65s just outside the blinds (1 Viewer)

[SteveHNo96]

I probably had no business being in this hand but I played a 50c/$1 home game and had this hand.

My hand: 6s 5s (I love suited connectors but do not play below this one)
Position: one from blind, 6 players in hand.
Bet: $1 only, no one before me had raised and no one after me raised...

FLOP: 6d 2s 7s
Pot size: $6
My bet: $2
Several people had called this, but one folded. Pot now $16.

Turn: Ks
Pot Size: $16
My bet: $3
Everyone folds except SB who calls.

River: As
Pot Size: $22
My bet: check
SB checks and sees cards...


With only one other person in the hand, I went to a showdown and my opponent checks into me, she had Kd 7c and I took down what was the biggest pot I had ever done.

Should I have done something different?

 

[thorwilliam]

Check turn and jam river?

 

[BGinGA]

Betting sequences seem off. Doesn't the SB act first in your games?

 

[SteveHNo96]

Betting sequences seem off. Doesn't the SB act first in your games?

You're right. I had the position wrong, ha ha ha. I had a check around to me on the turn and flop, which led to me betting in the first two rounds, but I wasn't in the blinds which led me to think I was in middle position.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

What was your starting stack size (and your opponents)? This is important information to consider. Without that knowledge, I'd say everything looks fine, except I would have bet much larger on the turn. Maybe $10-$15. If your opponent has a big spade you don't want to give them the right odds to call and draw out on you.

 

[thorwilliam]

I did not think this thread was serious, but if it is: Bet more on the turn.

 

[SteveHNo96]

What was your starting stack size (and your opponents)? This is important information to consider. Without that knowledge, I'd say everything looks fine, except I would have bet much larger on the turn. Maybe $10-$15. If your opponent has a big spade you don't want to give them the right odds to call and draw out on you.

At the turn, I had $14. Villain had $16.

At the river, I had $11 left. Villain had $13.

 

[BGinGA]

So lemme guess....... you guys are playing 50c/$1 NLHE with 20bb stacks ($20)?

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

At the turn, I had $14. Villain had $16.

At the river, I had $11 left. Villain had $13.

Gotcha. With $14 left and $16 in the pot already, I'm just going all in on the turn.

 

[SteveHNo96]

So lemme guess....... you guys are playing 50c/$1 NLHE with 20bb stacks ($20)?

$25 buy in. everything else is correct

 

[BGinGA]

Properly played, nearly every single hand played with that stack/structure combo should result in an all-in on the turn, if not the flop (3x to 5x raise pre-flop with one or two callers, 2/3- to 3/4-pot sized bet on the flop with one caller, and you already have half your stack in the pot before the turn card is dealt with roughly $12 remaining and an average pot size of $29). This does not promote good poker -- you need much larger stacks (or much smaller blinds) to ever make the river card meaningful in terms of betting (in fact, all-in on the flop will often be the correct course of action, making the turn card also meaningless).

As played:

Pre-flop -- still not sure from what position you called the big blind with 65s, but it sounds like UTG. Fold > Raise > Call. You are out-of-position against most of the field (presumably six or seven more players, three of which also end up flat calling the big blind, in addition to the small blind). You don't want to play 65 out-of-position against a ton of players. Either raise to isolate and represent a strong hand, or just fold and wait for a better spot. If calling and then raised by one of those six or seven, it's a clear fold -- especially with your stack size.

Flop -- with two checks to me and four players yet to act, I bet $4 into the $6 pot, and shove to any raise.

Turn -- checked to me heads-up with bigger stacks in play, I'd bet $11 into the $16 pot. But with only $14 remaining, I shove.

River -- checked to me again heads-up, I move all-in with my remaining $11 into the $22 pot.

 

[DrStrange]

Fold pre
$5 on flop
All-in on the turn
Check behind on the river

 

[GoStumpy]

As @BGinGA said...

Preflop, Fold is better than a raise, and a raise is better than a call. Calling is the worst play here.

You want to be in position with bluffing hands, which suited connectors are.

 

[upNdown]

So lemme guess....... you guys are playing 50c/$1 NLHE with 20bb stacks ($20)?

$25 buy in. everything else is correct

What nobody's telling you directly is that your game is flawed. If you want to play for $25 buy-ins, you should be playing .25/.50 blinds at the most. .25/.25 would make more sense. You can do some googling and reading to learn why starting with 25 big blinds makes for a lousy game.

 

[SteveHNo96]

What nobody's telling you directly is that your game is flawed. If you want to play for $25 buy-ins, you should be playing .25/.50 blinds at the most. .25/.25 would make more sense. You can do some googling and reading to learn why starting with 25 big blinds makes for a lousy game.

The game is not currently mine. it belongs to my sister-in-law who used dice chips hot stamped with a fictional casino called the Desert Palace.
Her chips go no lower than 50c and are the kind of quality that most of you would scoff at. two days of poker chip searching and I found many higher quality sets.

That is why I came to this board and will likely end up with a couple of sets, possibly 3 full sets. I personally think there would be more incentive to play if the blinds were cut in half. however, thank you for the note.

 

[Mental Nomad]

DrStrange & others' advice is on target, and BGinGA gives you good detail as to specifics and why.

A 25 BB buy-in means, with proper play, that the river will never matter.
Also, six people all limping in when they only have 25 BB also means proper play isn't happening; people feel too free to limp in, likely because people are extremely unwilling to raise pre-flop, which happens when everyone is short-stacked.

I host a regular Two Bit Poker game with a BB of 25 cents - and a small blind of half that. In a 25c BB game, a $25 buy-in is 100 BB, and you can actually play some poker. Same overall stakes, but you get proper play and decisions/action on the river. The game plays great, even when people visit who'd normally play 50c/$1 - because the betting scales to the blinds.

Most of my Two Bit players come in for $40-$50 so that they don't need to rebuy to stay over 100 BB after a few small losses. A couple of players like to come in for $20 or $25 at a time. All fairly typical ranges for a 25c game. I always buy in for $40 plus all the small bills in my wallet, whatever that is. (Makes sure there's change in the kitty for cash-out, later. I do $20 plus small bills if I have a lot of small bills.)

Someone coming in with $10 at such a game - 40 BB - can only expect to really "play" one hand, at best, unless they win. If they duck out of that hand without going all the way, they maybe have $5 left - which isn't enough to "play" another hand, it's enough to find the right moment to shove. Kinda like your game.

I suspect the temptation in your group will be to say, "but that's OK, because we don't play like that." I've been there. The truth is, your game will never improve while most people have 25 BB or less - you'll never get to play turns and rivers properly (and learn what that implies for your pre-flop and flop play) until you either bump your buy-ins way up, or cut your blinds way down.

Don't be turned off by small blinds - some people in this thread play regular nickel games with excellent (and fun) deep-stack action.

But definitely get those chips upgraded!!!

GL, and happy playing!

 

[SteveHNo96]

A quick update:

1. I am definitely going to improve chips. I bought samples for 8 kinds of chips that I had some interest in. Most of these are names most of you would be familiar with, obviously Wicked Spades (my favorite), Milano, Nevada Jack Saloon, Majestic, China Clay Pharaoh, and most others in the "mid" or "pro" range and will likely end up with 3 sets, one I bought here which was used Chipco chips and the WS and NJS. All of which have 25c chips, which will make future games more fun.

I apologize in advance for being unable to afford Paulsons and with some of them exceeding $2 a chip, I am so not ready for that.

Matter of fact, I showed my samples to some people during this game and they fell in love with the pro quality chips, even going so far as to say they *definitely* noticed the difference. I had to put them away though when my sister-in-law complained about us getting confused.

2. I sort of noticed that with our game. very rarely do people fold pre flop and often the betting is either done extremely defensively or almost ridiculously over-the-top. Bluffing is sporadic and you almost never see my favorite technique, check-raising. I literally saw three preflop raises the entire night and two of them were from a guy who had The Eyes of Texas.

3. Again thank you. Suited Connectors are tough for me to play because of their volatile nature. when they hit, they hit like a .44 Magnum.

 

[BGinGA]

Her chips go no lower than 50c

Even if you stick with the same chips, I'd advise changing the stakes to 50c/50c. That small adjustment will essentially double your starting stacks to 50bb -- which is a huge improvement over just 25bb. Still far from optimum, but at least you have a little bit of room to see and meaningfully bet river cards.


Oh, and stop limping...... best way to improve (and improve that game) is to either fold or raise.... never call. If your hand is worth playing, it's worth raising with it. Punish the limpers.

 

[SteveHNo96]

Even if you stick with the same chips, I'd advise changing the stakes to 50c/50c.

I am going to ask a really dumb question... how does that work, exactly? you treat two players like big blinds?

Would make the game interesting, I grant that.

If this was truly *my* game, I would do 25c/50c blinds and have chips that make people notice.

 

[GoStumpy]

A couple of the cheaper players in my game scoffed at the idea of two big blinds... like that extra 25 cents per orbit is going to bankrupt them lol

With $25 buyins, .25/.25 is best by far, you don't want less than 100bb stacks to start with. I do .25/.50 blinds in my home game and buyin range is minimum $20, maximum $60, and almost everybody buys in for maximum

 

[AlPresidente]

The game is not currently mine. it belongs to my sister-in-law who used dice chips hot stamped with a fictional casino called the Desert Palace.
Her chips go no lower than 50c and are the kind of quality that most of you would scoff at. two days of poker chip searching and I found many higher quality sets.

That is why I came to this board and will likely end up with a couple of sets, possibly 3 full sets. I personally think there would be more incentive to play if the blinds were cut in half. however, thank you for the note.

For cheap-ish but good chips, search for china clays on here.
Until you buy new chips, use a denom that's too big for your game as the smallest denomination. ie use $10 chips as 10¢ or $25 as 25¢ so you can have smaller blinds.

 

[BGinGA]

how does that work, exactly? you treat two players like big blinds?

Yep. First posted blind has option to check or raise, as does the second posted blind. Much better solution for the referenced chip set which has a 50c chip as the smallest denomination.

A couple of the cheaper players in my game scoffed at the idea of two big blinds... like that extra 25 cents per orbit is going to bankrupt them lol

Yeah, but in this case, they'd actually be ~saving~ 50c each orbit.


total forced bet per orbit:
25c/25c = 50c
25c/50c = 75c
50c/50c = $1
50c/$1 = $1.50

If they dropped down to 25c/25c blinds, their $25 buy-in game would play three times bigger. And allow for at least some meaningful poker on occasion.

 

[Mental Nomad]

Oh, and stop limping...... best way to improve (and improve that game) is to either fold or raise.... never call. If your hand is worth playing, it's worth raising with it. Punish the limpers.

That's dead-on.

Goes back to Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which essentially adds up to this:

1. When you play wrong, they gain.
2. When they play wrong, you gain.

The application here is this: even though they are wrong to limp in too often, it won't hurt them if the people with better hands don't raise (punish them). Conversely, when the better hands don't raise, they make the limpers correct to limp in with anything. You end up stuck in the trap of "it's correct for us all to limp because we all limp." The game can't go anywhere.

Someone (ideally, several someones) need to start raising in - and not just with AA, KK... with most hands that are generally ahead of five other players. And that's a lot of hands. Skip the weaker ones when early, bet them when late, but you should aim to be raising in more often than limping in, especially in a 6-handed game. That's the way to punish people who are limping with hands that are too weak to play - you have to make them wrong to be limping.

Or, in Old West parlance... if they're limping really badly, it's best to shoot them.