dermadman;7923 wrote:
Unfortunately, I haven't played enough Stud and Stud 8/b to have data regarding the variance. My gut feeling, though, is that if you consider Stud 8/b to be higher variance, you might not be exercising good hand selection on 3rd and 4th street.

DangerMouse;7932 wrote:
I like your postflop play here. Since your opponent takes the lead, there's no need to raise and take him off of it...you lose too much value in this situation that way. And good check behind on the river. After calling on the flop and the turn, I actually think you have to fold on the river if your opponnet shoves...your opponent knows that you'll probably call, and you need to ask yourself: "What can I beat given that he knows that I'll probably call." The answer is "nothing," and you should fold. Your opponent lost a ton of value on the river. I don't know if he necessarily puts you on an ace, but I think he should lead for about 1/4 to 1/3 of the pot on the river because of the possibility that you have a pocket pair).

Preflop, I would have raised to T500 instead of T700. I'm looking for the BB to call me with an ultra-wide range and to extract tons of value from that wide range. I also want to give SB the chance to think that he can successfully go over the top of me. Honestly, he still probably won't perceive that he has much fold equity on a reraise, but T500 at least gives a better chance of that happening than T700.

dermadman;7950 wrote:
Problem is that he's not playing against a known flush draw. He has to consider the entire distribution of his opponent's possible holdings, and an ace is a real possibility given that his opponent lead on the flop and the turn. It's not the only possibility (which is why I agree with calling), but playing passively postflop and controlling the size of the pot is the way to go here.

DangerMouse;7978 wrote:
Big stack!? 3-handed as the shortstack, this is looking something like the range of hands I'm shoving all-in with 3-handed in a 50/30/20 STT when I have 8 or fewer big blinds! Precise range is a little situation dependent, but my shoving range from the button as the short stack looks something like {AA-22, AK-A2, KQ-K2, QJ-Q6, JT-J8, T9s-54s, J9s-53s} (642 out of a possible 1,326 starting hand combinations...just a little under 50% of the time I'm the button)

Well, I'm going to open by saying that you shouldn't leak 30bb in trying to establish an aggressive image. You can establish the same aggressive image by open raising a ton from late position, 3-betting preflop with a higher than normal frequency, betting very often on the flop when only against 1 or 2 opponents, and raising bets on the flop both with top pair type hands and semi bluffs (as well as your monsters). You don't even need to make your bets or raises big with respect to the pot (open for 2.5bb and continuation bet 1/2 pot). The sheer frequency of your aggressive actions will illicit similar responses from your foes.

Given the image you have, you most likely have 15 outs. You'll hit your draw about 56% of the time with two cards to come. You were actually a favorite here. The funny thing is that your opponent doesn't understand cash game poker at all. Given that there were dead chips in the pot, you can actually make this call if you're slightly under 50% to win, and it's still +EV!

(By the way...don't call a preflop raise with AQs expecting a 3-bet that you can then go OTT against...typical low stakes players only 3-bet with AA-KK. I personally really like how you played this hand, though you could have also considered 3-betting to about $.90 preflop).

MrToymaker;8161 wrote:
Yeah...I'm starting to put an increased emphasis on small ball tactics. The cornerstone to the small ball strategy is that by keeping bets small, you're never losing that much when your opponents play back. And when opponents play back, they typically do so by betting large with respect to the pot, meaning that you're setting yourself up to get big implied odds for when you hit a hand. Though you mention STTs and MTTs, I also play a small ball style in NLHE cash games. The key is being comfortable playing across all 4 betting rounds...too many players try to turn NLHE into a game that's just preflop and flop.