Moving the focus

So played some sng today which went pretty bad but this time mtt I played on side went to the end. Made something like 600-700€ from it. Not sure exactly as it was PSKO. But anyway on end part of it there was quite a few interesting hands I could write little bit. Hand histories in awkward way because of no tracking site...

I were chip leader for decent amount of time from mid part to final 3 tables. Then went bit down but this double up moved me into second:



This was perfect timing and just setup overall. Villain had AQo. But I had made 3bet with A5s on previous orbit in same BUvsCO spot. So getting KK was pretty great as villain might think like: "Really?!". But yeah as said villain had real hand as well.


This was at FT. I had played decently tight with pretty cold deck and player on my left being calling machine. So minraised preflop and BU and BB calls. BB had been active and seemed like competent player.

Flop and turn are pretty standard. In river I dont really think I beat any of villain value range but I do have some nice blockers versus stron two pairs and nut flush. BB has wide range of hands and probably he wont fold sets (88, 55) or better but I thought he can easily value bet at least KQ+ and he has lot of two pairs. All of those are in nasty spot versus shove. It is PSKO but overall my 30€ bounty probably wont matter that much for good player when facing big shove imo.

 

This was versus same opponent. What are your thoughts of sizings I used here? So standard open preflop. Small cbet on dry flop to protect and value. Turn gives me practical nuts as villain never has KK or 75. So I went for around 80% bet and similar on the river. I did think also shoving river but thought that it might be bit too much. But perhaps bit over pot would have been fine as well. Its just that to be honest I dont have that many semibluffs overall on turn. Mainly some diamond combos.

Sort of funny thing on my river size is that 88800... I honestly didnt notice it when making the bet. Used mouse wheel to roll into ok feeling size. Then noticed later and though that maybe I did it unconsciously

 

So then to HU versus same opponent. HU actually started really deep. I think we had close to 100bb both at some point. I had been 3betting quite a lot.

So KJs pretty decent hand to 3bet some portion of time. Flop is pretty ugly. I do have some nutty hands like 88, 99, 89s, 67s some portion of time but overall this is lot better flop for BU. But I thought I have pretty good amount of nice turn cards as well so cbet is still fine. Also check-calling is bit awkward as if villain bets I wouldnt imagine him to do it that small necessarily.

Turn gives me huge amount of equity with double gutshot and flush draw. So I went for bet-call line. River is decent as I hit top pair and will beat all of villain bluff catch combos. So decided to value shove but no call.

 

This was lucky hand for me. So standard preflop play. Flop gives mid pair and strong draw but I dont see too much point in betting in 3bet pot. Also nice deception to have hand like this if flush completes and its hard to get multiple street of value with weak Kx if not improving.

So turn is really nice as it give me nuts. Villain bets and I just call. If he is bluffing I want to allow him to do it and if he has Qx I can get value from it in river as well. Plus this way my call range is not capped and I think its bit tough to really have that much bluffs here. I dont really want to bloat the pot with some 9dXx.

In river villain makes more sizable bet and easy shove obviously. Villain having Qd makes it mandatory call for him.But basically his hand is still just bluff catcher. I either have air or flush here.




This was last hand. Sort of ugly runout as villain might have some 4x in his value range. But yeah have to call.

 

Heh pretty absurd hand moment ago:

 

Sorry I were on holiday trip for week. I think unibet has pretty bad players and also low rake with good blind structure. So main problem tends to be just low volume. Have not tried those sites you mentioned.

 

Few hands from today session:

Pretty nasty spot in 50 sng in bubble today.

BU, hero: 3870
SB: 2900
BB: 3275

Blinds 60/120

Hero raise to 240, SB fold, BB shoves, hero?

So we face 27bb shove and we can usually be pretty sure villain wont have biggest pockets so I would tend to discount those and some of AK combos. Run with some sort of range http://hands.holdemresources.net/?id=1doe9jza6rr0f and it seems even AQo might be hand to fold as default. AJ I would have folded for sure. Unfortunately villain had AKo here.

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This was one of funny hands versus random player. I open raised here pretty loose considering shallow stacks but BB had been passive so I dont mind to play nice playable hand from position. SB was more reggy pretty aggro guy though so maybe this open was bit optimistic tbh. But we have almost straight flush so...

CO: 1480
BU, hero: 2750
SB: 2800
BB: 1390

Blinds 60/120

Hand

Preflop: Co fold, Hero raise to 240, SB fold, BB call

Flop (540)
BB shoves 1140, Hero?

So cannot be too happy about this flop spot. Villain will turn with 8x, 5x, 2x, 76, 79, random overcard hands here though so I think call is ok. We do block 76 but at same time we have backdoor flush and straight draws to give some equity. But lets use equilab:

If we put villain on range of A8s,A5s,A2s,K8s,Q8s,J8s,97s+,76s,A8o,A5o,A2o,KJo,K8o,QJo,Q8o,J8o,97o,87o so we have good amount of top pairs, some 5x and some 2x plus some sensible semibluffs and some weird overcards. Versus this range we have 47.55% equity so if this is close call is pretty easy to make. Usually I would just not assume villain to have e.g. two pairs here as those are very rarely played like this. We probably want bit over 40% equity here with the ICM side. So not spot to be thrilled about but I am fine with call. Villain turned with random KJo here. Solid line!

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This last hand was pretty nasty, interesting and tormenting in many ways. So we have very nasty stack setup from my view.

BU: 15
SB, hero: 4060
BB: 5920

Blinds 60/120

Hand

Preflop: BU folds, Hero?

So we have first major decision point here preflop. We 34bb deep with BU having 0.1bb left. So stacking off is basically disaster preflop. Out of curiosity I checked this spot as shove or fold and our range would be 3.9%, QQ+ AQs+ A5s-A3s AKo if BB call 2.2%, KK+ AKs AKo (not gonna happen) and AQs would be breakeven. So shoving is not too sensible with anything really.

Also open raising is pretty horrible idea as well we probably cant call versus shove without AA. So this is spot where we want to just open fold 90% of hands probably and limp remaining ones or something like that. So I went with limp-call plan. Limp-shove would give bit more reward compared to open shove and probably fine option as I think this BB was going to raise extremely wide. But we are still over 30bb deep so not thrilled about it either. With 20bb or bit more I would likely go with it.

Preflop: BU folds, Hero calls, BU raises to 360, Hero call

Flop (720)
Hero check, BB bets 360, Hero calls

Flop was great for me and calling is only option.

Turn (1420)
Hero check, BB bets 730, Hero calls

Turn is ok but it does bring 3x straight possibility which is definitely possible as BB could be raising any2 preflop. But at same time his range when we come to turn has shitload of shit so to say. So while we dont love it we have to call.

River (2880)
Hero check, BB check

So river comes and its great one basically as now hand like AK is less likely. Maybe villain could have some random K2 type hand that improves with this but mainly if we were good on turn we are going to still be good here. Obviously I hope villain check but this is also spot where one just have to have balls and call if villain shoves imo.

Because if we think of our range. I wont have that many two pairs. AK but weak Ax are something I might just open fold. Maybe play Axs though. Thinking about sets I could have... Hmm well its sort of tricky. We are deep enough that set mine with small pockets versus 3bb preflop raise would make some sense. So yeah that including with fact that I would probably play same way with AA and KK. So maybe AQ would be fold overall. At least if I have those small sets. If not then its probably call from my range view. Obviously such special spot that not sure what I could have

But we had bit less than pot behind so I was going to hero call versus shove. Villain did check and showed down with 76o so he had very solid semibluff combo.

But yeah its rare when I feel nasty to get AQs on SB and its folded to me but this was definitely one of those times

 

Problem of minraising from SB in general is that if BB is even somewhat capable player he can defend really wide profitably overall as without antes he gets 1:3 pot odds from position. Because of that I tend to open 3bb with over 40bb stacks and with shallower around 2.5bb.In games without antes. With antes sizes should be bit bigger.

In this particular spot if I do raise small villain can shove wide as my inducing range is AA. Well general pool would probably raise-call bit wider but yeah raise-call will still be very narrow range. Also if I do raise and face smaller 3bet what my plan is going to be? 4bet shove over 30bb in this stack setup and hope best? Call and hope to hit something being OOP in bloated pot? So overall as ICM sort of has hanging rope on our neck keeping pot as small as possible is my best interest. But I still want to play something so limping is most sensible option with all of that range pretty quickly.

Sure we do end up in lot of nasty postflop situations and sometimes it turns ugly. But at the same time its best possibility to get villain to spew by bluffing too much. Some regs might raise any2 preflop and triple barrel lot of runouts with totally unbalanced ranges with idea of "YOU CANNOT CALL!"´. Which is the reason I am quite hesitant to fold hand like I had. Villain in hand played his hand very well imo. Created nice shove stack for river if he decides to triple barrel but his hand probably didnt make much sense for it.

PS: If I do raise small in that spot I obviously have strong range but if I still minraise solid player will be still calling wide and look to find spots to take the pot away postflop. E.g. is board comes low or mid cards BB range will have way more nutty stuff like 2 pairs etc. that I am unlikely to have.

 

Yeas it was bubble with 65/35 pricepool so by losing stack here it would have been just honor of being bubble boy!

 

So lets take one other hand here.



I defended versus preflop raise. Cant remember sizing anymore but probably 2-3bb. Called flop cbet obviously. I would fold some of weaker 8x btw as this is very coordinated board that is usually not cbetted with all sort of crap. E.g. like 87o without diamond and such. Any Tx is likely too strong to fold. But here I have solid kicker with top pair and backdoor draws so this is definitely not fold versus any normal cbet size. I suppose it cbet is like pot size its reasonable to fold, maybe.

In turn Ad itself is ok card. Sure villain can have stuff like TT, QQ, AA, AQ that I wont have in my flatting range pre. But I can also have nutty hands like lot of flushes, J9 occasionally, KJ and also some AT, A8. Those two pairs are sort of reasonable shove hands here also. But any type of mediocre two pairs if I dont raise flop will be just call hands. Also some of flushes or like KdJx are ok to call only to keep strong hands in there. But weaker flushes I would just shove as those need some protection and by shoving some of strong hands I can also mix in bluffs. Like hand I had here.

When I have Kd I block obviously some of strong stuff from villain like nut flush or KJ or AxKd that are always calling shove. But one of bigger points is also fact that it guarantees at least 7 (but likely more) outs for me in any situation which is pretty nice to have when you make bluff shoves. Also I think villain has better good amount of time but if he is betting hand like KQ or AJ he is in pretty nasty spot when facing shove overall. He can also sometimes have like Jd7s type of hand that I am actually ahead of but if I just call turn its pretty nasty to call any river if its not diamond. Even 8 giving trips is not awesome but would obviously call that with blocker as support. But like K would give only bluff catcher. So I decided to just use this as semibluff hand and give honor of decision to my opponent. Making my life sort of easier in process.

PS: Villain did fold this time.

 

Couple hands from today session:

One of basic preflop calling spots. I thought its borderline in nash and well it was -0.01% if BU shoves 31.6%, 22+ A2s+ A3o+ K5s+ KTo+ Q8s+ QTo+ J7s+ JTo T7s+ 97s+ 87s 76s. It was versus pretty active villain so I dont hate the call but folding likely bit better. Even regs tend to be on bit tight side in these spots in this site imo.




This was probably sort of funniest hands in a while. So I defended preflop and check-called flop. Turn went checked and in river decided to check. Thing with recreational players is that they will usually bet any full house on this river (which is reasonable) but they very rarely bet.fold those to any sizing. So versus unknown or fishy people I love to make overshoves in these spots. Well this is not really even that deep but even if we double stacks depth shove would likely be optimal line. But this has also nice side that I do allow villain to bluff so I might get bet from some J high or busted flush draw. If villain does bet any full house then I mainly lose value versus A high that would likely call versus bet decent amount of time. Villain snap called my shove with 45s this time.



This next hand is sort of bad beat one. Because river is like jackpot for villain here. I were pretty certain villain has pocket pair as he open raised preflop and checked flop. I bet turn and river. Villain turns 88 with club. Not bad line overall from villain and he had 11 outs but the nasty side is that any club and I would have check-folded so there was only two 8 that could get villain value. Well also 4 for split pot.

 

Have started to do some streams on my youtube channel: Jari Koski

Though so far it has been only in Finnish but if someone is interested please feel free to inform me. Using English now and then in those is no problem. Have been playing sng on unibet recently mostly.

 

Going to stream starting 18:00 today on my channel: Unibet weekly tuesday sng session - YouTube