In this post we take a look at some examples of playing too nitty, it can be an easy mistake to make when just getting into poker, we have a good hand but the action is so much that we think we will be beaten with our holding too often…
Some of these hands are from cash games and one if is taken from a WSOPE final table, so the tactics are a little different between these two disciplines of Poker, in cash games we just want to be making good +EV decisions with our hands and not being too worried about losing a bullet or two to variance, whereas on a final table there can be some other considerations like ICM to take into account.
Middle Set with two All-ins
In this pot amateur Calacanis Raises the flop against Mosseri’s lead of $3,000 to $13,000 to which Doyle Brunson makes a near All-in sized raise of $83,000… action gets back to Mosseri who decides to move all-in making his decision looking as if he is gambling, shrugging his shoulders moving all-in with an “Oh Well… here goes” type of gesture.
Action is then on Calacanis, who has a tough spot here with his Set, typically when we see this kind of action we should be up against a straight in the hands of at least one of our opponents’ hands.
Let’s look at some math here…
If our opponents have the nut flush draw and the nut straight we still have 35.55% equity here, so with our $13,000 in the pot already plus the pre-flop action we are getting easily the right price to stack off here… especially in games where players are running it more than once, we could run this board 3 times and look to win one or two of the boards.
So if this is pretty much the worst-case scenario where we need the board to pair and we still have huge equity in the pot and then in this exact case we have 57% equity, then we need to be making this call in the long run because we can apparently have 35-57% equity at all times, the only hand that has us in trouble is a set of Jacks which Calacanis announces to the table he is scared of…
But we can’t play scared in Poker of just one hand or dip out of pots where we are getting a good math spot against our opponent’s hands, it’s gambling! If we aren’t willing to buckle up once in a while then why are we even playing?!
Folding Kings
This hand is taken from a Live at the Bike with another Billionaire Amateur putting in a limp 5-Bet with J♥ J♦
Let’s look at the action:
UTG: Garrett raises to $600 with A♦ 3♦
HJ: Bill calls $600 with J♥ J♦
CO: Jacky then 3-Bets to $3,500 with K♥ K♣
UTG: Action is then back to Garrett who 4-Bets to $10,000
HJ: Bill then Makes a 5-Bet to $27,000
Now all this action looks pretty scary, right?
Occasionally our opponent might have Aces, but we can’t just play Poker fearing just one hand, our opponent always has a range of hands… Bill is doing this with Jacks, so he would definitely do this with pocket Queens, Kings and Ace-King suited too and if he is playing a balanced strategy maybe he is mixing in some bluffs too!
Let’s look at a potential range for Bill here:
We have to think of the dynamic a little and the thought process of amateurs in these spots, they will just see someone who 4-Bets aggressively and think I am going to re-raise with this hand, they don’t think in conventional terms of whether they are over-playing their hand or if their holding will play well in a 5-Bet pot against their opponents range, they just click buttons!
Yet another buckle and up and put the money in spot, there is little point in us raising in this spot with the Kings, but our hand is way too strong to fold, so calling here and keeping all our opponent’s worse holdings and bluffs in the pot is important.
Folding Sets in Tournaments
This hand is taken from the WSOPE main event where Maria Ho is sitting on around 49BBs with 790,000 chips… with 8 players remaining Maria is sat in 5th at the time of the hand.
HJ: Kempe raises to 34,000 9♥ 9♣
BTN: Bicknell calls 34,000 with A♠ J♠
SB:Farrell: 3-Bets to 152,000 with A♥ K♣
BB: Maria cold calls Farrell’s 3-Bet with her T♣ T♦
We get all four opponents that entered the pot initially flat calling too and we see the flop four-way…
Flop: T♥ 7♥ J♥
A good flop our exact hand here in Maria’s seat, we are going to have hands like pockets Aces, Kings and Queens in jail on this board with our set.
The likelihood of someone flopping a flush is 117.78 : 1 or as a percentage 0.842%
So we can’t be scared of this outcome, especially as there is a Jack and a Ten of hearts on this board, limiting the number of suited broadways that get to the flop, hands like JTs QTs QJs KTs KJs ATs AJs in hearts are now all impossible on this flop, so the only real combinations of hearts left are KQs AQs and AKs.
Would Farrell just open over-bet jam with a flopped flush though? Surely a bet-call or check-raise line would be more in order especially with either AQs or AKs flopping the nuts…
His hand is almost face up in this spot as a strong hand with a strong draw that is willing to put the pressure on his opponents. So let’s look at how Maria’s flopped set does against this range…
If we look at some hands that Farrell will have here that contain a heart we will have around 63% equity in this pot, because he is only making this move with hands like QQ, KK, AA & AKo that contain a heart.
So in short we just need to be calling here, although there are ICM implications in play we cannot just give up a huge edge in this pot we need to be looking for edges to play for the win, in tournaments all the money is stacked in the top spots so the most aggressive players on the final tables will always come away with the most money.
If we are just playing passively on final tables, we will just end up getting middle of the road finishes…
Maria had a huge spot here to win a massive stack and become the tournament chip leader with 8 players left, sadly she ended up passing up this spot and ended up getting 6th place… but is there really much difference between getting $113k or $202k… we need to be aiming for the sky here and trying to win the $1.3M for first place!
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