7 replies to this topic

[HoosierAlum]

The following are a couple 30-60 Party Poker hands I was interested with when watching a friend play the other day. Tell me how you think both players played the hand. After I get some responses I will tell you my friends thinking behind them.Hand 1: Four players fold, leaving only the two blinds. The small blind calls, the big blind checks. The flop comes Ac 9h 3h. SB bets, BB calls. Turn is 8h. SB checks. BB bets. SB raises. BB calls. River is 6d. SB bets. BB calls. SB shows Th5s. BB wins...with Qh4d.Hand 2: Nine-handed table. The cutoff, the cutoff + 1, and the cutoff + 2 ALL post their $30 big blinds. UTG raises. UTG+1 reraises. Next player folds. First poster calls. Other two posters muck, as do the button and the blinds. UTG calls. Flop comes Js Jc 7h. UTG checks. UTG+1 bets. Poster folds. UTG calls. Turn is 5s. UTG checks. UTG+1 bets. UTG raises. UTG+1 calls. River is 9h. UTG bets, UTG+1 calls. UTG shows 8c6h for a straight. UTG+1 loses with 88.

[wrto4556]

The first hand is interesting. Before I say anything I want to just say that the second one is very dependent. The raise preflop with all that dead money isn't bad if the table is right. The turn check/raise with 86 could be a good or bad play. Who knows, really.On the first one, though, I think both players played well assuming that they are both thinking players. If not, they went too far with marginal hands in a small pot.

[wrto4556]

The first hand is interesting. Before I say anything I want to just say that the second one is very dependent. The raise preflop with all that dead money isn't bad if the table is right. The turn check/raise with 86 could be a good or bad play. Who knows, really.On the first one, though, I think both players played well assuming that they are both thinking players. If not, they went too far with marginal hands in a small pot.

[HoosierAlum]

Ok, since I didnt get a big response on these hands, I will just post the analysis. Actually, the hands came from MattMatros.com, and were 30-60 hands that he played. I didn't want to say that in my original post so people wouldnt go to his website and check his analysis. But it didnt matter much, since there were only 2 responses. I would recommend checking out his site, he has some good insight. Here is his analysis of the hands:I got some interesting comments on the two $30-$60 hands I posted. In fact, I got eight responses analyzing the plays.In hand one, five of the eight respondents disliked at least part of the small blind's play, and four of the eight respondents disliked at least part of the big blind's play. In my view, the only play I really don't like here is the small blind's open-limp with T5o. That's not a hand you want to play out-of-position, and if you do play it you definitely want to raise. His failure to raise-or-fold preflop ended up costing him a lot of bets on this hand.Here are some of the other criticisms, and why I disagree with them:"The small blind shouldn't have check-raised the turn." The small blind could have a lot of outs in this pot, and he could get a better hand to fold. Betting out or check-raising this turn card are both fine choices. Doing anything else is almost certainly a mistake."These guys were just too reckless. They didn't have anything!" Welcome to poker. It's not about having a big hand, it's about having a better hand than the other guy, or getting the other guy to fold. That often means putting a bunch of money in without much of a hand."The big blind shouldn't call on the flop." The small blind, as many guessed, had over-aggressive tendencies. The big blind, therefore, does not put him on an ace. So, getting 3-1 on his money with the possible best hand and with position, he decides to call. I think folding here is reasonable, but I think calling was better against this particular opponent."The big blind should raise the river rather than call." I don't see the small blind folding any pair to the big blind's raise. So the question is, are there any better hands the small blind will fold to the big blind's raise? Most kings the small blind would've raised preflop. Maybe he limps with like K5, K4, K2. Similarly, about the only better queen he could have is Q7. These are the only better hands he could have that he might fold, and who knows, he might not even fold them. On the other hand, if the small blind has a big hand he's going to three bet, and now the big blind has lost two bets instead of one. Worse, the three-bet might even be a bluff-reraise that costs the big blind the whole pot. I think calling the river is much better than raising."The big blind should fold the river rather than call." The small blind's play is very consistent with exactly one medium-sized heart. Getting 7-1 on his money, I think calling is clearly better than folding here for the big blind.In hand two, seven of the eight respondents disliked UTG's play, while two of the eight respondents disliked UTG+1's play. I got adjectives like "fishy," "horrible," and "card chaser" to describe UTG. Someone said UTG probably gave back the money he won fairly quickly. In fact he didn't, and ended up winning 55 big bets on that table.I don't really dislike any of the plays in this hand. The only one that I even consider questionable is UTG's open-raise. And since that's the play most people objected to, I'll address it first. There is $135 in the pot. It costs UTG $60 to raise. There are lots of good things that can happen after he raises. Someone with two big cards can isolate and UTG can end up getting 2.5-1 on his money as a 3-2 dog. He could end-up heads-up with one of the posters, getting almost 3-1 on his money against an only-slightly-better-than-random hand. And then there are a lot of things that can happen that are pretty close to EV neutral (e.g., two or three posters call). And of course, bad things could happen. He could run into an overpair, or it could come back to him four bets. Overall, I think UTG's raise is close to zero EV. But if he gets to showdown the hand and the other players think he's a "horrible" "fish," it's got to be a plus-EV play in the long run. I personally have a rule (somewhat borrowed from my friend Jerrod). Anytime a play is close to zero EV, I choose the more aggressive route to build my image. Also, I would rather make every tiny plus-EV play in the book and risk throwing in some minus-EV plays, than avoid every minus-EV play at the expense of some plus-EV plays. I think the plus-EV plays become even more plus-EV when people have seen you make minus-EV plays.Other criticisms:"UTG shouldn't check-call the flop." He's getting 13.5-1, he has a three-straight and possibly two live cards, and he's closing the action. Easy call."UTG shouldn't check-raise the turn." UTG has to take the aggressive action now that he's picked up an actual semibluff. Many players would lay down AQ, KQ, AK, or even a small pair to that check-raise. Add that equity to the open-ender equity, and it's an easy check-raise."UTG should've folded to the preflop reraise." Anyone who would fold to the preflop reraise needs immediate lessons in Limit Hold 'Em. You just don't fold getting 11.5-1 preflop when you can close the action, with any hand you've voluntarily put money in with. If you fold here, your raises will get zero respect the rest of the session."UTG+1 shouldn't have reraised preflop." Again, you need Limit Hold 'em lessons if you think this. UTG+1 knows UTG doesn't need much of a hand to raise three posters. Pocket eights is plenty to isolate with here, creating a bunch of dead money with the probable best hand. Doing anything other than reraising preflop in his spot would've been a big mistake.So that's my analysis. In case anyone hasn't guessed, I won both those hands.

[HoosierAlum]

Bump. I still want people's opinions on these hands and Matt's analysis as they are interesting and thought provoking.

[MrNiceGuy]

Good post Hoosier - the analysis makes sense. It also tells me that I'm not quite ready for 30/60 yet.........

[TJ_Eckleburg]

Very interesting and thought-provoking read.I lurk on the 30/60 games sometimes, and it never ceases to amaze me how very DIFFERENT they look from all the other stakes. People limping and folding to raises all the time... it's all just beyond me.