Tuesday, February 26, 2008

SnG overbets

I've begun playing a few SnGs again as I attempt to grow my BR a bit more in the busy time before the awesome BB3 kicks off (for more info see here). Work might be super-busy but I try to find some time to play here and there. I usually find that I can almost always manage a top-3 finish in these turbos through some patience, superior situational awareness, and the ability to escape with minimal damage in marginal spots. I also like to mix in the occasional overbet for value or shove with a monster in hopes of inducing a big mistake because the players at this level are prone to overplay their hands at any point.

Well, just for giggles, here's one that backfired in the third level of the tourney.

Full Tilt Poker Game: $11 + $1 Sit & Go (Turbo) - 30/60
Seat 1: Aleatoris (1,960)
Seat 2: pow21 (1,885)
Seat 3: Zambrencia (1,650)
Seat 4: PirateLawyer (1,305) - I am down a bit because I tried set-mining with pocket sevens
Seat 5: ladydeuce222 (1,185)
Seat 6: HopeOne (1,905)
Seat 7: ocrFoX (1,440)
Seat 8: bettinman34 (685)
Seat 9: THE YEN (1,485)
Zambrencia posts the small blind of 30
PirateLawyer posts the big blind of 60
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PirateLawyer [Qs Qh]
ladydeuce222 calls 60
HopeOne folds
ocrFoX folds
bettinman34 calls 60
THE YEN folds
Aleatoris folds
pow21 folds
Zambrencia calls 30
PirateLawyer raises to 1,305, and is all in -- trying to induce a big PF mistake by squeezing in the BB with a monster
ladydeuce222 calls 1,125, and is all in -- there's one
bettinman34 calls 625, and is all in - and another one, from my intended victim
Zambrencia folds
PirateLawyer shows [Qs Qh]
ladydeuce222 shows [7h Ah] -- suited Ax crap, I want this call every day, all day
bettinman34 shows [5s 5h] -- way to overplay presto PF, third player in
Uncalled bet of 120 returned to PirateLawyer
*** FLOP *** [As 9s Tc] - of course
*** TURN *** [As 9s Tc] [3c]
*** RIVER *** [As 9s Tc 3c] [7c]
PirateLawyer shows a pair of Queens
ladydeuce222 shows two pair, Aces and Sevens
ladydeuce222 wins the side pot (1,000) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
bettinman34 shows a pair of Fives
ladydeuce222 wins the main pot (2,115) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
bettinman34 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3,115 Main pot 2,115. Side pot 1,000. | Rake 0
Board: [As 9s Tc 3c 7c]
Seat 1: Aleatoris didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: pow21 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Zambrencia (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: PirateLawyer (big blind) showed [Qs Qh] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 5: ladydeuce222 showed [7h Ah] and won (3,115) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
Seat 6: HopeOne didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: ocrFoX didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: bettinman34 showed [5s 5h] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 9: THE YEN didn't bet (folded)

I hope to really jack up the amount of strategy posts here to improve the quality of the poker content here in my blog; I want to shake myself out of the rut of merely writing simple posts about tournament outcomes after the fact. So, with that being said, if anyone has any thoughts about this sort of play in the early stages of a SnG, I'm keen to hear them.

My overall take is that this is a nice big +EV situation that I've managed to create, but it does increase variance, too. Is the risk/reward ratio acceptable? Should I regularly expect awful calls like this or not?

1 comment:

Matt said...

Thanks for the comment earlier. I've added you to my google reader - look forward to keeping up with your blog.

In regards to this post, I do think you want those calls all day, every day, but I don't think you'll find that many preflop calls like that - as donkish as those stakes may be I don't see it often enough to make it a worth while move.

I think there's a definite place for an OBFV but I prefer to use it postflop to minimize the variance a bit.