Slow Week

This week has been very slow for me. I only played one tournament, and was working pretty much the rest of the time. The tournament I played was an $11.70 double shoot-out satellite to the Stars Sunday Million. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, double shoot-out basically that there are ten starting tables, and the winner of each table advances to the final table. Anyway, I suck at these and it didn't really pan out.

Here are a few hands.

Poker Stars, $10.70 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 25/50 Blinds, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


BB: 780
UTG: 2,100
Hero (CO): 1,425
BTN: 1,475
SB: 4,720

Pre-Flop: (75) A Q dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, Hero raises to 150, BTN calls 150, 2 folds

Flop: (375) 3 T 2 (2 Players)
Hero bets 250, BTN raises to 650, Hero raises to 1,275 and is All-In, BTN folds

Results: 1,675 Pot
Hero mucked A Q and WON 1,675 (+875 NET)


At this point I had developed a pretty weak tight image. I won a big pot off the BB earlier with a set to his TPGK, but since then have dropped back to a starting stack. Some of my drifting involved opening pre and then folding to a three bet, or opening and then check/folding a missed flop or two.

As a result of my image, I think I can safely assume he's making a move here fairly often, since he probably assumes I'll fold all but the very top of my range. I've been thinking about this hand for a bit, and I think its ok if he folds a decent percentage of his range, or calls with a hand worse than mine some percentage of the time.

Then, about six hands later, we get down to heads up when the button with 4k opens, I three bet A6o from the SB with 2250, the BB flats with 3.8k behind, and the buttons shoves. I insta-fold, BB tanks and calls with AJs. I think his call is meh here at best, his ideal situation is a 52/48 dog against an underpair, and I'm not sure that happens often enough with the buttons range for the call to be ok. Anyway, button had AKo, but a jack on the turn got us to heads up play.

Two hands later, the following comes up.

Poker Stars, $10.70 + $1 NL Hold'em Tournament, 25/50 Blinds, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter


Hero (BB): 1,800
SB: 8,700

Pre-Flop: (75) K 9 dealt to Hero (BB)
SB calls 25, Hero checks

Flop: (100) K 8 3 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets 50, Hero calls 50

Turn: (200) 5 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets 100, Hero raises to 350, SB raises to 600, Hero raises to 1,700 and is All-In, SB calls 1,100

River: (3,600) 4 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: 3,600 Pot
Hero showed K 9 (a pair of Kings) and LOST (-1,800 NET)
SB showed 3 3 (three of a kind, Threes) and WON 3,600 (+1,800 NET)



I think I need to be raising preflop here since I'll be out of position for the rest of the hand. I could raise flop since top pair is usually good here. I decide to raise turn, but when he min-3-bets I'm a bit lost. I shove pretty quickly, and he calls pretty quickly and then reveals why. I think now that I don't give enough credit to min-3-bets, especially when heads up. Because this situation tends to happen to me a lot where I bet/raise, get raised, and shove thinking its best only to find out I've been behind all along. Oh well, I guess, more to learn.