Play a Hand With the Masters #3 Flop

[Temp Hutter]

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1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?


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In a tournament that starts players with deep stacks and raises the blinds slowly - I find it necessary to steal blinds just so that I can get action later. If my image is super tight I will never get paid when I actually have a hand. Later in the tournament when the blinds are more significant I can change my image to something tighter (there are enough table changes that this is usually easy to do). Nothing is worse than raising 3XBB with AA and only picking up T75 in blinds, then playing another 2 days without seeing aces again. You gotta give action to get action and blind stealing early is giving action.

[A_PLUS]

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1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?


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For me it usually depends on the site I am playing, the level, and the table composition. I am most aggressive at early levels playing UB, middle buy-in, tight tables. If you can even just play break-even poker while being laggish early on, you have a huge edge. You are seeing 2-3x the number of hands of a very tight player (more chance to get very lucky), and your image will allow you to get paid on your legit hands. On the other end of the spectrum, I am very tight on party low buy-in events. It is just not that hard to get paid off, so why risk it?

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2) What's your decision on the flop? Do you check or bet (and if so, how much)?

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I am generally making a CB here, hit or miss. I bet 90.

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3) What's your plan on the turn (if any) based on your decision on the flop, the villain's action, and what card comes?

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Assuming he calls the turn, I plan to bet 200 on the turn if he checks to me. I dont want to make ut too expensive if a bad player with AT wants to see the river, plus I am charging any draws the right price.

If the turn is something scary like the 8h, I am still betting, but now a fold is possible at some point in the hand.

[johnnybeef]

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You can see for cheap how they defend their blinds

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I see one thing wrong with this. Being so early, there is a very good chance that you will not be around them when the information will become most useful.

[A_PLUS]

I think we are all falling into the trap of catering our responses to the fact that we know there is MUCH more to the hand than is already shown.

Seriously, we just flopped 2p against a BB with a range of about 80% of the deck. Why are we worried about draws so much. Well, b/c it is hand with the masters of course.

In a real hand, it is going to take some serious action to make me consider a made flush (if the turn is a heart), even more for a straight. Put youself in the BB shoes here, we think the flop missed Strassa 75%+ of the time.

I believe it was the ever insightful woodguy that said that he ignores suits in HU pots. I am in the same boat. Like I said in my previous post, a card that completes 2 draws is going to make a fold a possibility, but Im not going to be ready to take my foot off the gas just yet.

[johnnybeef]

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1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?

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I like to see flops with hands like this early, but I don't usually raise, in fact, the only reason for raising is to buy position here.

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2) What's your decision on the flop? Do you check or bet (and if so, how much)?

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Standard line is to make a small continuation bet with the intention of calling a check raise and raising the turn assuming no heart comes off on the turn. I may check this to build a pot on the next street when my edge is more significant assuming a non draw happy card comes off.

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3) What's your plan on the turn (if any) based on your decision on the flop, the villain's action, and what card comes?

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see above

[tiffany]

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1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?

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I don't think its worth it to steal blinds this early. I'm hoping that by not stealing early, I'm furthering an image of a tight player. If I do raise in late position or on the button early in the tournament, I want to show down a good hand. Hopefully this will allow me to steal later on, when the blinds are higher. I don't understand why you would steal 10/20 blinds. The risk is too great for the meagre reward.

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2) What's your decision on the flop? Do you check or bet (and if so, how much)?

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If villain checks the flop, I'm betting. His call of 4 times the big blind suggests to me that he probably has a fairly decent/defendable starting hand, one that is not likely to have hit this flop very hard. A check re-inforces this. The pot is now 170. My normal sized bet would be about 2/3 of the pot (about 110). But I've been experimenting with smaller sized bets of just under or about 3/5 the pot and this seems just as effective early in a tournament where you have an isoloated caller to your raise. So I may try a slightly smaller bet of 95. If villain calls my flop bet, I start to get nervous. If villain check-raises my flop bet, I'm even more nervous; but will likely call down.

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3) What's your plan on the turn (if any) based on your decision on the flop, the villain's action, and what card comes?

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Although I'm getting nervious, my plan for the turn is:

If the turn is checked to me, I will bet a blank card (unless villain had check-raised the flop). I'll do this because if its checked to me, I believe I'm winning and I don't want to give a free card. My bet here would be to bet out 3/5 to 2/3 the pot. If villain tries a checkraise, I will probably flat call.

If the turn is checked to me and a danger card comes, I would be tempted to bet in order to know where I am and to not give villain a free card. But any worthwhile bet is going to force me to spend at least 200 more chips on middle two pair with straight and flush possibilities on the board. I'd prefer to keep the pot small, so if villain checks a danger card turn, I will probably check behind.

If villain bets a blank card on the turn, I raise.

If villain bets a danger card on the turn, I'm happy to call a small/medium bet; but will throw away my middle two pair if the bet is too large.

If villain check-raised the flop, I think I'm checking whatever comes on the turn.

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4) Any other thoughts at this point?

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These sorts of hands seem to be trouble hands (where there are so many cards that could come to beat you). I wonder if anyone else sees the advantage in trying to keep the pot smaller or if you think the smaller than standard flop bet of around 3/5 the pot is a tell for villain?

Tiffany

[nsj]

I won't be adding much that hasn't already been said:

I'm opening in MP/LP with SCs not to steal the blinds, but because we are fairly deep to start, and I have a hand that will be tough for the big blind to read if I hit a flop like this. Stealing with junk, at this level, I agree is not worth the risk/reward. 7s5s is not junk.

The raise is good. And so is the flop. I would bet 120 here, trying to make it look like a standard continuation bet that I'd make here 99% of the time.

If Villain check-raises this flop to 300 or so, I'm likely calling and seeing a turn in position, exercising pot control. If he calls, I'm firing a 250-300 bet on any turn except a 9, in which case I'll reconsider.

If Villain leads the turn, I call and see a river.

[Firefly]

1) A lot of people talk about playing tight early and don't try to steal blinds when they are this small. What do you think about blind stealing at this level? Would you do it and if so under what conditions?

I like the pf raise because we are really deep and most players in this tournament aren't great postflop players. People love to defend their BB and we can win a big pot if we hit big. Sometimes i'll raise stuff like T9s early if i feel that it could lead to a big pot. Not a standard play but if the table conditions are right, i'll go for it.

2) What's your decision on the flop? Do you check or bet (and if so, how much)?
Weee. Good flop, bet 100.


3)I think i'm betting just about every turn card if villan checks to me excepting a 6 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] or an 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] which i would check behind.

[SossMan]

The reason that you can raise here preflop w/ stacks this deep isn't to steal the blinds. It's to have a chance at stacking someone (and there are plenty of these players) who flops top pair and wants to go to war w/ it. You have position and all the implied odds. You are very rarely going to get a bunch of money in bad whereas your opponent certainly has that potential. And if you steal the blinds, so be it, you had 7 high.

Personally, I might limp there, but raising to 3x is good too, since it will often get you 4 free cards if you want them.

My plan is to bet out this flop and hope that BB caught a piece or wants to semi bluff. There is no reason to feel that we are behind at this point, so the trick is maximizing the money that gets in while were ahead. Our hand is pretty vulnerable to turn/river cards that either kill action or make us a second best hand, so I want to get some money in the pot asap.

Stacks are still deep enough that I don't really worry about a plan for a specific turn card until I get to that point. It's not like either of us are committing ourselves to the hand by betting/raising a certain amount on the flop anyway.

Bet 2/3 - 3/4 pot.

[adanthar]

I don't raise much with these types of hands early, but I'll occasionally open limp with them to play these same pots. I agree that it's just a style thing.

On this flop, I want to bet 80-100, call a raise and pop most turns.