PokerSoup Forums > Strategy > Know where you are early in the hand

Know where you are early in the hand

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1. • Posted by Krishna 2008-03-17 17:42:15
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   • I will list my play and my thinking on each street and my mistakes.

     Live 1/1/2 with 80$ stack.
     Picked up in UTG
     Being card dead for 30 minutes I was willing to gamble my whole buyin against two over cards.
     So if raise UTG I was afraid I will not get action. So I limped to to reraise someone.
     The table folded around and SB makes it 24.
     I called after making a commitment decision that with no over cards I would go allin.
     Flop comes . SB bets 20 into 48 and I go allin.
     He insta called and showed .
     Turn and river blanked and I was punished for overplaying medium pair.
     I am starting to think 88-JJ are like low pairs.

     Mistakes:

     1. Not raising preflop - his raise can mean anything. If I had raised his actions would have given me more information. A small raise to 8 would have been enough.
     2. Playing like and . preflop. I should have been more disciplined. Being card dead sometimes makes you overplay exactly these types of hands.
     3. Reading opponent - I put his range on two overcards , and total steal but weighed it heavily against overcards and steal. He was a solid player and he will not bet 24 to just steal 6$. If he had small pair he would have called being out of position.
     4. His flop bet screams that he has a monster. if he had AQ, AK he would have checked or gone allin trying to steal. I took the bait so easily. Here is where I could have used information from preflop if I raised.

     Lessons learnt:

     • Bet early in streets to know where you are at even if that gives away your range of hands.
     • Do not overplay mediocre hands even if you are short stacked. Good opponents know that you are tight and will play with hands that are ahead.
     • Give credit to opponents who are playing solid.
2. • Posted by Jason M 2008-03-17 18:48:20
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   • Ouch! That's really tough. It's hard to look down at mid-pocket pairs, especially the higher ones (JJ) and think that somebody has a made hand better than yours, but obviously it happens.

     What would you have done if you raised to 8, everybody but the SB folded, and then he raised to 24? Would you ditch or call? I'd have a hard time folding, but if I called that preflop bet, I'd have a hard time folding on that flop.

     Remember what you said about most players not paying attention enough to give them credit that they know how tight you are. In the games I've played at LC, a re-raise like that could mean anything. I guess that's where the fact you knew he was a solid player would really weigh in on your decisions.

3. • Posted by Graham 2008-03-17 21:10:37
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   • Man, you had me scared right off the bat with this one. JJ under the gun - I think JJ and TT are some of the hardest hands to play and I always feel like I play them wrong, no matter what. The fact that you mentioned being card dead for a while and your comfort with putting your stack in against over cards, not to mention your limp-reraise line of thought (something I reserve for AA and KK) had me thinking you were getting felted that hand.
     Like I said, I generally don't extend limp-reraise down to jacks, so I probably would have made the 8-10 raise open, depending on what was standard for the table. Looking for one or two callers and a T-high flop. If he still makes a huge reraise pre-flop, out of position post-flop with the image that he's taking that into consideration, I'd have to start thinking about mucking. Hard to do, like Jason said for sure, but if everything lines up like that, well it's better to lose 8 than 80... trite, but true.
     Mistake #2 on your list is the biggest one, I think. It's hard not to let a frozen streak get to you, but developing that patience is a goal like any other. At least you made a good assessment of the hand afterward and will undoubtedly use it in the future.

4. • Posted by Krishna 2008-03-17 23:50:40
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   • Thanks for the feedback guys.

     I think if re raised my hypothetical raise I would have definitely thought twice about calling preflop. However I am not sure if I could have laid it down on the flop.

     I think playing 6-max kinda loosened up my range a lot and on full ring table I need to start adjusting my ranges based on the player especially when I am forced to play for my stack.

     I had solid reads on the nits but this guy was playing a lot of pots but never going too far ( good LAG).

5. • Posted by Jason M 2008-03-18 00:40:00
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   • Seems like a good analysis. I didn't mention this explicitly, but I've lost a lot of money on JJ. I play them too fast. I started thinking about JJ as 99, because as hard as I try, I'm gonna give it more credit, so then I might actually play it like TT, which I usually do well with. You get it? LOL.

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