An annoying hand

This hand annoyed me.  I think this is a good fold most of the time, since a good chunk of the time the villain has 67 exactly.  The main problem here is that I am not ahead of any of the villain's value flop 3-betting range, especially since he did not raise before the flop.  Still it sucks to fold bottom two.  Any comments guys?

Edit: posted the hand to 2+2:

Link

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($122.80)
Button ($34.65)
Hero (SB) ($436.30)
BB ($50)
UTG ($164.15)
MP ($149.10)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 4, 5

1 fold, MP calls $1, 1 fold, Button calls $1, Hero calls $0.50, BB checks

Flop: ($4) 4, 8, 5 (4 players)

Hero checks, BB checks, MP bets $4, Button calls $4, Hero raises to $18, 1 fold, MP raises to $32, 1 fold, Hero calls $14

Turn: ($72) Q (2 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $40, Hero folds

Total pot: $72 | Rake: $3

Bad ways to combat position

A very common situation in short-handed NLHE is playing from the blinds against an aggressive player opening from the button.  Something to keep in mind from the outset in these spots is that especially with deep stacks, the button has a BIG advantage.

  

Unless you have a very good read on your opponent (good enough to offset the positional disadvantage), you should often be just giving up your blinds, even if you have a hand that is ahead of the opening range of your opponent, especially hands that play poorly out of position.  A-2 offsuit is a good example of this.  A good opponent will be opening a very large portion of his range on the button.  Ace-high rates to be well ahead of this range and if there were only one round of betting, you would be crazy to fold it.  The problem is that ace-high hands (especially weak ace-high hands) are not very far ahead of any two cards and rarely make hands strong enough to profitably call down multiple streets of betting.

When put in this situation, many players at the stakes that I play start playing way too predictably.  They will call button opens with a pretty wide range of hands, only re-raising their very strong hands, and proceed to check-call down unless they make a really strong hand, in which case they will check-raise.  Often, they will play their draws passively and will try to bluff when they miss on the river.  Taking these sorts of lines is playing directly into the strength of being in position.  By that, I mean that the actions of the OOP player give up far too much information about the strength of their hand, which allows the player in position to make extremely well-informed decisions.  Because the player in position has so much more information, the player out of position is put into a guessing game.  "Is he betting because he knows that my range of hands here is weak or because he has a strong hand himself?"  "All the draws missed so he could be trying to bluff me off of middle-pair here with a missed draw, or he could be value-towning me with top pair...".

In addition, poor OOP players often go for ill-advised check-raises when they hit draws that they chased without proper odds.  Given that the amount of money that a pot-sized river bet can extract from the opponent is twice the amount that either player has put into the pot so far, missing river bets GREATLY reduces the profitability of OOP draws.  This same situation applies to good one pair hands like TPGK (top pair good kicker) or MPTK.  Furthermore, OOP players often bluff on the river when they miss, which allows the player in position to get a lot of value for their A-high/one pair hands.

These two hands illustrate these tendencies pretty clearly (even though I was raising from earlier position than the button)

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($43.60)
Button ($119.40)
SB ($386.70)
BB ($100)
Hero (UTG) ($205.25)
MP ($107.85)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with K, A

Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, CO calls $3, 1 fold, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($10) 8, 9, 8 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $6, 1 fold, SB calls $6

Turn: ($22) 3 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($22) 9 (2 players)

SB bets $22, Hero calls $22

Total pot: $66 | Rake: $3

Results:

SB had J, 10 (two pair, nines and eights).
Hero had K, A (two pair, nines and eights).
Outcome: Hero won $63

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($212.25)
SB ($230.40)
BB ($120.20)
Hero (UTG) ($319.70)
MP ($200)


Preflop: Hero is UTG with 7, 5

Hero raises to $3, 2 folds, SB calls $2.50, 1 fold

Flop: ($7) 5, 9, A (2 players)

SB checks, Hero bets $4, SB calls $4

Turn: ($15) 9 (2 players)

SB checks, Hero checks

River: ($15) 3 (2 players)

SB bets $15, Hero calls $15

Total pot: $45 | Rake: $2.25

Results:

SB had 8, 3 (two pair, nines and threes).
Hero had 7, 5 (two pair, nines and fives).
Outcome: Hero won $42.75

Don't let yourself fall into playing this way.

Starting an Online poker account

There are a few things that you need to make sure that you do if you want to create an account to play poker online:

1.  Get referred by someone who already has an account.  This will get both you and the other person a referral bonus.

2.  Make sure you sign up for rakeback BEFORE you deposite any money!  raketherake.com is a good place to go for this.  Rakeback programs give you back some percent of the rake that you play to the site you're playing on back.  In the case of FullTilt for instance, you can get 27% of the rake that you pay back.  This really adds up if you play a decent amount online.  For instance, I have paid ~$4600 in rake to FullTilt so far.  If I had had the foresight to sign up, I would be $1200 richer.  Don't make the mistake that I did of not getting rakeback!

3.  Play at stakes within your bankroll.  This is basic bankroll management, but it is important if you don't want to go broke.  More on this in later posts.

Terminology

It seems some explanation of terminology is in order.

VP$IP = Voluntarily Put Money In Pot.

This is a measure of how often a given player choses to play a hand before the flop.  Any time a player takes an action that puts money into the pot (i.e. limps, raises, completes small blind, calls a raise) it counts towards his/her VP$IP.  In 6-handed games, tight players will have a VP$IP of around 20% or less, looser players will have VP$IP significantly higher (i.e. 25%+).  Basically, VP$IP is a measure of pre-flop looseness.

% Pre-Flop Raise

This is the percentage of the time that a given player puts money into the pot before the flop with a raise (rather than call or fold).  This number is <= VP$IP and the ratio of PFR to VP$IP represents the proportion of the time that a player plays a hand for a raise, rather than a call or fold.  Passive players will have a PFR % that is half or less their VP$IP, aggressive players tend to have a PFR% of 75% their VP$IP or more.

In general at 100BB tables, decent players have stats somewhere in the neighborhood of 22/18.  Really bad players will have stats along the lines of 50/5.  Players with high VP$IP and low PFR are playing too many hands too passively.  They are not actively growing the pot nor thinning the field when they have what is likely to be the best hand.  They are also probably playing too many easily dominated hands in multiway pots OOP (out of position) and are likely to be unable to fold middle pair or better on the flop.  This is an easy way to lose money really quickly.  The hands in my previous post are good examples of this.

Overvaluing one pair

Something that I see very frequently at $.5/$1 at the deep tables is players greatly overestimating the strength of their good one pair hands:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (5 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP ($125.85)
Button ($287.70)
Hero (SB) ($546.30)
BB ($106.90)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, 4
1 fold, Button raises to $3.50, Hero calls $3, 1 fold

Flop: ($8) 2, 3, 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $8, Hero calls $8

Turn: ($24) 5 (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $24, Hero raises to $96, Button calls $72

River: ($216) 3 (2 players)

Hero bets $438.80 (All-In), Button calls $180.20 (All-In)

Total pot: $576.40 | Rake: $2

Results:

Button had Q, Q (two pair, Queens and threes).

Hero had A, 4 (straight, five high).

Outcome: Hero won $574.40

This hand requires some background.  I was sitting on the direct left of the villain of this hand and throughout the entire session had been picking on him ceaselessly.  He was a very bad player playing with some ridiculous PF tendencies (something like 40% VP$IP/5% PFR).  As a result, I had been raising his limps with an extremely wide range of hands (any pair, any two big cards, any ace, any suited connectors) in order to isolate him from the rest of the table and keep him to myself.  On top of that, I was catching some very good hands.  

Perhaps the biggest mistake of this hand not made on the hand itself, but rather the villain's pre-flop tendencies in general. Given his very small PF raising%, the fact that he is raising drastically narrows his range of possible hands. When the flop came small cards and he immediately bet the pot, I had a pretty good idea that his most likely holding was a big pair.  I called his bet with my ace-high, gutshot wheel draw and backdoor nut-flush draw anticipating that if I hit the wheel, I would probably get the rest of his money.  I thought at the time that my ace would probably have been good too, but I wouldn't actively stack off given the possibility of him having AA/AK/AQ.

The villain's next big mistake was betting the turn with the intention of stacking off for another 270bb.  When he bets the pot again on the turn with his QQ, he basically turns his hand face-up as a big pair or perhaps TTT.  Given his image, against a thinking opponent he folds out all worse hands (Tx, medium pocket pairs), gets raised by better hands (sets, straights, two pair), and perhaps gets called by draws (which he will probably stack off to on the river if they hit).  When he got raised, he had an easy fold.  However, he made the mistake that is the focus of this post and came to the mistaken conclusion that his hand was the nuts in this spot.  The net result was that he got 11.5BB in ahead and 276BB in drawing dead.  Two better options for him would have been to bet-fold the turn or to check behind and call a river bet.  Both of these plays protect his stack.  Checking behind gives a free card to potential draws, but also avoids forcing him to make a tough decision if his strong turn bet gets raised.  Since he clearly does not like folding, this was probably the better option of the two.  Willingness to check behind in spots like this also greatly reduces the profitability of opponents floating out of position with marginal draws, since the obvious CR line fails to extract any value on the turn and probably 1 pot or less on the river.  This is nowhere close to the implied 11-to-1 odds required to make such plays profitable. 

Here is another example of this same problem:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button ($231.05)
Hero (SB) ($306.60)
BB ($278.75)
UTG ($100)
MP ($111.80)
CO ($100)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, K

3 folds, Button calls $1, Hero raises to $5, 1 fold, Button calls $4

Flop: ($11) 10, 6, 9 (2 players)

Hero bets $7, Button raises to $14, Hero calls $7

Turn: ($39) J (2 players)

Hero checks, Button bets $22, Hero raises to $70, Button raises to $212.05 (All-In), Hero calls $142.05

River: ($463.10) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $463.10 | Rake: $3

Results:

Button had A, A (one pair, Aces).

Hero had Q, K (straight, King high).

Outcome: Hero won $460.10

Again, the villain in this hand had been playing extremely loose-passive before the flop (50/4 or so).  In this hand, he tried to get clever and trap in an unraised pot with a one pair hand that he would never be able to fold regardless of the flop or actions of other players in the hand.  In the SB, I had an easy raise with KQs, given the buttons PF tendencies.  At this point in the hand, the villain could have re-raised and forced me to either give up my PF raise or play a bloated pot OOP with hand that plays very poorly against the limp-reraising range of players at low limits (I have generally found that the limp-reraise at these stakes is KK+, sometimes QQ or AK).  Instead, the villain kept the pot small with the intention of getting all of his money in regardless of board texture.

On the flop, I flopped two overs and a gutshot and made a completely standard continuation bet that would make him fold a decent chunk of his limp-calling range.  In addition, my hand was drawing live, regardless of his hand due to the presence of a clean gutshot to the nuts.  Given my knowledge of his play, the villain's min-raise on the flop made it clear that he was attached to the hand and led me to believe that I could probably play for stacks were I to hit.  On the turn, a bad card for the villain's hand comes off (JT,KQ,JJ all get there), but he continued to nuke the pot and ended up stacking himself.

I guess the main point of this post is that without the appropriate image and play-style, trying to jam 200bb+ stacks into the pot against competent with one pair is burning money.  Players who consistently nuke the pot with extremely marginal holdings in position can play their big pairs more aggressively and expect to actually get paid off by worse holdings.  However, many players at these stakes only fire multiple barrels with top pair+ and since such hands only come around once in a while, they are extremely reluctant to fold them.  This is a recipe for disaster, since their double and triple barrelling ranges are extremely narrow and consist mainly of hands that they will not fold.

Alright, that's enough rambling for me.  Time for me and Sir Meow to turn in.