cdannons

Trust me, I stress tight play a lot in razz, especially early in a tournament and have won my fair share of razz tournaments, but the playing level in the negreanu open tends to be better than most tournaments and MUCH better than normal razz tournaments, but the main point of the play was, even if he can't lay down a hand, I'm still a favorite to win the hand going into the river, unless he is willing to call with a J low when I have 3 low cards showing and have played the hand like I have a real hand, he is gonna have to fold the river if he hits bad, and even if he hits good, I'm still draw

I started in late position with (7 7) 5. A player brought in with a Q and a J limped before it was folded to me. Now 7 7 5 is not a playable razz hand and J x x has me beat at the moment, but he can't see that I have paired cards so I look at this as a good bluffing opportunity and correctly complete the bet to 60. Everybody folds to the J who calls. I hit (7 7) 5 K and he hits (x x) J A. Even though as far as he knows this is a coinflip, he of course, bets anyway to force us to risk our chips. So now I still have great bluffing potential if he hits bad and I make the call (some of you may thi

Ok, sorry, but i'm still not risking that many chips on this, it's just not good poker, if you feel the need to call this, than you probably aren't much better than everybody else in the field. These guys in the small stakes tournaments give away chips left and right in much better situations. There is no need to risk your stack on this

he has AQ in the small blind after everybody folds and the dealer limps, you wanna fold???? No way, if you wanted to just call the blind, I wouldn't look down on that, I sometimes will just call from the small blind or check from the big blind to disguise my hand if I flop an A or a Q, but you're getting 5-1 odds on calling when you almost certainl have the best hand!! If you are folding this preflop here, you are playing WAY too tight

the chances are, nobody has anything that can call a raise. If they really are calling with all Ax and all Kx, then you are still not only a coinflip statistically, but you are the FAVORITE to win the hand because you are the aggressor. If they don't hit some kinda of pair (especially with Kx), they are going to have a tough time calling anything.

yeah my first thought was about 500, if he calls, you're pretty much done with the hand unless a J or maybe A or Q, maybe, come out. Even though you can generally expect me to make a continuation bet when only 1 player has called my preflop raise, I don't think a check is THAT bad here (but don't quote me on that)

Yeah that's based on Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson's game theory

Actually I like your point, I'm now convinced check is the right move, as for the whole preflop situation, I didn't see the raise was so small, he should make it 3 bets if he's going to raise. But my point on getting blinded out didn't mean he was getting blinded out, it meant if you sit and wait for AK the blinds are going to eat your stack awfully quickly 4 handed. You're only going to get a hand better than QJ suited about 6% of the time, there is a good chance your hand is best and if you are waiting for a top 6% hand, you are going to see your stack drop awfully quickly 4 handed

Totally, agree, that's why I think this is more difficult than it should be. I'm very rarely a fan of min raises. As for fold, I think it's probably a good fold, but I think you set yourself up to possibly get bluffed out.

this is interesting, gotta go right now, but I'm gonna think about this, be back with my input later

very nice, now turn that $16,000 into $10,000,000

fold from the getgo, and fold to the all-in, no reason to risk your chips when you are hoping to be a slight favorite. small pocket pairs are much less playable when the blinds have increased this much. Even if you play them very well, it's hard to get paid off enough to make paying off the times you dont hit, and if you don't hit, it can be a tough hand to play. Say the flop comes like 3 3 6, you may want to keep playing the hand against a small bet even though you're up against something like 4 4, it's ust too risky, I saw throw it away, if not fold then at least raise to too see if you c

ah my bad, thanks for pointing that out, then yeah i wouldn't say a fold is too bad, but i still say call, being a blind an all, not to say i'm huge on defending the blind, but the discount has to mean something, and you do have a pretty strong hand, but now that i see it was raised, i like the thought behind folding

completely agree

and if anybody disagrees with what i've said i've love to hear your own theories on the bubble sittuation

When you get down to 5 and espeically 4 players, your play is largerly determined by the stack sizes. If you're the big stack, you cna play more aggressively (but not recklessly, nothing sucks more then going from big stack to bubble boy), let the smaller stacks wait out who gets the money, be cautious if you have smaller stacks showing resistence against your aggression, they usually have a hand. If you are the middle stack, you want to avoid confrontations with the big stack. If you are the middle stack and there r 2 short stacks, be aggressive on them (assuming th big stack allows you),

My early days consisted of showing a small but steady profit in $5.50 9 mans for like a month and then going broke in 1 bad day. This repeated several times, just counld't hold me emotions together on a bad run. After maybe 4 or 5 repeats, I started to hld myself together and slowly became a wining player, taking breaks when you are losing has helped a lot. During the early months of 2007 I dind't play very much, although I did win a 232 player $11 HORSE tournament in January. I took almost all of Febuary off. In March I won a 120 player $11 Razz tournament. Looks like at the begining of

Wow, never having played one before, good luck with this one. Rebuy tournaments are completely different from regular. There are 2 far away strategies that I'll talk about:Daniel Negreanu strategy: Daniel likes to take a lot of risks and make a lot of all-ins. It's simple, if he builds a big stack, great, if he loses, not only will he jsut rebuy, but he has put more chips on the table that he plans on winning back later. This strategy can be very very expensive, I can't even give you the number on rebuys he made the last couple of rebuy WSOP events, it was insane. However, if things do wo

I'm not liking the check on the flop, although I don't think it's quite as bad as some people might think, I woulda have to say bet. Not only do you have a strong hand that should be bet for value against a weaker ace, but you can use the bet to narrow the field and gain infomration on anyone that may call you. The hand will be much easier to play with less players and will be even easier if everybody folds. As for the river, I'm laying that down in a heartbeat. What NEtwow says is right, so many people make these big bets to look like a bluff. The fact is, if it is a bluff, he'll lose al

Exactly, we can all learn something from Phil Hellmuth about holdem tournaments

Well I said I woudl make the call, I just don't like having my tournament life at risk when I'm only a 2-1 favorite. Yes, I'm calling, but I may very well by getting knocked out, and I'm not happy about that

Yes it could be, but you won't really know until you've played enough to tell, you could be the best player in the world and start off getting 9th in your first 3 tournaments

yeah you're right, and I woudl be very surprised if my opponent had those kidna of hands, but at the same time, you never know in the low stakes games. I was mainly just trying to show how hard it was for them to have you in bad shape, even if he played a bad hand and got lucky.As far sa folding preflop, i understand the argument but i disagree completely, it wasn't raised preflop and there is a good ahcne you have the best hand, If you would not look down on a limp and seeing if you can flop a monster, but folding is just too weak

I have no problem with the preflop raise. QJ suited is aboslutely raiseable 4 handed. Believe it or not, game thoery allows QJ suited to raise even under the gun 9 handed! Not a fan of that kinds of raise myself, but it's definately acceptable 4 handed. Now i'm not saying you have to raise, but if you are completely against raising, you are playing too tight. Even though tight is right here, you can't just let yourself get blinded out either. I actually don't think the flop bet is so bad either, althought I think check might be best, a bet would only be a slightly worse move (and it migh

this is pretty funny, and I think it's a fine hand to post. You have a good stack, I say forget the math, let the hand go. There is no reason to risk your stack here. You can wait for big hands and ride yourself into the final few and play for the money. Don't make this more difficult then it has to be. Also, you don't want to show the hand