It turns out I had just enough time to go to the Rio and play one satellite, which I won outright. I'd asked for a chop twice - once at 100/200 when I had 6K/big stack 11K/shortie 3K, and again just before the final hand at 200/400, when it was 4K/8K/8K. Both times, the big stack refused; after the second time, the shortie wound up pushing AJ into the big stack's AK when, as it turns out, I had kings. Ballgame, ship the 5 grand, etc.

This makes me want to post about making deals in general. Most of the "A+" online elite either don't make deals at all or won't accept anything that isn't wildly in their favor. When I'm playing my best, I think I'm up there, and I definitely don't give up much in shorthanded tournament situations (my final table record proves it) - but I definitely do make deals, and in fact, will sometimes take slightly the worst of it (giving up a couple of percentage points, though not more) to make one stick. Two or three thousand dollars is significant to me, but it's not a huge number or anything. And yet, I'd probably be okay with giving up some fraction of a c-note to take it down.

Why is this? I think most of the pros around the net these days greatly underestimate variance. I'll fess up right now and say that two thirds of my net profit last year came from a whopping one tournament. So did Nath's. Taking the first couple of 2+2'ers that come to mind, after making his deal for 400K 3 handed at the WSOP, Jurollo's going to be around there, as well; Rizen is an absolutely ridiculous tournament player, but does anyone think he made more than 500K last year if you don't include his WSOP result? Gobboboy's second place is probably pushing 80% of his roll...etc., etc., etc.

All of these big wins have one thing in common - suckouts. I had 3 big ones in mine. Gobboboy hit a one outer (among many others) in his, Nath, Jurollo and Rizen doubtless had quite a few, and so on. Even playing your best, it's very difficult to play so well or get hit by the deck so hard that you never get your chips in while behind. What's important about this is that it only takes one time where your 25% or 33% shot doesn't hold up to turn 2/3 of your profit for the year into a loss. You can argue that in the long run, that's irrelevant, because even tournaments full of suckouts factor into a good player's expectation, but the long run in poker is somewhere between the cockroaches inheriting the Earth and the Sun going supernova; in addition, there's no such thing as a tournament these days where shorthanded play doesn't consist of "push top X%, get called by top Y%". I firmly believe that when you get to a final table and are in line for a significant payout, you should do what you can to lock it up, rather than winding up in a "who can run the hottest 3 handed with 20 BB" game. Of course, this doesn't apply when you have a significant edge, but those aren't that easy to come by - and are somewhat cancelled out by the utter monkey tilt that I'd go on if I passed up a huge deal and then lost a coinflip.

The A+ league, especially the 18-22 crowd, has an easier time ignoring variance than I do. A lot of that has to do with the fact that they don't care about money management anyway, which is actually an advantage in nosebleed stakes poker. I, on the other hand, do care about money, and I have to admit this causes me to give up a step to guys like sbrugby that have no problem with dropping 1 million a week. Maybe I'll get to be enough of a degenerate gambler to stop caring about that, but I'm okay with where I am for now...and it sure looks to me like chopping tournaments, especially with short stacks in the endgame, is a much better idea than playing them out*.

*of course, if you're playing live and they don't call with a push with anything but aces, it's another story.

I had a bunch of interesting hands this weekend, but one ultimately totally inconsequential one stood out. In the Absolute 150K, with effective 5K stacks at 50/100, a terrible player (something like 60/9 in PT and unable to fold a pair if his life depended on it) limped UTG, I overlimped 6 5 in MP (not something I do all the time, but worth doing with a guy like this in the pot), a nondescript TAG button also limped and 5 people saw the flop, which came A K 5.

The BB, who was running at something like 40/25 [and later put 40 BB in postflop with K4o on a KJ99 board], bet out 300 into 500. UTG did what he'd usually done so far and called. I could safely assume that, barring exactly a flush draw or the remaining fives, the button was out of the hand. What should my action have been?

Lately, I've been reading stoxtrader's new limit book from 2+2, Winning in Tough Hold'Em Games. It's an excellent book - probably the best limit book ever written. Most of it is inapplicable to NL, but there are some concepts that roughly transfer over. If this were a limit hand, the book's advice here would be straightforward - fold PF (your hand strength is not high enough to raise or call, even against this horrible limper) but certainly take a card off on the flop because of the immediate odds, the double bet size on the next street and the fact that neither of these guys will fold top pair. There's one big difference here between limit and NL - I'm only getting a shade under 4:1 here, while in a limit pot it'd be closer to 7:1 - but then again, implied odds are much greater in NL, I can perhaps bluff a turned heart if they both check to me*, and of my 5 outs, 4 are almost certainly clean.

*This isn't really a contradiction from 'these guys will never fold'. Lots of people will bet Ax here as the BB, and UTG is bad enough to call with as little as Kx. But once someone else overcalls, many of these same guys will check/fold, or bet very weakly on the turn, allowing cheap draws in.

So, in this spot, I'm limping a hand exactly because of its implied odds potential against, frankly, someone who's terrible at poker, then go on to flop what is basically a very well hidden ~5 outer counting the backdoor draw. But from an informal poll over AIM, many people simply fold even with 100 BB, never mind 50, and almost no one peels every time even with the players described. I think that in this particular spot - against bad players who are often happy to get their stack in with A2 if you turn a 6, and will *always* do it assuming a split if you turn a 5 - you might have to peel every time, even if you know for sure that only improving will win you the hand. The only real problem is the relatively shallow stacks; with 100 BB in this spot in the future, I won't even be thinking twice.

Caveat: in the actual hand, after I called, the button overcalled and almost certainly got there when a spade hit the turn. Don't *totally* count the TAG out :P

---

Some other hands from the weekend:

1)With about 2.5K effective stacks, CO raises to 180 at 30/60 blinds and I make it 600 with AKs. He calls, then leads a Q66 (1 heart) flop for 300 (that's 1/4-ish of the pot). If you choose to continue here (it's not a crime if you fold), what's your play? I see shoves all the time, but rarely calls - and I think calling is the way to go. Nobody ever folds a queen to a flop shove and some of your opponents will even make heroic calls with middle pairs, but if you call, you have two shots to win - by spiking something or by raising them off their hand on the turn if he checks/bets a small amount one more time. As a bonus, you can mix in the occasional bluff of this kind with slowplaying your aces.

2)Simple, common spot that's really annoying when you guess wrong and he checks or folds: I'm deep stacked in the BB with Q 9. The CO, with a 15-20 BB effective stack, minraises and I call. I flop a K high flush (we'll call the flop KTx, but it can really be anything). What's the play? Checkraising usually wins a small to medium-ish pot; leading wins bigger pots but less often. The trouble is that it's incredibly hard to find the right balance of hands to lead on those flops vs. hands to checkraise (note: cash players don't have this problem because stacks are deeper and you can bet/3 bet enough that nobody wants to check in this spot.) This is also tricky because the king and queen are accounted for, so if you lead, only the A will continue/your hand isn't horribly vulnerable like it would be if you had 54. I suspect there's a mathematical answer that makes one option correct vs. most people's ranges, but it'll take a long time for someone to figure this out.

3)Another bitch about Stars tournaments: at one point today, I was 75'th of 2000 in the Million with a whopping 60 BB. Considering it's a 7000+ man tournament that starts with 200 BB, something is ridiculously wrong here. There are live tournaments with a 50K prize pool that have deeper stacks/better structures 2/3 of the way through than that one! But oddly enough, as I write, both the Million and the FTP 400K - which has a much better structure in the first 2 hours - have 20 BB average stacks with 150-ish people left and are more or less evened out with each other. How does that work, and why is the Stars structure so skewed 2-3 hours in? I hope someone fixes it soon, because between that and the terrible payouts, I have to fight myself to play it every week even after winning it once.

Looking forward to the WSOP...look for some big updates all month.

Getting back to bread and butter for a while, until I get back from the WSOP I'm going to focus more on specific hands and tournament summaries.

To start off, I'm going to talk about a hand that was actually posted in BBV. I had a couple of people disagree with me in that thread about it, but I'm very, very sure I'm right. The hand in question:

PokerStars Game #10068071900: Hold'em No Limit ($2/$4) - 2025/05/23 - 15:26:24 (ET)
Table 'Errai' 6-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: MrteddyKGB ($388 in chips)
Seat 2: XTBCX ($191.70 in chips)
Seat 3: gambler2k4 ($878.05 in chips)
Seat 4: 007james007 ($298.60 in chips)
Seat 5: MrDima ($425.80 in chips)
Seat 6: Stoffer77 ($209.40 in chips)
gambler2k4: posts small blind $2
007james007: posts big blind $4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to gambler2k4 [Ks Qs]
MrDima: folds
Stoffer77: calls $4
MrteddyKGB: calls $4
XTBCX: folds
XTBCX leaves the table
gambler2k4: calls $2
007james007: checks
*** FLOP *** [Qd Qh 5c]
gambler2k4: checks
007james007: bets $4
Stoffer77: calls $4
MrteddyKGB: calls $4
gambler2k4: calls $4
*** TURN *** [Qd Qh 5c] [As]
gambler2k4: bets $20
007james007: folds
Stoffer77: folds
MrteddyKGB: raises $20 to $40
gambler2k4: calls $20
*** RIVER *** [Qd Qh 5c As] [Qc]
gambler2k4: checks
MrteddyKGB: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
gambler2k4: shows [Ks Qs] (four of a kind, Queens)
MrteddyKGB: mucks hand (AA)

gambler was frustrated that KGB checked behind the second nuts here. Now, there's no question KGB played it bad on three streets, but the river was actually quite good and this is a spot where people should frequently save themselves a lot of money (but rarely do). Consider the action:

-In a 4 way QQ5r pot, BB minbets (who cares), the first limper calls (this can be a 5, a pair, occasionally ace high), the second limper overcalls (this is usually *not* a 5 or worse, although really bad players will sometimes still have ace high, and occasionally something like 88 will show up here) and now the SB makes it call #3. What does SB, a regular actually dropping down from 5/10, have on this completely dry flop? Hint: it's not a 5. Even without any reads, you could check/fold unimproved AA on the next street here and be right 9/10 of the time - even if SB is bad enough to have nothing, there are still the other guys to worr about.

-The turn is an ace and now SB leads into the field with a large bet. This one's pretty simple: either he's a giant clown with an ace (if you're KGB holding two of them, that's sort of unlikely) or he's been badly slowplaying a Q (pretty much 90% of the time). When KGB raises and gambler calls, since even a complete idiot isn't likely to think A5o is still good here, that changes to around 95%.

-The river is a queen. Gambler puts his opponent on an ace and 'of course' checks. This is a terrible play as no opponent in his right mind would value bet this river with an ace (even the Zeebo theorem doesn't usually work on a guy with a 5 in this spot), but KGB has two aces. Does that change anything? A cursory look at this hand says 'not really' - there's just very little way for gambler to end up with the last ace in his hand at this point, and he's certainly getting checkraised by the last queen. Therefore, what KGB has is a crying check behind. In fact, if I were him, this is the rare spot where I don't even bother calling a river bet with the second nuts, either.

---

I recently played a 20/40 limit hand (yes, I know, bear with me) with the same idea. In a very good 8 handed game, 2 people limped, the button raised, SB called, I called with Kxs in the BB and 5 of us saw a flop, which came KJJr. It was checked to the button, who bet; SB called, I overcalled, and both people called behind me. The turn was another jack; if it were not disrespectful, I would have open folded.

Certainly, when the button bets, he often/usually has me beat here, but not always; it's a big pot, he might have raised some other suited king (giving me outs to split) or QTs, even if he has AK I'm only losing a small amount in equity by taking a card off for one bet, etc. When the SB calls, he can have QT, 99 (it was a good game), some sort of AQ/AT type hand, and so on. As long as he isn't slowplaying a jack *most of the time*, my overcall is still marginal either way. But when both limpers call after me, either we're playing a live game where everyone is drunk and hasn't looked at their cards yet, or at least one jack - and probably both the other kings - are out. It's simply almost mathematically impossible for me to have > 1 out. While the third jack makes my third nuts look pretty, it doesn't actually mean much except that I'm now drawing dead.

---

This leads me to the title of the article- in a game with thinking players, or at least players that understand the other guys have cards, too, overcalling on scary boards is a tell that cuts both ways. Note that in the second hand, I overcalled on a KJJ board with a king/no kicker, essentially a bluff catcher, counting on my overcall to shut down the action from anything worse and telling me whether I had the best hand; to some extent, you can use the 'implied strength' of this kind of overcall to your advantage. But after that point, on a board that scary, slowplaying is useless because your hand is just as face up whether you raise or call - and you really shouldn't be calling the bottom 95% of your range.

There is absolutely no need to make your opponent feel that acutely aware of his need to fold the second nuts.

Note: Because of the nature of this post, it's more applicable to MSNL than HSNL, and won't help you much at nosebleed stakes.

Getting the most out of a guy telegraphing an overpair or a huge draw when you have a monster is pretty easy - just don't slowplay and all the chips will be in the pot soon enough. When you don't have a monster, your action is also pretty easy - just fold, unless you've got something with enough outs or implied odds to continue. Running big bluffs on people with big hands doesn't pay.

Of course, people don't always have a big hand when they bet, and rarely have a big hand when they check. Nevertheless, it also doesn't pay to blindly bet/raise trying to pick up every medium or large pot just because the villains aren't showing any strength - even bad players will eventually catch on, and decent ones will quickly start trapping you. So the trick here is to read villains' hands well enough to know when their hand is OK, but cannot stand much heat, and take away a decent portion (not all) of these.

This is a very broad topic and can't really be covered with one post, mostly because every player has a different set of tendencies. But almost everyone playing MSNL and even many HSNL players will telegraph their hands to you in their own way, especially in limped pots and given multiway action. (Limped pots are great for this because the average hand is weaker and people are less willing to contest them. You can often get a hand like JT to fold on a J64 board in a 10 BB pot, where the same bad player will happily stack off for 100 BB if you raised PF.)

When you are not the initial aggressor, the trick here is to recognize when somebody is trying to exercise pot control. In an MSNL 4 or 5 person limped multiway pot (generally, this will be a live game), when the first or second limper bets less than 2/3 of the pot on the J64, rainbow flop, they are very likely to have exactly a weak to decent jack. Most of the time they're called in one spot, they will either check or blocking bet (underbet) the turn; if they are raised, they will either call and check/fold the turn, or fold immediately. This is the type of board and hand on which a late position float is profitable; you can see if anyone else overcalls, the other guy doesn't typically have much, and unless you have 72o, your hand almost certainly has a decent number of outs if your planned turn bluff doesn't work. The more outs you have, the better a float is; keep in mind that something as weak looking as 87 with a backdoor flush draw might turn out to have 40% equity in the hand!

When you *are* the guy taking a stab at the pot in the first place, you should pay attention to how likely the people in the pot with you are to fold to second barrels and how likely they are to have draws. If everyone checks to you on that J64 flop when you have the button and you have a tight image, it's OK to bet with almost any two cards, as long as your opponents aren't so bad that they will call down with something like 76 over multiple streets (very few are.) There aren't many draws out there, the checks say nobody is likely to have a jack (but since you're on the button and overlimped, you very well might), and even if someone calls your flop bet, they will probably not call a turn bet. BTW, keep in mind that if one of the blinds calls your bet on this board, they are far more likely to have a jack than when a limper check/calls, instead. Limpers here will sometimes take cards off with very little, but because there are people behind them, the blinds have a tighter range. That doesn't mean they won't still check/fold lots of turns, though.

Some other things to look for to identify opponents with weak or medium strength hands that can be taken off them:

-people who will raise PF and cbet most flops, but usually will not bet the turn (and if they check the turn, usually check the river as well)

-people who limp a lot from early position and weak lead on the flop

-any sort of weakish looking bet (more applicable online than live, since live bets are undersized)

-when the player quickly checks any scare card (a third flush card, an ace, a straight completing card), especially on the turn - even if they call the turn, a river follow through is nearly always profitable (bonus points if you actually are merely semibluffing on the turn)

Against decent or good players who are unlikely to put in a full stack light, you should also consider otherwise rarely used alternate lines. Let's say you are in the blinds and defend a hand to a middle position raise in a full ring game. The flop comes 872, and you know that this player is unlikely to have hit this board. What is your plan?

Note that I didn't say what your hand is. No doubt, you'd probably check/call some hands, check/raise other hands and maybe bet out a few. But most of the time you check/call, you also check the turn, most of the time you check/raise, you will lead the turn, and if your bet on the flop gets called, you will probably check scary turns and bet random ones - again, regardless of your hand. These are all natural tendencies and your opponents get confused when you go against them - so, when you think they missed the flop, consider doing that. When you are against a thinking, but straightforward opponent, check/call, betting a board like 8723 with a hand like 65 will often get better hands to fold cheaper than checkraising the flop would have, and if you then follow through on any river, good players will frequently even talk themselves into folding overpairs.

I'll be on vacation for a while, but should be back posting in a couple of weeks.

In my last blog entry, I wrote about a couple of basic online poker tells. Like I said in that entry, these tells shouldn't really be new to you if you are an experienced online player; they're meant to be representative of the several dozen other tells exactly like those two. In fact, except for the better HSNL regulars and the best tourney pros, almost everyone gives off tells via their timing and betting patterns in almost every hand they play. This time around, I want to give out some tips on how to take advantage of that.

First, let's talk for a bit about preflop tells. These are more important for tournaments, but do tend to show up vs. shortstackers in cash games, as well. The majority break down into two categories:

1)Oversized raises

2)The speed of the preflop action

Oversized raises are obviously the easiest ones to spot and are almost always accurate (that is, few people fake a 4x raise; even if they do, sooner or later, some short stack will reraise them anyway and their faking will be uncovered.) I'll make it simple: most of the time, a bigger than normal raise is AK, QQ-88. Sometimes, it's AA-KK, especially when a low stakes player makes it deep into a big tournament. Overbet pushes (when someone just shoves 20-30 BB, especially with no limpers) tend to be a shade weaker - something like AK-AJs, JJ-77. Keep in mind that a good player shoving 20 BB after several limpers will often have something worse, though, and a 10-12 BB late game shove is also quite different/depends on position.

The speed of the action - especially a preflop call - also sometimes means something. This is quite a bit trickier to spot, is not nearly as accurate as bet sizing, and needs experience to get it right, so I won't go too deeply into it. One thing you can take on faith, though: if a bad player autocalls (that is, checks the 'call a raise' button) a PF raise with medium or deep stacks, it is a hand that he will play no matter what, but not a monster or anything special. Look for small pairs, small to medium suited connectors, or two 'not so great' big cards like ATo/KJo. These same players will quickly call with any pair postflop, and will stack off with top pair, but they'll need to think when calling with overcards or a gutshot.

Taking advantage of these should be self-explanatory, so let's move on to postflop tells. Most of the time I see decent - but not great - players lose tons of chips or bust out of a tournament *early* is when they ignore an obvious tell coming from a horrible player. I'm not going to list individual tells - there are too many and I'd like to be able to play poker afterwards without having to adjust all over the place - but here are some things decent players should do far more than they do:

1)Raise blocking bets. When somebody bets 100 chips into a 1000 chip pot, a raise to 1000 - or even 800 - must work < 50% of the time to show a profit. Very few people betting 100 into 1000 know anything about poker, so that bet is almost always what it seems - scared money. (Even if you get called here, you should sometimes follow through on the turn for the same reason.) Once in a great while, you'll run into an exception, get minimum 3 bet, make a note of it and move on; next time, you can fold top 2 pair to his set.

2)Pay attention to the flop bet. When a decent, straightforward player raises, gets 5 calls, and then bets a decent amount into the field on an 8 3 2 flop, your nines are no good. Don't even bother to call the flop bet to 'see where you are' or any of that nonsense. Yes, you have an overpair, and yes, sometimes he will merely have a flush draw - but that doesn't mean anything. You're still a giant dog to his range and losing tons of money on the call, so just fold. (However, if you're deep stacked and have implied odds, sometimes you should take a card off with a hand like 43, even when you'd fold 99. See below.)

3)Pay attention to the flop bet, the flip side: When that same player bets big in a 6 way pot, you can assume he has at least an overpair or a big flush draw. If you have a set, calling is almost always a bad play. Why? Sometimes, an ace will hit the turn when the other guy has kings (and so on down the line); sometimes, the third flush card will hit and kill your action/hand; sometimes, you'll make a boat with the second 8 and freeze him up...and so on. Bottom line: in multiway pots, when somebody's hand is face up as a big pair, it is very rarely correct to slowplay your monster. There are only a few exceptions, such as when you're second to act and there's a couple of maniacs behind you, or when the guy is good enough to make a tough fold if you raise the flop but will commit himself on the turn.

3.5)When and how to try to crack that big pair: Mediocre players will often just raise every draw, including hands like J T, on the flop, thinking "flush draw + overcards + fold equity". Big mistake. His bet told you that he isn't folding and probably has an overpair, so why are you counting any fold equity *or* overcards as outs? More often, it's correct to just call and go for overcalls - reserving the right to semibluff raise on the turn, especially if a J or T hits. Conversely, if you have that 43 on the 832 flop I mentioned earlier and are closing the action, you should sometimes also call even when definitely behind, looking for a "brick" 3 on the turn. In HSNL against thinking opponents, you would also look for aces and fives and occasionally semibluff those cards, too. (But do *not* usually call with aces, such as A3 on an 832 flop, when facing a certain big pair - your implied odds simply don't exist.)

That generally covers "what to do if villain has what he thinks is the nuts." Next time, I'll write about a few ways to take advantage when the villain telegraphs a weaker hand.

Thus far, my posts have dealt with how and when to play a hand in an unorthodox way. Most of the time that I play a hand in a strange fashion - especially postflop - I base it on some kind of read or some idea of what I want to happen on a future street. This is, of course, heavily dependent on reading my opponents' hands, and in my last post, I wrote about an example of an extremely narrowed down hand range when given a lot of information. Today, I want to go back to basics and talk about a few of the more simple online tells.

I frequently read about and occasionally talk to B&M pros who insist that it's much harder to read someone online than live. This is true, but only for a good player. Bad to decent players - in other words, the satellite qualifiers and midstakes players who are the bread and butter of the online tournament scene - often have some very basic tells that make it extremely easy to get their money.

Because I want to go on beating tournaments for a nice profit, I won't list all of them :) However, we can certainly talk about a couple of the more well known ones:

1)The Stars 4x raise tell

For whatever reason, Stars (and to a far lesser extent, Bodog/FTP) is home to a breed of player that insists on telegraphing his hand at all stages of an MTT. When this player has a regular hand, he or she will raise the usual 3x the BB. However, when the player isn't folding - and usually, when they have a monster - they will make it 4x BB instead, in an attempt to avoid being drawn out on. In fact, through observation, I've become fairly sure that when these players don't have a monster, it's only because they overvalue their hand; such a player might raise 4x of his 20xBB stack with pocket fives and instacall an all in, since, after all, he has to be a coinflip at worst.

Given enough luck, these players routinely make it deep in the biggest Stars MTT's. I also routinely see people ignore this tell and reraise over the top of EP 4x raises with outright resteals or with hands like 99-66, AT, and KQ. I firmly believe that this is a huge mistake, and have previously folded some huge hands to a single 4x raise from guys whose PT stats are on the tight side. When someone behind me decides to reraise after all and the 4x PFR's hand is shown down, I have extremely rarely been wrong - especially since, for reasons having to do with stack sizes and pot odds, it's very rare for a thinking player to fake this tell late in an MTT.

2)The timing check/call on the flop tell

The 4x raise tell is very well known in MTT's and tends to be a staple in AIM conversations between pros playing at Stars ("lol, this guy's raising 4x again. Thanks for making sure I don't double you up, I kinda liked my hand before this.") This next tell, however, is not as well known, and many people discount it as they do all online timing tells. In my experience, this is a mistake.

The reason usually given for people discounting timing tells is that the Internet distorts them, some people are playing 8 tables and up and just happen to act late, and so on. But most of the 'bad to decent' group doesn't play 8 tables, and many of them - especially the bad LAGs whose play style forces them into this particular tell all the time - feel they have to closely observe a table to do well. In other words, they usually act quickly...except when they check/call the flop with a marginal hand.

I'll be a little more specific and give out the hand that made me think of this tell as an article topic. In level 3 of a recent tournament I played, I raised 88 UTG with around 50 BB and was called by one player, the small blind. The flop came down Q53 with two spades, the SB checked, I bet 2/3 of the pot, the SB thought for at least 15 seconds or so and finally called.

What does the SB typically have here? Once in a while, he'll have a set or AQ and be deciding whether to call or checkraise, but this is rare. He never has a straight draw or a flush draw - both of those act much quicker - and rarely has any other queen (because to a bad player, any queen is the nuts on this flop and they'll always do whatever they want to do as fast as they can with their eyes bugging out.) So, most of the time, this is a weak hand unsure of where it is, such as an underpair (but not JJ-TT - on this flop, they call faster), the occasional AK, second or third pair and so on. While I would usually be unhappy with this check/call after an SB coldcall of a UTG raise, here, I was pretty sure I was ahead.

We checked through the offsuit 7 on the turn - I often bet again here but took a calculated risk that this player would bluff on the river - and he bet half the pot into me when the river was a rainbow T. I called and was shown Ac2c for a flopped backdoor flush draw, an overcard and a gutshot.

---

So far, whether you've seen these before or not, this shouldn't be anything really new - almost everyone who's put in substantial time online has to have seen similar tells come from somebody or other. Next time, however, I'll talk about how and when to use tells to set up advanced plays.

Last time, I wrote about an HSNL hand where putting your opponent on a very exact range made it mathematically possible to determine the best line. In this installment, we are going to expand on that by going back to HSNL to read this thread. Descriptively titled "fullhouse", it contains a 100/200 NL hand between Grimstarr (a well known LAG) and another good online pro, Jinksop. This particular hand has some great hand reading material leading to a very tough, but necessary decision on the river.

Let's take it street by street. Preflop, with 25K stacks, Grimstarr completes 63o and Jinksop checks. The flop comes down 7 6 3, Jinksop bets the pot (400), Grimstarr raises to 2000, and Jinksop calls. What can J have at this point? Clearly, a wide range (any seven and up), but with the aggression factor of these games, we can rule out any set or better* and any big draw (98, for example, would drool to be all in here). What does J think G has after his raise? It can really be almost anything (with Grimstarr, I doubt 86 is the bottom of his 'real hand' range, not counting all the bluffs), but let's conservatively assume something like "draw/pair + draw/decent seven or better" for this particular ugly looking limped pot board. However, J does know that G will almost never show up with a set here since G will probably be raising any small pair PF.

*This deserves an explanation. As you can see, there's some good debate in HSNL about whether people will check hands like 77-66 in the BB when the SB completes heads up. I don't have the nosebleed stakes experience to comment on this, but the combination of checking PF and then just calling the big raise on that board makes no sense. Given that people frequently 4 bet A7 in that spot, it's very very unlikely that J has a set. By the same token, we can also discount 54, although PF makes that more likely.

The turn is the T and both players check. What can J have now? The T itself (not the club) won't usually have improved him after bet/calling a big raise, but he can definitely have whiffed on a CR with a flush or a straight. Most hands that he could have bet/called with are usually going to check/something on the turn, as bet/call, bet is a comparatively rarer line and the board just got uglier. G's range, though, narrows down considerably for J; good LAGs will not check behind small flushes on boards like this, and most other 'really good' hands will also bet. The hands that will often check behind here are bluffs that have given up, one pair marginal hands that check this board because they might be good but would hate a fairly standardish semibluff CR (bottom 2 pair is pretty much in this category) and occasionally bigger hands like 76/54 that also hate a CR (although these will often bet anyway.)

The river is the 3. J leads 3000 into the 4400 pot; not counting bluffs, occasionally, he'll be in here with a big one pair (really 2 pair) hand like A7, or a T that wanted to bluff and caught. Usually, though, this is the top part of his range, because a lot of G's 'vulnerable made hand' range from the turn is autocalling when the board pairs the river. For example, J cannot fully discount AA-QQ from Grimstarr, and nobody folds those with that action.

Grimstarr raises to 8k with his bottom full house. We can instantly forget any marginal hand raising this river (I hope you see why**); it's a bluff or a straight+ (maybe a very thin raise with A3 if he raised the flop with it), much more often a flush. Keep in mind that, if G has a flush, his range is heavily weighed towards bigger flushes - 4 3 doesn't check behind on the turn very often.

**This is only the case vs. thinking opponents. If you're playing 25NL vs. a guy whose hand range by this point is any two cards, you can often go ahead and raise something like A7 for value.

Now Jinksop shoves for 25K. High stakes poker has its share of legendary hands, and a 3 bet bluff in this spot would certainly be legendary, but we can discount it down to 'just about never'. However, he knows Grimstarr's range is essentially...let's say 15% bluff, 25% "big hand < a big flush", 60% "a big flush or better" (we can play around with the percentages, but it won't make that much of a difference) - but never sevens or sixes full. It's a rare spot where villain knows not just the lower part of your range, but also the upper. He also knows that Grimstarr will never call a 3 bet with a medium flush or worse (again, this should be self explanatory), yet he shoves anyway. Therefore, J is saying he can beat a flush, and 63, much like A x, is a bluff catcher. In a very sick spot, G has a full house heads up in high stakes NL and should fold it.

In the actual hand, Grimstarr timed down, called and was shown 73 for the slightly bigger boat. In my opinion, in addition to that money, he lost a few thousand almost as precious Sklansky bucks.

The bad news: I haven't seen a hand on the topic worth posting in the last couple of days. The good news: 2+2 is back up and does have something interesting. So, for part 3 of this series (although it's more like part 2.5), let's talk about this thread.

A quick summary: We're playing 10/25 NL vs. a fish who made a big raise PF. We have JT on a flop of JT3 and got bet/min-3 bet. From a superfish, this does certainly mean exactly an overpair (or possibly a set, but we don't really care - if we get stacked, that's poker.) His third raise makes it 1K and we both started the hand with 5K. Do we shove [4 betting less than AI is bad here, IMO, since it all but bludgeons "I have the nuts" into the guy's head] or call? Think about the rationales for each for a few seconds before choosing and then scroll down.

---

Most of HSNL so far is picking 'call'; the ones that picked shove aren't giving a reason. That's unfortunately par for the course for HSNL these days, but to be fair, it's not really an HSNL question.

The reason for that is that there is a definite right answer to it. Of course, I don't mean that literally in this case, but all you have to do to find it is ask "How often does this guy fold an overpair to a flop 4 bet all in?" Once you know that, it gets you half the equation - namely, the $EV of shoving now. The math would take a little while to do, but at the poker table, just tell yourself "if he never folds, I own 3/4 of that guy's stack in Sklansky bucks". (I realize it's not actually 3/4. Close enough :) ) Incidentally, he will rarely fold if you take a while to make your decision - fish that raise 6x PF, then min3bet overpairs don't tend to fold to 4 bet shoves from LAGs on JT3 flops, especially live.

We determine the other half by figuring out the EV of waiting for the turn. This is the tricky part, and the part that only one person has gotten on HSNL at 10:15 PM EST. Most people realize that just calling the 3 bet minimizes variance - now you can get away when the turn is a 3 - and many will also think about the fish freezing up when an ace hits the turn and he only has kings. (By the way, since he will likely check an ace on the turn no matter what he has, you will either have to let him see 11 free river outs or lose all future value/bet half your stack while drawing dead. The same goes for a king when he has queens.) But usually, people *don't* realize how unlucky you are when a jack hits the turn - that card sometimes kills your action more than an ace - and almost nobody counts a ten as a bad card when it will often freeze the fish up, too. In reality, any Broadway is a very bad turn card for you, and *that's* why you should be pushing flops here.

But let's say you called (understandable - this decision is relatively close, and calling would probably be correct on an 873 board when you can make a full house and not lose Sklansky bucks over it. In addition, people do make weird plays live, and occasionally you just know the guy will fold to a shove but happily assume you have QJ on a good turn.) The turn is a 9 and he leads 500 bucks into the pot of 2K and change with 3100 behind. Now what?

Again, this question has a clear answer, feeding back into the earlier explanation. He still has tons of outs with everything except AA, and plenty with aces. Any card from an 8 up is likely to be a bad one for either your hand or how much money you will get in on the river, any 3 is as well, and unlike the flop, your stacks are absolutely perfect for a shove on the turn. There's really zero good reasons to minimize variance here - any variance isn't even likely to be on the fish's side.

So here's another thought about slowplaying - make sure you don't slowplay yourself into the nuts and make $0.

Since 2+2 is down today, I want to post this today to get some writing practice in, heh.

In my last post, I talked about the importance of knowing when to take an unorthodox line. When the typical decent player thing to do with a set is to raise, it's typical for a reason - it probably makes the most money against a generic opponent with a generic range in that spot. Therefore, when you call instead of raising, you should have a hunch that something is different this time; perhaps he seems weak, raising will be too obvious, he's way ahead or way behind on a scary board...it doesn't particularly matter as long as you have a good read. When it becomes important to vary your play, you should always rely on your hand reading to tell you when to do so.

In today's session, I wound up playing only one truly big pot. After a few limpers in the previously mentioned 10/20 game, I limped in the cutoff with A 8 and a $2100 stack. Six of us saw a 4 3 2 flop with 120-ish in the pot. Three people checked, an MP limper with $2700 bet half the pot, and an LP shortstack with $600 total minraised his bet. MP and I have a fairly long history in this game; I feel he's too loose and makes a lot of mistakes with deep stacks, but outplays the generic bad LAG's/calling stations and is definitely a winner. I had no history with the shortstack, but assume(d) him to be terrible.

[My flop decision is not what I want to focus on, but it's tangentially interesting enough to spend a paragraph on. This is a fairly breakeven spot - although it looks like you might have 15 outs+, you probably have around 12-13 on average at this point, maybe a little more. The times you're against something a set+ are somewhat balanced out by the times the shortstack has a smaller flush draw, but when you wind up all in with him, on average, you're probably around a 40-45% dog, and shortstacks simply don't fold enough after raising for there to be a lot of dead money. In other words, in a vacuum, you could go ahead and fold here. However, this is the perfect spot to camouflage your play with the nuts - you are never going to be that large a dog, you're up against someone with only 30 BB, and when you show the hand down, people will be forced to give you action when you have monsters. So, if you ever need to play draws aggressively, this is the type of hand where you should do it.]

Obviously, after the last paragraph, I went ahead and raised. I could've bumped the shortstack's $120 raise to 300 or so, but decided I'd rather just put him all in (the same line I'd take with 44 there) and made it exactly 600. I gave no thought to MP because, frankly, he should fold 99% of the time...except he took 10 seconds, went ahead and called. The shortstack thought forever but finally folded, and the two of us saw the Q turn. MP took ten seconds again and checked to me...

Let's pause here. This is a line that is often posted on 2+2 MSNL - someone flops a monster OOP, there is significant action behind, and every party involved knows that the OOP player has a monster whether he calls or 4 bets. The standard reply, for a number of reasons, is to go ahead and shove on the flop. Should MP have done that? I think it's probably the best line for 33 or better, but in fairness, I would likely call with my big draw regardless, and if he knew what I held, he should have called and shoved a safe turn. The second line is unorthodox, but given my hand range to make that 3 bet, it makes a certain amount of sense. What *doesn't* work is the c/c, check line that he took, because it's so painfully obvious he has a monster that my threshold for betting (remember we both have just over a PSB left on the turn) is somewhere between 33 and A5. Therefore, he gives lots of free cards to a range of (big draw, set+), a very dangerous proposition.

I obviously checked behind (after tanking a bit to make sure he wouldn't automatically put me on a draw) and fortunately got my 9 on the river. MP now thought a bit and led 700, just over half of our effective stacks. I obviously shoved with the nuts and he called after thinking a little while.

Before I say what he had, can you think of a hand that it makes sense for him to bet that amount with vs. my range on the river? The answer is 'none'. If I had a big draw, either I missed with something like 54, or made the nuts. If I had a set, perhaps I would check behind when the heart hit, but I don't think many people are capable of folding 44 to a shove in that spot/nobody folds a straight in that spot to a ~PSB AI under any circumstances, and I can't really put him on a flush myself. Furthermore, he almost has to call a shove with everything except 22 and maybe 33...so this bet doesn't work as a blocking bet, and it's not a good value bet, either. It's an example of FPS - a reluctant admission that he should probably bet, but no real idea how to maximize value or minimize loss. In fact, vs the range he expects me to have, he's probably about equally well off checking or shoving.

When the cards were turned over, MP held 6 5, for the flopped nuts with a big redraw. This must have been a very tempting hand to slowplay with, but misjudging my range and my ability to read his hand made it a very costly idea.