Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Overbet for value

Been a long time since I've posted a hand history.  Sorry for the crappy conversion :-( but this is about as good as it gets with Seals With Clubs for now...

The $$$ = 1/1000 bitcoin; about $1 each.  This is roughly $50NL - 6max.


Hand Information
Game: 
Blind: $0.25/ $0.50
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat1:   Hero   ($50)
Seat2:   Player 2   ($133.34)Dealer
Seat3:   Player 3   ($48.75)Small Blind
Seat4:   Player 4   ($56.03)Big Blind
Seat6:   Player 6   ($111.81)
Dealt to Hero
5h4c

Preflop (Pot:0.75)
Player 6   FOLD    
Hero   RAISE    $1.50 - Standard steal - none of these players are particularly steal prone or steal aware. They have very high fold to steal percentages. I've been getting away with late position steals all session.
Player 2   CALL    $1.50 - 24/19, low 3bet %
Player 3   FOLD    
Player 4   CALL    $1

Flop   (Pot: $4.75)

Kd2d5c
Player 4   CHECK    
Hero   BET    $3.50- Decent flop for my hand; obviously Kx has me beat but most of the time it's a check / fold for villain.
Player 2   CALL    $3.50 - He doesn't snap call here; most of the time he shows up with Kx, less so with a diamond draw. I need to back off the turn if I don't bink two pair or better.
Player 4   FOLD    

Turn   (Pot: $11.75)

Kd2d5c5d
Hero   BET    $6.50- Well, that's a nice turn! I want to get value from him and not let him fear the turned flush. I bet slightly more than half pot to allow him to feel comfortable with his Kx.
Player 2   CALL    $6.50- He once again tanks for a bit and flats.  At this point, I can put him squarely on a Kx hand - I'm hoping he doesn't have a backup diamond though, giving him 9 extra outs to his K.

River   (Pot: $24.75)

Kd2d5c5d5s
Hero   ALL-IN    $38.50- Absolute BEST card in the DECK! Gives villain a boat and gives me the stone nuts. In villain's mind, there's only one hand that beats him here: AA, as he's never putting me on 5x. Most likely, to him, I show up with Kx or annoyed / sucked out flushes (rarely AA, since I've been stealing pots from the BTN right & left). He's usually folding a flush with any bet, but he's never folding a 5's full of Kings boat, thanks to Zeebo! I go with my read that he has a King rather than a flush, so I overbet shove the sucker and...
Player 2   CALL    $38.50- He totally snaps me off... as in he beats me to the pot!

Showdown:

Hero  SHOWS
5h4c- DQB (Dem Quads, bitches)!!!!
Player 2  SHOWS
KsQd
Hero  wins the pot: $100.20

11 comments:

  1. i sold my 33 seals chips, and the bitcoin should hit my bank tomorrow or so and its going right on my monthly phone or cell bill, and i think the live games in LA are much better than the games on seals. But if i still want to play online poker, i left about $20+ on bovada still

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tony,
    Just be careful about selling completely out of bitcoins. The price seems to be continually reaching an all-time high, with the thought it could go up to $1M / BTC: " Raoul Pal, who writes the investment newsletter The Global Macro Investor, compared Bitcoin with gold to come up with a "broad guestimate" for how investors should value the currency.

    In a report published earlier this month, Pal said that based on the supply of gold and Bitcoin, the digital currency should be worth about 700 ounces of gold, which works out to just under $900,000 at current prices." (http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/12/investing/bitcoin-record-high/)

    I would hate to see you sell out of the currency when it could have made you a small fortunes if you had held onto even $20 worth. Personally, I'm holding 1BTC at any given time in the longshot even that it goes up to $100k or more...

    Finally, as to the games on seals - I don't know what the games are like in LA, having only played there once or twice. I do remember them to be quite soft. However, consider that the games on seals are INCREDIBLY soft, you can multi table, and the value of BTC keeps increasing. You make earn $100 in BTC today, but tomorrow, that $100 could be worth $1000.

    In my down time, I'll continue to grind for BTC for the foreseeable future.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I thought bit coins would peak then crash. Shows what I know!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @Mojo - It ain't over yet... you may be right (though I'm hoping you're wrong). For my case, I'm holding 1BTC in the longshot bet that it hits $1M. I don't need the $1K it's currently worth, so it really costs no opportunity costs to hold it. If it goes back down to $100 or so, meh... whatever. I would just kick myself if it went to $1M, though, and I sold it for $1K.

      Delete
  4. TPM, just curious to know what would you have done if he bumps up your turn bet to $22?

    ReplyDelete
  5. If he bumped my turn bet to $22, I obviously have to consider folding because my read is possibly wrong. However, I think I put all in there - going with my original read that he is not on a draw but has a made hand. His timing tell really gave him away. By his call on the flop, I was sure I was behind. Against most players in this spot, I likely check the turn even after hitting my trips.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks, I was wondering about hands like Ad,3d or another diamond flush/straight draw.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This guy was completely passive, so if he suddenly wakes up and starts getting aggro, I have to second guess myself.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Just a thought, but why even steal here. I generally don't look for pre-flop steals in cash games, maybe because I play games with relatively small blinds ($1/2, $2/5). In a tournament, it is different. You have to accumulate chips and that means sometimes picking up the blinds, particularly late in a session when blinds are high. But in a cash game setting, all you hope to win is .75, and all the while, you are building up a loose image. Maybe that's the point, i.e., to get you action when you raise with AA or to generally loosen up the table. Come to think of it, that is the perfect and only reason for a steal in this situation. Am I missing something? Is there some other reason to work a steal for the blinds in a cash game?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The blind steal is arguably tantamount to online games. In online poker, it's all about the BB/100 since you can multi-table. There are a hundred different scenarios, but if I'm successful more than 2 out of 3 times (which I am), I show an instant profit. Anything I can do to boost the BB/100 helps, and steals are a huge part of that factor. In addition, the steals serve to totally balance out my early position raises, where, as you mentioned, my "value" raises will get little or no credit.

      It would be nice to have a PT3 or HEM to truly analyze my stats, but I'm using a somewhat primitive tracker since my choices are limited with Seals with Clubs. Keep in mind the following:
      When I win a steal outright, I win 1.5BB. When my my opponent doesn't fold to the steal, most of the time he is going to miss the flop and check / fold. FWIW, I'm going to cbet most flops (i.e. he generally calls Ax and if an Ax flop hits, I check through the flop unless I hold and A, obv.) When he c/f's flops, I'm showing a 3.5BB profit. Keep in mind that I see his stats, mainly fold to steal (i.e. he calls my raises with a narrow or wide range), I see his fold to flop cbet (i.e. he plays hit or miss poker), and I have position. There's no shame in taking a 7.5 BB (or 3BB when I get 3bet PF) loss when I know I'm beat, when I'm making 1.5BB or 3.5BB when I'm beat but win the pot on a bluff or when I'm actually ahead more often than the occasional 7.5 or 3BB loss.

      It ain't about the $0.15 per orbit - don't think of it that way. Think of it as 84 hands / hr (6max) is 14 orbits /hr. I steal about 50% of the time from the 3 steal positions: SB, BTN, HJ. 14 * 3 * .5 = 21 opportunities for stealing / hr per table. Let's say I make even a $0.01 per steal attempt. 21 * $0.01 = $0.21 per hour per table. Now since SWC doesn't have a real pretty interface, I can comfortably 8 table on there. 8 * $0.21 = $1.68 / hr rate - and that's just straight stealing. Forget about all the times that I have an actual hand, or that I hit an actual hand like the one above.

      Delete
  9. FWIW, the above was translated to .05/.10 for convenience. The same holds for .25/.50 - just multiply the above by 5x.

    I also think about live steal stats and how it doesn't work in a live game. The reason? It is so infrequent that you have the opportunity for steal. Most of the time, there are a host of limpers in on a pot. Moreover, most of those players are "there to play, and not to fold." They're not going to fold a pair - any pair - based on the prior "being there to play and not fold." This fact is what makes live poker so much easier - you can get FAR more value when you're comfortably ahead in the hand, Live poker is more of a value game, versus online, which is more of a value / bluffing game - at least at the stakes you & I play. Online, players mostly realize that they can fold this hand or that PF, and they'll lose "only" 1BB or .5BB and be happy because they see the next hand a second later.

    ReplyDelete

Blog Archive