Thursday, October 23, 2008

Some Hands (Slowplaying Preflop)

Sometimes in aggressive games is good to slowplay some hands preflop, in order to get squeezed or for deception.
Of course I'm usually raising and don't recommend slowplay almost never, but there are certain factors that can make me take that strange line with a good hand preflop.
Some of those factors are:

-Stacksizes
-Villain range (His Playback %)
-My Image/history
-Position (Villain's and mine)
-Table dynamics (who is on the blinds, behind me, how squeeze happy are they)
-Number of players

Here are some examples of strange lines and some basic reads:

Hand 1.
I have the weapons of mass destruction (AA) and decided to slowplay because I have a halfstack that could push on the blind and also a squeezy player. I got the squeeze and UTG decided to raise again. Now this is very interesting (while I salivate), because UTG now probably have a good hand and he only have a potsize bet left on the flop so he is getting in with me no matter what, probably a cooler. However If I call I can let the squeezer push if he has something like AK, or big pair and I am doing good against both their value range, but if I push he might get away from AK, QQ, JJ, TT (I am a Greedy mother fakaaa). Hoooooooooold Hoooooooold !! Booyaaaaaaa!!


Hand 2.
I have QQ on the BTN Deep, vs UTG raiser 5 handed. I have no problem getting it in allin preflop for 200bb deep with QQ, but I haven't been playing too aggro in this particular table, and villain haven't get out of line against me. If I was playing Aggrocrazy then I can see a 4bet bluff in a 5 handed table a lot, but I just didn't had that image at the moment (That means Playback % is lower). After the Flop, I decided to play my hand as if I had a small pp (With a crazy image I raise here all day) and let him bet multiple streets (Which a lot of people will do after raising from UTG). On the river I thought I could valuebet (might be too thin) and represent a missed FD. Villain hated that valuebet and berated me saying I'm a donk for betting there, but he was the one that called, who's the donk now?


Hand 3.
Now I did have the crazy image in this table, playing a lot of hands, and in a 5 handed game the UTG raiser's range is wider, so I can expect a squeeze a lot more and I can raise with no problem. Ok this one didn't actually worked, but its interesting postflop. Thats a great flop for my hand and once the UTG checks, I have the best hand a lot. Got ck/raised (which is a great spot to do as a bluff, after I bet in pos 3way) and I thought that he is not gonna have many 4's in his range, so I'm dead to a FullHouse or in decent shape vs a FD since I have the J of spade. On the turn he overbet shoves, so we can get rid of the FullHouse on his range, and I'm only losing to KsQs (Again I have the Js so KsJs is not possible and AsKs/ KsTs is also not that likely because of the action so far). Thats also a great double barrel card to put maximum pressure if I had the draw and was ahead with A high or something like a pocket pair. So I called and was ahead... yipeeeee!!! DOUH!!!


BONUS Hand:
Ok this has nothing to do with me having a good hand, but it was fun. I have K5s in a 4 handed game from UTG so I raise, and got 3bet (Which I think he will do with a huge range) so I decided to 4bet (Here I didn't noticed his 3bet size "8 tabling syndrome" and 4bet smaller that what I would have liked 62-65 would have been better). Flop is AQ2 rainbow and I gaybet $42 into $161. My plan is simple gaybet and keep bluffing, He decides to raise my SUPER BET and that makes no sense at all, why would he ever raise with a good hand here? He is never raising with AQ in position, or AK, or AA, or QQ and all those hands are in my range (He probably push with AA/QQ/AK hands preflop vs me). So I decided to float him(gaybet/push flop is also good) and steal it later if he checks turn, and of course do a little hollywood then push and ship the sugah!!

Always nice to win with K high!!

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