Here is an article and quick video on a hand review sent in by Cristian playing an online MTT. The blinds are 25 and 50, there is an open limp from early position 2 and Hero decides to attack with 125 . I like the fact that weโre raising here, I just wish that our size were a little bit larger.
I think anyone who open limps, especially from an early position, is usually going to be a pretty bad player and because of that, I think king/queen is going to perform super, super well, even more so because we have the button. So Iโd really like to see this raise maybe something in like the 175 to even 250 ballpark, I think would be a lot better than just 125.
We end up getting one caller, not shocking. Go here, he checks, Hero decides to c-bet and ends up getting check min raised to 350.
So real quick, I actually want to just back two quick ticks, because I think a lot of players would default continuation bet here when checked, too, but what I want to talk about real quick is just understanding how this texture hits a normal limp call range. ASSAQ Video “Is Open Limping Ever A Good Play?”
Again, I normally assume that someone who is going to limp call is not going to be a very good player, which means I usually assume theyโre going to have hands thatโs going to smash this board, whether thatโs five/four suited, pocket sixes, nine/eight, whatever it is, I think thereโs a lot of stuff thatโs hitting this texture. Unless you think he has a lot of stuff like say ace/ten or ace/jack thatโs going to limp call pre and then check fold now, I think this is the kind of spot where youโre not generating a ton of folds right at this moment and I also think itโs going to be difficult to get folds later down the line.
Yes, I think thereโs some implied odds when you do improve to a king or queen on the turn or river, of course, and obviously when you improve to something like jack/ten, thatโs great, but I donโt think thatโs going to happen a lot of the time, obviously, and then the other element is I just donโt think thereโs a lot of upside here. I think heโs going to continue calling you down with single pairs a decent chunk of the time, because bad players love single pairs and they get really sticky with them and Iโm not going to get shocked when that happens.
So because of that, I donโt think this is really the greatest spot in the world to continuation bet. I donโt hate checking behind here, unless you think, again, that heโs going to be doing at least some percentage of check folding here. I just think youโre getting action here way too often and the betting isnโt necessarily the greatest thing in the world.
As played, we do end up facing the check min raise and at this point, weโre just getting such a sick price, almost 5:1, as a default, Iโm going to call as well. I just generally donโt fold against check min raises. Because of that, especially when I have position plus over cards plus some equity, plus of course I assume skill, Iโm just going to call here and play poker from there.
So once Hero calls, ends up seeing an eight of clubs in the turn, faces a bet for 600, and Hero decides to call and Hero says,โI picked up a flush draw, so now I decide to call.โ
One thing I want to just talk about real quick is thinking ahead. At this point weโre getting 2.7:1 on a call, thatโs all well and good, weโre probably going to have some semblance of equity obviously, but I want to talk about our improvement cards on the river.
We improve by catching a club, well, thatโs all well and good, but are we really ever going to make any money? I donโt think weโre going to make a ton. I mean, is he really going to like check call with two pair on the river if the river is a fourth club? I donโt think so. I think we could end spewing on some rivers, I think thereโs a possibility that our king and our queen are not always good, of course, and because of that, I think this is a little bit ugly.
Now, we could pull out Equilab to proof this and actually, letโs do that for a quick second. We plug in our hand, we plug in the board, plug in the turn and letโs assign MP arrange.
Now mind you, in real time, you wonโt have the time to actually do this, but letโs just run with it for a moment so we can just take a quick look.
Letโs give him sets when he takes that line on the flop, that makes sense. Letโs give him things like ten/nine, nine/eight, ace/nine, I think those make sense, maybe ace/nine over there. Letโs do a quick suit selection and give him some, made flushes and stuff like that. Iโm just going to throw in a lot of this.
All these combos wonโt be included, like he canโt have queen/jack of clubs, because we have the queen of clubs in our hand. Iโm going to give him all the realistic not flushes, those make sense. Letโs give him things like four/three of it, that definitely makes sense, and I donโt know, letโs just start with that for the time being.
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So give those in clubs, okay, eval it. Notice that we only have 18% equity. Given the math, we need a minimum 27 to continue. Unless you think heโs erring here a large chunk of the time, or you think thereโs a lot of implied odds, I actually donโt think this is particularly good.
Again, Iโm not really in the business of folding draws very often, but when youโre drawing to a four flush on board, you want to be very, very careful. I think a lot of players overestimate how often theyโre really going to get paid. As your draw card gets lower and lower, it becomes harder and harder to really make a lot of money the times that youโre drawing.
If you have specific assumptions, okay, maybe this could be okay, but I think as a pure default, Iโd actually kind of fold here. Again, I just donโt think weโre really going to make a lot of money, so this is kind of a bad card, kind of a bad action on said card. I would just say forget it and fold here, but Hero does decide to call, ends up seeing an ace on the river. He checks and Hero decides to bomb and he does this trying to steal the pot.
After Hero bombs, he ends up getting it snapped off by seven/five of spades and here comes the caps lock and the question. He says:
โHe called with seven/five of spades. Yes, he called with a pair of fives. What did I do wrong here? Any thoughts about this? Thanks.โ
Going back to the river spot real quick, I do have a couple thoughts. In this situation, one thing I would ask is why are we bombing the river? Now yes, I understand youโre trying to steal the pot, youโre trying to pick it up, thatโs all well and good. But first and foremost, we donโt think EP2 is a great player, right? Which means probably not a lot of reason to think that heโs going to fold things that he views as strong.
Obviously seven/five suited is very weak, and thatโs fine, but if weโre playing against a bad opponent, again, someone who would open limp from early position, we really canโt be too shocked that heโs going to get really sticky with single pairs, because well, bad players are bad. Thatโs why weโre allowed to just print value against them, but itโs very difficult to bluff them, case in point.
Another thing is that, okay, I like the fact that youโre being creative. I like the fact that youโre thinking, โOkay, maybe if I over-bet it, I can generate a fold, whereas if I were to bet say, 1,600, he wouldnโt fold 5X for sure.โ Well, thatโs fine, but do we need to risk the full stack? Or could we say go to like 3,500 and try to generate those folds? Again, does adding the extra couple of grand to the equation really generate any extra folds? Iโd say probably not. Iโd say thatโs just simply a situation where youโre going to lose more the times youโre behind and it doesnโt really do anything extra for you, it doesnโt generate any extra folds.
Again, this is kind of a situation where I think pre-flop couldโve been played better with a larger size. I think the flop couldโve been played better by just checking and saying forget it. I think that the turn couldโve been played better by just folding. Again, I donโt think weโre getting a great price, itโs a really bad card for us. Thereโs going to be a lot of times weโre either drawing dead or again, not going to be super profitable for us.
Thatโs just the way that I would view this situation. As played on the river, I just think that the bomb is very unnecessary. I donโt think it really does anything for us, just loses us extra.
Again, I donโt mind that youโre being creative and trying to come up with some ways to fold a single pair type hand, I just donโt think that this is the spot nor the person that we want to be running this kind of play, really not shocked when we ended up getting looked up by something that of course beats us and of course that weโre pitching off a very, very, very large stack in early stages of a tournament. Cristian, thanks for the great hand.
