Analyzing Specific Hand Histories

This is the free version of the Crush Live Poker subscription podcast. If you enjoy this audio format of poker training and want to hear more complete episodes, check out our membership options at CrushLivePoker.com. What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Crush Log Poker Podcast. I'm your host here, Bart Hansen. Today's episode here is straddling and managing some wild pre-flop ations. And I went back and forth on whether or not I was gonna split this actually into two podcasts because there's a lot of hands that I want to cover, but I think I'm just gonna do it in one particular podcast. I had a massive, massive session at the two-five game yesterday on Wednesday, February 11th at Encore Boston Harbor. I ended up winning just under $4,000 , which probably was my it, could have be actually my biggest session in that two, five game ever over the course of course of like three to four years. Cause remember, I'm only really playing five to six hours. I don't get to really press the whole winning image thing with a big stack, but I had a massive, massive stack from yesterday, and it was a culmination of a couple of different factors where I had there was a guy in there that is sort of legendary named Freemo , who plays in the game and sometimes we'll play like any two cards. I learned that there was a CLP subscriber shout out to him. I I won't say his name, but he begins with an R because I know he's going to be listening to this . This particular CLP subscriber, I'm going to actually call him the villain one in some of these hands. Him and I actually battled or we have battled back and forth over the last few months. And I got the best of him. He was actually the tilty guy from the episode from a few weeks ago when I talked about making certain adjustments when you think that somebody's on tilt. And it's weird because yesterday was such a, I don't know if you want to call it a strange day, or just everything aligned. I was literally recognized by it had to be over a dozen people. Every single person at the table was talking about me at my two five table. And then at the end of the session, when I went to cash out, the cage worker downstairs, because you had to take your chips downstairs, actually shorted me by like 300 bucks. When he called the supervisor over, we were counting in and we shorted by like 300 bucks. He knew who I was. He was like, Oh, I'm sorry, I was starstruck as a joke. And so it was just like one of those types of things. But this particular CLP subscriber that I'm going to talk about, he said, Oh, I was the tiltie guy. In the episode, I had no idea that this guy was a CLP subscriber. And this sometimes will happen that I don't know that guys are CLP subscribers and depending on their player profile, sometimes I'm a little bit surprised. Then there was another guy that cashed out right around the same time that I cashed out. His name is Ben. Shout out to Ben. He came up to me. afterwards That's always interesting too to have a guy say, Oh, I'm a CLP subscriber. Ben and I didn't really get involved in any hands. Played, Ben played super, super tight. But what a table we had. What an unbelievable table. And it was very, very close to actually not being so good. I had spoken about this guy, this younger guy, I don't know if I called him kid or what from last week, who basically said everybody on for a mandatory straddle from last week? That same dude who actually was playing at Encore because Freemo had gotten apparently the best of him at Gate City is the story like over the last month where he was trying to get away from Freemo, uh, even though Fremo was at our table. That dude same dude was in my 10 2-5 game again and just said everybody on for a straddle. And we ended up straddling the entire afternoon. The interesting thing is is that we actually played like five or six handed with a straddle for I would say the better course of like one, maybe the better course of like two and a half hours. I remember because I had to go to the bathroom so badly, but as talked about in the past, I felt like the game wasn't strong enough to get up. Like if I were to get up and take a break, it was very, very sh aky. There was really only one two five game. And sometimes it really bothers me when people don't really recognize what's going on with a game that might be shaky. And if you just get up, you might break the game. And that's kind of how I felt it was for the first couple of hours. We were playing four, five, six handed, and I just didn't get up. And then finally I was finally somebody sat in. And then finally I got up about three hours in. And then when I got back, like 10 minutes later , it was a full game. But we actually played short-hand ed for quite some time. So let's talk about a little bit about straddling and a little bit about how this game was very, very close to actually not happening the way that it did. And everything sort of came together. I was watching a PLO video that someone sent my way on from YouTube from Jay Nandez. Jay Nandez and I actually have known each other for quite some time. We actually went out to dinner together many, many years ago. And obviously he does a lot of PLO training type of material. And it's one of the things that kind of st stuck out at me was he was talking about running it more than once, and he said that way back in the day when he was first starting, or he he had heard maybe from Glen , was the guy's name Glenn Ashby when one of those guys was first starting out that they had asked like a very, very respected PLO professional that had been playing for many many years, do you run it once or do you want to run it twice? You know, do you run it once usually or do you run it twice? And the PLO professional says, well, running it once all the time is a good way to go broke. Now we always know, we obviously know that running it once or twice doesn't necessarily do anything except it doesn't change the equities. There's no advantage to doing it it. All does is it makes the outcome closer to the actual equities that they are in a hand. So if you're 80 20, like if you get it in Aces versus Kings, and you run it 10 times in a thousand dollar pot , the outcome of the pot will approach the eight hundred and twenty dollars, like eighty-two, eighteen. It'll approach the eight hundred and twenty dollars that it should be versus running it, say, once where you're either gonna win eight out of ten times a thousand total or zero. So in the way that we use the term variance, it reduces the variance. And obviously in PLO, when equity matchups run obviously very, very close, it will basically keep you in the game because if you're playing a lot of big pots and you're not properly rolled, then the variants could catch up with you. And that's what they're sort of talking about. This sort of reminded me, and he was also talking about how so he always runs it twice, except in a situation where there is a professional shortstocker. The structure of the game in PLO gives the short stacks an advantage. Now it actually gives now short stacks actually have an advantage and know them and hold them as well. We don't usually think about that, but you still have such a higher expectation if you're a good player playing deep. You don't really run across professional short stacks, but it's so extreme in PLO, you do. He said the only time he has ever runs it once is when he's out against a pro that he knows is a for-profit player that is short stacking. That's the only time that he'll ever run it once. And the reason why I bring this up is because it sort of reminded me, and I want to talk about straddling here for a second. So this guy, we'll call him guy, the guy that said, Hey, do you everybody want to straddle? And then everybody at the table was like, Yeah, we'll all straddle. So we start straddling, everyone sort of agrees, no one says, oh, I'm not going to straddle to like an auto straddle. This is right in the beginning of the session, like four or five hands go down. And then this guy who I've never seen before was who's just playing with like 200 bucks or something like that in front of him. He doesn't straddle, even though everyone sort of agreed to straddle. He just doesn't straddle. And then these old guys to my right, like I think I'm in like seat three or four seat four, they're like, well, if this guy doesn't straddle, I'm not gonna straddle. And I'm like, oh God, here we go. We're gonna let this $200 stack like dictate the fact that we're not gonna play the rest of the game without a straddle. You can do whatever you want with the straddle. Sometimes, again, it's predatory. I don't think that you should be overly predatory to a game. But if you can get a straddle on, for example, like in a 2-5 game and you're playing 2-5-10 with the same players, that's a huge advantage, obviously, for somebody that is good. But it is okay to allow someone, like an individual, to not straddle. And what I mean by that is you can just ignore him because that one guy is not going to give you more negative EV than from than compared to everyone else just continuing to straddle and then that just one guy not straddling. Like this guy only had like 200 bucks in front of him. Who cares if he doesn't straddle? Let's all just continue to straddle. It's like sometimes people don't think about the bigger picture and they're just trying to like squeeze out the most DV they possibly can, and they don't even take a step back and realize, oh , even if the guy doesn't straddle, having a straddled game is still higher EV for me, even with one guy not straddling. So it's kind of like penny-wise, pound foolish, if that's the term or picking up pennies in front of a tractor is that is that is that a term picking up frennies in front of a tractor or something like that it it's like you're trying to pick up small amounts of EV, but you're not necessarily thinking about the long term. So the reason why that sort of fits in is because I probably wouldn't have actually made this play. So I can see this guy's on the short stack. And then these other guys are about to not straddle because he didn't straddle for this particular hand. And he's under the gun. He's in the natural spot where he would have straddled. And we had straddled like the last four or five hands. And he limps in with like 300 bucks effective. This is actually hand one. So he limps in with 300. I look down at pocket fives and I raise it up to 25 from mid-position. So he limps in, I make it 25. Three people to my left call. And now this guy limp re raises all in for like 300. So actually maybe he was only 200. Yeah. Yeah, I think he was only 200 deep. So he limp re raises all in for 200, I've got pocket fives. Now normally when a guy limp re raises all in, now I can ISO the guys to my left and sort of give myself odds. But normally when you've got a small pair and then somebody is obviously gonna have like a higher pair or something like you're gonna flip against Ace King. It's probably not the most profitable spot in terms of thinking about this with ranges. But what actually went through my mind is is that if I actually knock this guy out of the game, now I didn't necessarily know if he was going to get out of the game. I'd never seen the guy before, but if I knock this guy out of the game and he gets out of here, we're going to straddle again. Nobody has actually missed their straddle. So that's exactly what I do. 25 call call call. He limp re raises all in for 200. And I just like re raise to 400. I mean, nobody's all really all that deep because we just started the game. I get everybody else to fold behind me and we get it all in, me against this guy. And I'm not even flipping with him. He has ace for offsuit. He has ace for offsuit. And I beat the guy and he goes walking. And I'm like, okay, well, no more strata. We don't have to miss the straddle. And actually knocking that guy out of the game, I think really did wonders because if he was still in the game. Like if I had folded and everybody else had folded, these guys that were coming up next, they weren't gonna straddle because that one guy had refused to straddle. So this sort of started this kind of cascade effect for me to basically have this superstashian. That was hand number one. And again, the lineup was such that we had this kind of wild guy Frimo, who's been known to go blind with any hand . We had this aggressive other CLP sub that I had gotten the best of recently. And then some other players that were rather deep as well. And we were just constantly straddling . And once that guy left, we again we played for like five or six handed for quite some time. So hand number two here was played against the we'll call him the CLP villain. CLP villain. So this hand just starts off 2-5 plus 10, just 1k effective. I'm up a little bit, but still early on. And it starts with that guy Freemo limping in from under the gun. Villain one in the hijack makes it 50. And I look down in the small blind, again playing 2510, and I've got King of Spades, Queen of Spades. And by the way, I would be perfectly happy to get it in with that guy Freemo, if I three bet here and he limp jams, this is the type of guy, just to give you that type of background that I would just be happy to get it in with. So obviously, I don't want to just call and let the limper come in. So I three betted up here to 175 . The limper ends up just folding and the hijack calls, and we're away to the flop in the pot's like 360 bucks. There isn't a ton to this hand, but just giving you some background. Now the flop comes out eight of diamonds, three of spades, three of hearts. I actually make a sizing mistake here, and I don't know why I did it, because it really should be like a hundred dollar bet. I come out and I bet 150, which is kind of an in-between type of si zing. And the reason why that creates such a a problem is if you look at this and this guy calls, now all of a sudden the pot's like 660 and I've got like a pot size bet left. So I suppose you could make a case if you wanted to play a two-streak game of just bet jam on the turn in a particular situation, you could sort of take somewhat of a larger sizing, like it was just about something like just under half the size of the pot. But on a top-pair dynamic board, as I always talk about, which is like eight, three, three, why not give yourself the opportunity to scare someone away from ace high and scare someone away with with overcards? Because if you go half and now all of a sudden you've got a pot-sized bet, there's only one card that can come that could scare away something like pocket sevens. Where if I started with like a hundred dollar bet, which is just under a third or just under about 25%, if he made the call, the pot would be like 560. We would we would have maybe right around 700 left. I could even go like 40% on the turn, like 200, something like that. And then at that point, the pot's like 800 left, and you've got 500 left. It kind of shapes it up for like a geometric jam at the end. So taking a larger sizing, actually larger than one third here, at literally like a hundred big blinds, right? Because it was like an open with a big open and then a three bet, it just sort of took away my ability to do that with a little bit of a live misclick on the flop. So I lead here for 150 into 360 on 833. There's one spade out there. I've got King Queen of Spades. He hasn't think about it for too long and he calls. And again, I'm not a guy that is really, really big on live tells, but it just kind of seemed to me that he was going to be peeling here with a lot of ace highs. And just because he called, he could kind of just be playing off the board. I mean, that was kind of my take on the situation. Maybe he does fold out with some hands like Queen 10 or something like that, but but that was just sort of my take on the situation. So I was just like, wow, I mean if if I just get a blank turn or an overcard turn, I'm gonna be doing a lot of jamming. Obviously I've got a backdoor spade, you know, I have a backdoor spade draw as well. The turns the nine of spades. So it's eight three three rainbow in this three-bat plot. Turns the nine of spades. So I pick up a backdoor spade draw. The plot's six sixty . I the there's only six seventy-five effective left. And I was like, well , I guess I got myself into this situation. That's what what I was saying about making the larger flop size. I'm just gonna jam all in. And if he ends up like have hitting a nine with like ace nine or calls off with pocket sevens. I've got equity against that. So be it. So I ended up just jamming and he didn't think too long and just ended up folding. So I was correct. Remember, he was like in position the entire time. But at one SPR, it's really hard to play like a two-streak game going from turn to river once there's just one SPR. I mean, what am I going to do? Bet 200 into 660? And then he makes the call. Now the pot's 1060. And I've got like 4 7 5 left. I I suppose, I suppose I could have made like a 30% pot size bet, but if I started the flop, started the flop with a bet of like a hundred to a hundred and ten hundred and twenty . I think it makes a lot more sense to be able to get away with that on the turn. But here I just leave myself one SPR. So I didn't have all of the the tools that I wanted to win that hand, but it ended up working