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I've turned into a poker geek again. For a long time my focus just wasn't on the game, but lately I've been playing six days a week again and really getting back into concentrating on improving my game. I'm posting regularly in HSMTT again and watching tournament training videos to get a sense of what other guys are doing. I've had a few interesting hands over the last few days so we'll throw those up here and talk strategy for a bit. I'll be copy pasting hands I posted at 2+2 and including reasoning on my thought process as well as input from other posters:

Hand 1: Full Tilt $500 sat. I haven't been too active and haven't played any meaningful pots against the villain. Nothing about his play or our dynamic would suggest something crazy is going on here. Thoughts:


Full Tilt Poker Aussie Millions Qualifier No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

UTG+1: t5352 M = 71.36
MP1: t6645 M = 88.60
MP2: t6035 M = 80.47
CO: t3215 M = 42.87
Hero (BTN): t4940 M = 65.87
SB: t6178 M = 82.37
BB: t4880 M = 65.07
UTG: t4155 M = 55.40

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BTN with K Q
5 folds, Hero raises to t150, 1 fold, BB calls t100

Flop: (t325) 3 K K (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t200, BB calls t200

Turn: (t725) 2 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t500, BB calls t500

River: (t1725) 6 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t1175, BB raises to t4030 all in, Hero...

Preflop, flop, turn, and the river bet are all clearly very standard. The river check-shove is a difficult spot. The villain is almost never bluffing (occasionally people will show up with something insane here, but it's very, very unlikely) so the big question is how many hands are in his value shoving range that we beat vs hands that beat us.

The majority of the responses in the thread agreed that you need to call, and the most thorough advice came from my ex-coach NoahSD:
"You lose to like 6 weighted combos (3 of 66 and 3 for the other random boats he shows up with occasionally).

There are probably like 10ish Kx that we beat in his preflop range and he prob plays them this way like 25% of the time for 2.5 combos. Then there's like 1 weighted combo that we chop with. Then there's like 1 combos of him just being a total clueless spewtard with like A-high or 77 or 72 or something.

So that's 6 you lose, 3.5 you beat, and 1 you chop with, so equity of a call is (3.5*6870 - 6*2795 + 2037.5)/10.5 = 886.9"

Hand 2: Full Tilt $100 single rebuy add-on. Haven't played any big pots with villain. I haven't been doing any out of line 3 betting that would make me think his range is anything outside of the usual monsters here.

You giving up on turn or calling and evaluating on river?

Full Tilt Poker $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t100/t200 Blinds - 8 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

BTN: t12830 M = 42.77
SB: t20824 M = 69.41
BB: t5495 M = 18.32
UTG: t6415 M = 21.38
UTG+1: t3892 M = 12.97
MP1: t6261 M = 20.87
Hero (MP2): t10681 M = 35.60
CO: t7277 M = 24.26

Pre Flop: (t300) Hero is MP2 with Q Q
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t575, 1 fold, Hero raises to t1625, 2 folds, SB calls t1525, 1 fold, UTG+1 requests TIME, UTG+1 calls t1050

Flop: (t5075) K 8 T (3 players)
SB bets t800, UTG+1 requests TIME, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls t800

Turn: (t6675) 7 (2 players)
SB bets t1600, Hero...

The flat call from the SB pre is extremely scary. Against anyone who is competent that is pretty much always a massive hand they are getting cute with (if you are the villain in this hand, and we're both aware the other is a reg, then a 4 bet is mandatory with any big hand because it's a more disguised range than flatting.)

His post flop betting indicates either a very strong hand that is trying to draw me in (like oh say, top set?) or a mid strength hand that is now just trying to get to showdown cheaply (JJ.) Almost everyone who weighed in said to either fold turn, or min raise the flop and give up if villain put any more chips in after that. I know that if we get to turn this way I like folding, but I'm not quite sure on the min raise idea, though I know that I don't hate it and I could see it's possible effectiveness, especially given how cheap it is here in relation to the pot.

Hand 3: Full Tilt $100 single rebuy add-on. Just started up for the day. No relevant history with the villain, he hasn't been spazzing all over the place or anything and I've been in line through the early stages.

His line confuses the hell out of me. His value range should basically be 44/JT (or maybe an ultra slowplayed AA.) Although he has a super small value range, his bluff range seems just as small. What gets to river this way that takes a bluff shot?

Full Tilt Poker $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t15/t30 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (MP2): t4000 M = 88.89
CO: t2015 M = 44.78
BTN: t4505 M = 100.11
SB: t3940 M = 87.56
BB: t3446 M = 76.58
UTG: t4659 M = 103.53
UTG+1: t3570 M = 79.33
UTG+2: t2000 M = 44.44
MP1: t3865 M = 85.89

Pre Flop: (t45) Hero is MP2 with T K
2 folds, UTG+2 calls t30, 1 fold, Hero raises to t120, 4 folds, UTG+2 calls t90

Flop: (t285) 3 T 4 (2 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets t200, UTG+2 calls t200

Turn: (t685) 3 (2 players)
UTG+2 checks, Hero bets t440, UTG+2 calls t440

River: (t1565) J (2 players)
UTG+2 bets t1240 all in, Hero requests TIME, Hero...

Conversation on the hand focused around two aspects; whether we should be calling river and whether we should be betting turn. When some regulars such as Mement_Mori and NHFunkii suggested checking back the turn I posted the following to address the subject:

"FWIW boys I think you get more value at HSMTT by going bet/bet/check whereas midstakes it should be bet/check/bet because for some reason at midstakes NOBODY believes that meanwhile in HSMTT guys peel mid pairs for two straight streets more since peoples double barreling range is wider.

Had he checked river, I'd be pretty damn tempted to value bet too, but I might not have the image for that. Thoughts?"

Posters Apestyles, Luckychewy, and Billy Bibbit came to say they agree that we should be betting turn in this spot.

Meanwhile, the river spot had people almost totally split. I think this is one of those spots where having a sense of what kind of player you're up against becomes extremely important. If you're against a fairly straight forward TAG, then this is a pretty easy fold. If you're against a pretty creative or bluff spewy LAG, then it's a pretty easy call. But when you're in a vacuum and have no information on the guy at all it gets really tough. I guess I don't hate folding because tournament players are rarely that creative early in the tournament, but given how small his value range is I would never mind a call.

Hand 4: Full Tilt nightly $150. A continuation in our series of facing full potish bets on the river. I've seen villain around before, I feel like he's a reg but not a super well known one or anything.

Not a ton of draws out, but enough that I'm curious as to whether that changes your guys thought process facing bets like these. My guess is that it won't.

Full Tilt Poker $75,000 Guarantee No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t120/t240 Blinds + t25 - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Hero (BTN): t6795 M = 11.62
SB: t2465 M = 4.21
BB: t10355 M = 17.70
UTG: t5125 M = 8.76
UTG+1: t6859 M = 11.72
UTG+2: t7001 M = 11.97
MP1: t6254 M = 10.69
MP2: t3771 M = 6.45
CO: t11698 M = 20.00

Pre Flop: (t585) Hero is BTN with A 5
6 folds, Hero raises to t600, 1 fold, BB calls t360

Flop: (t1545) 4 A 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets t920, BB calls t920

Turn: (t3385) Q (2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks

River: (t3385) 9 (2 players)
BB bets t3120, Hero...

First and foremost, when I look at this hand the turn seems like a bet. Many posters brought that up and given the draw heavy texture and the fact that he just might peel two streets with pairs worse than aces makes it a pretty clear bet. Some still said they like checking the turn so they could snap any river bet, but I'm pretty sure betting is likely better since we're very rarely getting checkraised off our hand by a worse one.

Again, thoughts on the river were pretty split, though most people seemed to prefer a call. A few mentioned that the bet sizing is scary enough but GeoffRas22 provided some thoughts on why he prefers calling:
"yea not betting the turn is not good- what exactly is your reasoning for checking? i see a lot of ppl think its "best" to check back and call river or bet river if checked to, but so many more worse hands are calling the turn, ur just getting 2 streets so much more of the time- especially if ur not even sure a call is best on this river (granted his sizing is pretty scary)

as played i call as i dont think randos bet this size with 1 pairs and i cant see him not c/r flop with sets/2 pairs"

Thanks to everyone who shared their insight on these hands.