Saturday, October 28, 2006

Dodging bullets is hard

How could my opponent have played this hand better against me?

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
5 players
Converter

HERO has $829.10
SB has $1,952.50

Pre-flop: (5 players) HERO is Button with :6h :6d
2 folds, HERO raises to $21, SB raises to $75, BB folds, HERO calls.


Flop: :6s :9h :7c ($156, 2 players)
SB bets $125, HERO raises to $450, SB raises all-in $1877.5, HERO calls all-in $304.1.
Uncalled bets: $1123.4 returned to SB.


Turn: :kd ($1664.2, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1664.2)



River: :8h ($1664.2, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $1664.2)



Results:
Final pot: $1664.2

SB had AA, and I collected the pot.

Obviously this hand turned out well for me because I put him on a strong hand preflop and guessed correctly that I could stack him if I hit.

But many times, our roles will be reversed.

If I'm the player in the small blind with AA, is it possible to avoid losing my money? How would you play the hand differently? How many people can fold AA on a seemingly benign flop like this?

Any comments are appreciated.

3 comments:

SirFWALGMan said...

It is soooooooo hard.. just got to go with your reads.. when someone is pushing that hard against me at the level I play I know they *probably* have a hand.. but at your level people are crazy.. Just got to get used to how the person plays and know what his bets mean and get lucky.

Jordan said...

Thanks for the comment. I had some hard times with the play at UB also at first as I mentioned. I'm sure it's a little tougher at your level, but with autorate and prefetch 100 hands I've found the games very easy to beat. I ran that original $70 up to $900 playing NL100, then lost $500 back, and am now working my way back up.

Always harder to make $500 than to lose it.

I am really upset I didn't pick rakeback as my promo for UB. I've generated $400 in rake (at 32% would be $130) while I'm only getting $60 from PSO. Oh well.

Sorry to post off topic. As far as AA goes you just need to know it's not invincible. Slow down the betting. Always realize that you could be losing to that concealed set. The problem is everyone's main concern with AA is to make as much money as possible, but just like any other hand, you need to shrink your losses with it. Sure winning $300 instead of $400 with aces because you slowed down sucks, but losing $300 because you slowed down is much better than pushing and losing.

/end rambling

kurokitty said...

You and I have already discussed this but it's probably good to post here.

In NL you're playing for stacks, so the small blind has to make a raise that will make it incorrect for you to draw for his stack.

In that situation, a raise of a little more than 1/8 your stack is needed, say about $110 to $120.

But let's say that doesn't happen. When you raise to $450, alarm bells should be going off in his head. A call here is pretty much like calling and all-in from you -- the pot will be so big it will be hard to turn away for less than $400 -- the rest of your chips -- on the river.

Nobody likes to be outplayed but he must seriously consider what kinds of hands a player would call a pre-flop raise with from the button. 56 would make two-pair; 78 would be a straight. Not to mention sets.

Big pairs to a raise are shit. A clear fold is warranted, unless he can prove you have a history of jacking it up on the flop.