Over Betting

Beginning of September Stats

Hour Played - 33

$ / hr - $77

Profit - $2,568

I am getting super excited for Borgata this week. I fly out Wednesday and will be spending 9 days out in Atlantic City with the only goal of poker. Have 4 – 5 tournaments on the schedule out there. Playing a $1500 mix max, $1000+$500 bounties, $1000 6max and $3500 main event. Should be 4 very big prize pools that can provide a nice payday. Been looking at the live action report there all week and the cash game action looks insane right now. AT certain points they have had 60+ games running with 18 2/5nl games. Mostly will be playing 2/5 down there but will dabble into the mid stakes (15/30 20/40) mix games if they are running.

As for the stats this week, hours were down again this week but not to concerned cause I plan on playing tons over the next 10 days in AC. Week started out miserable with a -$1500 session, but back to back +2k and +1500 sessions saved the week and turned it into a very profitable one. This last week helps me stay on track to reach my goals for September. I need to still keep focusing on working on my game and keep recording hand histories. Other than that I am very happy with the start of this month.

Hand Of The Week

BB Ajo $3/$5 no limit holdem

MP Opens $15 – He is waiting for the big $10-$25 PLO game thus this is small stakes for him. I imagine he will be playing looser than he should and is opening decently wide.

2 Calls (co / button)

I flat the Big Blind

FLOP – Q32 rainbow

Everyone Checks

Turn – 9c (back door flush draw)

I lead $45

Mp opener calls

Button Calls

River 4h Pot (195)

I lead $80....

A somewhat basic hand this week but I feel it is an interesting spot that comes up a lot. I also feel I made a mistake in this hand.

Preflop – I feel this is close between a 3bet squeeze and flat pre. The reason for squeezing would be im out of position thus by taking the aggressive lead in this hand it gives me the initiative to be betting when the flop comes out Q32 rainbow like this. By just flatting it makes It hard for me to rep any hands on this flop and take it down. Also the situation is perfect with a player with a perceived wide opening range followed by 2 weak flats from weak opponents. This lends to me taking down the $45 in the pot pre often. As for sizing, we are only 100 BB deep so I would probably make it 70 or 75. I would prefer to be another 1 or $200 deeper to 3 bet pre.

Flop – Very dry flop that probably has missed everyone. Not surprised that everyone checked through.

Turn – I decide to take my stab at the pot here. I am repping a very narrow range, but vs these opponents I don’t believe that matters much since they play their own hands more. Its very difficult for anyone to show up with a Q. I know this preflop raiser would of C-Bet any strong hand on the flop and the button and cutoff probably are not checking one back on the flop. When the raiser calls the bet I am putting him on all weak 1 pair hands, turned back door flush draws. When the button overcalls he almost always has a flush draw or some sort of gut shot.

River- This is the best river card here as all of the flush draws missed and the only straight draw would be a 65cc type of hand. I have to bet this river 100% of the time here. I just need to find the correct bet sizing here. Bet sizing in my opinion is one of the most overlooked parts of poker, while being one of the most important The pot is 195 here I want to find the amount here that gives me the cheapest price to bluff while giving the highest fold %. Basically here I feel there are 2 options. Small and Big and by Big I mean really big.

Option 1 – Betting small, a little under half the pot. The reasons for this sizing would be that I am really just trying to fold out missed flush draws and to do that I don’t have to bet much at all. Thus by betting only $80 here, my bet only has to work about 1 in 3.5 times to become profitable. The real question here is wither the original raiser will fold TT to a bet on the river and if he will fold it to this sizing. While I do feel I can get a fold here 1 out of 3.5 times due to there being a player behind him that he has to worry about. Without the 3^rd player I feel I 100% have to bet big on the river to get him to fold TT.

Option 2- Bet really big. Full pot or close to. I would probably size it at $175 or $200. The reasoning for this sizing would to be to completely polarize my range. We are under the assumption that the original raiser is bluff catching us with TT or so and that the 3^rd player is on a flush draw. By betting huge here vs someone who is bluff catching we give them the worst price possible on their call. Another thing with his sizing is that many villains in these games don’t play their opponents range, they play their own 2 cards. A majority of opponents here would see a $200 bet and just immediately think that their TT is not worth $200 and toss it in the muck without thought here. The disadvantage here is that my $200 bet has to work 1 out of 2 times to break even. Say the villain checked back KK on the flop, there is no $ amount he will fold for. I could shove for $400 and he would call. They get in this mindset that once they slow play they can never fold. So I do run that risk that a certain % of the time this villain will have one of these types of hands.

The more I think about this hand the more I feel I should be betting HUGE on this river. For the points above I think there is just way more chance he folds TT for $200 vs $80 because of the mindset these guys play with. They play their own cards and judge the value based off only those 2 cards. They don’t consider opponents ranges etc. Over betting for both value (in those spots they have KK on this board and will never fold) and bluffing (when they are obviously bluff catching) I feel it will be great to add into my game.

One thing I want to add here is feel free to leave comments on things you want to hear about in this blog. Always looking for new ideas and suggestions.