HOH3 Problem 1
 

Harrington on Hold Em Vol 3. Problem One:

A: $2,740
B: $2,560
C: $2,260
D: $2,560 (you)
E: $2,380
F: $2,420
G: $2,600
SB: $2,600
BB: $2,380

This hand is from a typical large, online MTT. Early in the tournament. Players A and B have been splashing around a bit. Players 6 and the BB seem a bit tight.

It's folded to you in MP with T[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. Do you fold (A), make a standard 3BB raise (B), raise it up to 6BBs to put more pressure on the rest to fold (C), or call (D)?

My first choice was raising 3BBs, and second was folding. What do you guys think?

Note from Lloyd: This post was edited to avoid any potential copyright issues. Please do not copy the text from HOH3 hands verbatim. Thanks.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

First choice is A. Second is B

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A, D

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Assuming 10/20 blinds: A>>>B>>D>C

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First choice is A. Second is B

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yep. Harrington is pretty tight, especially early.

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A few hands have been played

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Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

A

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Assuming 10/20 blinds: A>>>B>>D>C

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Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

yeah, what pat said.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

Only choice was A.

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You know as I'm reading these, i can't help thinking you are violating some copyright law or something, so be careful.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

Easy fold...no reason to get this LAGgy in any online tournament.

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You know as I'm reading these, i can't help thinking you are violating some copyright law or something, so be careful.

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Even though I said what it is from? I'm not claiming it as my own material. You might be right though. Does anyone know the mods real well or the authors and can ask?

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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You know as I'm reading these, i can't help thinking you are violating some copyright law or something, so be careful.

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Even though I said what it is from? I'm not claiming it as my own material. You might be right though. Does anyone know the mods real well or the authors and can ask?

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Otherwise, you could post the whole thing here and no one would need to read/buy their book.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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You know as I'm reading these, i can't help thinking you are violating some copyright law or something, so be careful.

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Even though I said what it is from? I'm not claiming it as my own material. You might be right though. Does anyone know the LAW?

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FYP

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

Usually copyrights violations stem from loss of sales, so I'd say just don't go posting everything and they probably wouldn't care to much.. but it's just my opinion on that... by the way I choose A

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

Sometimes I do d sometimes I do b but now I feel like a donk for doing d [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I also don't feel like I would have that stong of a read on a player in the earlier stages of an online tourney. I would say normal raise>calling>folding>large raise. Or for the sake of this example: b > d > a > c

Normally I just want to see a flop early with a hand like 108. The blinds are not enough to just be randomly stealing and I have a good hand to catch some people. So either a limp or 3Xraise gets me to a flop with a couple of people and then I can reevaluate from there with my plan being to bet if the flop looks good for me.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

why would you do anything other than fold here??

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

you forget who the author is? No way Harrington is opening T8 early on in a tournament.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

A>>>C>B>D

I like C, but not for the reasoning given. If I were to raise here with these huge stacks, I'd want to raise about 5xBB. I'm hoping not for folds, which give me meaningless blinds, but for a call (ideally from the blinds) from someone with a strong hand but who's afraid of my raise. Now I'm in a situation where I have a pretty good idea what my opponent has, my opponent has no idea what I have and, ideally, I'm in position.

T8 is too weak here for me to raise, unless I think my opponents are truly horendous. But limping or betting 3x accomplish nothing other than get me into a multiway pot with a bad hand and no reads on opponents.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

I'm not looking to commit myself, just play some flops early and work on getting something started.

I will say 108 sits about at my line. If I'm playing a tournament where I might be at the same table for a while then I'll work a little harder at my image and would fold. But if this is the first table and it will be broke by the time the blinds are at 50/100 then I have no problem getting a bit laggy with players that I might be able to stack off with TPTK.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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you forget who the author is? No way Harrington is opening T8 early on in a tournament.

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wtf, this has nothing to do w/ harrington. it's common sense.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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you forget who the author is? No way Harrington is opening T8 early on in a tournament.

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wtf, this has nothing to do w/ harrington. it's common sense.

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Yea I have since changed my mind to folding instead.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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you forget who the author is? No way Harrington is opening T8 early on in a tournament.

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Harrington doesn't write for his style of play only. You should read the books. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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Even though I said what it is from? I'm not claiming it as my own material. You might be right though. Does anyone know the mods real well or the authors and can ask?

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In the Books/Publications Forum, they have Study Groups where they discuss chapters (or other 'sections') of 2+2 Books.

I'm certain there's a way to do it correctly - and I think it would do better in the MTT area (as opposed to the Books/Pub. Forum), be it here (since it's strategy) or in the MTT Community if that's deemed more appropriate.

I'm also glad to be in on the first problem as opposed to being behind a month.

I'd go with choice a), BTW.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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why would you do anything other than fold here??


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Why is this an auto fold for you?

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

I would go with A about 70% of the time and B 30% of the time to test the tightness of the table and the blind defense.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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why would you do anything other than fold here??


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Why is this an auto fold for you?

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are you joking? its early in the tournament, so you don't actually have a clue how ppl are playing. you have 2 players that appear to be tight and 3 unknowns.

you have ~150BB, and you want to raise w/ T8o why? value? bluff? half-retarded?

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

There's really no use raising (or playing) here simply because there's nothing to steal, and that's what you are doing if you raise with T8o, stealing.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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are you joking? its early in the tournament, so you don't actually have a clue how ppl are playing. you have 2 players that appear to be tight and 3 unknowns.

you have ~150BB, and you want to raise w/ T8o why? value? bluff? half-retarded?

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I'm not saying a fold is bad. I'm not saying I'm attacking and pushing the first guy who looks at me the wrong way.

Sometimes I raise, more or less just to disguse real hands I would raise with later and FWIW I've just started experimenting with this again and I have not been real pleased with it.

Sometimes I limp here just to be involved in some cheap pots where I can catch a nice hand and win a big pot or to just work on my reads of the table, or to just give a little action so I can get some action when I do pick up an early hand.

I also will fold here sometimes. Because I don't want to get involved in a multi-way pot with no reads. As always it depends.

I just don't think there is a default play.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

Haven't read anyone's responses. I would choose A. If the raise is to 60 I'm assuming the BB is 20. These blinds are not high enough for me to try to start stealing them yet plus we have a poor hand in poor position.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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There's really no use raising (or playing) here simply because there's nothing to steal, and that's what you are doing if you raise with T8o, stealing.

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If this is all you're trying to do, then yes it's a bad play. But it's not. There's no such thing as blind stealing with the blinds this low. The blinds barely even exist. What you're doing is challenging players behind you to play poker. If you think you're a better post-flop player than they are and enough better that you can win more than you lose with a marginal hand like T8, then by all means play it. Without much of a read, I fold. If I think my opponents are bad at poker, I verywell might raise.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

A only. D is a Joke. And what type of tournaments do you start with 2500 chips?

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

I think that any of a), b), and d) are defensible. If you are confident that you are playing against people that will get their whole stack in with one pair, then it is correct to limp (you want to encourage others to limp, so you have more opportunity to stack them). If you feel that the blinds are imbeciles but the players behind you are tight aggressive (or the type of aggressives that will raise any limps on their button), then you might be good to raise.

In the normative case, where you feel that your postflop play is not a lot greater than those behind you (since they have position), you may want to vary your play, something like 70% fold, 15% limp, and 15% raise, particularly if you are limping small pairs, etc. If all you are limping is small pairs, you are too easy to read.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

A > B > D > C

Standard.

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A only. D is a Joke. And what type of tournaments do you start with 2500 chips?

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Stars $1M guaranteed starts with 2500.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

A.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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There's really no use raising (or playing) here simply because there's nothing to steal, and that's what you are doing if you raise with T8o, stealing.

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If this is all you're trying to do, then yes it's a bad play. But it's not. There's no such thing as blind stealing with the blinds this low. The blinds barely even exist. What you're doing is challenging players behind you to play poker. If you think you're a better post-flop player than they are and enough better that you can win more than you lose with a marginal hand like T8, then by all means play it. Without much of a read, I fold. If I think my opponents are bad at poker, I verywell might raise.

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T8o is not a marginal hand. It's crap. If you're going to raise with that, you should be raising with like 80% of your hands or something here. Which is terrible, for obvious reasons.

Folding preflop is okay!

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

The only reason I raise here is to lay out a LAGgy preflop image. That said, I want to show the hand down as cheaply as possible post flop, especially if it improves enough to call bets (i.e. paired somehow or drawing).

Keep in mind that the loose players to my right will give me less cred when I play back at them when they see me make a standard preflop raise with T8.

One thing I'm NOT trying to do is play a big pot OOP, so callers that aren't in a blind make this an automatic check/fold if I miss the flop.

I have to be feeling especially frisky to pull this move.

85% of the time I'm just open folding. It's probably too early to be spewing chips for metagame.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

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T8o is not a marginal hand. It's crap. If you're going to raise with that, you should be raising with like 80% of your hands or something here. Which is terrible, for obvious reasons.


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Someone better go tell Ivey. And Juanda, Hansen and Negreanu.

I'm not saying I usually raise here, because I almost never do, but I do believe there are situations where it's worth considering. When deciding to raise, cards are a consideration and these ones are bad. Position is a consideration and it's not great. Chip stacks are a consideration and here they're so big that implied odds may warrant raising. And quality of players at the table is also a consideration. I'm not willing to grant that there aren't opponents against whom a raise here is +EV. The top pros know this and thats why you'll see Howard Lederer raising 80% of hands in late position.

Re: HOH3 Problem 1
 

the top pros are very good at playing postflop poker and reading opponents, especially live. most of this forum is not on that level. and i don't even agree that they raise 80% of their hands in LP. from what i've seen, they're aggressive, sure. but come on...