Session Notes Part III

We’re still plugging away at this session of $5-$5 no-limit hold’em that I played several weeks ago, looking for interesting hands and leaks that I may have missed in the flow of the game. Periodically checking in on yourself to see how you perceive how you’re playing in the game and how that changes when you look at it from outside the flow of the game with a better perspective and a more open mind gives you a better opportunity to improve. This week we’re going to continue to look at individual hands from the same 12-hour session.

Hand 1: Under-the-gun (UTG) limps with a stack of $380, a player who limps pretty loose but usually only raises with the top end of his range makes it $35, he has about a $4,000 stack. I’m in middle position and call with A K. I have around $2,000. UTG also calls. The flop is K-5-2 with two diamonds. UTG checks, the preflop raiser bets $60 into $120, I call, UTG calls. The turn is the 5, UTG bets $190 with $100 behind, preflop raiser folds, I raise and UTG folds!?

Preflop I sometimes reraise with A-K and sometimes call, depending on my opponent’s opening tendencies and stack size. If I three-bet, I could easily fold to a four-bet against this player but I have too much of a value hand to turn A-K into a bluff, and he would probably fold the hands I want him to call with (A-x suited, A-10, A-9, K-Q, K-J) to a raise to $100. We’re super deep after the flop, and if we both have an ace, he’s the type of player that I can get three streets of value from with top pair, but I can pretty safely fold if he puts in any significant bets when I make one pair. I’m not particularly concerned with UTG at this point. K-5-2 is a pretty ragged flop, so I like to flat call against many opponents. It continues to disguise my hand so I can get a value raise in on the more significant streets, and I can also allow him to continue bluffing if he chooses to do so. I was a little surprised that UTG called behind me. The second card pairs on the turn and UTG leads out for two-thirds of his stack. I fully expected him to be committed to the pot with a middling to weak king or flush draw. I don’t think his hand is 5-x very often, and apparently he bluffs sometimes in this spot since he folded. I think there were quite a few different ways this hand could have been played but I was looking to use a little pot control and try to get one bet in on each street with perhaps a value raise on the river against the preflop raiser.

Hand 2: A very odd player makes it $25, another loose player who is somewhat tricky, but who calls with very weak draws getting poor odds calls. I’m the small blind on the button and call with K 10. The flop is 6-3-2 rainbow, they check to me, I bet $45, they both call. The turn is the 10, putting up a flush draw, check to me again, I bet $125, preflop raiser calls, other guy makes it $325 after tanking for a very long time. I call, the preflop raiser goes all in for $60 more, both of us call. The river is the 6, we both check and the preflop raiser wins the pot with J-J.

This was another very odd hand that is very indicative of live poker. You would almost never see a hand play out like this online. First of all, let’s talk about the small blind on the button situation. Sometimes a player leaves a game, goes broke, or just decides they don’t want to be dealt in when they are one of the blinds or the button. Since the casino I play at uses a forward moving button, there are always two blinds to the left of the button and you must also always post two blinds in each round. As a result, you sometimes are required to post a small blind when you’re on the button. This creates an interesting dynamic because you already have a little bit of money in the pot when you’re in the best position. I will play a tiny bit looser (as evidenced by this hand) because of the increased pot odds I’m receiving. Secondly, it’s just such a weird way for the raiser to play jacks. He never made a single aggressive action at the pot and almost found himself a way to fold the turn with way the best hand as the other opponent had Q-10 and we only had seven outs between the two of us. I feel pretty good about the way I played the hand and I was fully expecting to win the pot versus another 10 and 9-9 or a flush draw, especially when both of them tanked for so long on the turn. I think I maybe could have gotten some value on the river, but I know that sometimes the player in the middle likes to slow play a bit, so I decided that I had an equal chance of getting thin value and value-owning myself by betting the river. I’m usually a stronger advocate of value betting than most people that I play with because of my limit hold’em background, but this looked a little too thin to me.

I still have several interesting hands from this session and I learned some more broad lessons as well, so keep checking back in to see how it went. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG