First Hand of the Million
 

Haven't posted a hand in a while, think this one has a lot going for it for all the options.

Table is complete unkonwns and me:
Folded to me in SB, complete 24s BB checks
Pot 100 stacks 9950

Flop QJ5 all of my suit I lead 100 BB fairly quickly raises to 300, action, and action on future streets? This really seems like a ranges of ranges question to me, but I'll let other people dissect the standard -ROI sunday mill fish on the first hand

Edit: If you 3-bet flop do you fold to 4-bet
How do you most extract from no pair with one card flush draw vs extracting the most from 2-pair and which matters more, etc etc

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

I fold this preflop. many options on the flop here, I probably call with intention of c/r or weakb3b a blank turn.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

900 on flop (is he really folding?),1500-2000 on nice turn, instantly overshove on nice river and get paid OR check to induce the bluff on the river if it gets that far.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

OPR, which means you can tank, and then probably min-reraise. You can obviously make plans for four-flush and pairing turns but I don't think there's much point until you have some stats and narrow his range based on how and how fast he reacts.

If he's profitable, then just call and cr safe turns.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

raise it up to like 1100 total and snapcall a shove and pray his twopr/set doesnt fill up

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

Fold pf or raise pf.
Probably raise pf. As played I probably 3bet flop and re-evaluate depending on what he does.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

i 3bet here with no plans of folding to an unknown on the first hand of the million, assuming all the action is on the flop. keep valuebetting all streets assuming bricks, possibly b/f some paired turns but probably not, typically c/f spade turn/rivers.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

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why do you think folding is absurd, cause of all the donks? even then I dont think you lose much by folding, bec even if its a high chance you're up vs a bad player you dont know in which way he is bad if he is that since we have no reads.

also, what do you prefer if it was a start field with much better player on avg than the million and you didnt have any reads on the players?

after all, we have a pretty trashy hand OOP and its early.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

cuz BB is more than likely a bad player, and I want to play as many pots as possible with the bad players early on.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

Preflop is fold > raise >>>>> complete. Completing here is really ugly... 24s is very much not a good hand.

Flop has to be a 3-bet since so much of his range is behind but not folding. I dunno about how to respond to a 4-bet cause I don't really know the players in the million.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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Preflop is fold > raise >>>>> complete. Completing here is really ugly... 24s is very much not a good hand.

Flop has to be a 3-bet since so much of his range is behind but not folding. I dunno about how to respond to a 4-bet cause I don't really know the players in the million.

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I don't understand why you would want to fold pre? You don't think you can play it profitably vs a random in the million?

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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Preflop is fold > raise >>>>> complete. Completing here is really ugly... 24s is very much not a good hand.

Flop has to be a 3-bet since so much of his range is behind but not folding. I dunno about how to respond to a 4-bet cause I don't really know the players in the million.

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I don't understand why you would want to fold pre? You don't think you can play it profitably vs a random in the million?

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no, and even if you can its extremely marginal and can probably lead to more trouble than good things. would you even consider something else than folding if the hand wasnt suited? bec that its suited is not that huge of a difference, esp OOP.

if you had some kind of read the specific player that he is a huge spewtard I dont mind raising or completing but as I tried to say in my other post, just that its a high chance he's a donk (that you dont even know what kind of donk he is) doesnt make this playable imo.

not saying that playing the hand is a huge leak or anything but I def think just folding it is the best play.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

The thing about preflop is that it folded to him in the SB.

I'd rather complete in a multi way pot than just SB/BB.

I mean, if what you guys are saying about wanting to play as many pots with bad players is true, are you limping any two suited cards in various positions?

I don't know, if it were to fold to me with 24s, I'd fold.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

can we plz not talk about preflop... just let it be, i'm better then them postflop, and am easily easily easily winning chips with this hand after completing here against unknown and prefer to play it this way over raising. There are many things in the arsenal and I am not planning to limp-call pre, ok? does everyone really want to stack off 200 bb's on this flop?

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

3bet to 1k

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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3bet to 1k

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Its hard for me to fold here, but difficult to put him on a hand that he would be 4b us that doesnt have us beat. I think that he would raise pf with QQ/JJ/AsQ/AsJ and maybe even 55/QJ. So we are left with Q5/J5 as hands we beat that he would be checking pf and 4b us on the flop (mebbe dry As if he is really dumb or really smart). W/o reads and he 4b us to to 2500-3k. I think I'm 5b ai, but I dont think that can be good.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

3 bet to 950 and proceed depending on what he does. If he 4 bets I might fold, depending on 4bet size and speed. If he calls pot it on turn, and check/bet river depending on the change in board texture, assuming that board does not 4 flush.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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does everyone really want to stack off 200 bb's on this flop?

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This depends how the money goes in and obviously there is a chance that we will make a mistake against an unknown. I'm not especially happy to make a reasonably-sized three-bet and then call a push/four-bet because I think this really narrows his range to almost exclusively hands that beat us so, as I say, I'd rather call or do something weird like min-raise and keep his range nice and wide and stack off accordingly depending on bet-size and timing, fourth and fifth street. FWIW, I'd suggest that hands like this are trickier for HSMTT players because the ranges are so random and often totally unconnected to the board and what we're representing. I'm pretty sure, however, that he will make way bigger mistakes here, both in terms of telegraphing his holding and getting it in behind, if you three-bet really small. And I'm also sure that, in the Million, OPR-ing villain is somewhat essential.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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does everyone really want to stack off 200 bb's on this flop?

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This depends how the money goes in and obviously there is a chance that we will make a mistake against an unknown. I'm not especially happy to make a reasonably-sized three-bet and then call a push/four-bet because I think this really narrows his range to almost exclusively hands that beat us so, as I say, I'd rather call or do something weird like min-raise and keep his range nice and wide and stack off accordingly depending on bet-size and timing, fourth and fifth street. FWIW, I'd suggest that hands like this are trickier for HSMTT players because the ranges are so random and often totally unconnected to the board and what we're representing. I'm pretty sure, however, that he will make way bigger mistakes here, both in terms of telegraphing his holding and getting it in behind, if you three-bet really small. And I'm also sure that, in the Million, OPR-ing villain is somewhat essential.

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Registrar, minreraising here might induce him to do sillier things. In that he might decide to try and bluff air a slightly increased percentage of the time.

But there are going to be a lot of one pair + hands here that he is happy to call a 3 bet with on the flop and find difficult to put down on the turn and river. Whatever re - raise we make probably will not affect his range for actively wanting to get it in that much. If he is the type of player to go broke with two pair here he is going broke no matter what size you 3 bet to.

I'm just concerned that min - reraising is going to cost us value from a lot of hands that he wants to call down with here. And, considering that there are plenty of action killer turns cards we could see peel, I much prefer to get more money in on the flop.

Finally, in practice I would OPR him aswell. However, what you drag out of that can be misleading a lot of the time. There are a lot of cash guys that only show up for a few tournaments evry so often on a Sunday and have bad figures in terms of ROI - but are better at poker than me or you. The times it gives a crystal clear indication of whether someone is bad or good are rare in my experience.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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can we plz not talk about preflop... just let it be, i'm better then them postflop, and am easily easily easily winning chips with this hand after completing here against unknown and prefer to play it this way over raising. There are many things in the arsenal and I am not planning to limp-call pre, ok? does everyone really want to stack off 200 bb's on this flop?

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I disagree on this. I think it is perfectly valid to talk about preflop in every single tournament hand you ever play. And you can talk about how much better than everyone else you are postflop; and it is obviously true; but part of that edge is always going to be the basics of applying fundamentals like hand selection and position better.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

lucky he asked how he would proceed on the flop lol.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

My goal would be to extract from 1-pair and semibluff hands rather than trying to stack 2-pair hands. If we 3bet and get 4bet I think we’re facing a pretty ugly range, although I don’t have my poker tools with me right now to see just how bad it is for us. I’d prefer to call the R, CC the turn and lead the river, assuming no more spades.

And I fold preflop.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

BTW I think preflop is a pretty clearly raise since when limping and flopping more or less the nuts we have no idea WTF to do. I think as played c/ring the flop is better.
If you b/3b you are lost to a 4bet, if you c/r you can call a three bet and reevaluate.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

I would fold preflop. One of the main reasons that bad players are bad because they play hands like 42s. Also we are out of position.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

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It's absurd to fold 42s out of position? This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. You don't beat these guys by playing garbage out of position, you beat them by having good hands and watching them throw their money at you.

I don't think not folding is terrible or anything, but to call folding "absurd" is a ridiculous and gross overstatement.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

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It's absurd to fold 42s out of position? This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. You don't beat these guys by playing garbage out of position, you beat them by having good hands and watching them throw their money at you.

I don't think not folding is terrible or anything, but to call folding "absurd" is a ridiculous and gross overstatement.

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it's sb vs bb and bb likely sucks. why on earth would you want to fold 2 suited cards? The only times i fold here is when I'm playing too many tables and not paying enough attention.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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can we plz not talk about preflop... just let it be, i'm better then them postflop, and am easily easily easily winning chips with this hand after completing here against unknown and prefer to play it this way over raising. There are many things in the arsenal and I am not planning to limp-call pre, ok? does everyone really want to stack off 200 bb's on this flop?

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I disagree on this. I think it is perfectly valid to talk about preflop in every single tournament hand you ever play. And you can talk about how much better than everyone else you are postflop; and it is obviously true; but part of that edge is always going to be the basics of applying fundamentals like hand selection and position better.

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Agreed, I hate the "lets not talk about preflop donks". Your preflop decision sets the stage for everything that happens later in the hand. Why in the world would anyone want to ignore the part of the hand that set all of the events into motion.

Okay there are many different styles that can be applied, and very often no clear answers (just as there often aren't preflop). However preflop situations come up more often than postflop situations, and given that there are often huge disagreements, I find it sort of silly that people are constantly not wanting to talk about it.

Also preflop play is the part of the hand where reads are often the least important. Since it's very difficult to convey reads and tells and etc on a messageboard, it's another reason why it makes a lot of sense.

Basically what I'm trying to say is preflop play is very very important. It's almost surely the most important part of "online" tournament play.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

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It's absurd to fold 42s out of position? This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. You don't beat these guys by playing garbage out of position, you beat them by having good hands and watching them throw their money at you.

I don't think not folding is terrible or anything, but to call folding "absurd" is a ridiculous and gross overstatement.

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it's sb vs bb and bb likely sucks. why on earth would you want to fold 2 suited cards? The only times i fold here is when I'm playing too many tables and not paying enough attention.

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You aren't giving any logical reasons for playing the hand other than BB sucks and why fold any suited cards. Again, as I previously stated, the main reason that people suck is because they play too many weak hands. Sure there are other reasons why players are bad, but this is by far the most important reason. In fact most "bad" players would immediately become mediocre players if they simply played better hands preflop. We are completely losing this advantage over a bad player once we limp in out of position with 42s.

So do they suck because they will let us bluff them out postflop too often? Do they suck because if we flop 2 pair or better they are going to just blindly throw all their chips at us? How often are we going to make such flops?

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

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folding preflop in the million against an unknown would be absurd. i like a raise better than a complete, but a complete is certainly better than folding

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It's absurd to fold 42s out of position? This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. You don't beat these guys by playing garbage out of position, you beat them by having good hands and watching them throw their money at you.

I don't think not folding is terrible or anything, but to call folding "absurd" is a ridiculous and gross overstatement.

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it's sb vs bb and bb likely sucks. why on earth would you want to fold 2 suited cards? The only times i fold here is when I'm playing too many tables and not paying enough attention.

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You aren't giving any logical reasons for playing the hand other than BB sucks and why fold any suited cards. Again, as I previously stated, the main reason that people suck is because they play too many weak hands. Sure there are other reasons why players are bad, but this is by far the most telling reason. We are completely losing this advantage over a bad player once we limp in out of position with 42s.

So do they suck because they will let us bluff them out postflop too often? Do they suck because if we flop 2 pair or better they are going to just blindly throw all their chips at us? How often are we going to make such flops?

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First of all, I'm advocating a raise, not a limp.

I agree my reasoning sounds illogical, but I'm not really sure how to explain it. We'll hit some big flops sometimes, but we'll also take the pot down with a cbet frequently. And just in general we are going to play better than BB postflop. We aren't going to stack off with a crappy two pair, but I've seen people in the million stack off early on with as little as top pair.

Also, if we fold, we don't gain any information on the BB. But if we play the hand, we might be able to pick up on something that could help us later on.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

I agree with everything curtains said (some of the things he said was about the exact same things that I did earlier in the thread).

someone posting a hand and tell "dont comment this and this street" is just ridiculus and something common in other forums as well, for example MSNL. even if (highly unlikely) OP cant learn anything from discussing a specific street (for ex preflop) other posters and readers might very well do so and its part of the whole hand.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

It would be interesting to see how many of us show a profit (or lose less than a SB per orbit) from the SB during the 1st hour of MTTs.

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

my post was eaten, it was long

curtains, it said that I think its perfectly valid for me to ask specifically about only part X of a hand. I find it akin to saying hey look at move 18 of my nimzoindian variant here, what do you think of it, and you respond, the nimzoindian is bad, you should always play kings-indian defense. Granted, I see the slight differences between the analogies but i'll claim the essence is the same. I have enoguh pokertracker data to show that I am a winner in this spot with any two cards and am quite confident with that statistic.

Anyways, what i wanted discussed is
if we 3-bet, how do we react to a 4bet
how do we maximize against 2pr hands
can we minimize against better flushes (how are these 2 combined)

lots of donkeys seem to raise here with like T9 with the T of clubs, how do they react with that hand to our 3 bet, how will they react if we call and check turn... if we call and donk out turn...

if we call the raise can we profitably c/r turn? is this better then 3-betting? do we fold to shove on turn if we c/r? does this mean we should c/c turn?

anyone? [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: First Hand of the Million
 

Against someone bad enough to stack off with 2 pair on a monochrome board (which seems to be really bad) you cannot maximize against 2 pair hands and minimize against bigger flushes at the same time, because Villain will play both hands the same way. Against someone who can distinguish between the two, the way to max against 2 pair hands and min against bigger flushes is to keep the pot small. Call the flop, c/c the turn, c/c or bet/fold the river.