At last I have a hand history for you - please advise on it

I'm a bit gutted, I waited five hours for this free roll and went out in the first hand. I thought I made the right plays.

Can you please look at this hand history and tell me if I did anything wrong, or how I might improve for future.

Thanks alot

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 383133742 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $0 Buy-in + $0 Entry Fee, Level:1 Blinds(10/20-(no ante)) - Thursday, July 10, 15:30:08 GMT 2008
Weekly $55k GTD Daily Freeroll #155230
Table 25 9-max (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of active players : 9
Seat 1: appaen20 ( 1,500 )
Seat 2: LuckySlev ( 1,500 )
Seat 3: BadgerJnr ( 1,500 )
Seat 4: giarebomb ( 1,500 )
Seat 5: Bigga1ee ( 1,500 )
Seat 6: ShockrA ( 1,500 )
Seat 7: ask dave ( 1,500 )
Seat 8: HutaGalung ( 1,500 )
Seat 9: Sqg ( 1,500 )
Tourney Level:1 Blinds(10/20-(no ante))
giarebomb posts small blind [10]
Bigga1ee posts big blind [20]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to LuckySlev [ Qd, Ah ]
ShockrA folds
ask dave folds
HutaGalung folds
Sqg folds
appaen20 calls [20]
LuckySlev raises to [98]
BadgerJnr folds
giarebomb folds
Bigga1ee folds
appaen20 calls [78]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 4c, 7d, Qh ]
appaen20 checks
LuckySlev bets [226]
appaen20 calls [226]
** Dealing Turn ** [ As ]
appaen20 checks
LuckySlev bets [210]
appaen20 calls [210]
** Dealing River ** [ 2s ]
appaen20 checks
LuckySlev bets [500]
appaen20 goes all-in
appaen20 raises to [966]
LuckySlev calls [466]
LuckySlev goes all-in
** Showdown **
appaen20 shows [ 5s, 3s ] a straight, Five to Ace
LuckySlev shows [ Qd, Ah ] two pair, Aces and Queens
** Hand Conclusion **
appaen20 wins 3,030 from main pot with a straight, Five to Ace
************ Game 383133742 ends ************

looking at this the observation i've made is that because the straight was 'on' I maybe should have bet more heavily after the Ace, to make it expensive for him to see if a two was coming - do you think that would have been a better play?

There is no way that you could have known he was on 5/3s. His flop call was disgusting and you played this fine.

Thanks alot that's very reassuring to know. I said to myself a couple of days ago for now i'm not bothered about results I just want to get the process right, and I'm pleased I made the right choices then.

Thanks again!

I agree with Pythonic. Pretty simple hand to play here and you did it just fine. The competition in freerolls are so bad that when you get a good hand you should just bet it every street and let them come along with worse (unless you hand isn't that strong or you have reason to believe theirs is better. Neither fit here).

Just know the villian played this hand terribly and caught lucky. Nothing you can do about that. You bet it hard and had a hand and he caught a longshot on the river calling the flop and turn against the odds. Fine play.

And you are on the right track if you aren't concerned with the results and are only looking at the decisions on each street and whether or not they are correct.

Honestly, the only mistake was *drumroll* playing the AQ.

This early in a Tournament. (first hand) and when you have a stack that is SO HUGE in comparison to the blinds... the best thing you can do is wait for monster hands.

AA, KK, QQ, and AKs and AKo Some people claim AQs is ok.. but other than that, they claim you should nutcamp and don't risk your chips that are so amaizingly important while every other idiot is thinking "hey I can draw, because it's cheap.

There's a formula out there called your "M" which is a simple formula. Take the blinds and add them together. (20 + 10) = 30. Then multiply that number by 20. (30 * 20) = 600. That number is directly compared to your stack size.

The basic idea is if you have an M of around 20... (in this case 600) you should play a full range of hands in correct positions... Thus making your Raise of AQo correct.

If you have an M of way more than 20 (in this case you have 1500, an M of 50... You should tigthen up, and survive, shrinking your range and only getting into pots when you're sure you have the serious best of it. Also, in this spot you can play hands like 78s or AQo from the button, but pick your spots, the 78s you want a lot of limpers and to get in cheaply, The AQo you want one other guy in the pot and you want to raise to get rid of the blinds... multiple limpers and you are shot.

The closer you get to an M of 10, the more frantic you are to pick up chips, openraising, and open shoving with a wider range of hands in hopes of doubling up.


At some point (when your M is like 5) you can actually correctly shove with any two cards.

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

I agree with Pythonic. Pretty simple hand to play here and you did it just fine.

except for the turn...

Originally Posted by LuckySlevin

looking at this the observation i've made is that because the straight was 'on' I maybe should have bet more heavily after the Ace, to make it expensive for him to see if a two was coming - do you think that would have been a better play?

betting the turn harder is far better, for all sorts of reasons.

You should size your bets in relation to the size of the pot. Here, the pot going into the turn was about 700. If you are prepared to be showing down with top two pair here (your call, I probably would in a freeroll) then bet the turn close to 3/4 pot - something like 550 is good. This is to do with odds, have you learnt about pot odds for draws yet? if not, you should.

if he had 56 for the open ended straight draw (oesd - and he looks like he could, even though he didn't) then his turn play was better than yours - because of your turn bet size. Pre-flop and flop were good.

Thanks, I'm kind of dissapointed I didn't even realise the straight was on until after the hand, so I'll need to pay more attention to that.

If the straight wasn't on I didn't want to overkill the bet on the turn in case it frightened him from betting more, which is why I waited for the river.

Thanks for the advice I'll bet harder on the turn in future.

Thanks everyone else It looks like from your comments I was only slightly out with my strategy on this and I'm working hard to plug the holes in my game, so have definately made a note not to do this again!

Thanks again

yea i agree
the turn bet was really soft, he probably would have folded for something around 500. although its a free roll so nothing is assured

Originally Posted by Ragnar4

Honestly, the only mistake was *drumroll* playing the AQ.

There was nothing wrong with his playing the AQ.