September 29, 2004
A Little No Limit
My playing has slowed down a bit as school has ramped up again. I played some Party Poker last week, and I don’t think I played all that well in part because my head wasn’t fully in it – I just wasn’t as excited about it as I normally am, and I’ve got plenty of other things going on. So a little hiatus is in order.
Meanwhile, my no limit ring game here on campus is getting going. If anyone has any recommendations on a good book for these (not tournaments), please let me know. With the sort of players I’ve run into, it seems like enough to just be patient and wait for a place to trap. Wait for that hidden set with a pocket pair; limp with those suited aces and hit a flush they refuse to give you credit for. Lots of calling stations, and people treating an all-in bet as a personal offense – they can’t live with the idea that someone might bluff them out of a pot. I made one big mistake against the best player at the table (a friend of mine; most of the others were strangers) when I hit my ace on the flop with AQ; should not have even been in the hand given his raise; with a K up, he had made a set of Kings, but he could have just had AK, so with a big pre-flop raise, it wasn’t a smart play. One thing I have trouble thinking through in no-limit is shorthanded play – we were 6 handed at the time, so AQs goes significantly up in value – but how much?
The other hit I took was a nice trap by me that went horribly awry. Flop came out with J43 rainbow, and it was raised into me. I have AJo and it wasn’t raised pre-flop. I put him on KJ, maybe JT or QJ. He wasn’t in the blinds, but it’s possible he has 43, though I highly doubt it. I say raise, give it the appropriate moment of thought, and then commit 5/7 of my stack – approximately the size of the pot – as a raise. My idea was to try to get him to think I was nervous and put me all-in – why wouldn’t I just have gone all-in? – even though I actually thought I had him beat He does so and turns over QJo, bingo. And a Q comes on the turn. Hurray.
I also played a five-man no-limit tournament the other night. I don’t think I played all that well, but I played decent. Tried to bluff the unbluffable earlier on – that was bad. When down to three, I called a minimum raise from the big blind with 67c with a stack roughly 3.5 times the size of the pot. Flop comes 964 rainbow, with one club. Considering his raise and the person, I put him on overcards, maybe a small pair. It’s possible one of the overcards is a nine, but I’m doubting it. They’ve been overvaluing two face cards versus hands like A9 or K9 all night. He bets, and my call would make my pot and my stack roughly equal. I go all in, he shows Q9, turn comes Q, river 7. Playing second pair in these sort of shorthanded situations is also rather tricky for me – the hand values radically change, so I’m not sure if I did the right thing here.
Filed by at 11:34 pm under dtrStories
10 Comments
The main problem that I find myself having in NL play is allowing people to draw against me by not raising enough pre/post flop. With AJo, raising pre-flop (2-3x BB) might have gotten the QJo out of the way. Post flop, though, I like your play. You’re trying to induce an all-in from the other guy (since you have TPTK). If you go all-in from the beginning, you might scare him out of the pot.
I think a large issue here of course is NL ring game vs. tournament strategy, but it sounds like you’re dealing with ring games right now. (Although tournament style is very popular at colleges right now). The ring game strategy is in many ways easier to deal with because of the lack of pressure from the blinds going up.
AQ shorthanded with the kind of players you’re up against is fairly valuable, but again it’s not something you want all-in preflop unless you’re very, very sure about the guy who’s putting you to it. It seems like you got into trouble post-flop with it, because that guy had spiked a set of kings. No matter what you’re probably going to lose a fair bit of money on that hand – like me catching pocket kings and going up against pocket aces. With the type of players I’m usually up against in those ring games, my going all-in with kings was a complete no-brainer, given the number of times I’ve been called by KQo or pocket fives or some shit like that.
In tournament style, you obviously can’t let anybody get at their draws for cheap, and you don’t want to be drawing at all if you can help it. In those ring games, a lot of people are going to slow play those pocket kings and let you hit your draw or not on the cheap. With the ring games I’d be willing to loosen up my starting hand requirements towards more drawing hands (small suited connectors, stuff like that) if you can see a lot of flops cheaply, which is often the case. When it comes to the cash games, you know those folks are going to give you action when you want it, so set yourself up for some draws…
Kevin
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