When Poker Hands Don’t Go as Planned (w/ Uri Peleg) | Upswing Poker Level-Up #57

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady with poker pro Uri Peleg. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

Hey poker players, Mike Brady here with a very quick episode to help you level up your game. I was reviewing some of the content in the New Lab 2.0 course over on upswingpoker.com, which is amazing by the way, and I came across this video from Uri Peleg that is all about when poker hands don’t go as planned. This is something that happens to all of us at the poker table all the time. We might have a pie-in-the-sky vision for exactly how a hand is going to play out and oftentimes the dealer or our opponent just doesn’t cooperate. This is just a quick three minute segment from Lab 2.0 where Uri talks about this kind of in an abstract way, but I think it’s some pretty helpful general advice that you can take right to the table. So I’m going to kick it over to him and let him explain.

Uri Peleg (00:52):

Sometimes poker hands don’t go according to plan. Case in point..

Brad Owen (00:55):

Brad: We’ve got Queen Seven offsuit in the small blind. We’ve kicked up the blinds at twenty-five fifty. I raise to two hundred to win the big blind a decent amount of the time. The big blind calls to spoil our plan. We’re heads up. The flop comes Queen Eight Four rainbow, I bet one fifty, he calls. The turn is the Deuce of diamonds, I bet four hundred for value. He raises to sixteen hundred. I call for twelve hundred more. The river is the Seven of spades, I check. He goes with a giant sizing of fifty-six hundred, I call. It turns out the river wasn’t as good as we thought… Wow, you hit the three outer. How much is it? fifty-six. That is gross. Big blind calls to spoil our plan… to spoil our plan… to spoil our plan…

Uri Peleg (01:47):

Alright guys, so let’s break down this hand from Brad. I think a few things are going on and they all kind of circle back to the difference between thinking about your hand and thinking about your range. So preflop, when we say that we’re going to raise wider and Queen Seven offsuit isn’t generally a small blind open, this implies we think our opponent is going to fold too much and so he’s going to defend tighter. That means we arrive to the flop with a wide range on our side and a tight range on his side. And range versus range that’s going to mean that you want to play a more passive strategy and check a lot and let the other guy take the lead. A bit on intuitive, since we’re used to having the betting lead when we raise small blind versus big blind.

Uri Peleg (02:30):

But this dynamic changes that and if you don’t acknowledge it, you end up giving the money that you stole preflop due to him being nitty back on the flop by betting too much with a weak range into a strong one. So that’s kind of number one. Be that as it may, we make a c-bet. Can’t be wrong with Queen Seven on Queen Eight Four. Get called, turn the Deuce. And here Brad says he thinks his hand is worth another bet. And this is another instance of focusing in on your hand rather than your range. And one of the things we teach you in Lab 2.0 is the general structure of betting strategies. So after you bet small on the flop if you get a brick turn, we’re generally looking to catch up with our really big hands because everything bets small. We go for really big bets and this four hundred into seven or seven fifty bet isn’t part of the strategy.

Uri Peleg (03:21):

Now, you’re not supposed to do it. Queen Seven is supposed to check, you go more big, more polarized. That’s kind of the structure you’re playing within. And there are players against whom you can step out of the structure and say, “I’ll just lead for this size. It makes sense for my hand with Queen Seven.” Specifically more passive opponents. And this doesn’t seem to beat that type of player. On the contrary, it does look like this player’s raise might even have been triggered by the fact that Brad shows this weak in face upsizing. So that’s a dangerous game to play. You have to know who you’re playing it against and that’s another one of the things that we teach you to do in the Lab. To me, betting this size with this hand should be a conscious exploit and not something I would ordinarily do.

Uri Peleg (04:05):

After getting raised I agree Brad’s hand is probably too strong to fold and on the river when he improves, it’s really unfoldable. This is what’s known as a value catcher on the river. So you actually beat some value bets. And so it is in theory unfoldable barring a very extreme read and that’s kind of unlucky there. But yeah, that is my opinion and my thoughts on the hand. Hope you enjoyed that.

Uri Peleg (04:28):

What does it mean when a hand doesn’t go as planned? I think this is a very important subject and one that has to do with both poker and life. So let’s say you have a date with a girl and you talk to her before you really like her. You go on a date and suddenly you are planning on going to the park. It’s stormy weather, it’s raining, it’s starting to snow, there’s thunder, there’s lightning… But you are planning to go to the park, right?

Uri Peleg (04:56):

If it was a beautiful day, you have your picnic basket, everything planned out. What do you do when things don’t go as planned? Fairly simple. You change your plans, right? No going to the park. If you do go to the park as a date, it’s not going to end well for you. This story is how poker works. So when a hand doesn’t go as planned, the first and most important thing to do is to recognize, “oh, this isn’t going as planned.” Let’s slow down, let’s reevaluate. Let’s consider my options and let’s understand that things are not going to pan out the way I thought. For example, you look down at Pocket Queens under the gun and your plan is to raise and have an advantage and win a nice pot, and you do raise and the guy on the cutoff three bets you and now your plan is maybe to re-raise him back and start playing, but then the guy on the button re-raises him and the guy on the small blind re-raises him and you’re like, “oh wow, this isn’t going as planned”.

Uri Peleg (05:58):

Then suddenly you have to reevaluate your Queens and you realize, given the context of everything that happened, Queens, with every action shifted. So it started out being a top-two-percent hand and anyone can have anything. And then it was a two-percent hand facing, maybe an eight-percent three-betting range. And then it was a two-percent hand facing an eight-percent three-betting range and a three-percent cold-four-betting range. And now, another cold-five-betting range added, which is probably like one, one and a half percent of hands. And suddenly you’re like, “oh wow, Queens is actually terrible here. This is a really easy fold”. But you have to follow the weather, you have to follow the signs and kind of see his plans change. And the same is true for after the flop. So say the board comes King Five Six, and you have King Jack or King Queen or Ace King, you make a bet and your opponent makes a big raise and puts a big bet in on the turn.

Uri Peleg (06:55):

It’s very, very important that you reevaluate how strong your hand is and there able to recognize at what point plans have changed. And rather than having a hand that wants a big pot, it’s your opponent that’s telegraphing a bigger pot than your hand is appropriate for, then folding suddenly becomes an option for you. So, whenever things don’t go as planned, the most important thing is slow down, reevaluate, consider all your options. And there’s always another hand, there’s always another date with a girl. You’re going to have a good weather. It’s fine to fold good hands in poker. That’s part of the game.

Mike Brady (07:33):

I hope you found that bite-sized content helpful. And if you did, might I recommend going over to upswingpoker.com and checking out Lab 2.0, Uri’s new course. I worked closely with him on it for the better part of the last year. He was really the strategic mastermind behind the entire learning path, the entire curriculum of that course, we’re really proud of what we put together. No matter where you are in your poker journey, whether you are a beginner, intermediate, more of an advanced player, this course will help you get to that next level. This segment that you just heard is from one of the earlier parts of the course, definitely more beginner focused. The content gets a lot more advanced as you go and it really gives you a clear path from wherever you are now to poker mastery. So if you do want to take your game to the next level, and I assume you do, given that you’re listening to the Level Up Poker podcast, I’d highly recommend going over to upswingpoker.com and checking out that new course. Take care.