Such a bad play?

[Eusebio]

Hi!

Earlier I was playing ringgames and this hand came up:

Texas Hold'em $0.10-$0.10 NL (Real Money), #679,781,471
Table ah derka's HE, 4 Jul 2006 1:26 PM ET



Seat 4: smithdog999 ($3.40 in chips)
Seat 5: MOSERBONE ($7.35 in chips)
Seat 7: Eusebio1210 ($3.05 in chips)
Seat 8: ah derka ($8.10 in chips)
Seat 10: Doom88 ($9.45 in chips)



ANTES/BLINDS
MOSERBONE posts blind ($0.05), Eusebio1210 posts blind ($0.10).

PRE-FLOP
ah derka folds, Doom88 folds, smithdog999 folds, MOSERBONE bets $0.20, Eusebio1210 bets $0.40, MOSERBONE bets $3, Eusebio1210 calls $2.55 and is all-in.

FLOP [board cards 5D,9S,3S ]


TURN [board cards 5D,9S,3S,4D ]


RIVER [board cards 5D,9S,3S,4D,QC ]


SHOWDOWN
MOSERBONE shows [ JC,JD ]
Eusebio1210 shows [ QH,AH ]
MOSERBONE wins $0.20, Eusebio1210 wins $5.90.



SUMMARY
Dealer: smithdog999
Pot: $6.30, (including rake: $0.20)
smithdog999, loses $0
MOSERBONE, bets $3.25, collects $0.20, net -$3.05
Eusebio1210, bets $3.05, collects $5.90, net $2.85
ah derka, loses $0
Doom88, loses $0




After the hand the guy was telling me how bad that call was, and what a donk i am...

So i would like the opinion of you pros here


thanks

[crack]

Don't just reraise the minmum preflop. Put in a decent sized raise.

I would then have called the reraise because you are shortstacked.


My tip would be to play wih a full stack at the table and don't min raise preflop, it's very weak.

Hope that helps.

[Eusebio]

Thanks Crack!


I usually sit down with the full stack, here I´ve lost 2 pretty big pots...


A general question:

Same scenario, but no All-In and me havin 10$stack:

I hold AQs in the Big Blind, and make a bet (higher than the 0.40$), lets say 0.70-1$

Villain calls, and then there comes this horrible flop

5D,9S,3S

I am the one to bet, and I know, that because villain had called a big raise, he also might not have hit anything, so in this moment, we both have Highcard, he might have AK has me dominated, or he has a pair... and dominates...

My Problem is now, that the pot size would be about 2$ so what to bet? Should I even bet? Bluffin, i guess, is worthless, because it will be obvious, that i missed the flop. So the only way to get some information here is a bet... but it would have to be a pretty high bet since the pot is so high... so I guess half the pot would be fine... and now there comes the raise... and i have to fold...

So I spent (usually) 20% of my stack on nothing, because I cannot go on, hoping that a A or a Q will come on turn and river.

It seems to me that I am confronted with those situations (missing the flop) very often, more than usual, so an advice here, would help me a lot...

thanks!

[crack]

Glad to help.

Ok, the power of the continuation bet.

There is a lot to aggression in poker, but what you should always remember is that you don't need a good hand to bet, but you do need a hand to call.

I will tell you that, when I have raised preflop, I will 90 times out of 100 bet the flop regardless of what it shows and if it improved my hand.

Why? For two reasons


1) How can a player put you on the made hand or a bluff if you always do this once you raised PF? Flop comes J95 you raised and now bet out. You could be holding JJJ, AA, KK, QQ, AJ, AK, AQ, TT etc. Your hand range because you raise and continuation bet is so wide it is difficult for players to put you on a hand and play against you.

2) Aggression Aggression Aggression. Controlling the pot and putting the players to the decisions is what you want and is a powerful tool in poker. A lot of pots you will take down in Hold'em will be pots such as this, and they account for a lot. Ok, so they are not the big monsters, but over time you will see this contributes a lot to your profit if played correctly.

3)

Ok, so there is drawbacks with the continuation bet. For a start, you cannot always have position on the players at Hold'em if you have raised in EP or MP, so when they just simply call your bet when you have missed with overcards and the turn doesn't hit you, you start to get into a tricky spot. It is then up to you and your read on the opponent.

Did he just peel a turn card hoping to improve? Does he have a made hand? Is he drawing? Would a bet take it down a lot of the times or is he likely to call that too or raise?

What if he raises your flop bet and all I have is overcards? Well you are in trouble, depending on the player. At lower levels I would be more inclined they will have a hand and will not be willing to lay it down, where as the higher limits, you will see a flop raises because they know of continuation bets too.

When is it "wrong" to continuation bet?

I wouldn't say it is "wrong" in this situation, but there are times I am less inclined to continuation bet.

When you raise preflop you thin the field, so you should have around 1-2 opponents in an ideal situation. The more players that see the flop and all I have now is overcards (AK flop: 5,6,T) then I am less likely to continuation bet because there are more combinations that could be winning.

Take an example of me raising UTG+1 with AK, I get 5 callers.

Flop comes Q, 9, 5 all of one suit and I don't hold the A or K of that suit. This is a nice extreme condition and a clear check. Majority of the time someone will have at least a flush draw, and all you have is two overcards and if the A and K come that match the flop suit then you are in big trouble.


I hope this helps anyway with you in these situations. Let me know what you think.

[Eusebio]

Thanks crack!

I think your tips will help me a lot.

I tried the aggressive style over some days (i am trying to egt to know every style of playing, even if i have to pay some learning tax) and was doing pretty good, but I noticed that i dont really know where i have to stop. It often happens that I am playing myself in a situation (over some hours) where you get looser and looser, but the truth is, its not looser... at some point it becomes just badplay.
I know that this has much to do with experience. For that i am looking at those ministack-tables, but here I have to say that players are too stupid to learn anything from them... They limp 4xBB with 52os and sticking to their gutshotdraw till the river, where they catch...

In the beginning I had pretty much success with slowplay... I slowplayed almost every hand and made them pay off pretty often, while I almost didnt lose. Due to the fact that in every piece of poker I read, they tell you "do not slowplay!" I left that strategy, but since I left it, i am losing...

Dont get me wrong :D I would love to gamble, to play more aggressive, but somehow its not (yet) working out...

[crack]

Judging players is apart of the game that you will pick up if you are willing to learn, open minded and play enough.

You will judge the player and then play accordingly to them. Some players you may have to play aggressive against, some you can bluff a lot, some you can never bluff etc.

The best way is to just play really and you will pick up a players tendancies. You can also look up on google articles like "Playing against a tight player" Playing against an aggresive player" and so on.

[72o]

Wether you are successfull or not is very much a matter of your table image. As long as you play like everyone else nobody will give attention to you. But when you develop your game further to a tight-aggressive style (playing few hands, raising 4xBB preflop etc) the other players start to go on tilt. Most of the the time you fold and when you make a determined bet it comes surprisingly to the other players. And when you raised the third hand in a row preflop you have four players calling with nothing because they think you want to steal their blinds. And if all of them are drawing to overcards or gutshot straights you can forget about your pocket jacks.

What i want to say is that changing your style of play will also change the way your opponents react on you. You have to take that into account to become a successfull poker players. It's a matter of experience.

For example in a SNG when the table became shorthanded and the blinds are high its very important to raise on the button or cutoff position with rag aces etc to take the blinds without a risk. But if i raised the last two hands already i would even fold AJ to keep my serious table image. Otherwise the blinds wouldn't fold to my raises anymore and i would be forced to take the risk of seeing the flop with a rag ace.

[MaXXXstAkd]

Yeah, that MOSERBONE calls everyone a donk, get used to it buddy