Four Winds Live 200NL Intro and Hand #1

[marchron]

Hi, I'm Irish Mike, and I may be thinking about crossing to the dark side. Part of this is the standard limit player's lament, but a lot of my interest came from playing live at Four Winds last weekend and making $209 in 90 minutes at 200NL but making just barely that much in four days of 3/6 limit. And on Sunday I saw a guy with $1600 in front of him at that table. I'd like to be that guy. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'll be posting the three hands that really got me that money. In each of them I think I made fundamental mistakes, but hey, that's what we're here for, right? So berate at will. I can take it.

Here we go:

Live 1/2 NL

I'm in LMP with AJo. "Smoker" makes it $7 from EP. He seems pretty tight, having bought in for the max $200 and sat on his hands for most of the time. The two guys on my immediate right call. Caller #1 has been involved in a lot of pots preflop but has yet to take a single one to showdown, much less win. Caller #2 I called "Hector" in my TR. He's very fast and loose. Both of them have about $50 behind. I call with about $110 behind and everyone else folds.

Flop: ($31) A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
Smoker bets $10, Caller and Hector fold. I raise to $25, Smoker calls.

Turn: ($81) K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]
Smoker checks, I check behind.

River: ($81) Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]
Smoker checks, I check behind.


KEY DECISION POINTS:
1. Preflop coldcall. My whole reason for getting into this pot was to eventually go HU with the overplaying Hector. He'd be prone to push a lot of hands on the flop, and pairing up with either card would be more than enough to stand against his all-in range. The other two guys would probably fold. I was looking at about 74-7 in implied odds ($21 from the three $7 bets, $3 in blinds, $50 from the rest of Hector's stack).

If PNL disagrees with me, it's not by much. I've set up SPRs of just over 1.5 (50/31) against Hector and the other caller and just over 3.5 versus Smoker (110/31).

The problem is, while AJo is certainly favorable against the other two callers' ranges, is it too much of a dog against the deeper EP raiser to splash around here?


2. Flop raise. Is $25 a good amount into a pot that's now $41? Or should I have raised just slightly more to set up a shove on the turn? Raising to $25 left me $85 behind in a pot of $81. I don't know if he will call that much if I shove. However, if I raise to $30, that leaves me $80 in a pot that's $91, and he may call that. But the downside is he may not call the flop raise.


3. Turn and river checkbehinds. Had any non-[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] card below a J shown up, I'm obviously happy to get my money in. However, the turn K changed things, as AK and KK now beat me again. The river Q didn't do me any favors, either, as AQ, QQ, AT, and TT all got there.

I did not want to shove myself after that disaster turn. After I raised the flop, if the K helped Villain he's probably waiting for me to bet so he can check/raise me all-in. I didn't want to walk into that trap. On the river, while it's an easy bet/fold, I can't think of a single hand I beat that would pay off a bet except maybe KQ. Most of the time I bet that, I'm just throwing money away.


Okay, that's Hand #1. Flame away.