I won my second triple crown today. The triple crown consists of winning 3 tournaments on 3 different sites with a prize pool over $10,000 and 100 players or more. I won another some time ago (about 9 months perhaps) after numerous close calls and lots of effort. This time around I happened to simply get lucky in two tournaments on one day, then made some effort towards winning third. I had no idea it’d be such a substantial win.

I won the Stars 10pm (Central) 20k guaranteed $109 tournament tonight, which normally gets around 400 guys, 432 tonight specifically. First was $9,310 and as long as I’m shamelessly bragging I made the final table of the Stars $22 rebuys but busted out 8th.

The totals for the triple crown look like:
Mar 05, 2008: Stars $109 for $9310
Feb 28, 2008: Full Tilt $109 rebuys for $35,890
Feb 28, 2008: UB $30 rebuys for $5130.

I’ve been putting in a ton of volume lately and it feels good to get such a solid return. Meanwhile I thought further about what I wrote yesterday. Kyle (Edward Dantes) IM’d me with some words of advice as my writing attempts to gain greater reach. He, like David Huber at Pocketfives, advised just about the total removal of profanity in material meant to reach a larger audience. He pointed out Hunter S. Thompsons work as an example for way to be both creatively insulting without vulgar. I read over Thompsons eulogy of Richard M. Nixon, and as Kyle said the eulogy is as about as scathing and offensive as can be, without the kind of language that prevents it from being publishable. Man, Thompson REALLY hated Nixon. Either way, both Kyle and David are right. Being entirely uncompromising to make slight changes is unreasonable. If the heart of the content is being butchered I’d feel uncomfortable, but I can live with edits and adjustments. As long as I get to compare people I don’t like to skat porn. Not that I have anything against Fischman, I’ve never met the guy and when we did play, it wasn’t me sucked out on when restealing 54s with absolutely zero fold equity.

Meanwhile I received news today as devastating as any I can remember, Brett Favre has retired from the NFL. Whatever you want to say about Favre being overrated, overly aggressive, or downright foolish for picking a time to quit when his last throw was an interception and his returning team is a force, you have to respect the man that made the game as fun to watch as any in memory. In all my years of watching the Pack there’s never been anyone else at the helm. To me, he defines everything enthralling about the game of football. Having never watched the Pack without Favre, I wonder if I’ll really feel the same thing next year, when no matter the quality of the team, something will feel off. Here’s hoping he changes his mind. I’m already missing watching him play.

Calling them Sundays here seems a little ‘I’m American and America is the center of the world!!!’ish but for the majority of people in the online world the biggest tournament day of the week is known as Sunday. This week there was bonus action, a $1500, 2 million dollar guaranteed tournament on ipoker network with massive overlay and terrible players. There was one catch though, it was at 7am (well two, there were no antes either.) I did not enjoy myself.

Even though I was responsible and got to bed at a reasonable hour the night before (which took it’s fair share of melatonin and discipline) a few hours into my Sunday I started feeling groggy and terrible. Then, I just started playing bad. Over the course of the day I made at least five truly awful mistakes. Just flat out terribly played hands. It didn’t help that I went super deep in the Tilt $150 with 750 entrants then lost a flip with 15 left. When I finished with my day sometime in the mid afternoon (I realized the state I was in and stopped registering for new stuff early) I went over to the couch and fell into what can only be described as a coma. When Bondgirl woke me up three hours later I initially told her to “Go away. Go away, pleeeeease let me sleep”
“But I’m almost at the final table of the 30 rebuys”
“You’ll be fine. I need sleep.”

She was too persistent though. It was only fair, I had started staking her for UB tournaments since she’d had a really bad month on Tilt/Stars and I have the magical ability to print money on UB. In my groggy state I lay on the couch and tried to give her the best advice I could in my impaired state (no, I don’t tell her what to do, if I get something wrong then I have to hear about it for hours.) An hour or so later she’d won the tournament and made my disastrous Sunday suddenly profitable.

Meanwhile I finally got a response from a poker site in regards to my ‘Around the World in 90 Days’ idea. Full Tilt emailed to say they have a sort of blogging page of their own and would likely be interested in the content and wondering what I want in compensation. I emailed back asking more specifically what their looking for out of me. I realized there is one fairly serious catch to working with a poker site while doing this project; considering my writing style and sense of humor it’s possible they may seriously want to edit or censure my work. Seeing as I am not a professional writer who needs the income to survive, I have the privilege of being uncompromising if I choose so. Say for example it is Full Tilt who picks up my work, and at some point in a tournament I have a hand against a pro which they sponsor, for the sake of example let’s say Scott Fischman who I have seen play terrible in the past, and he plays some hand God awful against me and sucks out. Later on in my blog I may wish to describe Scott as “A complete fucking mongoloid whose poker skill is the rough equivalent of a drunken mechanic trying to be a barber and has about as much class as skat porn.” This is almost certainly at a massive conflict of interest with Full Tilt when distributing my work. So how much would it cost for someone who doesn’t need the money to censor a project that’s very important to them? I don’t know, but I can’t think it’s cheap.

That is of course the catch and the beauty of being a professional poker player. We don’t rely on anyone else, no team work is required, and there’s no such thing as business manners, office politics, and unless you’re talking about cheating not little concern about saving face. We do what we want, when we want, how we want. We do so, because there are no consequences and nobody to stop us from doing so.

That’s not to say that people in the working world are better or more mature than we are. Most people who have worked in the business world long enough can regale you with stories about coworkers screwing each other over, bosses taking credit for their work, or office politics reaching a state of 1984esque paranoia. I imagine many out there are highly jealous of our lifestyle, and were it feasible, would be doing the same. Yes yes, I know, those with families and real responsibilities wouldn’t. It’s an inevitably self satisfying lifestyle not made for the family man.

I’ve massively derailed myself here though. The point is, I’m only going to give my content to a site if
A. They give an awesome offer with censorship.
B. They give me an acceptable offer without censorship.

So we’ll see what happens.

Recently the online sites have been adding more and more high stakes tournaments to their schedules. Four sites now have a weekly $1000 tournament, Tilt has added a couple 100 rebuys, UB has added a nightly $150, and this is on top of the slew of $100+ tournaments (which we’ll define as higher stakes for the sake of discussion) that already exist. There are a number of adjustments to consider when moving up the buy in ladder which we’ll go over.

First of all, peoples aggression ranges are much wider at higher stakes than they are at low/mid. Take shoving ranges on a 10 BB stack with antes for example. If it folds to a player on the CO in the 100 rebuys, their range is going to be very wide here, and in some situations any two cards. Now take a tournament like the nightly 50/50 on Stars or Tilt. I think the average player is often only shoving A high, pairs, any two broadway, and a few suited connectors. Some may even end up folding the weaker A’s and broadways. As always you need to watch the players on your right to get a good idea of where they’re at, but as a rule expect that as you move up in stakes peoples shoving ranges get wider.

Also, peoples opening ranges get wider but that is fairly obvious. A larger difference though, is that peoples 3 betting ranges get a lot wider and 3 bets are a lot more frequent. For example, in a 50/50 dollar tournament If I open MP2 and the button 3 bets me at 30 BB’s effective I give the average player pretty damn tight range, though again it depends on the player. Still, very regularly you’ll get players whose 3 bet range is simply QQ+/AK. Meanwhile, in a tournament like the 100r the 3 bet range here can be closer to AQ+/99+, again depending on the player and the existing dynamics. Also, players at higher buy ins make fewer mistakes in regards to 3 bets. Many have a good idea what kind of stacks they should shove with, which they should flat with, which they should 3 bet as a go and go, and which they should 3 bet and evaluate post flop with. At the lower/mid buy in tournaments you more often see guys who do very obvious things such as min 3 bet their strongest hands, 4 or 5X 3 bet the hands they don’t really know how to play (TT-QQ, AK) and make shoves for highly inappropriate amounts (either jamming on a resteal with no fold equity because they don’t understand pot odds or shoving a massive stack in relation to your bet, say 10-15X your original raise.) There are still plenty of players at the higher limits who make significant errors in 3 bet situations, but the errors are often to a smaller degree than at the lower stakes, and often erring on the side of aggression which makes your life harder.

Because people are more passive at lower stakes I tend to play a more aggressive game. If I get on tables where the players on my left seem incapable of 3 betting without having a real hand I’ll start tiny raising (2.3-2.5X) a very wide range of hands in LP. Even if these types of players end up defending their BB (which many will since they don’t understand position) they’ll often play too passive and sloppy post flop. When I play in higher stakes and tougher tournaments, I tend to play a more TAG style since my opponents will make far fewer mistakes against me pre and post flop and their aggression can sometimes be manipulated into spewing into my tighter style of play. Of course you should never go to far with this and become a nit (and some players play LAGish at the highest stakes very well) and you still need to be able to pick spots to suddenly and violently open up your range in order to keep thinking players off balance. Along this line, I also flat call preflop a bit wider in weaker tournaments because my opponents will make larger mistakes post, give me more free cards, and I’ll get squeezed behind me less often.

Another major difference you’ll see when moving up in stakes are the concepts of raising for information and pot control. Let’s take an example hand and see how it can (and often will) play out differently depending on stakes.
Example 1: It is the first level of a Stars tournament with a 3000 starting bank at the 10/20 level. The players in the hand not overly familiar with each other. The button in the hand holds 99.
Preflop: It folds to UTG+1 who raises to 70, it folds to the button who calls, the blinds fold.
Flop: 2 5 7 rainbow
UTG+1 bets out 120.
Now, in a Stars $1000 tournament I would expect the button to flat call here close to 100% of the time. The button knows if he raises 99 there are zero hands he can get value out of from another thinking player and he is essentially turning his hand into a bluff. Therefore he elects to call, control the pot size, use his position, and evaluate what happens on the turn. One other quick adjustment in regards to open raising comes with the ability to break the stack size rule. Say for example I’m in a tournament full of very weak players who never 3 bet without having a big hand. If it’s folded to me on the CO with A9s I’ll 2.4X it intending to fold to a reraise. Meanwhile in something like the 100r, I would simply shove this hand.

The same hand in the Stars 50/50 may play out that UTG+1 bets out 120 and the button now raises to 360. The button is failing to think about the big picture and sees the situation at it’s most basic; “The flop is 7 high, I have a pair of nines, I’ve probably got the best hand therefore I should raise and see where I am.” Then if they get reraised they sit there tanking not sure what to do and wondering how they got in this gross spot. For the most part, raising this board with 99 at this stack depth is a mistake across the board, but every so often you’ll get players who stack off so insanely wide it becomes correct. Still, this is a rare occurrence.

The next thing to consider about moving up in stakes is bubble play. Both on the final table and on the cash bubble, the higher you get and against the better of opponents the less players will nit it up around bubble situations and give you folds. There will always be some players who are out of their league in a tournament who have happened to survive to the point that this is relevant, but the bubble in a 50/50 is vastly different to a bubble in the 100r. For example, in a bubble situation where I have a decent stack (it doesn’t need to be huge) in a 50/50 I’ll be open raising an enormous amount of hands for very small raises (2.3-2.5X) since I expect players to 3 bet and flat call me with a very tight range. Meanwhile in a 100r I make almost zero adjustment to my game plan unless I am in procession of a massive stack or happen to be on a table with unexpectedly weak players. Even still I don’t open it up to nearly the level I would in a 50/50 tournament. In a 50/50 it’s fairly rare to see someone else on the table really looking to manipulate a bubble situation unless they have a ton of chips, but in the higher limits most players are willing to go ahead and 3 bet all in light to prevent their getting run over.

Another key adjustment I make between stakes is adjusting how much I play for deception vs obvious value. Against higher stakes and thinking players you need to be aware that they are more observant and watching for bet sizing patterns. They also know that you know exactly what your stack size allows for and doing something outside the norm throws up red flags.
Example: It’s at the 200/400 with 50 ante in a Stars tournament. You have 9,600 chips in the small blind and hold AA. The button has 15,000.
Preflop: It folds around to the button who open raises to 1,100.
Now, in a 100r I am shoving this hand, the same as I would shove my entire 3 betting range. Thinking players know if I do something like make it 3,000 (which obviously pot commits me) that I likely have a huge hand (although these days some players are making it 3000 in this spot with a hand that’s not necessarily dying for action like say, AT in order to look strong, but that’s a whole other article) and that I’d normally shove my lesser hands. So instead of giving them that information I make the most deceptive play (that is, deceptive because there is simply nothing to read into, my raise size can mean AT, 55, KQs, or AA.) I also know that very few strong/thinking players would think of flatting here for 1/3rd of effective stacks to see if they get a good flop or otherwise fold to my inevitable flop shove. Meanwhile, in the 50/50 I would almost always make more a fancy/cute play by flat calling (which basically nobody does in the 100r in the SB at these stack sizes) or 3 betting an amount that makes my opponent perhaps thinking about taking a flop, or, ever so rarely, 4 bet a hand they think has some fold equity.

There are many situations like this at lower stakes tournaments where you can do things that become obvious at higher stakes in order to get value. You should slow play more often in spots where your opponent will fail to realize you have become pot committed and would never call off so much of your stack without such a strong holding. The higher you get the and better of players you run into, the more you should make your actions look similar with your whole range to prevent them from being able to hand read you accurately.

Lastly, keep in mind that players at lower limits adjust slower (or at times, are simply unwilling to adjust) compared to higher stakes thinking players. Meta game in the tougher tournaments is much more relevant and history and reads become highly integral to being able to make a correct assessment of someone’s range. Meanwhile, in lower stakes players may fail to adjust by opening their range up against your aggressive play. They are much less likely to take a pattern you have and exploit you for it, since they simply don’t possess the knowledge of how to react to a variety of situations. Their style is more sedentary. Meanwhile, if you keep the same patterns up against thinking players you will inevitably get exploited and they will find ways to outplay you or only give you the absolute minimum of value with your big hands. Pay attention to the way the table reacts to you. The ‘X-factor’ of skilled tournament play against tough opponents is understanding meta game.

Alright, that’s all I have for now. I hope this has helped, and always, if you have questions just ask.

Unfortunately I’ve been busy lighting money on fire at live poker so I haven’t been able to write for a while. I don’t have much live to play for another two months now so I’ve got some time to do some writing and want to restart the ‘Things it took me a while to learn’ series. Hopefully this article is a return to form.

As I wrote in part 9 tournament hand reading is all about putting players on ranges. However, I didn’t really elaborate on the enormous impact of understanding hand ranges in general. The simple fact is this: If you can pinpoint a mans range, you can own his soul. Pinpointing someone’s range can at times be very easy and at others very difficult, and is entirely situational dependant. Sometimes a person will do something so incredibly obvious they make their range basically one or two hands. Sometimes a persons range will get polarized, meaning the villain either has a very big hand or bluff. When good thinking players come up against other good thinking players they go to lengths to merge their range, fancy talk for being deceptive. What this means is that they play in a way that many hands would play to prevent giving you any clues that allows you to weight their range towards a certain strength. Being able to read ranges is simply an extension of hand reading, though somewhat more generalized.

So how do we read ranges? Well for one it does to a degree come down to experience. For example, when I first began playing live poker after spending so many months entirely online I was not used to how peoples 3 betting and shoving ranges were VASTLY different. After some experience I was able to make the proper adjustments. Even some tournaments online the ranges for a similar, or even exact situation, can differ enormously based on what tournament it is. Example:
Both CO and button have 40 BB’s with antes in play, both players are 100% unknown to you. The CO open raises 2.6 X. The button 3 bets to 8.5X. The blinds fold and the CO shoves. Now, take this example in the 100r and the CO has a much wider range than in a 50 freeze out.

This is of course, a very basic and obvious example. However, without knowing anything about the 100r or a 50 FO and having no experience in either tournament, you may not necessarily realize just how big the differences in ranges are. Outside the experience argument though, range reading can easily be taught and practiced. Let’s start with early tournament range reading.

Early Tournament Range Reading:
The nice part about early tournament range reading is that people are often making less elaborate or fancy moves, especially pre flop. Assuming you know a little about you’re opponent you should be able to get a decent idea of his pre flop range when he makes certain actions. Now, this may result in his range being fairly wide, but you’ll at least have something to go with which you then can eliminate hands from later. Example:
Level 1 in a Stars 100 freeze out, with blinds 10/20. You open in MP2 to 70, and the button who is a known winning player flat calls the button. What’s his range? Depending on the player it’s often something in the area of: 22-JJ, AJ-AQ, 54s+, KJo, KQo, JTs-ATs, 64s-J9s. This can’t be exact but it’s reasonable, and we can expect QQ+/AK to reraise.

Once you have an idea of his pre flop range you can begin eliminating possibilities post flop depending on the flop texture and action. This all becomes second nature with experience. Now let’s take a look at some early tournament example hands and think about how knowledge of our opponent plus thinking about his range leads to a decision.

Stars 109 Freeze out. It’s the first level, blinds 10/20. The villain in the hand is a well known 2+2’er, Mattsuspect. He knows who I am and I know him to be pretty TAG at this stage of the tournament. I don’t have much information on UTG+2, so I have to give him credit for a standard range.
Hero’s stack: 2880
UTG+2: 6120
MP2 (Mattsuspect): 3010
I hold Kc Ks on the CO. Blinds are 10/20.

Preflop: 2 folds, UTG+2 raises to 80, 1 fold, MP2 reraises to 280, Hero calls, folds to UTG+2, UTG+2 calls 200.

Alright, at this stage I can feel pretty confident that for Mattsuspect to reraise an early position player at this stage of the tournament he has a very small range. Many TAG’s are even cold calling AK here since UTG+2 isn’t calling a reraise with many worse hands than AK. I fully expect his 3 betting range to be QQ+ here, though at times players will add AKs and JJ. I call because I know if I 4 bet his range can play perfectly against me. His QQ/AKs will snap fold since he knows my 4 betting range is only KK+ given the positions, but he may think my cold call range is something like JJ+/AK.

Flop: 7c Qd 9h (Pot 870)
UTG+2 checks, MP2 bets 700, Hero folds.

To me, this seems like a very simple fold and overall a simple hand. I know that even if MP2’s range includes AK and JJ he’s not betting that large into two players, especially not when a thinking one cold called his reraise. QQ has now sucked out on me, and I’m of course still behind AA. Therefore I beat nothing in his range and easily fold.

Alright, let’s go with one more early example that get into thinking how a players range will react to certain plays:

The player in this hand was well known online player ‘yellowsub’. In my analysis I’ll be paraphrasing a post djk123 made in the thread, so he also deserves some credit. The tournament is the Full tilt $500+50 Sunday Million. We are without reads.
MP2: 4908
Hero: 4940
Hero holds Ah Qh on the CO.

Preflop: Folds to MP2, MP2 raises to 150, Hero calls, 3 folds.
This seems standard to me so far. We can again give the villain a pretty wide range.

Flop: 5c 3h Ac (Pot 360)
MP2 checks, Hero bets 245, MP2 calls 245.
At this point the hand gets a little strange. It’s odd for MP2 to not C bet a board like this, and that often means he has a polarized range. A reasonable range to give MP2 is something like 99-KK, 33, 55, AA, A9-AK, or just maybe a very strangely/badly played suited connector with clubs. Most of the time though, his hand is in one of the first categories, either a pair with showdown value that doesn’t want to turn it’s hand into a bluff, or a huge hand that’s aiming to trap the hero. The AJ-AK aren’t really huge, and are often betting, but they will sometimes check hoping to get value and thinking on a board like this it’s hard for their opponent to hit. The bet seems standard, as we can still gain value from the checking pairs, the rare/odd club draw, and worse A’s. At this point, I would weight villains range towards 99-KK or 33+55+AA since A’s and flush draws mostly bet the flop.

Turn: Kh (Pot 850)
MP2 checks, Hero bets 609, MP2 raises to 2120, Hero folds.
Here’s where a lot of the discussion took place. The real question in the hand is whether the turn was the correct play. Djk123 came into the thread and broke down the villains range and his probable actions with those ranges and provided information as to why bet/folding the turn is incorrect. The logic goes as follows; if we mostly weight villains range towards 99-KK and slow played sets there cannot be very good value in betting this turn. The slow played sets will now check raise us and we’ll have to make a disgusting feeling fold. The pairs trying to get to showdown will likely give hero credit for an ace and fold. KK has no sucked out and will checkraise. If we check the turn and make our flush we can of course get it on the river verse anything. If we check the turn and villain bets the river we can always call since the villain will at times show up with worse A’s and the occasional missed flush draw. The villain is also more likely to pay off two streets with a 99-QQ type hand if we check back the turn and look like we were simply taking a shot on the flop but have now decided to try and bluff again on the river.

Again, we see that the key to ranges is having information and assumptions about our opponents probable actions with certain hands. By being observant and learning about how players react to certain board textures range reading becomes much easier.


Mid-Late stage Range Reading:
In the mid to late stages of tournaments the important part of hand reading often comes down to shoving and reshoving. For this portion of the article I’ve brought in a guest writer, Luckychewy aka Runthistable, who I feel is better suited to explain this process, the math and the tools involved (Pokerstove, Sitngo power-tools.) Here’s his contribution:
Three ridiculously crucial things to have access to for any aspiring tournament player when reviewing sessions are the Calculator, PokerStove, and SnG Power Tools. As all of you know by now, middle through late and especially end game tournament play heavily relies on how strong of a pushbotter you are. These three programs will greatly help you improve your pushbotting and help combat other pushbotters. I use calculator and stove to assist in calling ranges, and power tools to assist with shoving ranges. A lot of spots you find yourself in will become straightforward after a while, but every now and then there is a close spot you need to review and this is how you do it. For what it's worth, I'd recommend throwing some hands in a word document as you play a session and thus making it easier to find exactly what you want to review afterwards.

When figuring out what range to call a shove with you first need to figure out what equity you need versus the players range to breakeven. Obviously breaking even is nice and we shouldn't be passing small edges in most cases, but you’re goal should be to turn a profit calling shoves. There are a lot of situations that arise in which I’m not sure if I’m making a positive or negative EV call because it’s so close, these spots I refer to as marginal. Sometimes I pass on marginal spots and sometimes I don’t, it really all depends on so many variables. As you get better and better at calling and pushing ranges you will find yourself in less and less marginal spots as stuff will start becoming more clear-cut whether it is profitable or not.

So, starting with calling ranges. This is where Calculator and PokerStove are used. First, you need to figure out your required equity given the pot odds. An example hand from full tilt’s 55k guarantee is as follows: Unknown player in the CO position shoves for 15.5k at 1k/2k/250 ante with 8 people at the table, and I’m in the BB with 55 and almost 65k after posting. The pot is 3k in blinds+ 2k in antes+ the 15.5k he shoved for which = 20.5k. I only have to call 13.5 since I’m in the BB, which means I’m getting 20.5:13.5, or close to 1.5:1. To figure out exactly what equity you need to breakeven you take what’s in the pot, add how much you need to call, and then divide this new number by how much you need to call. So if 20.5 = x and 13.5 = y, the formula would be y/x+y. In this case, x+y = 34, and y is 13.5, so 13.5/34 = .397. Essentially I need to have 39.7% equity or better versus his range to make a call profitable.

The second part involves PokerStove. I first plug my hand and then guesstimate an appropriate range for the CO player. Poker has a lot more gray areas than black and white, so if you guesstimate a range and later find out the CO player is a huge nit or huge spew, oh well, you didn’t know it at the time and there’s not much to be said. You will inevitably make mistakes when determining ranges but it will get better with time and even I’m not nearly as good as some players who spawned from sit and go’s where it’s essential that you know the correct call/push ranges in a bunch of spots. In this case I’ll give the unknown CO a somewhat conservative range of 22+, A2s+, K8s+, Q8s+, J9s+, T9s, 98s, 87s, A2o+, K9o+, Q9o+, Jto and I’ve got ~51.7% equity. So clearly this is way better than a breakeven call as I’m only required to have ~39.7% equity and I have ~51.7%, quite a profitable call in the long run. For those that care, in the actual hand he had AQo and I lost a sizeable flip. This could mean that his range is tighter than I assume or it could mean that he just so happened to have the top end of it this time around. Regardless, I’m fine with the call and would make it again if I had to.

Generally with regards to pushing ranges as opposed to calling ranges, your range will be much wider because you profit off of the amount of folds you get. Obviously when making a call you have no folding equity, which as I explained earlier is why you need to be a favorite versus the players range with the given pot odds. The equity of your pushing range versus a players call range is generally going to be a dog, but you get a lot of folds so it’s still profitable. SnG Power Tools is a huge help in figuring out how wide you can profitably push from what position. Unlike Calculator and PokerStove though, it isn’t free, but it is cheap. I’d highly recommend those of you who don’t have it to buy it. You can get it online for like $20, minimal in return for how much money it can potentially make you if you put it to good use. Again though, it makes its calculations off of your assumptions of the other players calling ranges. It’s important of course to make good assumptions, but you will inevitably be wrong some of the time. Generally if you are close enough it will be clear whether or not a certain shove is profitable, but not always in close situations. As always, everything is very opponent dependent so while it’s okay some of the time to generalize (as you will have to do versus unknown players) you definitely don’t want to make the same assumptions of the BB’s calling range versus your button shove is the BB is charder30 or joeshmo123456. If I had to take a guess, charder might call a bit wider than Joe.

That’s all I’ve got to say about calling and pushing ranges. I learned so much from 2p2 and met so many great people and friends from this site I feel I have a debt to fill by giving something back. I hope ya’ll learned a bunch and win lots of monies in the future (though hopefully not from me!). Thanks for reading.

Alright, that’s what I have for now. Thanks to Luckychewy for his contribution and for the other posters whose ideas I’ve stolen. If there’s any questions, you know where to put ‘em.

Authors Note: As an additional exercise for this segment, see if you can figure out which hands were actually played by Phil and which I’ve made up. I’ll give you one hint; the hands played the absolute worst are the ones by Phil, because I simply don’t have the imaginative ability to come up with hands that awful.

Greetings fellow tournament players, it is I, the worlds greatest tournament player, Phil Hellmuth Jr. Normally I would never dispense with strategy advice for free, and the majority of my skilled analysis can be found in my enormously successful book ‘Play Poker Like the Pros’. However, it’s come to my attention that I’ve been taking a lot of flack on the forums by all these stupid internet kids who think they know something about tournaments, so I’ve come to show them all up and educate the imbecile masses. Allow me to walk you through some hands and show you how a true master of the game would play them!

Hand 1: It’s the 50/100 level in the 10k Euro Main Event in Monte Carlo. The villain in the hand is some stupid internet punk. I hold TT UTG+1. We both have around 20k.
Preflop: UTG folds, I raise to 300, it folds to the button who calls, the blinds fold.
Analysis: This seems pretty standard, though I think TT is the at the bottom of my open raising range here. My normal raising range here is JJ/QQ and AK. I would OF COURSE limp KK and AA.
Flop: Tc 9c 3h, I check, the button bets 600, I call.
Analysis: Haha! We’ve flopped the absolute nuts. That means we of course need to start slowplaying, don’t want to scare our opponent off his hand here and we certainly don’t want to build a big pot, since I might not have the nuts on future streets. I check and the button bets 600, calling is of course best here.
Turn: 4d, I check, the button bets 1000, I call.
Analysis: That’s a nice safe turn card. I check again and the button bets 1000. I of course just call again, I’ve got this kid right where I want him. I just know he’s gonna bluff his whole stack off to me on the river, so we certainly don’t want to raise now!
River: Kc, I lead out 600, the kid raises to 3600, I call. He shows me AcQc.
Analysis: Once the river comes it’s time to take this kid to value town! I lead out 600, a good looking 1/6th pot bet. Now the kid has the gall to raise me! Well, since the flush draw got there as well as the straight draw we had better call since stupid internet kids love to bluff on the river when all the draws get there. I call and he shows me the nut flush. DAMN IT! I had that stupid internet kid right where I wanted him, he was gonna bluff off his WHOLE stack to me on the river if he didn’t suck out like the stupid donkey he is! It’s obvious that I played this whole hand perfectly, I just got really really unlucky on the river.

Hand 2: It’s the 300/600 level in the 10k WPT Main Event at Foxwoods. I’ve gotten my 20,000 starting stack up to about 65,000 crushing all these stupid morons. My opponent in the hand is tournament poker legend TJ Cloutier, who has managed to drag his sorry, degenerate, 200% selling ass off the craps table to play in the tournament. TJ is sitting with about 50,000. I hold AKo UTG+2.
Preflop: It folds to me and I raise to 1800. It folds to TJ in the BB who call.
Analysis: I think preflop is pretty standard here. I’ve got AK so I raise, though it’s important to keep in mind THAT ACE KING IS A DRAWING HAND PEOPLE. When TJ calls out of the BB I know he’s got a big hand, because TJ is a tight player and he’s defending his BB against the worlds best tournament player. I am cautious going to the flop.
Flop: Ah Kc 9d, TJ checks and I bet 2000. TJ calls.
Analysis: I flop okay, though to be honest I’m Phil Hellmuth Jr. so I’m used to flopping a little better than that. I bet 2000 for value, hoping if TJ has made a loose call with A9 I can get some value here, though I imagine he’ll quickly fold AQ. TJ flat calls me, which shows me an enormous amount of strength.
Turn: Kd, TJ checks and I check behind.
Analysis: This is a pretty good turn card for me since it means TJ can’t have KK. I’m pretty sure TJ will check fold everything but AA here, so I check behind for pot control. This seems very obvious to me.
River: 2c, TJ checks, I bet 1000 and TJ calls. I show my AK and TJ mucks.
Analysis: I think this is a pretty risky value bet on the end, so I bet really small so if TJ check raised I could fold. I know the only way TJ raises me is if he has his most likely hand, AA. I’m betting to get value against his next most likely hand 99, which to be honest is a pretty loose pre flop call when you’re playing against the best no limit tournament player in the world. TJ calls and mucks when he sees my kings full, I guess he needs to learn how to play nines like the master!

Hand 3: It’s down to the final 10 players in WSOP 2007 Event 28, and I’m going for my 12th, count em, 12th bracelet! I’m so fucking important they’ve actually taken the event they were supposed to broadcast, the $2,500 6 handed event, and instead filmed the one featuring yours truly. Sucks to be you Terrence ‘not Johnny’ Chan! The table is a mixture of stupid internet punks and the regular live morons I beat up on the regular, plus a classy looking broad who likes to announce her hand while there’s still action, Beth Shak. I start the hand with about 135k at the 10k/20k level. I hold K6o on the cut off.
Preflop: It folds to me and I raise to 50,000, since I know all these stupid idiots are concerned with making the final table they’re sure to fold to me. It folds to the BB whose some stupid young guy, and he moves all in! ON ME! THE GREATEST NO LIMIT TOURNAMENT PLAYER OF ALL TIME! After thinking it over for a while, I fold.
Analysis: When it folds to me I’m in late position with a face card against a bunch of morons who want nothing more than to get as much face time on ESPN as possible, so of course I raise! However, when the BB shows the enormous strength of going all in at this point in the tournament, over me, Phil Hellmuth Jr. I know he has to be strong. Since I know my hand is behind and ‘pot odds’ are only for those stupid internet geeks, I make what is a very standard fold. What makes this fold even more obvious, is that I of course get aces the very next hand! That’s why you fold people! There’s the rest of the world, and then there’s me! Oh, and make sure when you get AA in that spot with less than 4 big blinds left to go ahead and min raise, those stupid donks will never see it coming!

Hand 4: It’s the LAPC Main Event in 2007. We’re at the final table and I’ve got the chip lead. Phil Ivey is here too, and he’s almost as good as I am, so I need to be careful with him. I hold QcTc on the button, the blinds are 30,000/60,000 with a 10,000 ante.
Preflop: It folds to me on the button and I raise to 250,000, a nice big 4X raise. The SB folds and the BB shoves for 840,000 total. I think it over and fold.
Analysis: I know I’m behind because the BB has reraised, therefore I fold. This is so obvious people!

Hand 5: It’s the WSOP ME in 2005 on Day 1. I hold KdJd at 150/300 and I’ve improved my starting stack to 25,000 on the hijack. The button has about 18,000 in chips, I’ve never seen him before.
Preflop: It folds to me on the hijack and I raise it up to 1,000. The CO folds and the button calls, the blinds both fold.
Analysis: My raise is of course a little loose pre, but since everyone behind me is a bunch of nobody morons, I think it’s profitable for me to go ahead and raise here. I get flat called by the button, who could have any number of hands. I’ll wait to see how he reacts to the flop and read his soul so I can know what he has.
Flop: 3c Td Qd, I bet 2000, and my opponent raises to 5,000. I think it over and fold.
Analysis: A lot of people think just because I’ve flopped a big draw I should be getting a lot of chips in here, but let me tell you the truth; my draw is only going to hit like, um, some of the time! Not enough to be risking my tournament life by going all in or anything crazy like that! This is day 1 of the World Series Main Event we’re talking about here! You don’t go deep in tournaments taking big gambles with just a draw! This is a very easy fold, and I bet big on the flop hoping my opponent would fold first. Unfortunately he raised instead, so you have to give up the hand here.


Alright then, that’s all the knowledge I have to impart on you stoned, mongoloid internet retards for now! Perhaps armed with knowledge like this you might actually have a chance of not losing your whole stack in the first hand you play against the WORLDS GREATEST NO LIMIT TOURNAMENT PLAYER!