Showing posts with label MTT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MTT. Show all posts

Monday, February 25, 2008

too much continuation betting

I haven't discussed it much, but I joined pokerxfactor in February. I think it has helped with my S&G bubble strategy. So far, I've only watched Sheets' beginner video on ICM and bubble strategy in S&Gs and I've half way through a Bax video of a $50 MTT. One thing I see Bax not doing is much continuation betting. Perhaps his stack is deeper so he sees less of a need. And maybe that's one thing I need to learn from - when it's appopriate to continuation bet and when it's not. With deep stacks I'm too aggressive still. I need to slow down. Once I continuation bet, I build a pot and then it becomes more juicy - but I should be able to get away from it after I raise with AQ and the flop comes ten high.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

4 handed in a small MTT - bad play here?

I played in a 10+1 on FTP with 49 players and finished 4th. I ran really good, winning coin flips and a couple 40/60s. But 4 handed with a lot of chips, I made this play - which I'm still thinking about.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2142561

I'm the button. I get a fold and make a blind stealing raise to 6400. The SB pushes all in for 19,860. Immediately, I put the guy on a weakish hand. I had been bullying this player for a while and it felt like he finally wanted to take a stand. But then I start doing the math.

There is 29,280 in the pot after the SB's raise. And it's 13,460 for me to call. I'm getting 2.17 to 1 pot odds. I'm not doing all the calculations at the time of course, but knowing that I'm getting those odds and that I have Q9o, I need to be 32% (2.17 / 3.17) to win to call. As per PokerStove, I have the right odds for any unpaired cards that don't have me dominated. Plus, I could be against 33 or some other crap that donkeys like this play.

So that's what went through my head. Well - more specifically - it was "I'm getting about 2 to 1 - the math says to call here."

So what else could I have done? Fold of course. If I fold, I have about 37,500 and he has about 28,000. What I'm not doing here is the ICM analysis to see how this play affects my equity. Of course, I could also have not raised. I really bullying the table and I felt like the SB and BB were both pretty weak tight. That will take some work. But could I have found a better spot to get much chips in? Especially where I'm the aggressor. Oh well. I need to do some more thinking about this.