Thoughts on my betting and river suggestions please.

[gmatical]

First Hand In a SNG (180man)

PokerStars Game #49244571864: Tournament #308666305, $11+$1 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2010/09/06 21:10:41 ET
Table '308666305 2' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: koke468 (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: tebonemalone (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: borci12 (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: nomorebeats (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: gottaplayem (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: g-mackitymac (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: bigdustycool (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: puzzo114 (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: R3tr0sp3ct (1500 in chips)
tebonemalone: posts small blind 10
borci12: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to g-mackitymac [7h 7s]
nomorebeats: folds
gottaplayem: folds
g-mackitymac: raises 60 to 80
bigdustycool: folds
puzzo114: folds
R3tr0sp3ct: folds
koke468: calls 80
tebonemalone: folds
borci12: folds
*** FLOP *** [2h 4s Td]
g-mackitymac: bets 120
koke468: calls 120
*** TURN *** [2h 4s Td] [As]
g-mackitymac: bets 260
koke468: calls 260
*** RIVER *** [2h 4s Td As] [Ad]
?????

I'm g-mackitymac BTW.

I was in too many different minds as to what to do here on the river A. Check/fold or bet/fold. Thoughts please.

[bennymacca]

firstly, i think this is a fold preflop. yes, i am a nit early on in these tourneys. with a hand like 77, i would only play it in late position or if there were multiple limpers (or even better an early position raise), to set mine. 77 isn't strong enough to be playing unimproved this early on in the tourney.

the way you have played, i think the double barrel is fine. but now you have been called a second time, i think its a check-fold on the river. this is precisely why folding pre is the better option, because what you have done is essentially bluff off a third of your stack.

[gmatical]

firstly, i think this is a fold preflop. yes, i am a nit early on in these tourneys. with a hand like 77, i would only play it in late position or if there were multiple limpers (or even better an early position raise), to set mine. 77 isn't strong enough to be playing unimproved this early on in the tourney.

the way you have played, i think the double barrel is fine. but now you have been called a second time, i think its a check-fold on the river. this is precisely why folding pre is the better option, because what you have done is essentially bluff off a third of your stack.

Wow you are a nit!

180 mans are a bit different to single table SNG's IMO so playing pairs with a raise pre early is probably pretty standard (folding to alot of re-raises, awful flops)
I think I am a mile ahead of likely holdings on the flop - but the A killed me (his call suggesting it did not scare him made me think he hit his hand.

Ok benny the cunt, assuming it is blind level 2, folded to me on the Button I raise, SB folds, BB calls and the action follows as played.
Is the play fine? Is it still check fold river?
Should I have hit the brakes on the turn?

[AJG]

yep, 77 may as well be 33 1st hand of a SnG... play anything below JJ like a small PP... ie as benny the cunt says set mine, but only when the implied odds are there - as in limpers or a raise before u.

Although benny the cunt did u notice it isnt a STT?
Still, medium pockets early dont really have the EV to open with them, esp 1st hand where u know nothing of opponents....

And even though this is a 180 SnG, I wouldnt advise bluffing very much... You get called down with all sorts of garbage in these things... and chip preservation is paramount. I almost never bluff a full table STT (sometimes in a 6max), and play a few 90/180's on tilt and bluffing just isnt profitable imho...
But in this hand, I would rather bet more on the flop (as a bluff) then shutdown if called (or raised, unlikely on that flop).

Edit: in ur 2nd example, BB callin to play the hand OOP indicates more strength unless the player habitually defends their blind... So ur 7s probably arent good there either. Action cant be as previous cos the positions are different. You OOP in 1st IP in 2nd...

[bennymacca]

yep i realised this was a 180 man SNG

this hand is precisely the reason why it is better to fold pre.

on the button i will raise. but from mid pos it is a clear fold.

[bennymacca]

fwiw i am not even raising TT/JJ here. probably limp/call it. the only hands i am raising in the first blind level are QQ+, AK. the risk vs reward of picking up the 30 chips in blinds vs bluffing off half your stack means that it is just way better to play conservatively early on.

probably until the 40/80 level really.

[gmatical]

Edit: in ur 2nd example, BB callin to play the hand OOP indicates more strength unless the player habitually defends their blind... So ur 7s probably arent good there either. Action cant be as previous cos the positions are different. You OOP in 1st IP in 2nd...

OK, assume I am SB so the position disadvantages remains the same as OP. Do we not completed the Blinds?? Is 77 really that junky?

Can I limp? Ever?

It doesn't make sense to me that calling a raise with 77 is a better play then raising initially into an unopened pot AJG. I also don't think that 77 is just good for set-mining (although this is the #1 moneymaker). The 77 is good on many raggedy flops, even c-betting an Axx flop works a bit in these things.

I do think that my flop bet may have been too small, but I didn't want it to look too 'bluffy' - LOL in the end.

*Note to all posters - I am not really defending my play or criticising your suggestions - I am just trying to thrash out reasons for me to alter a play that I think is correct - trying to convey a happy tone rather than a superior tone [that sometimes comes across incorrectly]

[bennymacca]

note that i am talking about the first few levels of a full ring tournament. my thoughts change entirely when we are talking about other games. (but thats for another thread)

Can I limp? Ever?

i think limping is ok. its about the implied odds you get with a hand like this.

It doesn't make sense to me that calling a raise with 77 is a better play then raising initially into an unopened pot AJG. I also don't think that 77 is just good for set-mining (although this is the #1 moneymaker)

lets think of a couple of scenarios where you are in mid position.

scenario 1: someone UTG raises, and you call, everyone else folds.
scenario 2: it is folded to you, you raise, and someone on the button calls.

which scenario is better?

in my mind, scenario 1 is much better because the UTG raising range of that player is much stronger than the button calling range of the player in scenario 2.

with a hand like 77, (and any small-mid pocket pair really) we actually want the other player to have a strong range, because that gives us the best implied odds of stacking his overpair. we are also playing in position, which means we can easily win against other mid pp (88-JJ) that might actually have us beat but are unimproved, because there are going to be a lot of overcard flops that we can use to our advantage.

in scenario 2, we still might have the best hand, but it becomes extremely hard to play because we are now out of position.

even on an ace high board, we could be double barrelling with the best hand, but on the river we still have no idea where we stand.

so in short, scenario 1 gives you great implied odds, scenario 2 gives us disastrous reverse implied odds.

The 77 is good on many raggedy flops, even c-betting an Axx flop works a bit in these things.

this is true, but when you are out of position, it is very hard to get to showdown. and if you cant make it to showdown, then you may as well be double barreling with any 2 cards. this is another reason why calling in position rather than raising in position is better.




so in summary, i think any pp TT down, in the first level of the tournament, is a fold from early position, from mid position it is a limp or a call to a raise, but we are maximising our implied odds, and in late position the relative strength of our hand goes up so we can now raise it.

what do we think about this strategy?

[maccatak11]

likes it. good summarizationing benjamin.

It the first few levels its easy to play like this and set mine with small pairs.

I have some questions though:

- obviously stack size (BB/M/CSI or whatever you use) is going to be important here, as well as things like ICM (which i need to learn more about), but we can probably agree that our 77 UTG won't always be a fold, and there could be a time (especially if we are short handed) where we can profitably raise.

Therefore, at what point of the tournament does this hand become a raising hand (if ever)?

(im gonna start another thread on this, but im also really interested in how people play medium/small pairs in 6max cash games too.)

[gmatical]

what do we think about this strategy?

I like it and will trial it for 2 weeks to try and see its results (and post them).

To be more rigid tho we will get raised about 50% of the time we limp & then be OOP and showing no real strength at any time and likely face a c-bet from raiser which will push us off our 77.

So.......

I guess folding them might be optimal. Meh, we will find out in a fortnight.