Hand from FTOPS 5k 6-max

[Kevin Saul]

Full Tilt Poker Game #9009262760: FTOPS Event #22 (62639179), Table 47 - 1500/3000 Ante 400 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:39:26 ET - 2008/11/16
Seat 1: amak316 (549,199)
Seat 2: dpowell (282,086)
Seat 3: Schoitl (74,471)
Seat 4: GetPWN3D (98,000)
Seat 5: Brandon Adams (179,654)
Seat 6: NEONPILS99 (235,395)
amak316 antes 400
dpowell antes 400
Schoitl antes 400
GetPWN3D antes 400
Brandon Adams antes 400
NEONPILS99 antes 400
Brandon Adams posts the small blind of 1,500
NEONPILS99 posts the big blind of 3,000
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to GetPWN3D [Ts As]
amak316 folds
dpowell folds
Schoitl folds
GetPWN3D has 15 seconds left to act
GetPWN3D raises to 7,100
Brandon Adams has 15 seconds left to act
Brandon Adams raises to 22,000
NEONPILS99 folds
GetPWN3D ???

So there is like 20-25 players left, if I remember correctly we MAY have been on exact money jump. Brandon and I had alot of history together, with him being on my left for the last 4 or 5 hours of Day 1 and we continued on Day 2 with these seats. When the blinds were smaller he was flatting alot pre-flop and floating alot of flop bets and betting 90% of time when checked to on the flop. His continuation bets/ flop bets were also almost always 80%+ pot bets which obviously comes from his cash game background. He also has been 3-betting me alot no matter where I open from once the blinds had gotten bigger, I folded a few, flatted a few to play a flop, and 4-bet once w/ AQ and folded to his shove. This is also the last hand at this level, with the blinds going up to 2k-4k next hand.

Options-

A. Jam. Like 75k more into roughly 50k...pretty sure we have fold equity and it would be hard for him to call if he RR us w/ a real hand like AJ or some pair we're racing vs. Of course if he 3-bet us w/ air those hands would be folding to.

B. Call and see a flop. The plan would be to jam most c-bets, but given his tendency to bet 80% pot when he c-bets and having roughly 75k behind when seeing the flop we likely wouldn't have any bluff FE, so this doesn't seem like a great option. VS alot of other opponents or if we had like 40k or more behind I like this plan.

C. Fold. The problem I have with folding here is that A10s is definitely the top of my button raising range of hands as I'm raising almost ATC OTB in a 6-max tourney. How can I justify raise/folding the top of my opening raise??

Kevin

[Barry Greenstein]

Against most players, I would fold. It's too big of a percentage of your chips to call to see a flop. Judging by your description and the way I have seen Brandon three-bet in tournaments when he has late position raisers out-chipped, and adding in your loose reputation, I would shove.

Barry

[Adam Junglen]

4-Ball it

[Amit Makhija]

what barry said... I 4bet shoved brandon like 4 times this tournament for the same reason lol, he is tough and loves to 3bet. I think AT should be at the bottom of your 4bet range but definitely included in your range.

[Kevin Saul]

Brandon was definitely very aggro in this tourney, especially vs myself having direct position on me for what seemed like the entire tournament. From what I understand he's mostly a cash game player, which was evident by his play. I also know he's a really smart guy and the stack sizes/ bet sizes of this hand just looked to good to be true. Am I wrong to get a fishy feeling by his 3bet given my perfect 4bet stack?

Kevin

[Todd Terry]

Originally Posted by Kevin Saul

Brandon was definitely very aggro in this tourney, especially vs myself having direct position on me for what seemed like the entire tournament. From what I understand he's mostly a cash game player, which was evident by his play. I also know he's a really smart guy and the stack sizes/ bet sizes of this hand just looked to good to be true. Am I wrong to get a fishy feeling by his 3bet given my perfect 4bet stack?

Kevin

Yeah, you're probably wrong. I've never played with him, but if anyone is going to be playing fairly game theoretically sound poker, it's going to be the guy who taught game theory at Harvard. So he's going to definitely have some air in his range here (unless he thinks you're 4bet shoving your entire range always or something crazy like that), especially if he thinks your range here is anything close to ATC. Undoubtedly he'll 3bet/call wider against you than most, because he does expect you to be 4betting a fairly wide range. Against someone like him who understands these situations and is probably going to make good adjustments to how he thinks you're playing, simply saying, "This hand is near the top of my range, I shove", is probably going to yield the right answer. And ATs is 39% against top 10% hands, so even if called, you're not in bad shape.

[Justin Bonomo]

I'd shove.

[Mike Watson]

I'd definitely shove too

[Brandon Adams]

Shove is correct.

I had to look back at the hand histories to see what I had.

Full Tilt Poker Game #9009262760: FTOPS Event #22 (62639179), Table 47 - 1500/3000 Ante 400 - No Limit Hold'em - 16:39:26 ET - 2008/11/16
Seat 1: amak316 (549,199)
Seat 2: dpowell (282,086)
Seat 3: Schoitl (74,471)
Seat 4: GetPWN3D (98,000)
Seat 5: Brandon Adams (179,654)
Seat 6: NEONPILS99 (235,395)
amak316 antes 400
dpowell antes 400
Schoitl antes 400
GetPWN3D antes 400
Brandon Adams antes 400
NEONPILS99 antes 400
Brandon Adams posts the small blind of 1,500
NEONPILS99 posts the big blind of 3,000
spacemiu (Observer): rightclick on his name and click ignore
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Brandon Adams [Jh 4c]
GetPWN3D raises to 7,100
Brandon Adams has 15 seconds left to act
Brandon Adams raises to 22,000

The thinking was simple --- "he's raising the button, I can leverage his entire tournament life here, I'm investing 20500 to win 14k". That was pretty much the extent of it.

In big tournaments, this tactic is particularly effective b/c players (rationally, given the size of their bankrolls relative to the money in play) become risk averse.

As a side note, one of my biggest regrets in tournaments comes from the ten-handed final table of the 2006 WSOP Circuit Event in Tunica. I don't remember the exact details, but blinds were 4k-8k and the ante was 1k. Daniel Negreanu was in the cutoff, I was in the BB. I felt, very strongly, that it was important for Daniel to make the TV final table, and that tactically I should leverage his tournament life whenever possible. He opened from the cutoff to 20k. I had Q7cc in the BB. I should have reraised right there to 60k --- that was a profitable play for sure in the situation. The second best play was to fold. Instead, I came up with an alternative play --- I would call and bet out if I missed, reraise all-in if I hit the flush draw or queen, and play it by ear if I hit the seven. Well the flop came Q-4-8 (two hearts). I checked, he bet 24k or so, and I moved in for about a hundred more. He made a great call with QT. I finished sixth and he won the tournament.

I play an exploitive rather than an optimal style in tournaments. Amak is a beast; he outplayed me for sure and won the tournament. Kevin plays very strong as well. Both were fearless --- they knew that I was probing for risk aversion. In response, they played back at me strongly and exposed my own risk aversion.

Exploitive play is generally better in tournaments. Barry played with me one year at the Series where I raised or reraised two-thirds of my hands before the flop. If someone bet out the flop, I pushed all-in. If they checked the river, I put them all-in. If they called before the flop, then checked, I bet. This is clearly a stupid strategy from a game theoretic perspective, but at the end of the day, I had a lot of chips.

When playing exploitively, you need to keep a mental catalogue of your exposures. For instance, at some tables it pays to reraise a lot before the flop. Anyone tactically astute will think, "Wait a minute, Brandon is reraising every other orbit, but everytime he calls a push he has AK, AA, KK, or QQ." The key question I ask myself is, "Are they acting on this disconnect?" If the answer is no, I will keep reraising.

Amak played great. He realized early on that there was a disconnect between the number of hands I would open, and the number of times that I would respond to his aggression (by 4-betting, or calling his reraise), and he exploited this disconnect beautifully.

Brandon

[Barry Greenstein]

Great post Brandon. I have to admit that one of the coolest parts of the Red Pro Forum comes out of the fact that we are usually discussing hands in big events or side games. This has lead to many discussions of hands where one known player battles another known player.

We have had several threads where we talk about a person who is the villain in our discussions and then later on in the thread, since the villain is also a Red Pro here, he jumps in and tells us his side of the story.

Barry