTEMPT A TRASH HAND STEAL IN CRISIS TIME, IF THE SB OR BB IS:
- very short stacked. Desperation will induce a call with any hope of 2 live. The semi stealing hands mentioned are legitimate pushing hands against short stacks however.
- Very large stacked, or generally willing to see flops from bad positions and have strong skills out of position (like me). I won a nice pot today putting the cutoff raise as 50/50 a steal and calling the 1100 bet with K10 spades. The flop was 10 9 4 two more spades, and went all in. I could have check raised the inevitable continuation bet too, but its not like I knew we had a K in common and had to assume two live overcards, 4 outs only to be sure, but I want to stay, not get sucked out on, and my K high flush has been second best plenty of times too. He showed his AK and folded. Hopefully I have taught you how to play similarly fearlessly from the blinds. This is the best way to prevent steals. I and the short stack beside me often got no action on Monday. Today, I had the benefit of the chip leader (who had cleared his former table of chips and usurped me as table captain) to my right to protect my BB.
- Assess your player. Weak players (and you should know by now) have A high only. If you have them stacked, and were only semibluffing, you might as well join in and chase your 2 live. If you had 88 or better, you are likely dominating. Stronger players (those who don't call in love with any ace) have a legitimate hand when they raise. I attempted a KJ semi steal of 1600 with 200/400 blinds into a SB player with a similar chip stack, he went all in quite quickly. The B B was shorter stacked. I couldn't call the SB, told him I'd respect his Ace, and he showed me 99. The BB told us he had A9, and would have moved if the SB got out of the way. I would have called the BB (and it would turn out the case 9 was also folded) and raced. I knew pretty well I had two live here, but I also had 4500 chips left in my stack, and a desire to stick around longer. The BB player would later just limp in AQ from the steal position to avoid losing a big pot. I sure had my man read. He hates aces more than I do. I would go all in with AQ UTG a few hands later and show him after the table folds, just for fun.
- Hopefully, you are only semistealing. If you raised with trash THERE IS ALMOST NO JUSTIFICATION FOR CALLING. Showing down trash will destroy your reputation, even if you do suck out. The next time you raise, I hope you want action (SEE THE STORY OF DONKEY IN LAST BLOG). If you raised a desperate short stack with trash, get your head in the game mister! Folding to just a few chips more says "trash" just as much as showing the table the truth. Even with a monster stack, laziness or aggressiveness for its own sake will attract action from the wrong players: the good ones, who have been patiently waiting for you.
Do you want to win or just limp into the money? Time to decide. If you're reading this, you want to hit the final table and be a factor in it. Right? Good.
Lets say you have an average stack in the final 30...As in last blog, this is 7500 to 12500 in chips. This is simply not going to be enough. You are in okay shape against 300/600 blinds with 12500 in chips, you have equity for patience, and a stack which may be hard to call or raise when you don't necessarily want action... but its time for action, not stack maintenance.
In the casino game I play, the average stack at the final table will be about 25000 chips, and the blinds will be at the 500/1500 or 1000/2000 levels to start (yes 500/1500 is a weird level. Discuss it with the tourney director). The average stack in a 10 handed table has some time, but at just over 10x the blinds, not a lot (and don't forget those antes sucking you dry). Aim for the average, and hope for an opportunity to chip up to a serious final table contender (see last blog!). The final table average is easy to calculate, the expected blind level will be a matter of tourney experience. Prepare for both and try to stack up to accommodate your needs.
You have to play for action now. This means trapping with big hands, and brilliant play post flop to get paid when you have monsters and take down pots when the fortunes are less bright but you have you have found the green light from your opponent(s), like when your modest PP is against overcards post flop, but you get the right read.
I have already provided many many examples of understanding when an under PP is good, when to call a raise with the BB and huge play from the blinds and early position. Time to put all those skills to use, and play fearlessly as if you don't care how late its getting, how close the final table bubble you are, or how big or small your stack is. You have managed your stack well for 3 or more hours now. Time to wield that stack and the reputation you earned by using both as weapons of mass destruction. In doing so that earned reputation will build and build. So will your stack.
Keep in mind as well, in final 30 time, that the tables are going to shrink. From 30 to 21, your table will shrink from 10 to 7 until the 20 bubble bursts. From 20 to 10, it can be as small as 5 players until you make the final.
You need to chip up in an ever tightening noose around your neck of rapidly repeating blinds amid desperate shortstacks and very talented players who already have the survival skills and stacks to match. All the players around you deserve huge respect. You cannot take a hand off. Their game is going to change, and so should yours. Those marginal semi-steal hands we have been discussing have just gone up in value, as have more modest aces. You have been avoiding them in early position before: There is no such thing as early position in a 6 handed table. Only the biggest stacks can be patient now. Modest stacks need to to push and pray. This means you. You may have been playing 1.5 hands for every BB in crisis play 10 handed. 15% of the pots is now every BB 6 and 7 handed. Get active. Get aggressive. Make creative calls. Time to play brilliant with modest holdings. Time to gamble a bit.
The only caveat to this advice is, while modest aces may have more value, and some legitimate showdown value, the tendency to call raises with Ace high at this time means you really aren't gambling with an Ace here, you're gambling with your kicker. AJ and A10 are great raising and calling hands here, but any lower might very well have serious kicker trouble if your raise gets called. I still prefer K9 over A9 here for obvious reasons when A10 comes calling.
Examples:
- from today, final 25: UTG is short stacked with 1000 chips. I am in SB and I;m not much better, blinds are 300/600 and I have 4500. UGH. Table folds to me, and I see QK spades. There is no way I'm folding. BB has me stacked. It is 700 for me and 400 for him to make the call. THERE IS NO WAY I AM CALLING AND CHECKING DOWN HERE. It is not about knocking shortie out. It is about winning the pot. I need to play heads up, and bet accordingly, all in. BB can't call, and I am happy to see UTG pushed with K10 (an excellent hand to push with, two live against most calling aces.). BB, the same guy who raised me with 99 and slowplayed A, tells me he had Q10. and would have easily made the call (of course). The river hits the Q, I win the pot I needed to win.
- Yesterday, final table, down to 7, I am huge (keep in mind this is still crisis time and the table is short just like final 30 play, with a few healthy stacks and some desperate ones at the table). The table folds to me in the SB. I have Q7 and complete the blind to 6000 and the BB (with some 45k to my 100k) checks. This is the power of the big stack. No one wants to play a big pot with the Monster. Flop is AK2. Turn is K. River is 3. We have check-checked all the way to the river, and BB decides to bet 20k, the pot, when I check the river. I tell him I'll look him up, announce my Q high. He has to muck. Of course he had nothing. Any BB player bets middle pair to a check from the SB post-flop after all. Any A gets raised preflop. The other cards, 2 and 3, are so extremely small, they are out on the margins of likely random hands the BB checks with. I don't think a player who has rivered a pair of 3s here bothers to bet. Too risky that the Monster was limp-trapping. The bet was an obvious bluff. He lost half his stack making it, and I enhanced my reputation as THE PLAYER AT THE TABLE.
- Again, yesterday, final table, 7 handed, and the other big stack has just lost a big pot, and everyone folds to him in the cutoff, where he raises my BB of 6000 to 15000. It is folded to me, and I state to him, "looks like an 'I just lost a big pot' steal to me" before I look at my cards and see 77. I had an all-in option here, but this is another big stack (65 to my 120) and big stacks tend to play cautiously against each other with so many small stacks to bust out until the money gets worthwhile. In similar circumstances I have raised all in with 77 and got (and lost) an undesirable showdown when, If I had called, I could have seen a 77-friendly small flop and won a medium pot with a strong bet (something I did much earlier today with a 7 high flop, 66 in the hole, and a modest continuation bet on a player I had stacked 6000 to 2000: I pushed him all in when he bet out 200 after raising preflop to 300), instead of losing a huge pot when a K hit the turn. Here, I call.
- The flop is hilarious: 5 AA. I look to my opponent and ask for a chip count. I am told it is 47k, he looks concerned. I check (I think I'm good, but I need to be sure). He checks back. (the prior hand where I called a big bet with Q high had already happened, so my opponent knows I can make big reads and big calls). The turn is another 5 and I immediately go all in. He folds. I show him the 77, just so he knows that I knew he had no ace.
- Incidentally, I recall a tourney on TV where Doyle Brunson and Lee Watkinson were heads up (a few seasons ago....google it, it is worth watching). With a similar flop and turn, and a river K, Lee called Doyle's big bet on the river expecting the board to play and the pot (in which he had a meaningful preflop investment) to split. Doyle had 10 10 and had figured out that (a) he was good, and (b) Lee expected the split before he bet the river. That tourney is (a) the very best poker I've seen Doyle play; (b) is a case study in how to play shorthanded and heads up (by both of them) and make brilliant calls and plays; and (c) is a very rare example of heads up play where the blinds are very small and every pot gets a bump up preflop and great post-flop poker gets played (as opposed to blinds so big you have to simply hold your nose and gamble preflop)
Final table talk next blog.
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