Play a Hand With the Masters #1 Pre-Flop
 

Welcome to our first "Hand With the Masters". Thanks again to jccookjr for suggesting this as a way to make the forum more valuable.

Here's how this is going to work (this time, I'm open for suggestions for our next hand):

1. I've sent the hand to our expert panel (who will be announced soon) decision point by decision point. So they only had access to the information that they would have had if they were playing the hand themselves. Obviously, this was an actual hand (contributed by Sossman) and when a panelist's line deviated from how the hand was played they still played the hand out as it actually went down. So if they said they would fold and in the actual hand it was raised, they played the next decision point as if they had raised.

2. I'm going to post the hand here step by step over the next couple of days. This will make it as real as possible. Additional decision points will be added to this post so you'll have to check back here every day (I plan on adding a decision point approximately every 24 hours).

3. Once everyone has had a chance to comment on all aspects of the hand, I'll post how our experts played it out along with the thought process they have presented. We'll then give them an opportunity to post and discuss why they liked one approach versus another.

4. We'll bring the forum back to continue the discussion. Essentially, this will be the hand we'll talk about over the next week.

So without further adieu:

Setup

$10,000 Buy-In Event
Day 1
Blinds 75/150 and will go up to 100/200 on the next hand
Hero has been at the table for about an hour with no unusual play. All players are unknown except for Miami John to his direct left. The CO in this hand has been playing pretty tight.

Relevant Stacks

CO 25,000
Hero 11,500
MJ 13,000
BB 9,800

Pre-Flop
Everyone folds to the CO who limps for T150. Hero is on the button with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and ????????

Do you fold, call, or raise? If you raise, to what amount? What's your thought process behind your decision? What range of hands would you put the CO on at this point?

[b]The hand is continued here but make sure you read this post first, think about, and respond as to how you'd play so far.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

raise to 450.. CO could be trrapping, but i think most likely hero is ahead here... i put CO's range at [KK+,AKs,QJs,QJo,JTs,JTo,KJs,KJo,89s,9Ts, J9s, T8s, 57s, 56s, A5-A9o, A2-A9s]

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

[ QUOTE ]
raise to 450.. CO could be trrapping, but i think most likely hero is ahead here... i put CO's range at [KK+,AKs,QJs,QJo,JTs,JTo,KJs,KJo,89s,9Ts, J9s, T8s, 57s, 56s, A5-A9o, A2-A9s]

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

I would raise to around 550-650. My normal open raise on the button would be 400-450, but okay there is a limper. Raising to only 450 basically guarantees a call. I like to generally make raises that give my opponent a decision, instead of making poker easy for them. Raising to 550-650 should give the cutoff a difficult decision to make, whereas raising to 450 should convince the cutoff call the large majority of the time.

I think worrying about the cutoffs range is a bit much at this point. The stacks are so deep that he could have virtually anything. Even someone who seems tight may open limp with something like 74s from the cutoff seat with such deep stacks. Sometimes people start splashing around a bit more after the first hour anyway.

Calling preflop is OKAY and I'm sure I'd do it sometimes, but it's not my default play here. Everything is okay here from calling to raising less than I stated above or to making a larger raise. It's hard to go wrong, it's all a matter of style/image etc etc.

I'd say that folding or raising more than 1000 are where one can start to legitimately criticize the preflop play.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

Hero is on the button and should take advantage of his position, but the opener has a tighter range. Therefore I would be more tempted to flat call.

I would put villain on AA-55, AK/AT, Broadway suited connectors and speculative hands. Our range is a slight dog but our positional advantage makes up for it a little in that we can selectively "float" villain on board textures where it's called for.

Another thing to consider, however, is the effects of the flat call on the players in the blinds. Flat calling is going to encourage players like Miami John to come along or even reraise, whereas a preflop reraise will generally get it heads-up.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

I call because

1) Our hand plays well multiway, so I don't see much of a need to push out the blinds.
2) Perhaps the most important fact is that our stack size is huge, so we don't need the blinds and won't be anywhere near committing ourself if we're behind.
3) CO limp is suspicious, so we could be behind--we'll certainly have to fold to a limp reraise.
4) The blinds know that CO limp is suspicious, so they likely won't raise with hands that are worse than ours and scare us out.
5) We have position, which will make this marginal hand much easier to play postflop.
6) The flop is coming AAJ, and CO has JJ.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

CO is either weak or trapping. It is very hard to put him on a narrow range without more information here, but he's most likely not on a big pocket pair. Small to medium pocket pair, suited connectors and one gappers, strong Aces slowplayed are all possible.

We don't want to let the blinds in for cheaps (free), and it's meaningful to gain information from CO, inclusive give him a chance to fold without looking too stupid.

Pot t375 when it reaches us. I suggest a raise to t650, reducing CO's pot odds to 2:1 (if none of the blinds join in). A raise of t500 is probably a little more than CO will call automatically, so if he calls he's most likely got a hand of some kind.

If he comes over the top (or if any of the blinds do) it's easy to let the hand go.

If he calls we must proceed with uttermost care. In this case the pot will hold t1,525, and a possible continuation bet will in no way pot commit us.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

i agree with curtains

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

[ QUOTE ]
Hero is on the button and should take advantage of his position, but the opener has a tighter range. Therefore I would be more tempted to flat call.

I would put villain on AA-55, AK/AT, Broadway suited connectors and speculative hands. Our range is a slight dog but our positional advantage makes up for it a little in that we can selectively "float" villain on board textures where it's called for.

Another thing to consider, however, is the effects of the flat call on the players in the blinds. Flat calling is going to encourage players like Miami John to come along or even reraise, whereas a preflop reraise will generally get it heads-up.

[/ QUOTE ]

you know CO just limped right?


edit: and i change what i said, a bigger raise is better... like 550 shouhld be good.

Re: Play a Hand With the Masters #1
 

[ QUOTE ]
raise to 450.. CO could be trrapping, but i think most likely hero is ahead here... i put CO's range at [KK+,AKs,QJs,QJo,JTs,JTo,KJs,KJo,89s,9Ts, J9s, T8s, 57s, 56s, A5-A9o, A2-A9s]

[/ QUOTE ]
Your dismissing all pairs under KK?