Things it took me a while to learn part 9, Tournament Hand Reading

Continuing our comparison of tournaments to cash, tournament players have an easier job in front of them when it comes to hand reading. This is because the shorter stacks in tournaments (except in the first couple of levels) begin restricting the amount of hands players can profitably play, and force an enormous importance on position. However, it’s a safe bet that cash players will get better at hand reading much quicker, simply because they don’t have so much of the work done for them by a tournaments structure. If you want an easy answer at how to get good at post flop hand reading, play a ton of 6 max cash at a comfortable amount of tables where you can sit back and think things through. Save that, I’ll try to sum up what we can here on a sort of complicated subject.

Every time I hear the phrase “Well, I put him on XX” I want to punch the guy in the throat. That singular phrase is the excuse for more bad poker than anything else in the game. So many live pro’s (yes, I know, half these articles seem like a collection of cheap shots at the way live pros think) seem to have this obsession with pinpointing EXACTLY what their opponent has, so when they do manage to catch him with it they lean back, put a smug smile on their face, and announce “HA! That’s what I put you on!” I’m pretty sure Daniel Negreanu spends half an hour a day in the mirror practicing this with varying facial expressions in order to maximize its effectiveness when his moment of glory comes.

Here’s the phrase to remember: You don’t your opponent on a hand, you put him on a RANGE of hands. Putting a player on a singular hand is pointless. The process by which you do hand reading is by starting with a range of hands your opponent has, then eliminating much of that range as the hand progresses and you’re given more and more information. Also important to this process of course, is having a general idea of how your opponent plays. If he’s brand new to the table online, the best chance you have is to look him up on OPR. If he’s brand new to the table in a live tournament, you need to make some broad generalizations about him based on his appearance.

So how do we go about the process of eliminating hands from our opponent's range? You have more information to you than you think. Let’s start with an extremely obvious example:

50 FO on any given site. Blinds are 15/30 and everyone still has their starting stack of 3000. The players in the hand seem straight forward and basic.

Preflop: UTG opens to 90, UTG+1 reraises to 270.

Alright, now if we’re assuming both players are fairly straight forward here’s what we can deduct:

UTG probably has a range like AJ+, ATs+, 77+ and KQs. This range isn’t precise as he could have smaller pairs, or perhaps wouldn’t raise ATs here, but it’s likely close.

When UTG+1 reraises, we can really eliminate a ton from his range. For the most part a straightforward's wide range here will be something like JJ+/AK, but giving them a range of QQ+ is by no means unreasonable in many cases.

So in just two actions we’ve been able to isolate one players range down to about 3-5 hands. As I stated previously, this is an extremely obvious and simplistic example, but it demonstrates how with very little action we can get a pretty precise read.

Most pre-flop hand reading in tournaments comes down to watching peoples' raise tendencies, and watching whether they understand stack sizes and position. Here’s an explanation of how these factor in:

Stack sizes: Some players know or can feel that at 13-20 BB’s, they shouldn’t be opening in a lot of spots where they can’t stand a reraise. However, players who are clueless to this will therefore have a much wider range with these stacks. Also, some players will call in the blinds with stacks that are either push/fold not knowing it’s incorrect to do so. You also need to identify which players flat call with hands even when their stack is much to short, and which players only flat call monsters on short stacks.

One more key stack size understanding to watch for is resteals, plenty of players will try to resteal on a stack that’s very inappropriate to do so, and occasionally you’ll have to jam lighter back. I once had a player who was constantly trying who was constantly 3 betting me despite our 25-30 BB effective stacks, and as a result I 4 bet jammed QJo with 28 BB’s after he’d made it 8.5 BB’s and he folded. Situations like these come along where watching a player's understanding of a concept takes a play from being incredibly awful (which 4 betting QJo all in with 28 BB’s is 99% of the time) to something that can be profitable.

Position: The biggest pre flop situation that widens peoples' ranges in regards to position is blind play. Lots of players call much looser in the than they should (especially the BB of course) due to the discount. Few factor in that this will force them to play OOP for the rest of the hand and put them at a huge advantage. I’ve already written about what a normal players range should be like out of the blinds, pay attention to guys who call much wider, as well as guys who play very tight from the blinds. Another thing to watch is for guys who call reraises OOP much looser than normal. For many good players at the mid to late stages of a tournament, they are basically never calling your reraise OOP without a monster unless stacks are quite deep.

Alright, let’s get into some more examples of hand reading and go into the thought process. First I want to start with an example of what happens when you really know a person's play. I spend 4-8 hours a day on Skype with Luckychewy discussing tournaments and poker hands. At this point I can follow the logic behind his plays with enormous accuracy. For example, I was watching him deep in the stars $300 tonight on AIM and witnessed the following hand:

Poker Stars
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t2000/t4000
(Ante: t200)
7 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t57888
UTG+1: t60291
MP1: t148859
Hero: t140802
Button: t218154
SB: t65545
BB: t66932

Pre-flop: (7 players) Hero is CO with Q Q
3 folds, Hero raises to t10000, 2 folds, BB calls t6000 (pot was t17400).

Flop: 8 A 4 (t23400, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks.

Turn: K (t23400, 2 players)
BB checks, Hero checks.

River: 7 (t23400, 2 players)
BB bets t8000, Hero folds.
Uncalled bets: t8000 returned to BB.

After witnessing this hand I immediately IM’d Chewy with “QQ?”
“Yep” he responded. “QQ.” Now, why does that seem so clear to me? Because I understand Chewy's thought process. Let’s go street by street.

Preflop: Obviously I know Chewy can have a pretty wide range here, although given what stacks are in the SB and BB I feel like he should have a fairly tighter range than normal since he’s expecting to be shoved on with a higher frequency.

Flop: I expect Chewy to be betting a great C bet board like this with 100% of his range that has no showdown value. It’s not totally unreasonable to think Chewy would check back with an A here, since the board is rainbow without any real straight draws and the player will often give him credit for an A. I also expect him to check back hands like KK/QQ/ and sometimes JJ but I know he’ll often bet TT down more turn cards ruin his hand and it’s fairly easy to play with a bet.

Turn: When the K hits that now means KK is much more unlikely. When the player checks again, I expect Chewy to always bet with an A, since he needs to start getting value and the K will often hit the BB, meaning he’ll probably call at least one street of value. It also puts a flush draw out, even more reason to bet. When Chewy checks behind again, it’s at this point I know for sure he must have a hand like QQ, since betting there would basically be a bluff and his hand still has a considerable amount of SD value. I also know that he knows with this line, he probably can’t get a fold from a K just betting one street, since villain will expect Chewy to have bet an A on the flop.

River: When the guy bets 8000, Chewy thought it over and folded. He realizes there are very few hands in the villain’s range he beats and that if the villain is going to bluff the bet will normally come on the turn. He also realizes that betting 1/3rd pot is almost always a blocking value bet.

This is all nice and easy when you know someone’s play that well. What about when you don’t? Again, you have to resort to generalizations and trying to figure out which level of thinking your opponent is on. Paying attention to who’s who in online poker ends up being kind of important as you go higher and higher in stakes. This is where using Pokertracker with PAHUD comes into play, as well as looking up a players results on something like OPR. Any piece of information you can get has value.

Now let’s look at a more complicated hand. Here’s a recent post by Psyduck about a hand he played at the 10k ME in Foxwoods:

Background: villain is a mostly straightforward TAG leaning on the tight side. He is one of the better players at the table and seems to be able to hand-read. He opens fairly tightly but also c-bets with a good frequency, almost always heads-up but he has given up some pots 3-way when he was the preflop raiser. He also doesn't value-bet thin at all, opting to showdown in position with middle pair-TK type hands, and some weak top pair hands as well. He also doesn't seem to double-barrel that much, but his flop c-bet frequency in HU pots is fairly high. He probably has some tricks up his sleeve but seems like 95% straightforward.

I have a losing image. I am down from 30k to 20k mostly because of two big hands, one where I double-barreled on a J T Q board and folded on the river (lost T5500 there), and once when I 3-bet AA preflop, and bet/folded on a K 8 5 rainbow board to a massive insta-check-raise-shove (lost T4000 there, and villain saw the AA fold). I am winning all my small pots and losing all my big pots. I have donked into the preflop-raiser a couple times on the flop and have either won or shutdown, and villain is paying attention to this very closely.

Eff stacks 20k, blinds 100/200. Villain opens to T600 exactly in MP at a 9 handed game, folds to me and I call in BB with 7 5 . Multiple reasons I called, but let's focus on postflop.

Flop Q 7 6 rainbow (pot 1300). Check, he insta-bets 600, I call fairly quickly.

Turn 7 offsuit (pot 2500). I lead 1200, he makes it 2800 fairly quickly, I call.

River 9 (pot 8100). I count my stack, and see I have like 15500 left. I lead 5200. He asks me to move my hands so he can see my stack, I do so and he sees I have very close to 10k left, and he shoves out all his 5k and 1k chips putting me in after about 1 minute.

Let’s talk about the hand reading that needs to go on in this hand. Important information to start off with is that villain often C bets, and that he doesn’t value bet well. This means he has some passive tendencies and prefers to get to a showdown, likely meaning he’s less probable to run big bluffs. Preflop Psyduck has his reasons for calling, which is by no means standard but that’s irrelevant here.

Flop: On the flop, Psyduck knows that since villain will be betting close to 100% of his raising range that his pair is often good and a call is appropriate. This portion seems standard when we know that very obviously there are many unpaired hands in the villains range.

Turn: Now here’s where knowing your player, his tendencies, and hand reading start really taking place. Let’s start breaking down villains range and seeing how they react:

AK/AJ/AT other overcards/air combinations that have not hit: will check back and only put more chips in the pot if they hit a river. If they do hit it will often be for only one bet, as few of these hands will make something strong enough to raise Psyduck expecting to get called by worse hands if he checks the turn and leads the river.

Pairs 22-55, 88-JJ: These pairs will almost always check back and try to get to showdown as cheap as possible. Due to Psyducks aggressive image they will certainly call one street from him, and just maybe two.

Medium strength Q’s: From the description of this player he might check back with his mid Q’s like QT/QJ and if Psyduck checks the river fire a bet out. If Psyduck doesn’t lead it’s possible he only gets one street of value out of these hands.

Strong Q’s and over pairs: These hands will just about always bet the turn, and often the river if it’s a safe card, but they can’t stand a check raise. There is a slight possibility they will check back for pot control when the board pairs, but most of the time we can expect them to bet but not call a check raise.

Monsters like 66/QQ/A7: With hands like these if Psyduck check raises the turn he’s committed himself to the pot and they will obviously never fold. Psyduck knows that if he check raises the turn it is very likely that only these hands (except perhaps AA/KK and maaaybe AQ) are the ones calling him.

As a result from understanding what happens against the various hands in villains range, Psyduck elects to lead out instead. Despite this leads main purpose being for value (as it gets more money out of villains range than a check) when the villain raises him Psyduck also gains information. He can now eliminate all pairs 22-55/88-JJ, medium strength Q’s, and overcards/air (unless villain is getting SUPER creative with him.)

River: When the river 9 hits, it changes absolutely nothing. 99 is no longer in the villain's range. Psyduck knows that the upper end (the monsters) of villains range will always bet for value, and the bottom end (which at this point is strong Q’s and over pairs) will sometimes bet for value and sometimes check behind since Psyduck called his turn raise after leading out on a 7. Psyduck decides he gains the same amount of value from the bottom of villains range by leading, without being put to a decision for a considerably larger portion of his stack, with the added benefit that if villain shoves he knows he’s always behind and can safely fold. He leads a bit over half pot and what is 1/3rd of his stack, 5200, and folds to villains river shove. Nice hand IMO and a good example of how a thinking player used his understanding of hand ranges to his advantage post flop to maximize both value and information (please don’t kill me, Gobbo.)

For my last example I’d like to quote an article written by Nath. I think this article is an excellent example of how to use hand reading into taking actions which under normal circumstances would be ridiculous (If you’re reading this on Tworags, this part is already in Nath’s blog so make sure to check it out):
From yesterday's PokerStars Sunday Million. Villain is unknown.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t600 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

saw flop|saw showdown

SB (t31052)
BB (t35813)
UTG (t29700)
UTG+1 (t19400)
MP1 (t28360)
Hero (t27246)
MP3 (t12775)
CO (t7727)
Button (t11100)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with 9 , 9 .
UTG raises to t1200, 2 folds, Hero calls t1200, 4 folds, BB calls t600.

Flop: (t3900) 5 , 4 , 2 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets t3600, Hero calls t3600, BB folds.

Turn: (t11100) 2 (2 players)
UTG bets t4800, Hero calls t4800.

River: (t20700) A (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t17646 (All-In), UTG folds.

Final Pot: t20700

OK... now you're probably wondering why I took a line that seems really weird and determined to get as much of my money in the pot as possible while behind. And I'm going to show you why it works here. Let's look street by street.

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with 9 , 9 .
UTG raises to t1200, 2 folds, Hero calls t1200, 4 folds, BB calls t600.

So this is the most straightforward street in the whole hand. A minraise is indicative of everything and nothing; mostly, it tells me my opponent is probably a clown. It doesn't do a whole lot to define his hand, though. Some players love to minraise their big hands to try to induce action on them. Some like to minraise hands they want to see cheap flops with, in hopes the minraise discourages a reraise. FWIW, I think both are pretty terrible, and if you consistently do one or the other you have a huge hole in your game. I try to blend my raise sizes so as to make my hand difficult to read.

Anyway, having said all that, I elect to just call with 99 because I have no idea what my opponent has; if I reraise and he folds, I win a relatively small pot, but if he 4-bets me, I have to fold, and I've wasted a chance to win a big pot. So I decide to call and proceed postflop. The BB comes along because he's getting 5.5:1 and closing the action, not because he necessarily has much.

Flop: (t3900) 5 , 4 , 2 (3 players)
BB checks, UTG bets t3600, Hero calls t3600, BB folds.

Here's where it starts to get interesting. Making a pot size bet here is often indicative of an overpair. Here's the catch: I still beat a few of the overpairs. In addition, some people panic with their AK/AQ hands when they miss here and just start firing big bets in hopes of scaring away an opponent. On this board, AK/AQ has an additional four outs against underpairs. This increased equity makes betting and getting it in with AK here really not that bad a play.

It's also the big reason I don't make a move at the pot now. Some people see "overpair" and think "I have to protect my hand". Having seen him make a big bet at the pot now, I know my opponent likes his hand, but I don't know exactly what he has. It's too likely my hand is good to fold here, but he also has an overpair far too often to make raising and getting the money in profitable. I feel as if I get it in, it's going to be as a 60-40 favorite or a 90-10 dog. I don't mind getting it in as a 60-40 favorite, especially in a tournament like the Million, whose field size I feel dictates a faster style of play, a more "race to the finish line" approach-- but I get it in drawing to the two nines way too often to want to push now. So I call and decide to reevaluate based on the turn. The BB folds, and I never considered him to be much of a factor anyway.

Turn: (t11100) 2 (2 players)
UTG bets t4800, Hero calls t4800.

The deuce doesn't change anything. Neither of us has a deuce and we both know that. Now, his turn bet is interesting-- he bets just under 1/2 pot, which seems weak, but which also sets him up for a pot-sized river shove if I call. (By the way, if you aren't thinking about manipulating pot and stack sizes like this when you size your bets, you are making a mistake.) For my part, the price is too good to fold an overpair-- but still, my hand is not good enough to raise. I suspect some time he has an overpair to mine, some time he still has AK/AQ (the bet size is actually an effective size to block-bet a draw and see if he hits it), and rarely, he has a worse overpair than mine. So considering most of his range as TT-KK and the other major part of it as AK/AQ*, I call again.

* - I don't include AA here, not because it's impossible, but because it's a special case. He has the best of both worlds, and I'm screwed; the river is basically irrelevant because he's shoving all of them. I also considered 66-88 unlikely, though not impossible.

River: (t20700) A (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t17646 (All-In), UTG folds.

Wow. This is such an interesting card. All his ace hands got there, and all his overpair hands just got scared shitless. This is the beauty of position-- I can use his action to judge what he has. Since he has a pot-sized bet left, he's going to have to shove for value if he hit his ace (or his 33, or if he was already full, or what have you).

He checks.

Now, many, many players' immediate reaction would be to check, thinking that "Oh, either he had me already, or he hit that ace. And he's not calling with a worse hand, and we have a pair, so let's check and hope we win the showdown."

They're wrong.

When he checks, he's completely vulnerable. We each have less than the size of the pot left (he has me barely covered), and if we have anything reasonable, we're pot committed. The only reason not to put in the rest of the money here is if we think, for some specific reason, that a scare card has helped so much of our opponents' range, that we should give up. Trapping would be absurd at this point for villain, given that I should be calling his push with anything reasonable, having gotten this far.

So when he checks, it's not to trap, it's because that ace scares the crap out of him and he will fold to a shove.

And-- this is important-- we should realize that this swings all the Ax hands and 33/44/55 out of his range, and makes his range overwhelmingly overpairs. So his range consists primarily of hands that will beat ours at showdown, but cannot call all-in.

Knowing this, we should move in as a bluff. The fact that he didn't move in already gives us all the reason in the world to. He's announced to us that he is scared of the ace, and he is hoping we will let him show down his hand. So we have to disappoint him.

On a side note, the stack sizes are really excellent for this move. We each have slightly less than the pot left (I have 17.5k and he has 20k in a 20k pot). Which means that an all-in bet can be interpreted as a "normal" bet size. (Moving all-in here for, say, four times the pot would be considered "abnormal".) Because of that, it makes our opponent less likely to suspect that we are bluffing; we could simply be trying to get every dollar possible out of our hand. It puts him in a pretty terrible spot, since from his perspective we could easily have the AK/AQ/33. We certainly wouldn't check those behind on the river. So it's very unlikely that villain is good one time in three, and he folds.

Now, at the table, this process is much quicker, and is occasionally guided by intuition-- you don't always have the time to think out, in words, why a move will work; you "know" it. While it's good to have sound, logical reasons for your moves, it's more important to trust your intuition-- it's a part of you, and it works on what you have learned, too. In the heat of the moment, it's taking all your experience and skill and training and leading you to the right decision. If you have prepared it for the moments you need it, it will not let you down. Work on your logic away from the tables, and study and review and prepare your theory, so that your instincts have the background they need to make the right decision. Trust yourself to learn the game.

I will say that bluff-shoving the river hadn't entered my thought process until the river hit, and the villain thought for a bit and checked. Then it occurred to me that he couldn't call a push, so I pushed-- it wouldn't have really mattered what I had, but I was definitely swayed by the relative weakness of my hand. (If I had, say, KK, I might have checked behind-- or pushed for value.)

But that's another point of this hand-- you have to be able to adapt your decision-making process each time new information comes to light. Even though you have a plan for a hand, something may change which will cause you to abandon that, because you realize an alternate line is more profitable. Online, the pace is fast, so you need to be quick mentally. Live, you always have an opportunity to think through a hand. Online, you have much shorter time limits and may be multi-tabling as well, so being quick on your feet is just as important as being sound on your feet.

So to recap today's lesson:

a) Be alert to your hand strength relative to your opponent's range, not just to the board, or in the absolute sense

b) Don't be afraid to turn a made hand into a bluff

c) Don't be afraid to change plans in the middle of the hand, as you gather information

d) Be a quick thinker

e) Trust yourself

I really think Nath covered it pretty well there and I’ll leave it at that. As always, if there’s anything more you’d like to know or have questions about, just ask.

Cash games players don’t have a lot of respect for guys who are strictly tournament players. One of the largest factors for this lack of respect is tournament players failure to understand post flop bet sizing and lines. It’s only very recently with the help of NoahSD and Luckychewy pouring over 6 max hands that I’ve gotten a better feel for post flop lines, and I’m still not great at it. I decided to bring in an expert to tell us what he thinks is the big difference between cash and tournament players understanding of bet sizing, Aejones. Here’s what he had to say:

“Traditionally, cash game players bet sizing is better than tournament players bet sizing because of the depth of stacks they are permitted to work with. In cash games, you often have to figure out how to get a large amount of big blinds into the pot for value, or use all of the chips in your arsenal to represent a hand that you don't really have.

Bet sizing is traditionally based around the size of the pot in cash games. Anything over the size of the pot is considered an overbet, anything within the constraints of a pot sized bet (PSB) is considered 'acceptable' or 'normal.' Sometimes in tournaments I'll see a tight or straightforward player raise preflop, check the flop, check the turn, and then bet twice the pot on the river. This player is showing an extraordinary leak in his game- he's got no idea how to get his chips in the pot with his strong hands other than to make an embarrassing bet on one street and hope a bad player pays him off with something less than the nuts. How should we combat that? Quite simply, you need to develop multiple streets of value- whether it be by betting 2/3 of the pot on all streets, checking to an aggressive player and check raising him, or extracting with varying bet sizes.

Another problem that I see with tournament players bet sizing is that they often tailor it to the amount they think can get paid off. "I'll only bet a tenth of the pot... I've got the nuts, but I don't think he's got anything! How can he call?!" The fallacy in this line of thought is that they're more worried about extracting than they are hand reading. If this player is only betting a tenth of the pot with his strong hands... well, he won't be very difficult to play against.

I feel like I've gone off on a lot of tangents, but I've hit most of the points I wanted to make and would like to leave you with a few clear thoughts. Tournament players bet sizing should be tailored around the texture of the board, not the strength of their hand. Additionally, instead of constricting the size of the pot, they should strive to build pots with future betting streets taken into consideration.”

So how can we look at some specifics of what Aejones is talking about here? Let’s start off by talking about making appropriate bets to accomplish something on later streets. A simple way to think about it is this: You shouldn’t think of bets on one street as solely independent actions, they should be working towards something on the future streets. So let’s get into some easy examples:

The first major mistake you see players make is failing to get full value on a strong hand, either because they slow play it, or bet to small to make sure not to drive a player out. Instead, in most spots you should be increasing the size of your bets (when appropriate) in order to play for stacks, or at least the maximum amount, on a future street. Say you’re in a 55 FO tournament with a 3000 start bank.
Blinds 20/40, and for some random reason everyone still has starting stack. You hold 77 in MP2.

Preflop: It folds to you, you raise to 120, HJ calls, CO folds, button folds, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: K 7 5 rainbow (Pot 380)
BB checks.

Okay, here’s a spot a lot of guys might fuck up. They might check afraid a bet will drive people out, or they might bet like 40-50% pot to make sure someone calls. Instead you need to realize this; in a situation like this, if a person has a strong enough hand to call 200, they likely have a strong enough hand to call 300. The more money you can get in a pot like this the better.
Let’s say I bet 300. If one of the players raises you this is the kind of board you can consider calling and getting it in on the turn since there’s no scare cards, but let’s just say one calls.

BB checks, you bet 300, HJ calls, BB folds.
Turn: J (Pot 980)
So now there’s 980 in the pot and 2580 left in stacks. If you bet something like 700 and get a call there will be about 2400 left in the pot and you’ll have 1900ish left in your stack, making a river shove quite natural. Again, this isn’t a spot you want to try and play weak for value, you want to get a lot of chips in. So lead 700 here and if he flat calls, jam any river of course.

Now let’s see what happens with this hand if you try to get cute with it. Same preflop action but watch what happens with the math when you try to small value the flop.

Flop: K 7 5 rainbow (Pot 380)
BB checks, you bet 200, HJ calls, BB folds.
Turn: J (Pot 780)

Now there’s 780 in the pot with 2680 left in stacks. If you keep up with your half pot value bets watch what happens.
You bet 400, he calls.
River: 2 (pot 1580)
Now the pots 1580 and you have 2280 left in your stacks. A shove here is a substantial over bet that makes the strength of your hand very obvious. Now you’re stuck betting something like 1000 for value, missing 1280 in value by taking this cuter (bitch, you are not cuter in this instance) line.

Now, there is in fact an inverse of this kind of betting. Sometimes you need to bet smaller to manipulate the action in your favor. Here’s a hand I posted a long time ago to illustrate another idea, betting small to set up a play:
Stars 50 single rebuy add on. I’ve been quite aggressive in late position, and the player in the BB seems somewhat aggressive but is no pro.

My stack: 9940
BB: 6700
Blinds 100/200
I hold Qc 9c on the button.
Preflop: Folds to me, I raise to 525, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: Ts 3c 6c (Pot 1150)
BB checks.

Alright, here’s the idea with a spot like this. Let’s say I fire out a normal bet of say 700. If villain makes a proper sized check raise to say, 2100, he’ll very likely have too much of his stack in to consider folding to our 3 bet, which we’d likely make here. So instead bet small to manipulate the size of his check raise.

Here’s how it went.
BB checks, I bet 450, BB check raises to 1400, I shove 9415, BB folds.

Now, often I would discourage betting less than you’re pre flop raise, but this seemed like a very good spot to make an exception. As luckychewy put it while discussing using this hand in the article, “The very small underbet here is actually better than a more standard smallish C bet because some guys will perceive it as weakness and bluff at it, which will in turn make the 3-bet have a ton more fold equity.” We both agree however, that this probably shouldn’t be done against guys who will realize what it is (though outside higher stakes online MTT’s, these players are mostly quite rare.)

Alright, now let’s talk about adjusting our bet sizes to board texture. Even the most standard of C bets should have some thought put behind them based on board texture (and of course, stack sizes.) Let’s look at a very clear and obvious example of how to illustrate this idea:

We are again in our 50 FO with 3000 starting stacks which haven’t changed, at 20/40 blinds. You hold Qd Qh UTG+1, and villain is mostly unknown.

Preflop: UTG folds, you raise to 120, folds to MP2, MP2 calls, all others fold.

Flop One: Th 5d 3c (Pot 300)
In a spot like this, go with whatever your standard C bet size is. What should your ‘standard C bet’ be? I like to go about 60-75% pot early in tournaments. In this spot, I’d bet 200 even.

Flop Two: 6c 7c 9h (pot 300)
Now this is a kind of board I’m looking to accomplish something a little different. I think you need to bet more to charge draws more, and if villain raises you want to make it so his raise is a more committing size. I’d bet 250 here and if villain raises, shove, since so many draws are in his range.

Basically, when the board is more coordinated, you need to bet larger, since there is more the villain can station or raise you on. With less coordinated boards (Such as the T 5 3), you want a hand like 66-99, Tx, to think you’re just making a very standard C bet with 100% of your range and call you down or raise you.

Now, let’s talk about some late tournament bet sizing. As stacks get shallower, your C bets should (for the most part, but not always) start to get smaller as well. While my early game C bets are in the area of 70%, my late game ones drop to around 55%. At what point should you start dropping the size of C bets? It mostly has to do with what the stack sizes are involved in the hand. As you get later in the tournament average stacks will normally be 20-35 BB’s, where as at the start of the tournament it’s 100-200. When the average stack starts slipping below 40 BB’s, I start dropping the size of my C bets, though this will also be dependent on the effective stacks of the players in the hand. By the time average stack is below 30 BB’s, I’m probably down to 55-60% pot for my C bet.

To elaborate, let’s talk about how stack sizes and texture will still affect my sizing in the late game with some examples. Say average stack in our 50 FO is down to 30 BB’s, with the blinds at 500/1000 with a 100 ante. Both you and villain have average stack. 9 handed. You hold AdQc in MP2.

Preflop: Folds to you, you raise to 2600, HJ folds, CO calls, 3 folds.

Now, what kind of flops are you betting around 55-60% pot, and which are you betting larger on? At this point (even though it makes you’re hand a little transparent to thinking players) the only flops I’m betting a larger on are flops I hit but are draw heavy and I want to get it on. Examples:

Flop 1: Ks 5s 4c (Pot 7700)
I’d bet about 4200 here and fold to a shove.

Flop 2: Qd 8s 3c
I’d bet about 4200 here and pray my villain raises or shoves.

Flop 3: Qd Td 9h
I’d bet about 6000 here, again, intending to get it in.

Flop 4: Ks Js 4s
I’d just check fold.

Also deep in tournaments you need to understand what your stack size warrants for post flop bluffs and semi bluffs. Some players will attempt bluffs/semi bluffs without nearly enough chips to have any fold equity. You need to be aware of when a player is clearly committed to the pot, or when the board texture is such that you can rarely get a fold. Example of a common hopeless bluff spot:

Blinds 500/1000 with 100 ante. You hold KsQd on the HJ. Both hero and villain have 22,000.
Preflop: Folds to hero, hero raises to 2600, CO folds, button calls, blinds fold.
Flop: Ad 9h 4c (Pot 7700)
Hero bets 4200, button calls.

Now here’s a spot where on either the turn the hero may jam hoping to create a fold having so much of their stack invested, or if the button checks back on the turn they may try the river. Because the board is without draw’s and the button is rarely flat calling you with a decent pair that would peel one on the flop to see if you keep up, villain almost always has an ace. Just because you have a significant portion of your stack invested doesn’t give you license to make very spewy bluff. This is starting to fall more into hand reading, which is for another article.

Alright, that’s all I have for now. As always, if there’s any questions, just put them in the thread.

It’s FTOPS time again, which is in my opinion a whole hell of a lot better than the WCOOP since it goes off on a reasonable time for me and the events don’t last 21 hours straight. Hard to say if we’ll see as much multi accounting as during the WCOOP (Hi Mark Teschler, you stupid fuck) considering Tilt has yet to make a big issue out of it like Stars has.

I’ve played events one and three so far with nothing to show for it. I played well in event one and lost some unfortunate hands, today I made a mistake in a BVB hand with about 18 BB’s where I raise/called A8s in the SB instead of just limp/shoving like I should have. Not a huge deal.

However, one interesting development as of late is that I’ve broken off from my original online backer, Rob. I grinded our online accounts to over $120,000 before deciding to go my own, and after shipping him back what he gave me to start with and his cut I’ve got about $75,000 of my own to still work with online. I’m still giving up the higher buy in tournaments to Timex since I both need to work off the make up and am a huge bankroll nit, but the amount I have online is way more than I need for what I play. If things for some reason go disastrously wrong I can always go back to Rob, though it seems unlikely at this point.

I’m sort of excited to go to Macau in about 10 days time. I say sort of because on the one hand it’ll make for some great material and I get to play live poker in a new location against awful players. However, on the negative side I’ll be dealing with the same degenerate atmosphere of Vegas but nobody speaks English and all anyone plays is baccarat.

I’m going to Crown tonight for a live tournament just so my head isn’t completely out of the live mindset. It’s a $550 buy in weekly tournament with what will likely be an awful structure that will put me on tilt. The players will be shocking no doubt, so it’s certainly value to play, especially if it means getting some practice in before Macau.

My girlfriend had a meeting with Tony G and Damon Rasheed of Pokernews this week to talk about possible sponsorship or doing work for them. They expressed an interest in both her and I doing some writing for them and down the line perhaps putting us in events. They are apparently totally devoid of people to write Hold'em for them so it seems like a natural fit. Unfortunately, it turns out i busted the guy who will be my editor in the Poker News Cup. Man i hope i didn't suck him out.

One last note, I’ve recently got Xbox live with Halo 3 and have been wasting my youth on it. No, scratch that, wasting is by far the wrong word. I have been making EVERY MILLISECOND COUNT BECAUSE HALO THREE IS THE SINGLE GREATEST CREATION IN HUMAN HISTORY. So if you’d like to play with me online add me to your friends list, Bond18 on Live. See you on there.

For a very long time I didn’t really bother with metagame very much. I’d fire up 8-12 tables, switch to auto pilot, and maybe if I made a final table I’d start concentrating. I didn’t think about other players very hard and really didn’t think much about how I was perceived. These days that sometimes still happens if I’ve got a ton of tables up and it’s early, but I still try to make an effort to take notes or remember on which tables I have a specific image that will alter decisions.

First of all let’s go over the basics. You’re going to want pokertracker and poker ace HUD if you do serious multi tabling. Some say if you’re paying enough attention you shouldn’t need them, but I tend to disagree. If you’ve got 6 tables up, it’s hard to tell if a guy is tight because he’s a bit card dead and a sort of tight player, or a full on mega nit. When PAHUD tells you the guy is 7/5 over 150 hands, you can rest easy folding to his raises in spots you might have taken an alternative action. Also, since it stores players data from previous sessions the information is just completely invaluable.

Next I want to talk about what to look for from other players. A lot of times players aren’t quite sure exactly what to put in their notes, and leaving notes for yourself like “loose aggressive” or “tight” can be a little vague and less than helpful later. Here’s some things I like to take notes on:

1. Sometimes I’ll note a whole hand the villain played since being able to reread that later will tell me a lot about them.

2. I always watch what peoples min raises mean pre flop and note it. The two to watch for are EP min raises (which are normally strong hands) and button/CO min raises (which are normally garbage.) Until proven otherwise I assume those two to be true, but the moment I see their cards after a min raise I note what they have.

3. Along the line of number 2, I always note what people tiny reraise with pre flop. Since this normally ends up being a monster, I need to know if their capable of doing this with a wide range, or, like most players, are only doing this with their biggest hands.

4. I make sure to note which players will raise/fold with 13-20 BB’s. You would never believe how many ranked players I have this note on, it’s fucking everywhere. However, when you see a very good 2p2’er at your table you should normally expect them not to be doing this often.

5. I always note which players are resteal capable. Especially at low/mid limits there are still a ton of players who simply don’t have the resteal in their arsenal, so knowing which players can is a huge help down the road. I also like to note who is a habitual restealer.

6. I like to note which players will get very aggressive on the flop without a plan or in spots where it doesn’t make logical sense to do so. The most obvious example you’ll see is somebody make a big raise/check raise and then when they get 3 bet freeze up and wonder what to do or stack off in a really bad spot because they feel pot committed. Against these players I start fast playing more since I expect them to spew.

7. Whenever possible I try to note peoples open shoving ranges. Some guys with 11 BB’s in MP with antes will shove any SC, any suited one gapper, any A, any pair, etc etc. Some will shoe AJ+/66+. It helps to know which is which.

8. I like to note when I’ve done something crazy aggressive to a player and he saw my cards. Putting a note that “villain knows you can be very spewy/aggressive” will help you shape future actions. Again, sometimes I’ll put the whole hand in there.

9. I try to note which players will try to dominate a bubble. If these guys get some chips near a bubble, you can really punish their aggression with 3 bets since many players (myself included) start raising a ton of hands if the table won’t stop them.

10. I try to note what peoples' bet sizes mean post flop. For example, you’ll see some guys who use bet sizes that are CLEARLY for value and it helps to know that. I also like to know what people will over shove pot with, since for some it means draws and for others the nuts. Another common one is the post flop min raise, it tends to be either a draw, information raise, or most common, a monster (especially if it’s done on the turn.) Knowing what your opponent is trying to accomplish with his bet is crucial.

Alright, as for players reacting to my metagame, this really just takes more awareness and concentration at your table. If you want to kind of zone out that day and watch TV or talk on AIM or whatever else that’s fine, but keep in mind it’s cutting into your profits. Being aware of your image comes with experience, but the deeper you get in a tournament the more important it gets since it’s more likely your opponents are paying close attention. To really max out your game, you need to be able to make those ‘feel’ reactions at the table. You can justify a lot of things based on your image or a players image or the metagame at the table, and it’s hard to quantify in words exactly how much it means.

If you want to experiment with how much metagame means and feeling how important it is, here’s one ‘training suggestion’ I have. Fire up Full Tilt one night and at 11pm Eastern time there are two deep stacked 6 max tournaments (one is a 24+2, one a 100+9.) Play only those two tournaments and concentrate on making plays and reads. Since there’s only a total of 10 players to keep your eye on and you have enough chips to splash around and get creative, see what you can do by manipulating your image, especially if you make it to the ante period. This is a great way to improve on reads and post flop play, while taking notes on a manageable scale.

As always, if there’s anything I didn’t cover or you want me to elaborate on, just ask of course.

I regret to inform you that you’ve been lied to, a whole hell of a lot. Actually, I’m not sure if lie is the right word, but misinformed almost certainly. Here’s the truth; many of the common tournament concepts, strategies, and mentalities written about are fucking awful. This garbage is so permeated in the poker society that those who don’t spend their life online or get a very good mentor will likely remain in ignorance. So allow me here, to dispel some of the biggest lies you’ve been told.

1. “You can find a better spot”: What? What the fuck? Listen, any spot that’s good, by which I mean ANY SPOT THAT IS +EV/+cEV is a spot you should take. Now, are there occasionally spots that are +cEV but you should fold because they're –EV? Yes. An obvious example is folding AA in a satellite where you have a seat guaranteed. Want a better example than something this simple? Okay here’s one:

I recently played a live 3k event in Melbourne with ~440 entrants. The structure was very deep, very slow and had high antes. 40% of the field was freeroll qualifiers and probably less than dozen players in the whole field were actually good tournament players. If I was BB the very first hand with a 20k bank at 50/100 with 22, and it folds to the SB who shoves his whole 20k then flips up AKs, I would fold. However, it really does take an example that extreme to make me consider passing up a +cEV spot. SO STOP DOING IT!

2. “You risked your tournament life with that?” I hear this all the time around live tournaments. I guess that’s because with live you normally only get to play one tournament a day, and in the case of a major main event, people may have waited months or a whole year for it. Still, that’s absolutely no excuse. Your tournament life has no value outside a sentimental one, so unless you intend to bottle that magic tournament life feeling and selling to Hallmark for a fucking Christmas card, stop wasting your time with this mentality.

What really has value in tournaments? Chips. If your opponents in a live tournament don’t occasionally tell you something like “dude, you’re insane!”, you probably aren’t playing right. A good example of how people get nitty with their tournament lives is shoving ranges and re-stealing all in. An example:

About 15-20 players from the money, in a WSOP $1500 event, it was folded to me with J5o on the button with 11 BB’s with antes in play. Both blinds were standard weak tight live players. I jammed because I know how insane tight their calling ranges are, especially moderately close to the bubble. The SB thought for about 8 years before calling with AQo, then the BB folded AQs face up. When I turned my hand over the table let out various insults for putting my stack in with J5o. The real mentality you need to have is a willingness to bust if it means creating +EV spots. Just because you waited a long time to play this tournament doesn’t mean you have an excuse to play bad.

3. “I didn’t want to risk it on a coin flip” This has got to be one of the most common. Here’s the simple truth with most probable coin flip situations: at the point you’re considering folding knowing you’re likely in a coin flip, there’s already probably way too much money in the pot to ever fold. If you raise AQo 3X and a guy shoves 15-20X, and you figure his range is AJ+/66+ (You’re about 43.5% against his pretty tight, never stealing range, and still basically flipping) you ARE NOT folding. There’s nothing wrong with getting it in on a flip as long as it’s a +EV one, which most are, especially once antes kick in.

4. “My opponents are very good, I’m going to avoid trouble.” Look, you need to have confidence in your game. If you really feel you are surrounded by players who are much better than you, you’re likely in the wrong tournament (unless you won a satellite or something like that.) Odds are, your opponents aren’t as good as you give them credit for or their results may suggest. I encourage you to have confidence bordering on delusional hubris. It’s okay to tighten up a little if you do find yourself at a table of superior players, but don’t nit it up to the point where they can run over you and you’re to paralyzed to stop them. Tournament poker can be pretty soul crushing, but showing up to the table feeling defeated just about guarantees it.

5. “Tournament poker is about survival.” No it’s really not. It’s about accumulation to enable the creation of +EV spots. I think this has been covered pretty well in the portions, but this is another common one I believe to be totally false.

Alright, that’s what I have for now. If anyone has any other common ones they’d like to suggest I can go over them. Hope this helps and of course, all questions are welcome.