Live Grind: How to Fall Asleep at the Table (Without Getting Caught)

[Matt Vaughan]

83: All good. Not sure what he can raise there either, so I wouldn't get crazy with it. Physical read on the river makes it even better. Also, I got a kick out of "loose open (for me)." I think 83s is a loose play for anyone...

53: Now THAT'S a loose call haha. Anyway, idk if I'm a fan of post flop. I'd much prefer if you had at least two over cards also. If you get called, you're in a pretty terrible spot on the turn, and you can't check back for a free card if you miss because you're OOP. I think the paired board makes it even more marginal too.

76: Played well. You could probably bet larger on the river. If he's at all capable of hand reading/thinking, it'll be pretty tough for him to put you on any straight.

hand 1: looks good

Hand 2: As mentioned, dependent on stack sizes but seems fine

Hand 3: Good thinking the whole way, I play it exactly the same

Thanks for input guys!! A few more hands incoming tomorrow or tonight if I feel ambitious.

 

[duggs]

im innnnnnnnnn, finally, i won't post on hands you have already discussed but post a new batch

 

[Matt Vaughan]

Ask and ye shall receive:

Hand 1

Preflop:
Two limpers, and tight reg from 53hh hand where I x/r flop makes it $30 in MP. I make it $90 to go, and it folds back around to MP. He tanks a while and flats. We have $900ish behind.

Flop: ($190) (2 players)
I bet $115, and villain thinks for a short while and calls. He could be floating with an A-high, but more likely he's got a PP of some kind in his hand. Probably 77-JJ, give or take one on either end.

Turn: ($420) (2 players)
I bet $240, and villain thinks for a long while before calling. At this point I'm just a hair concerned that maybe he'd slow-play KK or AA preflop and was considering jamming the turn. But I think it's unlikely he does it that often, and probably never with KK, for fear of an A flopping. More likely he is very on the fence about fold vs. call with a smaller overpair.

River: ($900) (2 players)
I tank for a while, trying to decide if he's really going to fold JJ after calling twice, but I feel like I look like I never have air in this spot when I 3b and triple barrel jam OOP on a board that doesn't change much at all. I verbally go all in (I cover villain's ~$500 remaining stack).

Spoiler

Villain tanks for a long time and folds.

Hand 2

Preflop:
Folds to HJ, who I don't have any reads on other than he is friendly with the regs, who know him. HJ makes it $20, and I make it $70 on the BTN. Folds back to HJ, who calls.

Flop: ($140) (2 players)
Villain checks, and I bet $80. Probably too small on this wet of a board. Villain calls.

Turn: ($300) (2 players)
Villain checks, and I decide to check behind. Even though I don't think villain has all that much 4x in his range, I'm not really sure what his range is, and I'd prefer to value bet the river or call a bet than bet and make my hand fairly face up. (In retrospect I probably have to bet/fold on this board, again because of how wet the board is.) I check it back.

River: ($300) (2 players)
Villain pretty quickly bets $200. I'm not sure what to make of his sizing, but feel like I have to call since I'm virtually at the top of my range. But his line is also pretty consistent with front door flush draws that got there, and I'm not convinced he'd value bet something like TT here. In the end though, I just feel like I repped too much weakness by checking back the turn, so I call.

Spoiler

Villain shows A4ss for a flopped gutter and turned straight.

Hand 3

Preflop:
Two limps to me and I make it $30 in the SB. Both limpers call. Both are loose passive pre.

Flop: ($85) (3 players)
I'm instantly lost about what to do OOP here. Both of them have tons of Ax in their range, and plenty of hands that will peel with a high spade where I will be pretty clueless on turns. Even though x/f feels really weak, I'm not sure cbetting makes much sense. I check, and it checks around.

Turn: ($85) (3 players)
I check, the first limper checks, and the overlimper bets $45. His sizing feels pretty weak to me, and since I have pretty solid equity against most ranges, not to mention a good price, I call.

River: ($175) (3 players)
There's now a straight on board, and I'm utterly confused about what to do. I could bet big to try to get villain to fold chops, but I doubt he's folding often enough. As I'm trying to decide what to do, villain bets $105 out of turn. If I check, his bet will stand, or I can bet and he'll have all his normal options. I briefly consider trying to bet smaller than $105 to get my price to try to chop the pot, but villain might figure out what I'm doing, and raise me off of chops, which would be a disaster. I check, and call.

Spoiler

Villain says "straight," and looks at my expectantly without showing his hand. I say "me too..." He keeps looking at me, so I turn over my hand, and he turns over 63dd for a turned straight. (Same player who slowrolled me in a very similar situation a few weeks before - I was not pleased.)

 

[IPlay]

Are you playing only 2/5 now Scourrage?

 

[Ubercroz]

#1: Feels pretty ballsy. I actually had to read it twice to realize you 3bet pre. He is a tight Reg, and as long as he isn't feeling curious I think you should be pretty good to 3 barrel that board. If he has like 88, TT, or JJ I think its pretty likely he is folding. I think QQ beats enough stuff that he may look you up. I'm not sure what the dynamic is between you and what he thinks you 3bet with, so you may be better more often than I think.

#2 that looks like a fat value bet. I think I would have a hard time making this call. It just seems like a lot gets there by the river and you are basically playing a bluff catcher. I have a hard time thinking someone is value betting TT here, given how wet that board is. Sets, flushes, strange 2 pair, and the odd straight are more common than a TT going to value town, I think he is just more likely to check it and hope for showdown. Part of the trouble is you while you are at the top of your range, your whole range is close to the same in this spot. TT-AA, AK, AQ are all very very similar given how this played out. I think b/f the turn is the right move.

#3 I don't know on this one either man. I probably do my best to check it down, I may fold to the turn. We have outs to the flush, and it may be the best flush on the board, it feels like there is just going to be trouble. We are getting almost exactly a perfect pot odds call here, which means that if someone has a Ks or a Qs (possible KTo or QTo etc.) in their range we are not going to be good as often as we need to for this pay off. a J may still make us good, but its a thin out if someone has the made flush. It just seems like the turn call is going to get you in trouble more often than it will get you paid off.
As it turned out the river was the worst card you could get. It looks pretty clear you lost your plan once the flop hit, and were trying to find your way out. Folding the turn is a good way out of this situation, imho.

 

[duggs]

AK i mean its a good candidate to bluff so I'm fine with it,

JJ i want to fold just cause we have so few 6s in our range and he does, so I'm ok letting him bluff us off stuff.

AA i mean its not the top of our range, we have enough flush combos, and 99, i probably just fold tho, his range beats ours, sucks but i don't opt to bluff catch unless we at least have a d blocker,

 

[Matt Vaughan]

Are you playing only 2/5 now Scourrage?

My roll is actually a hair over 10k, so I'm sitting on about 20 BI's for 2/5. Not to say I never play 1/2, but I was pretty comfy having 2/5 as my main game. But, I just graduated from university, so no more live poker, at least for a while. There're no casinos in Massachusetts (where I'm from), and just a dinky little electronic card room in Madison, Wisconsin (where I'll be going in July and where I'll be for the foreseeable future). I'll use this thread to do updates through the wsop, then go from there. If I end up playing in the card room a lot I'll keep posting hands. If not, it'll likely be the natural death of the thread unfortunately.

#1: Feels pretty ballsy. I actually had to read it twice to realize you 3bet pre. He is a tight Reg, and as long as he isn't feeling curious I think you should be pretty good to 3 barrel that board. If he has like 88, TT, or JJ I think its pretty likely he is folding. I think QQ beats enough stuff that he may look you up. I'm not sure what the dynamic is between you and what he thinks you 3bet with, so you may be better more often than I think.

#2 that looks like a fat value bet. I think I would have a hard time making this call. It just seems like a lot gets there by the river and you are basically playing a bluff catcher. I have a hard time thinking someone is value betting TT here, given how wet that board is. Sets, flushes, strange 2 pair, and the odd straight are more common than a TT going to value town, I think he is just more likely to check it and hope for showdown. Part of the trouble is you while you are at the top of your range, your whole range is close to the same in this spot. TT-AA, AK, AQ are all very very similar given how this played out. I think b/f the turn is the right move.

#3 I don't know on this one either man. I probably do my best to check it down, I may fold to the turn. We have outs to the flush, and it may be the best flush on the board, it feels like there is just going to be trouble. We are getting almost exactly a perfect pot odds call here, which means that if someone has a Ks or a Qs (possible KTo or QTo etc.) in their range we are not going to be good as often as we need to for this pay off. a J may still make us good, but its a thin out if someone has the made flush. It just seems like the turn call is going to get you in trouble more often than it will get you paid off.
As it turned out the river was the worst card you could get. It looks pretty clear you lost your plan once the flop hit, and were trying to find your way out. Folding the turn is a good way out of this situation, imho.

AK i mean its a good candidate to bluff so I'm fine with it,

JJ i want to fold just cause we have so few 6s in our range and he does, so I'm ok letting him bluff us off stuff.

AA i mean its not the top of our range, we have enough flush combos, and 99, i probably just fold tho, his range beats ours, sucks but i don't opt to bluff catch unless we at least have a d blocker,

Glad we don't hate AK, because I felt good about it at the time and then was less sure after since he mega-tanked.

Consensus on JJ and AA seems pretty unanimous, which is good. I was very on edge about both in-game, and have felt like I've been making thin calls too often. Good to see that people are seeing some consistency of the calls being too thin (-EV).

That's all the hands for now, but I may go into my online DB to get some in the next few days. Then very early July will be my vegas trip - hopefully a lot of cash, along with the Little Drop. Undoubtedly some hands will come out of that. Then, hopefully the poker room in Madison doesn't suck lol.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

an its not the top of our range, we have enough flush combos, and 99, i probably just fold tho, his range beats ours, sucks but i don't opt to bluff catch unless we at least have a d blocker,

Also, I'm prob actually more likely to bet 99-JJ twice than QQ-AA cause of overcards coming, and I probably double barrel most of my FD's with overs (and how many combos of those do I have pre when I 3b?).

But he prob doesn't ever have enough air in this spot so it's fine to make an exploitable fold, and we can bluff-catch on different runouts.

 

[Mr Sandbag]

Sorry for the lack of input. I read through the hands and realized we pretty much went over all of them haha.

I hope the thread doesn't die like you say it might.

 

[duggs]

I'm probably checking all over pairs, and some flush draws, on the river even having a diamond blocker makes it a better calling candidate, so rather catch with JdJ than AA

 

[Matt Vaughan]

I'm probably checking all over pairs, and some flush draws, on the river even having a diamond blocker makes it a better calling candidate, so rather catch with JdJ than AA

Wait, what the heck are you betting on the turn then? Zero sets in my range. So are you only betting AXdd and pure air? That feels like it's prob bad. I'm also not sure we should be checking back our whole range OTT either. If the answer here is that I should widen my 3betting range pre then okay, maybe lol. But otherwise I'm betting nothing OTT.

Sorry for the lack of input. I read through the hands and realized we pretty much went over all of them haha.

I hope the thread doesn't die like you say it might.

No prob. It's always weird cause I like to get input in the moment, so we go over a lot of hands that I end up putting in here. And yeah I hope it doesn't die either, but if there's as little a live poker scene in Madison as it seems, there won't be much to talk about! I will definitely be looking to get into home games once I move though, so hopefully something will materialize there.

 

[Ubercroz]

Wait, what the heck are you betting on the turn then? Zero sets in my range. So are you only betting AXdd and pure air? That feels like it's prob bad. I'm also not sure we should be checking back our whole range OTT either. If the answer here is that I should widen my 3betting range pre then okay, maybe lol. But otherwise I'm betting nothing OTT.

Well, it's not impossible that there is a board where you WOULD check your entire range OTT. And this is pretty close to it. I don't think 3betting wider is the answer, especially if people are calling your 3bets wide.

But it is okay to give up on a hand when the board just doesn't work out. Air and AXdd may be a fine turn betting range. It's a situation that is going to come up rarely, and it will be hard for people to abuse you as a result.

The real question is, what will betting other parts of your range OTT do to help you?

 

[duggs]

betting Axdd KQdd A4 45 78, maybe bet AAd KKd and some Adx hands, but not betting un diamonded over pairs.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

Well, it's not impossible that there is a board where you WOULD check your entire range OTT. And this is pretty close to it. I don't think 3betting wider is the answer, especially if people are calling your 3bets wide.

But it is okay to give up on a hand when the board just doesn't work out. Air and AXdd may be a fine turn betting range. It's a situation that is going to come up rarely, and it will be hard for people to abuse you as a result.

The real question is, what will betting other parts of your range OTT do to help you?

I'm not sure if you're just playing devil's advocate here. I think it's clear that betting overpairs still gets some value, and if I'm only betting AXdd and air then he can x/r his entire range on the turn and profit like mad. Or he can x/c super wide and do anything on the river and it's basically correct. I don't think it's that hard for people to adjust to that. This exact situation is rare, true, but I think people are going to start doing tough things to me if they know my check-back range is strong and my betting range is weak.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

betting Axdd KQdd A4 45 78, maybe bet AAd KKd and some Adx hands, but not betting un diamonded over pairs.

Except that A4 isn't in my range, probably. Maybe A4s I guess. 54 definitely isn't, and 78 isn't unless I have a particular read on someone and it's BTN vs. CO or something. So that's AQ/AKdd, A2-A5dd, A4s, AdAx, KdKx, and possibly AdKx. Maybe that's plenty of combos, not really sure. It's around 15-20 combos since I still doubt I barrel A4s non diamonds, so probably works out fine I guess.

 

[duggs]

I'm not sure if you're just playing devil's advocate here. I think it's clear that betting overpairs still gets some value, and if I'm only betting AXdd and air then he can x/r his entire range on the turn and profit like mad. Or he can x/c super wide and do anything on the river and it's basically correct. I don't think it's that hard for people to adjust to that. This exact situation is rare, true, but I think people are going to start doing tough things to me if they know my check-back range is strong and my betting range is weak.

i you don't bet that many hands its not automatically unbalanced tho.

and the whole reason that I'm advocating having a wide checking range is because his range beats ours on this texture

 

[duggs]

i mean villain can just check raise us like mad on turn because we have such a capped range anyway, spec wit Ad in his hand

 

[Ubercroz]

I'm not sure if you're just playing devil's advocate here. I think it's clear that betting overpairs still gets some value, and if I'm only betting AXdd and air then he can x/r his entire range on the turn and profit like mad. Or he can x/c super wide and do anything on the river and it's basically correct. I don't think it's that hard for people to adjust to that. This exact situation is rare, true, but I think people are going to start doing tough things to me if they know my check-back range is strong and my betting range is weak.

There is a little devil's advocate in this. But, at the same time I think that the value you get from betting overpairs is somewhat thin, on the turn.

Clearly you bet the flop, but on the turn it seems like there is a lot that can go wrong on the river, and you may already be behind.

Lets think, what hands are calling that turn bet for you to get value? I don't think any naked pairs are calling, or at least not often. Are TT-QQ going to call? So if the hands you beat don't call, then why are we betting?

I actually think your check back range is not strong, its mediocre. your betting range is polarized though. If you are betting flushes and air and checking medium strength hands, then you are doing fine. You're in position so you get to do that.

I mean, if you bet here and you get a x/r you fold too. At least if you do it with flushes and air then some of the time he x/r then you can call or shove.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

@duggs: I don't really agree that his range beats ours on this texture. It'd be a thin bet, for sure. But he can't have us crushed if his preflop range is anything reasonable. If it's not though, he prob can have us crushed.

Fwiw, I don't think many unknown villains think much about having the Ad and what that means in terms of blocking combos. Unknowns usually aren't super strong regs - otherwise I would have run into them by now (smallish player pool). Still a good thing to keep in mind vs. strong villains though, so thanks for the reminder.

@Uber: I think 2/5 ranges are pretty wide even on weird textures, but meh. Also, it's not like I'm betting turn to try to jam river. If I value bet turn I'm basically always checking back river with overpairs.

Also, how can I have a flush OTT? Did you mean flush draw? I'm kind of lost in your last few sentences because of that.

 

[Ubercroz]

@Uber: I think 2/5 ranges are pretty wide even on weird textures, but meh. Also, it's not like I'm betting turn to try to jam river. If I value bet turn I'm basically always checking back river with overpairs.

Also, how can I have a flush OTT? Did you mean flush draw? I'm kind of lost in your last few sentences because of that.

2/5 ranges can be pretty wide, it may be different where you play, but I don't find it THAT different from 1/2. I might be mixing hands here a little - but I thought you 3bet which narrows ranges down (or at least should) considerably.

I'm sorry I did mean a flush draw, sorry for the confusion I was "multi-tasking" (aka not doing anything at a high level) so that probably added to you losing your way.

 

[xdeucesx]

lol @ hand 3...probably a fold but wow I almost want to call just because it could be that poor of an angle.

Hand 1: Look alright. If he's a competent player, I'm kinda unsure with it since like you rep AA/KK or a complete airball with AK/AQ etc. I think it's fine since your weighted towards nut hands but if he's a huge station/plays with you often, he might be able to find a call w/88 and such if he think's your capable of firing three barrels on such a dry board.

 

[Matt Vaughan]

2/5 ranges can be pretty wide, it may be different where you play, but I don't find it THAT different from 1/2. I might be mixing hands here a little - but I thought you 3bet which narrows ranges down (or at least should) considerably.

I'm sorry I did mean a flush draw, sorry for the confusion I was "multi-tasking" (aka not doing anything at a high level) so that probably added to you losing your way.

I did 3bet. I was saying his range was wide, not my own. And fwiw 2/5 plays extremely differently from 1/2 at the Cleveland Horseshoe. And no worries on typo, I often multi-task or get randomly distracted and miss entire words (that matter much more than in this instance lol)

lol @ hand 3...probably a fold but wow I almost want to call just because it could be that poor of an angle.

Hand 1: Look alright. If he's a competent player, I'm kinda unsure with it since like you rep AA/KK or a complete airball with AK/AQ etc. I think it's fine since your weighted towards nut hands but if he's a huge station/plays with you often, he might be able to find a call w/88 and such if he think's your capable of firing three barrels on such a dry board.

I think my image vs. him is pretty tight. He's seen me get aggro in 3bet pots before, but I've never shown down air when I've done so. A few days before, a couple players at the table had gently mocked how strong my showdown range was (I'd shown down AA a couple times that session).

He's never calling three with 88 here imo - again our history doesn't involve him seeing lots of air from me. He seems to give me a fair amount of credit across the board, which was the only reason I was afraid to triple - once he calls two I was worried he would be pretty strong. But the ability to shove such a relatively large amount gave me more confidence. He wouldn't expect me to do that with air I don't think, and his range is pretty much capped to 1 pair (so is mine, but stronger ones).

 

[Matt Vaughan]

Tiiiiiiiiiny little mini-update here.

So Vegas is much more set in stone now, but timing will be VERY tight. I've got to find an apartment in Madison for when my job starts (July 7), so the lease will almost 100% start on July 1st. But before that, I'm planning a short trip to Foxwoods since I'm close atm (my parents live in the Boston area), AND my parents and I will be visiting extended family in NY state. So here's the schedule as it's looking now:

- June 9-12: Drive to Foxwoods, stay in mega-cheap hotel nearby and "commute" each day to grind cash games and possibly a tournament or two
- June 13-15: Drive to NY to visit fam and chill
- June 20-29: Drive to Madison area and apartment hunt
- July 1: Move into new apartment
- July 2: Fly to Vegas from Madison, get settled in hotel (hopefully grind some cash games)
- July 3: Enter the Day 1b for the WSOP Little One for One Drop tournament (and crush, obv)
- July 4-5: Keep crushing the Little One for One Drop (if I bust, focus a lot of hours on cash games)
- July 5: Fly back to Madison during the wee hours
- July 6: Sleep a LOT and do some errands with respect to my new place
- July 7: Start my new job

So things are pretty hectic, but I'm REALLY excited to get poker going a little stronger again soon. I'll hopefully post some hands here from Foxwoods since I should have time. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do in Vegas from the tournament, but I'll try to post some cash spots from 1/2 and maybe some 2/5. My roll is sitting at about 9.2k after airfare, and two different hotel costs, and that isn't including about $900 to enter the Little One. So I'm not sure if I want to really "grind" 2/5, but I definitely want to put in some hours and see how the games compares to Cleveland's.

Aside from posting hands here though, I'll be posting tournament and trip updates (along with other nonsense) to my twitter account, which I created about a week ago. Look for me here: https://twitter.com/MeVPoker and feel free to follow me or ship a tweet my way! That is all

 

[IPlay]

Awesome man, sounds like you have a fun and exciting summer ahead of you! Looking forward to reading about it and good luck on your cash grind and the one drop!

 

[Mr Sandbag]

Good luck! I'll hit you up on Twitter. I don't really use it much aside from fantasy football stuff, but it'll be fun to get updates from you.

Also, pretty sure you can find a 2/5 game anywhere that is way better than the shitty one in Cleveland. Saturday night - they had one table. Sunday afternoon - interest list only.