Another noobie hand for you all to pick apart ...

[TonyB73]

PokerStars Game #16063823748: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2008/03/18 - 06:41:36 (ET)

Seat 1: SB ($1.03 in chips)
Seat 2: BB ($0.64 in chips)
Seat 3: UTG ($2.46 in chips)
Seat 4: UTG+1 ($0.83 in chips)
Seat 5: MP1 ($3.08 in chips)
Seat 6: MP2 ($2.75 in chips)
Seat 7: MP3 ($1.01 in chips)
Seat 8: CO ($1.10 in chips)
Seat 9: Hero ($3.47 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ad Th]
UTG: folds
UTG+1: calls $0.02
MP1: calls $0.02
MP2: folds
MP3: folds
CO: folds
Hero: raises $0.10 to $0.12
SB: folds
BB: folds
UTG+1: folds
MP1: calls $0.10

*** FLOP *** [Ah Tc 8c]
MP1: checks
Hero: bets $0.14
MP1: calls $0.14

*** TURN *** [Ah Tc 8c] [9d]
MP1: checks
Hero: bets $0.40
MP1: calls $0.40

*** RIVER *** [Ah Tc 8c 9d] [Qd]
MP1: checks
Hero: bets $1
MP1: raises $1 to $2
Hero: ???


How did I play it to this point? And what should I do now?

I don't use PT (mainly because I'm on a Mac and haven't found a compatible version - does anyone know if PT for Mac exists??), but I'd guess villain is about a 60/2 player who rarely raises but just can't lay a hand down. To give you an idea, I saw him/her call an all in bet on the flop with complete air (and then hit two runners on the turn and river to make a straight and take down the other guy's trips). Caused serious tilt.

[Robb]

Preflop, standard.

Flop, you bet about half the pot. Two pair is great, but we wanna get the money in RIGHT NOW. You have a vulnerable hand, so pot-sized bet here.

Turn, another pot-sized bet, imo. You bet about 3/4's, which is reasonable. The draw isn't all the way in. And you're hand ain't gettin' any better any time soon. So fire a big bet. Against a total station, shoving the turn is fine.

River. Draw is now in for anyone w/ a J which is in a lot of hands that would have been chasing since the flop. But the flush draw missed. So this is either a total bluff or the nuts. Calling is fine, imo.

Final thoughts - with 2 pr, get the chips in early.

[trump]

Yeah, what Robb said.

I'm not sure what I'd do on the river, b/c or c/c ... depends on my mood I guess. I don't think I could fold.

[Unibomber14]

c/c > b/c > b/f

[spoonitnow]

Bet the flop harder because of all of the draws out there. Also you want to bet harder here because if he has a top pair hand instead of a draw then you'll be extracting more over the course of the hand as the pot gets bigger, so you want to make it sort of big early. However, don't overbet the pot since that makes it easy for him to fold draws and weak aces -- you want to make it easy for him to make a mistake by calling.

Bet the turn a little harder for same reason.

[dev]

I don't know who said it...
"Two pair is like the woman you meet as the bar closes, play it fast and don't get married to it."

Like everyone said, make your bets bigger. Get lots of money in when you have a big hand. Bet fractions of the pot, 3/4-1 pot on the flop, 2/3-9/10s on the turn, and of course whatever they'll call on the river.

As played, I think we have to call the river.

[Monty3038]

My question to Tony is, did he hit the straight?

[Hawk]

My question to Tony is, did he hit the straight?

Does it matter?

[Monty3038]

Well... maybe. If he is asking I'm guessing villian did so Tony is looking for validation on his play. You do realize I am a donk noob asking.

[martindcx1e]

Well... maybe. If he is asking I'm guessing villian did so Tony is looking for validation on his play. You do realize I am a donk noob asking.

it doesn't matter if he had the straight. what matters is if hero played it correctly given villain's range.

[Unibomber14]

Well... maybe. If he is asking I'm guessing villian did so Tony is looking for validation on his play. You do realize I am a donk noob asking.

I think that you probably know more than you give yourself credit for. Please don't use the fact that you're new to the game be a crutch. If you have done any reading on this site at all, you know that the result doesn't matter. If you're not sure why it doesn't matter, then maybe that's a question you should be asking.

[TonyB73]

General consensus seems to be that I played it right except that my bets were too small. Should've tried to get a whole lot more $$$ in there on the flop.

In my defence I had started this session with 3/4 - PSB as a standard bet and was folded to so much that I reduced my bet sizes to get some action with my good hands. However, I understand that the further I let this hand go the greater the danger that I get outdrawn, so I was betting too small for this particular situation.

Now, for those who want to know what happened (not that it matters, except to me as I had $4+ pot sitting in front of me!)

I called.

Villain showed Q8, giving him 2 pair - Queens and Eights - against my Aces and Tens. He reraised on the river when he made his second pair.

So no straight! And even though it looked a hell of a lot like it to me at the time, I think its pretty clear he wasn't trying to represent a straight either. Simply raising for value when he made his hand.

Thanks for all your input!

[trump]

Yay! I love happy stories.

[TonyB73]

LOL

By the way, I assume from the deafening silence that no-one knows anything about Poker Tracker for the Mac?

Assuming it doesn't exist then I guess the only way to use it is to for me to run Windows ...

[Hal]

Haven't tried PT2 - but PT3 works *mostly* fine using Darwine.

Install Postgresql server.

Install Darwine..

The following components are installed using Darwine:
MDAC (You'll have to aquire this on a windows machine now I think - M$ do checking to see if you're running a valid copy of windows on their download site now).
Postgres Win32 client
and finally the PT3 Beta..

This will let you use PT3 on the Mac - but don't exepect a HUD like AHK to work. I've written a very basic program that I use - see the PT3 thread in the Tools of Poker forum if you want info on that.

[TonyB73]

Thanks Hal - I will have a look at the other forum.

Here's another hand from today, where I was in a very similar position as the first one I posted above:

PokerStars: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02)

Seat 1: CO ($0.58 in chips)
Seat 2: Button ($10.46 in chips)
Seat 3: SB ($3.22 in chips)
Seat 4: BB ($4.97 in chips)
Seat 6: UTG ($0.70 in chips)
Seat 7: UTG+1 ($3.42 in chips)
Seat 8: MP ($7.93 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Qh Kd]
UTG: folds
UTG+1: calls $0.02
Hero: raises $0.08 to $0.10
CO: folds
Button: folds
SB: folds
BB: calls $0.08
UTG+1: calls $0.08

*** FLOP *** [Kc 5s Qs]
BB: checks
UTG+1: bets $0.04
MP: raises $0.26 to $0.30
BB: folds
UTG+1: calls $0.26

*** TURN *** [Kc 5s Qs] [4d]
UTG+1: bets $0.02
Hero: raises $0.90 to $0.92
UTG+1: calls $0.90

*** RIVER *** [Kc 5s Qs 4d] [7s]
UTG+1: checks
Hero: ???


What should I do here? This time I was in position against villain and raised his minbets to pot size on both the flop and the turn, and he has called both times. Another psb here would put him all in.

The river card is a scary one obviously because it makes a flush or a straight. I discounted the straight immediately because 36 or 68 just isn't consistent with his play to this point. I was more worried about the flush, although I thought he would probably have been more likely to c/c on the flop and the turn if he had a flush draw, so because he was betting out (even that small) I thought that was unlikely.

I didn't have much of a read on villain at this point, except that he was loose pre-flop - I'd guess VPIP of 50%+.

[Fnord]

Hand 1: I would just call pre-flop unless my opponents really suck. Bigger flop bet, hope he's got top pair.

Hand 2: Re-raise the flop hard because he's got a hand he probably wants to stack off with and you're ahead of his felt range. I like the turn bet size, he's tipped of a weak hand. Value-town the river, this is rarely a flush draw as played.

[TonyB73]

Hand 2: Re-raise the flop hard because he's got a hand he probably wants to stack off with and you're ahead of his felt range. I like the turn bet size, he's tipped of a weak hand. Value-town the river, this is rarely a flush draw as played.

Thanks Fnord.

That is exactly what I did - I raised enough to put him all in, he dutifully called ...

... and showed a flush.

I still think it was the right move in the circumstances given how the hand was played out, but I just got sucked out. He called my psb on the turn with 2:1 pot odds on a worse than 4:1 shot, and hit. Happens I guess.