A different $3.40 STT turbo.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (4 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Hero (t2390)
Button (t1480)
SB (t6660)
BB (t4470)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, K.
Hero raises to t400, 2 folds, BB calls t200.

Flop: (t675) 4, 7, 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t600, BB raises to t1200, Hero ???

Minraise is awfully suspicious - could this possibly be a hand I beat, or too obviously a big hand? What do you do here?

Oh and if you're wondering about my PF minraise, I was hoping to entice Button to come over the top.

BB could call with a huge range. I don't think your dead yet but very possiblyly behind to a str8 &/or flush draw and the min-raise a semi-bluff AND pot sweetener. Is the BB a solid enough player to sweeten a pot on a draw? Only thing is why did he ck-raise if he were on a draw and if he did have better than a draw (pair with a str8 draw for example) why not protect it with a bigger re-raise? Has he previous betting pattern been this timid or tricky?

I think I slow down and watch for scare cards and try to get to sd cheap - otherwise lay it down on the turn if BB leads out strong.

You know what just occured to me? Foreclosure Raise!!I just finished John Vorhaus' book Killer Poker Hold'em Handbook. When I ordered it I didn't reaslize it was a Limit Hold'em but I read it anyway and remembered a Limit game tactic called Foreclosure Raise which is a ck-raise on the flop for a drawing hand. If the check doesn't go thru on the flop, the BB ck-raises in order to put the treat of another ck-raise on the turn so that he may get to see the turn and river card free for the cost of an extra sm bet on the flop. It's a OOP defensive tactic that apparently works in limit - didn't know about when I play it but that was over 4 years ago. You don't suppose our villian is a cross-ove limit player using some lesser known tactic in a no-limit game do ya??

I don't like min raising to induce a resteal as I don't think it's going to induce a resteal often enough to compensate you for the value you lose from the SB/BB. I think generally speaking he either a hand he is willing to shove with or he doesn't. When it gets to this stage I like to make my open raises 2.5x so I can save a little on my steals but not sacrifice too much value on my raises. I'm not sure if that is correct, but may be food for thought.

This is a tough spot though, but one thing I notice that might make it easier is you didn't post his stats. If you didn't already know, PokerTracker 3 Beta is available for free and it comes with a built in HUD and might make it a little easier.

I think his range here seems quite wide, there are lots of possible combidraws he could have, some two pairs, overpairs, or sets. It feels like a fold, but I couldn't say for sure without ICMing it up.

Raise to 500. For the record you can safely raise 2.5x starting at 50/100

Im going broke on the flop here, you're already very committed to the hand, you're now in 4th place if you fold, and tbh I think you're ahead here a good amount.

I didn't know it was available for free. But generally speaking, are those kind of stats really helpful for STTs? I always thought they were more helpful for cash games...

I'm not so sure about that - what hands do you see him check-minraising with that I beat here? A check-minraise is a real show of strength, IMO. That's totally a move designed to suck more money into the pot without scaring away his opponent.

I'd shove there. I agree with the foreclosure raise line of BB, though I don't agree with that name. Man that's stupid.


Anyway, BB's raise leaves him room to fold to a shove. So make him fold to your shove.

I think they help, I'm not sure it gives you a huge margin but it definitely helps classify opponents playing styles. It's worth having for the HUD alone, but there are so many other awesome features included you'd be mad not to get it while it is free!

Here is a fairly liberal range, I thought we had less equity against his range than this, but apparently we actually have a lot. Looking at this, that is what must make it a call.

I think a lot of equity here must come from the overpairs as we are flipping/close to flipping with most of the combidraws. I tried to include as many reasonable combidraws as I could think of. If we ICM it using this range I'd bet it was easily a call.



Edit: I actually realized I forgot to put the board in, so this post shows us with way more equity than we actually have. Going to fix it now and do the ICM calculation.

It could be anything from a set to small overpairs to the board, draws all over the place. It could even be air putting you on a missed flop with two high cards. You really have no way of knowing.

the problem is that if you fold youve dropped into a tie for 3rd but if you win you move into very solid contention. I push here.

Our equity here is actually closer to what I thought it was. I thought we would have been a favorite, but it seems against my guesstimated range we are a slight dog.

In any case:

Folding gives us an equity of $4.4547 and calling gives us an equity of $4.529135495. So it's definitely a call, at least against that range. I used an ICM calculator and here is my work:



($0 * .52739) + ($9.3715 * .47261) + ($6.3336 * .0158) = $4.529135495

Edit: fixed a slight mistake.

You dont really need to do the hard work once you put yourself as a coin flip dog. With all that dead money its a huge tEV overlay that ICM isnt gong to overcome.

That is a little advanced so can I just recite back my interpretation and you can elaborate?

Because there's so much in the pot already there is no way folding can be correct once we work out we are flipping? We need to be a significant underdog in order for a fold to be correct?

Yes.

I can not imagine a spot where I fold this. It is a pretty sick spot but yeah, with how much money there is in the pot and what you have left behind you just can't lay down KK.

Sorry if you are beat. I have been the constant Bubble Boy in STT's over the last few days. It's really been sick, even getting my money in as a dominate favorite.

Reason number 2427428825795801 why you shouldn't min raise big pairs in Sngs

PF i rather meaningless as with the stacks this shallow it doesn't really matter a great deal what you do, FWIW i think min-raising's fine.

But seriously, folding the flop is imo really really horrible.

Min raise is just a way to invite people to beat you on the flop. I keep this standard 99.999% of the time.

As played, I can never fold here. Get it in, hope it holds.

For one thing, I'm very rarely a minraiser or limper with big pairs but there are situations when it can be the better move. Button is down to an M of 7 and will be looking for a good spot to steal, so if there was any chance of enticing him to come over the top it can offset the rare times someone will call with junk and outflop me.

Very interesting to see that I'm a coinflip dog against a range of made hands/combo draws. That's assuming the range is fairly accurate, which I'm not sure it is. If we accept that the check-minraise is a show of strength, which I think it is, that would place more weight on the bigger made hands and less on the draws in the range. For example, I just don't see a check-minraise here with the NFD+overs or pairs+NFD's. But I guess cop's point is that it still doesn't make me enough of a dog to fold with all the dead money in the pot.

I am always suspicious of UTG min raises. Remember too, non standard raises, you are giving away information here.

Yeah, I would prefer to mini raise if the guy that we are trying to induce into the pot is the BB and really short. Otherwise I think we are inviting trouble. I understand that you want the button to come over the top but I think that also invites the BB to play because of all the money in the pot already.

I dont think youre going to get more action min-raising than standard raising very often.

Stacks that are getting short are looking for first in vigorish and even a limp knocks many of them out
The gap is wide so youre only getting action 10-15% of the time even if they arent looking for FIV
Min raises look suspicious and may actually slow him down with AJ+, 88-99.

so the only hands you are realistically increasing your action a lot of the time are TT+...2.3%. Lets be generous and say 5%. On some flops you'll still get action on youre KK, and the move doesnt improve things.

On the opposite side, a trash hand will improve to two pair or trips a little less than 5% of the time, and garbage Aces that might have folded will improve 15% of the time.

I dont see it being a fair trade off.

I min raise more than most in sngs, but not here.

I do it when I have a healthy stack (12BB-16BB), I have 10 minute levels and, usually, I don't min raise OOp into someone that has me covered. All situational of course.

I do it because I play post flop better than my opponents, not to induce a resteal.

EDIT: Also, I min raise ONLY on the bubble and ONLY against terrible players. Against Avg -Good players, I'm usually better off making 2.5-3BB raises.

For the record, I'm fine with a shove preflop. This will get action in a $3.40 turbo and you can't get outplayed.

I'm fine with a 2.5bb raise. This would be my standard play.

I can do a lot of different things on the flop, but I'm probably betting 1/2-2/3 pot most of the time. If I don't have a read on my opponent by this time either I'm 6-8 tabling or I'm not paying enough attention. Reads help a lot if he decides to call or shove on me.

Also, always have a plan for what you're going to do if a villain reraises you on this board before you bet out.

As played, I'm torn. It would be hard for me to get away from. I've folded bigger hands, but as played, I don't have much left and I'm in the BB next. Shove and pray?

Poker tracker can help, but usually I just pay attention to what hands people call raises with/open with/ from what positions, how much value they put on hands like TP/MK, two pair, etc, do they C bet flops often, reraise C bets often? Bluffs? and so on.

These notes can help you make better decision later on and can help you get the most value out of your made hands.

Sure, but you're making a few huge assumptions that don't necessarily hold true in these tourneys (carrying over the discussion from the other thread, lol):
1) That the typical $3.40 STT turbo player knows what FIV is and why it is important
2) That the typical $3.40 STT turbo player understands the gap concept
3) That the typical $3.40 STT turbo player gets suspicious about small raises, which are very common at this level

That being said, I'm willing to accept that this might not have been the best spot for the KK minraise and I do tend to play it more standard 95% of the time.

YES.

If you are playing without a HUD you are leaving a ton of money on the table, especially if you are multitabling.

Agreed 100%. It's great for positional stealing, as well as it's easier to tell who the over aggressive players are.

I downloaded it last night but then I had to download the service pack for Vista that's like 6 trillion megs. Is the beta version totally free, or just a free trial?

This HUD is free. It only keeps stats on the current session, but I prefer that in tournament anyways. It works pretty solid if you ask me. If you use Vista, run as Administrator.

with blinds at 1 and 200 your stack of 2300 isint that much more impressive than the guy your hoping to trap. your giving away 300 per revolution if you just fold and dont complete the small blind. thats 7 ish revolutions. your Button opponent is in even worse shape than that. if he is gonna shove, it wont matter whether you made a real raise or not as he is getting to the point where he will be willing to flip for a chance to get healthy again.

and your inviting the BB into the hand and with his stack you dont want him seeing the flop cheap. especially when he likely will call with a wider range of weaker hands and is alot more likely to pay off a pre flop raise than the Button.

with a big stack the act behind the button and you raising anything in front the button whom you were hoping to trap prolly isint gonna give action to any raise without a decent hand that he had wanted to shove with before your raise anyway. and it would be a poor spot to try and steal given your raise and a BB still to act with alot of chips.

given the blinds your stack isint exactly ginormous. there are times to trap, i say this is not one of those times.

edit: i forgot the small blind because he folded. its even less liekkely he will be trying to steal with you raising and both blinds having fair stacks.

To put this thread to rest, villain turned over 66 for the flopped set. GG me.