http://rebelsofpoker.com/index.php/site/index/ Poker Blog en bparis85@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-02-02T21:33:01-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_02_01_10/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_02_01_10/#When:21:33:01Z Progressively narrowing an opponent’s range street by street enables us to make a thin call on the river. Hi everyone, I know it’s been quite a while since my last hand of the day but I’ve been grinding a ton lately and have played many interesting hands in the past couple of weeks, so I’ll be sharing some of them with you in the upcoming days. This hand comes from the $300 six max tournament on Full Tilt that runs every Saturday. This tournament is generally somewhat tough and aggressive, and this table was no exception, as I recognized all of the players as regulars. Full Tilt Poker Game #18042688340: $200,000 Guarantee (131876872), Table 31 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold’em - 15:34:12 ET - 2010/01/30 Seat 1: ceilidh_cu (3,600) Seat 2: crzysavage (2,540) Seat 3: bparis (4,905) Seat 4: kunkles27 (1,975) Seat 5: Aguskb (3,080) Seat 6: TAKETHECAN0LLIS (4,900) kunkles27 posts the small blind of 20 Aguskb posts the big blind of 40 The button is in seat #3 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to bparis [Jd As] TAKETHECAN0LLIS raises to 100 ceilidh_cu folds crzysavage folds AJo generally doesn’t play too well against a UTG raiser’s range, but since this is six max, we can definitely play the hand. With about 120 big blinds each to start the hand, I’d rather 3-bet this than call, in order to set up a lower SPR and gain the initiative in position. Our hand isn’t likely to flop better than a decent one pair, so ideally we’d like to pick up the pot as soon as possible, either pre-flop or on the flop, with our aggression. Another advantage to three-betting AJ here is that if you do get four-bet, it’s not a big deal, as AJo plays horribly against a four-bet range. This pre-flop spot is fairly interesting in that all three options could potentially be correct, but since I’d like to maintain an aggressive posture and keep my 3-bet ranges as wide as possible, I’m choosing to take the most aggressive option here. bparis raises to 305 kunkles27 folds Aguskb folds TAKETHECAN0LLIS has 15 seconds left to act TAKETHECAN0LLIS calls 205 *** FLOP *** [8s Js Td] TAKETHECAN0LLIS checks So he flatted our three-bet after opening UTG, which enables us to narrow his range fairly significantly right off the bat. I think at this point he mostly has AQ, mid pairs, maybe KQs type hands, with the occasional suited connector thrown in. He could also have some slowplayed strong hands like TT+. We have top pair with the ace of spades, which could turn out to be significant on future streets. I think betting here is definitely the best play for us, as we hate many of the turn cards, and we can comfortably fold to a check-raise, as it would usually be either a set or a monster draw. Keeping the initiative in position will also make the hand easier to play on future streets, and force him to show his strength (if he’s strong) immediately in order to defend against the many draws out there. bparis bets 420 TAKETHECAN0LLIS has 15 seconds left to act TAKETHECAN0LLIS calls 420 *** TURN *** [8s Js Td] [5s] TAKETHECAN0LLIS checks bparis has 15 seconds left to act So he’s check/called the flop, a line which probably means a medium-strength draw or one pair hand. He’s not strong enough to raise this flop against our three-bet / c-bet range (which should be perceived as being fairly strong as he opened UTG), so we’re likely ahead. We’ve picked up the nut flush draw as well, a welcome development. The question now is bet or check again? While checking is definitely the safe play for pot control, there is definitely value in betting, as we’ve figured we are very likely to have the best hand. Since we have the As in our hand and the Js is on the board, the only realistic flush combos he can have are KsQs or KsTs, both of which are likely to have check-raised the flop. He could also have something weak like 6s7s, but the point is that most flush combos, especially the ones he’d call a three-bet with pre-flop, flopped well enough to check-raise the flop, meaning we can discount them. We can also discount sets and two pairs, as he opted not to check-raise a very drawy flop. For these reasons, we figure to be ahead and therefore should continue betting. bparis bets 755 TAKETHECAN0LLIS has 15 seconds left to act TAKETHECAN0LLIS has requested TIME TAKETHECAN0LLIS raises to 1,678 Wow, the impossible happened - he check-raised us. The pot is laying us almost 4-to-1 odds to call this with a half-pot bet remaining for the river, so even if we know we’re beat and we’re just drawing to our ace of spades, we likely have to call. However, the analysis undergone above leads me to believe that we are usually still ahead in this spot, and he’s using the scary board to turn one of his weaker hands into a bluff (or semi-bluff). Folding can mostly be eliminated as an option due to the pot odds, so do we call this or re-raise it? I think with position, calling can’t possibly be a mistake, while re-raising potentially could kill your value from worse hands and only get called by better. It is probably a reasonably close decision here, as the pot is already very large, but in this spot I opted to just call and use any additional information to make the best possible river decision. bparis calls 923 *** RIVER *** [8s Js Td 5s] [8h] TAKETHECAN0LLIS has 15 seconds left to act TAKETHECAN0LLIS has requested TIME TAKETHECAN0LLIS bets 2,497, and is all in bparis has 15 seconds left to act bparis has requested TIME The river was a good card for us, as it made his slowplayed sets less likely. Now the only strong made hands he can have are TTT and KsQs or KsTs (along with the occasional 6s7s). Since he didn’t check-raise the flop, all of our analysis on the turn still applies, and the pot is laying us 3-to-1 odds, meaning we only need to be right 25% of the time to make a call correct here. Could we be wrong and be up against a made flush or full house? Sure, but not anywhere near 75% of the time. bparis calls 2,497 *** SHOW DOWN *** TAKETHECAN0LLIS shows [Kh Qh] a pair of Eights bparis shows [Jd As] two pair, Jacks and Eights bparis wins the pot (9,860) with two pair, Jacks and Eights *** SUMMARY *** Total pot 9,860 | Rake 0 Board: [8s Js Td 5s 8h] Seat 1: ceilidh_cu didn’t bet (folded) Seat 2: crzysavage didn’t bet (folded) Seat 3: bparis (button) showed [Jd As] and won (9,860) with two pair, Jacks and Eights Seat 4: kunkles27 (small blind) folded before the Flop Seat 5: Aguskb (big blind) folded before the Flop Seat 6: TAKETHECAN0LLIS showed [Kh Qh] and lost with a pair of Eights So he had a medium-strength draw that wasn’t strong enough to check-raise the flop. While I wasn’t expecting to put in my whole 100 big blind stack with one pair, sometimes the circumstances of the hand combine to make it the correct play. Paying close attention to the action on every street enabled us to progressively narrow his range and make the correct call. You can comment on this hand HERE 2010-02-02T21:33:01-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/rebels_is_back_and_2010_pca/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/rebels_is_back_and_2010_pca/#When:20:00:00Z My 2010 PCA experience… Hey everyone, it’s been a while. Rebels was getting moved to a new server so it was down for a while, but the issues have been resolved now and the site will be back up. Check back periodically for new hand of the day installments and blogs. The 2010 year kicked off in style for me at the PCA, which is probably the most fun live tournament on the schedule. Spending a week in the Bahamas is always a great way to start the new year, regardless of how you do in the tournament. Last year, I managed to make Day 4 before finally going down in 29th on a lost coinflip and a bad call. I was hoping to top that this year, but PCA is definitely one of the toughest 10k live tournaments, as it is comprised almost entirely of online players. I knew I would have my hands full trying to fight through a large, tough field. My initial table draw on Day 1 was pretty favorable for me, with a couple of Europeans, some decent online players, and a Brazilian Full Tilt pro. I got a chance to tangle with one of the Europeans very early in the day, about 15 minutes into level 1. I had about 28,000 (from a starting stack of 30,000) at 50/100 blinds when a young guy from Norway opened the hijack to 325. The cutoff, a tight, solid live pro, flat called. I was in the button, and before I even looked at my cards I thought to myself that I wanted to squeeze fairly wide here. I looked down at black AA, thought for a second, and made it 1225. The young Norwegian instantly made it 3500, and the live pro folded. This was obviously a dream situation for me, sitting there facing a huge four bet in position with AA 15 minutes into the day. The safe play would definitely be to five-bet, hoping that he’d be aggressive enough to stack off for 300 big blinds with less than AA, but I didn’t think that was very likely. Europeans are aggro, but not stupid; he would surely know that a five bet from me this early had to be AA and nothing else. If I called, on the other hand, I would be in position, with an SPR (stack to pot size ratio) of about 3.5, meaning that there would only be 3.5 times the pot left to bet in our stacks after the flop. Since I expected him to attack the pot after the flop a lot more often than he would stack off with worse pre-flop, I opted to just call. The flop came down great for me, 3h 4s 6h. (I had AsAc.) He led for 3500. Figuring that he likely had only 2 outs, I decided to just call and let him keep firing. The turn was a 9h. He thought for about ten seconds before announcing all-in for roughly one and a half times the pot. I called pretty quickly and he turned over AhKs, for the nut flush draw. Luckily, I faded the river heart and was working with almost 60,000 chips 15 minutes into day one. I was very happy with how I played that hand, but the rest of day 1 was pretty uneventful. My table gradually got tougher as the day went on, with HSMTT reg HustlerGrune coming in on my right, and 2008 WSOP Main Event runner-up Ivan Demidov, an aggressive Russian, on my immediate left. Without many opportunities, I nursed my stack into day 2, going in with about 50,000 in chips. After a relaxing off day spent on the endless river, I faced a tough table draw going into day 2. I had Full Tilt pros Isaac Baron and Vivek Radjumar on my right, both of whom are incredibly good players who originally made their names online. I also had HSMTT regular JBT449 and Irish pro John O’Shea at the table. My original gameplan was to wait for fairly good hands and try to three- and four-bet Vivek and Isaac, both of whom were on my immediate right and were not going to be shy about raising and re-raising. The day started off somewhat badly for me as I 3-bet with AQ and was forced to call a cold four-bet by a short stack from behind. He had TT, and I lost the race, knocking me down to about 40,000. The blinds went up and my stack slowly dwindled until I fluctuating around 30,000 with the blinds at 800/1600. I went into classic sit and go mode and picked up a few pots by open shoving marginal hands in late position, but was unable to do much more and found myself with 25,000 chips at 1000/2000 200 ante. I hadn’t pushed in a while, and live players tend to be tighter in calling open shoves than online players, as the math is a bit tougher to do on the spot live. I picked up J9s second under the gun and decided to push, calculating that I’d show a clear +chip ev against calling ranges of AQ+, 88+. Sure enough, everyone folded, as I would have expected to happen roughly 2/3 of the time. The next hand, with 30,000 chips UTG (M of 6), I picked up KQs. Despite not wanting to shove two hands in a row, KQs is also a clear +CEV shove here assuming those tight calling ranges, so I went for it again. Much to my surprise, a much older guy who had been sitting behind me and folding everything all day immediately pushed the rest of his chips in. My heart sank, as I expected him to only be showing up here with absolute monsters, but I was somewhat pleasantly surprised to see him turn over AJs (although it was the same suit as mine). I had about 40% to double up and continue in the tournament, but it was not to be, as the board bricked off and I was knocked out. My main event dreams were over, but the fun was just beginning as I still had a week to spend in the Bahamas. The weather was surprisingly awful this time around, but there’s still lots to do out there, both on the resort and in the city of Nassau. Even a few celebrities showed up, as Nelly was sighted playing 25/50 multiple times (I tried to get into the game, but the list was a mile long), and my fiance got pictures with Montel Williams and playboy model Jade Nicole. Pokerstars did an awesome job hosting the PCA as always, and it was still a great year despite the worst weather I’d ever seen there. Only 11 months to go until next PCA, hopefully I’ll be seeing some of you there.  bparis 2010-01-19T20:00:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_18_09/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_18_09/#When:17:23:00Z A warmup three barrel - in dutch! Hey all, in honor of the Amsterdam Master Classics starting in about 10 days I’m doing today’s HOTD in Dutch. I’ve been running stars in Dutch for the last few weeks, both to learn some Dutch poker talk and to raise my aggression level, because as Vectile said, “Personally, I place a big premium on a bet being geretourneerd aan me.” This hand comes from the Sunday Warm-up, the table was mostly full of randoms as usual. PokerStars Spel #34196128405: Toernooi #203050016, $200+$15 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level VII (250/500) - 18/10/2009 14:39:49 ET Tafel ‘203050016 230’ 9-max Plaats #7 is de button Plaats 1: melikman (9948 in chips) Plaats 2: tyxerakias (18602 in chips) Plaats 3: jbbutters (37447 in chips) Plaats 4: kalle2012 (11398 in chips) Plaats 5: bparis (19827 in chips) Plaats 6: fold_em_sho7 (22572 in chips) Plaats 7: teamfranklin (19022 in chips) Plaats 8: joeppiej (7579 in chips) Plaats 9: P Cim720 (14490 in chips) melikman: zet de ante 25 tyxerakias: zet de ante 25 jbbutters: zet de ante 25 kalle2012: zet de ante 25 bparis: zet de ante 25 fold_em_sho7: zet de ante 25 teamfranklin: zet de ante 25 joeppiej: zet de ante 25 P Cim720: zet de ante 25 joeppiej: zet small blind 250 P Cim720: zet big blind 500 *** GESLOTEN KAARTEN *** Gedeeld aan bparis [Qd Kd] melikman: foldt tyxerakias: foldt jbbutters: foldt kalle2012: raiset 755 naar 1255 A standard raise size in the post-ante period, and we have KQdd, a fairly strong hand. Three-betting would commit us here against his 20BB stack, and this is an excellent hand to flat in position, so let’s just do that. bparis: callt 1255 fold_em_sho7: foldt teamfranklin: callt 1255 joeppiej: foldt P Cim720: foldt *** FLOP *** [8d Ts Tc] kalle2012: checkt Bad flop, but we have some possibilities here. The original raiser checkt, meaning he likely doesn’t have an overpair and therefore is not too likely to continue in the hand. The guy who called behind likely doesn’t have JJ+ either, as he would 3 bet it pre-flop most of the time. We can put the squeeze on our two opponents here with a bet, as the guy behind us will have to act without knowing what the initial preflop raiser will do. I’m going to bet somewhat small, mostly for information, with the intention of frequently firing again on future streets. bparis: bet 2047 teamfranklin: callt 2047 kalle2012: foldt *** TURN *** [8d Ts Tc] [9d] The guy behind has callt us, but we’ve turned some draws. We definitely want to be seeing the river, and we probably want to keep the pressure on him, so let’s bet again. Check-calling in this spot allows him to set the price and makes it awkward if you want to bet the river, because you’re out of position. If we bet we can set a smallish amount, an amount we’d be willing to call with our draw, and keep the aggression up in case we want to blow him off the hand on the river. He may even fold on the turn, although our sizing here isn’t really designed to force him to do that. bparis: bet 3500 teamfranklin: callt 3500 *** RIVER *** [8d Ts Tc 9d] [As] Well, our draws have missed, but a scare card hit the river. At this point, if he has anything less than three tens, he’d have to be making an incredibly heroic call to call a river bet. I think that since he didn’t raise the incredibly drawy turn with the effective stacks, we can discount three tens somewhat. He could have a made full house and be slowplaying, but that’s a pretty specific range of hands for him to have. I’m actually really not sure what he has at this point, but I’m fairly certain that he can’t stand a big river bet. Our line, betting all three streets after calling pre, would be perfectly consistent with a ten or a full house. One final point is the sizing here - while it may seem big, I’m only risking about 2/3 of the pot, so the river bet only needs to work 40% of the time to be profitable. bparis: bet 9500 teamfranklin: foldt De niet-gecallde bet (9500) is geretourneerd aan bparis bparis won 15834 van pot This is a great example of how maintaining the initiative and betting throughout a hand can result in you winning a pot that you have no business winning. One of the most important parts of deeper stacked no limit is constant aggression, especially postflop aggression. This can be one of the most difficult switches to make when transitioning from SNGs to MTTs or cash. You can comment on this hand HERE 2009-10-22T17:23:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_12_09/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_12_09/#When:18:14:01Z Playing 200 BB deep early in MTTs sometimes necessitates playing hands in a non-standard fashion. This hand comes from the first level of the Sunday Warm-up. Titantom32 is a fellow high stakes MTT reg, and we know each other fairly well. I perceive him as psycho aggressive and he perceives me as a very tight player. This was like the third or fourth hand of the tournament, so there wasn’t much of an established table dynamic yet, and all players have roughly 200 big blinds. PokerStars Game #33905916086: Tournament #200311723, $200+$15 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level I (25/50) - 2009/10/11 13:13:18 ET Table ‘200311723 369’ 9-max Seat #1 is the button Seat 1: AK SHOVER (10700 in chips) Seat 2: lojo131 (10475 in chips) Seat 3: Titantom32 (9700 in chips) Seat 4: z0di@c (8975 in chips) Seat 5: alexandrapau (9850 in chips) is sitting out Seat 6: Manta_Rays (9511 in chips) Seat 7: RuberbandMan (10400 in chips) Seat 8: petula 99 (9775 in chips) Seat 9: bparis (10000 in chips) lojo131: posts small blind 25 Titantom32: posts big blind 50 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to bparis [Kc Ad] z0di@c: folds alexandrapau: folds Manta_Rays: raises 70 to 120 RuberbandMan: folds petula 99: folds OK, so we have AK, time to 3 bet right? Well, let’s think about it for a bit. Three-betting AK is obviously the standard play for a ton of reasons - you can get him to fold hands that you’re flipping with, you can flop a higher top pair than somebody and you get to build the pot pre, and you’re more likely to isolate and get a headsup pot. What are the upsides of flatting? One obvious one is that you disguise your AK - it’s such a common three-bet hand that people will rarely put it in your range if you flat. Another less obvious one is that you get to achieve a more optimal SPR, or stack-to-pot size ratio. If you 3-bet to 375 or so and he calls, the pot will be 800ish with over 9000 behind for both players. This results in an SPR of 12, which means it will be fairly difficult to stack your opponent postflop, especially since he’ll suspect AK as a possibility if an ace or king comes and we keep betting strong. If we flat, on the other hand, the SPR will be closer to 40 (assuming an HU pot), which means we’ll have to give up our prospects of stacking him with one pair but also means we’re more likely to get paid off on multiple streets after the flop by something like AJ or AT which might fold to a 3-bet pre. Finally, titantom is behind us and he loves to squeeze. If he squeezes, we’ll be able to be in position with a disguised hand and an SPR of around 8, which is close to our ideal situation. bparis: calls 120 AK SHOVER: folds lojo131: folds Titantom32: raises 360 to 480 Manta_Rays: calls 360 Bingo, there’s the squeeze, and our first raiser has called. We could be super tricky here and go for the back-raise, but I think with the stacks behind still being so deep, we’re more likely to get all of our money in behind than ahead if we reraise. We’ve achieved our ideal spot with an SPR of 8 in position and a disguised hand, so let’s just take a flop and see what happens. bparis: calls 360 *** FLOP *** [9d 3d 8c] Titantom32: bets 650 Manta_Rays: calls 650 Looks like we missed. We have the Ad for a backdoor flush draw and two overs, but our hand doesn’t have nearly enough value to call here. That leaves folding and raising as options. Folding is of course the obvious play, but let’s look into raising a bit. We know Tom has a wide range, and we can be fairly sure the other guy’s hand isn’t too strong, as he didn’t take the opportunity to four bet preflop and he didn’t raise the flop. We also know that Tom perceives us as being fairly tight and uncreative, and will likely assign us a strong range (88,99) if we raise on this flop. In addition, we have the Ad, meaning that our two opponents are less likely to have an AdXd hand that they could feel comfortable pushing on the flop with, and if someone calls we have additional draws. Since Tom tried to put the squeeze on us pre-flop, let’s put the squeeze on him post-flop. Raising somewhat small will put both of the other players into a really ugly spot, and the whole line would be fully consistent with 88/99. I’m going to make it only 2220 here, and with the pot already being 2800 that means our play only has to work about 4 times out of 9 to be effective. If we get called by either player, we’re likely giving up on most turns, but our play should look strong enough to work fairly often. While we’re only risking 2220 here, it implies a bet of the rest of our stack, making it a very strong post-flop leverage play. bparis: raises 1570 to 2220 Titantom32: folds Manta_Rays: folds Uncalled bet (1570) returned to bparis bparis collected 3415 from pot bparis: doesn’t show hand While this was a small pot that generally won’t wind up being the difference maker in a tournament, it nicely illustrates the different issues that come into play when you’re 200 BB deep. Rather than thinking about what your cards are and what you generally do with those cards, think a few steps ahead. How big do you want the postflop pot to be? What class of hands do you want to represent? How can you threaten your opponents with huge bets in uncertain situations? These are the types of issues that commonly arise playing deep stacked cash, and the types of spots that many tournament players find difficult. You can comment on this hand HERE 2009-10-12T18:14:01-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/quick_catch_up_with_what_has_been_going_on_with_me_the_last_nine_months/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/quick_catch_up_with_what_has_been_going_on_with_me_the_last_nine_months/#When:07:36:00Z Quick catch up with what has been going on with me the last nine months… Ill make this short and sweet. We left off with last January (2009). At some point early that month, I started grinding 6 max hypers and started talking to a supernova player, Blue Knight1, who lived 30 minutes from me. During that month, I went on a bit of a dryspell and through BK, I discovered parttimepoker. BK started backing me for sngs, 27-60 45mans, and I exploded. By up through march I was killing the sharkscope leaderboard in 1st. School was picking up very heavily though, I was in the Mumbai Studio and it started taking up a ton of my time so I had to resort to playing on weekends. I began playing more mtts and found some success with some final tables and was making some good money from the weekends. Once school was up, I started focusing on poker again, and started out running horrible. But at the end of may I recovered my funds from the downswing by taking 2nd in the stars 11r. VEGAS I had some money and hadnt done much so I decided I would go to vegas and take some shots at the wsop side action at other casinos. Swisstard, who has a girlfriend in Chicago, came to visit her; then me and him went to vegas. The 2nd or third night out, I FT’d a tournament at ceasars, but was the first out for around 2k, but had a 5% swap with a player that was still in. I stuck to buyins between 200-500. After that, not much happened with me and poker. But, I had the pleasure of meeting bparis, who is a really cool guy and had a great time hanging out with him. Bryan introduced me and swiss to Jason (jdpc27), who he met at the series. What ended up happening after that was epic, Jason went deep in a 1500 wsop event and we were there railing him every step of the way for his 2nd place finish for $400k+. Congrats again Jason. After my live poker/wsop dreams were crushed for the year, I headed back home to get back to playing online. After getting back, I ran horrible. Even during June, I was on a downswing. Somewhere towards the end of July/early August, I busted my 15k roll and was in need of backing again. BK talked to his private backer and he began backing me. I continued to run horrible and lost another 10k of my backers money before the WCOOP happened. I guess all I did was talk poker there. Personal life wise, I dont think too much happened. Of the Mumbai studio, me and my partner ended up having the best project though all the schemes were a collaborative effort. My brother got married early August, had a blast during that. But the real fun for his wedding was in May, when we went on a 6 day long bachlor party in Costa Rica. At the end of August then, regretfully, I started my last year of college… Im going to stop here and pick up from September on a bit later. GL at the tables!! -hustla16 You can comment on this blog HERE hustla16 2009-10-11T07:36:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_01_09/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_10_01_09/#When:21:23:00Z An analysis of four bet sizing designed to commit your opponent to the pot with a marginal hand. This hand came from the $2500 Commerce main event. I had been doing very well at the table, accumulating enough to bring my stack to 55,000 chips at 400/800 blinds when the average was around 30,000. I had been playing somewhat aggressively, but was getting respect and only showing down strong hands for the most part. The villain in this hand was 40 or so, Russian, and very aggressive. He kept putting in large leverage-type bets both pre-flop and on scary flops, and was taking down a ton of pots. He covered me slightly, having around 70,000. My primary gameplan at the table was to pick up small pots from everybody until I could get in a huge pot with the Russian guy, since I had position on him in most hands. The following hand came up where I got my chance. dealt to bparis [Ah Kh] bparis open raises to 2100 from UTG+1 three flat callers Russian makes it 10k more (12100 total) from SB Here’s a perfect opportunity for us. We have AKs, a top hand, and our aggressive opponent is putting in a big squeeze in a multi-way pot. With still over 50,000 behind, we could flat call, but we’d much rather maximize our fold equity pre-flop and potentially even get it in against a dominated hand. We’re going to four bet, there’s no doubt in my mind about that at this point. The question is, how much? With 2100 in the pot, we have 53,000 behind and our opponent covers. He’s made it 10 more, so we have 43 behind to work with after we match his 10. We basically have two options: bomb it all right here, putting in another 43 on top and challenging him to make the call; or make it a small amount more, like 15, leaving us with 28 more to put in any flop if he calls. Either way, we’re not getting away from the hand, we just want to maximize our equity, both our fold equity and our value equity. The merit behind going to 43 more all-in is that it forces him to make a decision right there for the rest of the chips. If he has a dominated hand, he’ll have to fold, and he may talk himself into folding nines, tens, or jacks. The problem with this sizing is that it looks a lot like AK - live (and some online) players tend to think that with big hands, you would be putting in smaller raises, so going to the smaller amount would be repping AA or KK. It also doesn’t give him the option of calling for “pot odds” with something stupid like AQ or AJ suited. With the other sizing (15 on top), however, we can potentially have a better outcome. The smaller sizing reps AA/KK, but also gives him the illusion of pot odds, so that he may see a flop and then fold it, by far the best outcome for us. (If he does call and see a flop, I’ll have about half the pot behind in my stack, making folding a disaster for him.) Since live players tend to not focus on numbers too much, but rather on instincts and reads, I’m definitely opting for the smaller sizing here. Online, it may be a different situation as the numbers are right in front of people so they’ll realize that they can’t call pre and then fold the flop. You may still opt for the smaller sizing because it looks stronger, but you wouldn’t have a prayer of inducing a flop fold vs anyone remotely competent. Live, however, is a different story. bparis raises 15,000 to make it 27,100 total Russian calls FLOP [x x x] Russian checks bparis bets 27,900 and is all-in At this point, I knew I was shoving any flop, so I didn’t even bother to look, figuring I might as well not give away a reaction on whether I liked the flop. (I did pretend to look, not wanting to give away what my hand might be.) He tanked for about five minutes, talking over whether I had a higher pair or not, then finally called. I looked at the flop of T55, one heart, and said “nice call” as I turned over AKhh. At this point, I expected to see jacks or queens, with his posturing being due to my pre-flop sizing looking so much like AA/KK. Instead, he had ace ten offsuit! I was in terrible shape, and missed my three outs, being eliminated for a 130bb pot with an hour or so left in day one. Did I make a mistake by not pushing pre and shutting him out of the pot? I would argue that my sizing was perfect. He put in an extra 15,000 pre-flop out of position with an offsuit dominated hand, leaving himself with an SPR of .5 - the very definition of being pot committed. Any time the flop doesn’t come with an ace or ten, he folds and I win a large pot after the flop. If the flop comes with an ace, I stack him! Correct sizing here, although it blew up in my face, allowed me to force my opponent into making a terrible play with no plan for a huge pot. Think about this next time you want to commit yourself with a hand pre-flop - it may be more profitable to trick your opponent into committing by making a smaller pre-flop raise, preserving the rest of your stack to push all-in with on the flop and potentially inducing a very costly fold. You can comment on this hand HERE bparis 2009-10-01T21:23:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/best_month_ever/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/best_month_ever/#When:00:04:01Z I’ll keep this short and full of brag: September was my best month ever in poker!  I’ll keep this short and full of brag: September was my best month ever in poker! I pulled in these stats: Including rakeback/bonuses I made closer to $14k, so I’m really happy. I’m also happy because despite it being early in the semester, I was able to put in some good volume. There is no question I’m running above expectation in $38 180s and $38 45s so far, but who’s complaining? Hopefully I can keep running hot ‘till the year runs out. Now if I can only find a way to get through the last two semesters without letting my grades fall apart… You can comment on this blog HERE Skitz0Frenik 2009-09-30T00:04:01-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_09_09_09/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hand_of_the_day_09_09_09/#When:18:14:00Z A river all-in raise bluff takes down a decent-sized pot. This hand came from tonight’s $100 2x chance tournament. I was doing alright at this point, but was down slightly from my high point of over 22,000. The table was mostly unknowns. PokerStars Game #32585771144: Tournament #193236937, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XVI (375/750) - 2009/09/08 1:51:29 ET Table ‘193236937 22’ 9-max Seat #7 is the button Seat 1: Jonnybegoode (30144 in chips) Seat 2: pcayobh (10506 in chips) Seat 3: Rasputin2 (21886 in chips) Seat 5: pullicinello (10870 in chips) Seat 6: bparis (17000 in chips) Seat 7: mick_allin (11731 in chips) Seat 8: patient_fury (42104 in chips) Seat 9: Yanickyw (15961 in chips) Jonnybegoode: posts the ante 90 pcayobh: posts the ante 90 Rasputin2: posts the ante 90 pullicinello: posts the ante 90 bparis: posts the ante 90 mick_allin: posts the ante 90 patient_fury: posts the ante 90 Yanickyw: posts the ante 90 patient_fury: posts small blind 375 Yanickyw: posts big blind 750 *** HOLE CARDS *** Dealt to bparis [5d 5s] Jonnybegoode: folds pcayobh: folds Rasputin2: folds pullicinello: folds Easy raise here, as I’m on the cutoff and I have a pocket pair with a stack of over 20 bb’s. With a shorter stack, I’d just open push, but with over 20 bb it’s better to raise and give yourself more room to manuever. bparis: raises 1160 to 1910 mick_allin: folds patient_fury: folds Yanickyw: calls 1160 *** FLOP *** [Kc 2s 6c] Yanickyw: checks The blind has called us, a player who has a bronzestar showing (meaning, on pokerstars, a player who hasn’t played very many hands yet). This generally enables us to expand his flatting range from the bb, as inexperienced players are more likely to defend their blind out of position. All of this adds up to an easy continuation bet, as we can expect to be ahead of the majority of his preflop flatting range. We might even fold out some better pocket pairs, like 77-99, if he decides to play cautiously. bparis: bets 2000 Yanickyw: calls 2000 *** TURN *** [Kc 2s 6c] [Jh] Yanickyw: checks He called the flop, and the turn is another overcard, making our hand worse. At this point, we can only expect to be ahead of the weak club draws in his range (assuming that he’d check/raise the stronger club draws). We could turn our hand into a bluff and fire a second barrel, or check and mostly give it up. Given that he’s inexperienced, I’d rather not try to make him fold a better hand than mine, so I’ll just be checking it back here. If I was going to bet, I’d bet about 4k to force out the pocket pairs between sixes and jacks while charging his weak flush draws another street. bparis: checks *** RIVER *** [Kc 2s 6c Jh] [Ac] Yanickyw: bets 3000 A very interesting river card has fallen, the Ace of clubs. If we want to bluff, this completes the flush draw, as well as giving us a number of potential two pair hands we can represent. This makes sense because our line of betting the flop and checking the turn would fit both a flush draw and a random Ax hand like A6 or A2. On this card, he’s bet 3000 into 10000, leaving himself with about 9000 behind. This looks to me like he has a weak king, likely KQ or KT, that he wants to see a showdown with fairly cheaply. If he had aces up or a flush, I would expect him to bet more here for value. We have 13000 in our stack. If we decide to push all-in, I’m assuming he’ll fold anything less than two pair, maybe anything less than aces up. Since the pot is 13000 after his bet and we’re risking 13000, the play needs to work exactly 1/2 the time to break even, and I think the success rate should be higher than that. Let’s go for it. bparis: raises 10000 to 13000 and is all-in Yanickyw: folds Uncalled bet (10000) returned to bparis bparis collected 14915 from pot bparis: doesn’t show hand His bet sizing gave him away on the river. Could he have been fishing for a raise with a super strong hand? Sure, but all we’re trying to do is be right more than half the time. The combination of his weak bet and a scary river card enabled us to make a play and increase our stack significantly. You can comment on this hand HERE bparis 2009-09-09T18:14:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hustla16_wins_445k_in_530_wcoop/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/hustla16_wins_445k_in_530_wcoop/#When:17:24:00Z Longtime ROP member hustla16 has won a huge tournament. Just thought this deserved a front page shout out. Our very own hustla16 has taken down WCOOP event #11 for a huge score, about $445K after chops. I’ll let him post his own summary of the tournament when he’s ready, but he deserves all of our congratulations. Very nice job hustla! Keep up the MTT dominance! bparis 2009-09-09T17:24:00-05:00 http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/summer_llws_and_more/ http://rebelsofpoker.com/site/summer_llws_and_more/#When:01:11:00Z A friend reminded me today I hadn’t posted a blog in a while, so here goes. After my trip to Italy and Spain (summarized in my prior post), I did some more traveling… A friend reminded me today I hadn’t posted a blog in a while, so here goes. After my trip to Italy and Spain (summarized in my prior post), I did some more traveling. First, I spent a week in Vegas with bparis, I Knewww It, and some other players. The trip was fun, and bparis shipped the Sunday Brawl on Tilt for $83k, defeating Shaun Deeb HU. I made some money in Caesar’s and the Venetian, and grinded a bit online also. Throughout the summer I also made trips to Charleston, Charlotte, the Jersey shore, and Myrtle Beach. Myrtle was especially cool because I spent a week playing golf in the mornings and hanging out with some family and my girlfriend afterward. We did a bunch of interesting things and the golf courses were great. If you happen to head towards Myrtle, I highly recommend Caledonia Golf Club and King’s North as well. In Charlotte, we played Quail Hollow, which was the site of the Wachovia Championship last year. I can’t decide which was my favorite of those three courses, but they all had some amazing holes and creative layouts. This past week I spent a week in Williamsport, PA, working on the research team for ESPN during the Little League World Series. I had worked on site there the previous two years, but in a less intensive position. Despite only being able to stay the first week due to an early start of classes, I had a blast. The main responsibility of the job was interviewing the players and creating “bios” for each of them. This information is later used by the announcers during the games. Working at the LLWS is always an exciting experience so I’m hoping I’ll be invited back next year for a fourth time. I got to school this past Sunday and classes started yesterday. I’m taking an advertising campaign class, philosophy of ethics, labor relations, psychology, and a criminology course. This is my senior year, so hopefully I can balance classes with making the rest of my time here memorable. My focuses include playing basketball, working out, playing FrizzBeer, eating a lot, and playing a bit of poker on the side. I’m also going to try and get involved with the school television network for some more sports production experience. After this recent trip to Williamsport, I decided I’d really like to work as a production assistant for ESPN. It’s really competitive and I don’t have a great deal of experience other than the LLWS yet, but I think I’d do well in it and learn fast. Unfortunately, I got some bad family news right before leaving for Vegas. My mom got diagnosed with breast cancer, and will have to go through the horrible process of chemotherapy. Fortunately, the doctors found only a small amount of chemo in her lymph nodes, meaning it hasn’t spread much and she’ll definitely be fine once this is all over. She already had a double mastectomy and is recovering really fast. It always seems like the worst stuff happens to the best people, and she’s no exception. On the other hand, she’s as strong of a person as I’ve ever met and life will be that much more special for her when she’s cured. On another topic, I’m reading a great book recommended to me by a friend back home. It’s called Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx, and some of you may have heard or read about it. Basically, it’s a true account of an ex-NFL star who coaches high school football in order to teach the kids about how to be a “true” man and a good person. In the book the coach talks about how so many of us grow up learning that men never cry, do not show emotion, and do not act compassionately towards strangers. He says that we spend our whole lives comparing ourselves to others based on material wealth and possessions, and as a result, we tend to compete with them. Consequently, we isolate ourselves from the world and end up feeling empty and confused. He says since this approach does not fulfill us, we should do the opposite and learn to care about others. Some of the ways he instills this in the kids is by instructing them to always sit with someone who is by themselves at lunch and to always strive to be a great friend, brother, husband, etc. He says to ignore the classifications of people society creates and instead to always have an open mind. Anyway, the book really changes the way you look at things for the better. It is helping me put my problems in perspective and focus on the positive. I won’t ramble on much further, but I really think it’s worth reading. It is an easy, simple, and fast read, but packs a powerful punch. Hope you guys are doing well. Enough from me for now. - Skitz You can comment on this blog HERE Skitz0Frenik 2009-08-26T01:11:00-05:00