Sunday Special: Mike Goodman's Microstakes Hands

With my analysis sprinkled throughout

POTD has added a new feature, every Sunday we will try to have guest columns from a variety of non-professional poker players. Where they will outline their thought process and I will comment, via footnote on errors in their thought process. This idea was presented to my by the author of this week’s opening post in this feature. Mike Goodman. I would introduce him, but he’s already done so in the post below. If you are interested in soccer you should listen to his podcast Double Pivot with host Michael Caley. This feature will be free to all subscribers and I hope you enjoy it.

NB: If you reading this via e-mail, it might be an easier read on Substack where the footnotes require less scrolling back and forth. Click here.

Hello, my name is Michael “MLG” Goodman and twenty years ago I was really good at poker. It was 2005, the Moneymaker boom was in full swing, and I was a college senior who spent the majority of my time playing tournaments and posting on 2+2. By 2007, I was half out of the game, with a job in finance, and by the time Black Friday hit I was just done. Fifteen years went by and I just didn’t think about poker. Having a career and a family will do that to you. During the pandemic when online poker zoomed back to some degree of popularity I had two children under the age of four. Having time to shower was barely a thought that occurred to me, playing poker again was not.

But time goes by and kids get older, and I have over the last few years both found myself living in Europe and with enough time on my hands to have a hobby. Through the magical alchemy of the YouTube algorithm I was reminded that poker existed, online poker even, and for the second time in my life I deposited $100 and decided to try and be good at the game. The thing is I also decided that I didn’t want to spend several multiples of that $100 on buying training tools to help me improve (Sam’s newsletter is literally the only poker product I pay for, and that’s because I like the writing as craft even more than the poker advice). I went in with my eyes pretty wide open, understanding I had a lot to learn and that the game was very different than it had been in my day, and my goal was to see if I could learn enough for free to beat micro-stakes large field tournaments.

Several thousand tournaments later, I can safely say that I can. How much can I beat them for exactly? Ask me again in another several thousand tournaments. I think the combination of my success 20 years ago and my success, more modest monetarily obviously, but in some ways more intellectually rewarding, make for a unique perspective. And when I asked Sam about whether he’d be interested in me writing up some microstakes hands, he agreed. So here we are.

Generally speaking my plan will be to do what Sam does in terms of structure though with less assurance and less final tools based evidence. A look in my mind as I played the hand. A look at what I thought about while studying the hand. So, without further ado, let’s look at a hand.

Early registration has closed in a $10 tournament on GGPoker, but we’re still relatively far from the money and I get dealt TcTs UTG seven handed and play an annoying pot against an unremarkable opponent.

Daily Special $10 Hold’em No Limit - Level 15 (600/1,200)

MLG (32,903) : raises 1,200 to 2,400
LJ (95,981): folds
HJ (31,273): folds
CO (41,759): calls 2,400
BT (53,530):folds
SB (22,143): folds
BB (31,375): folds

*** FLOP *** [5c 9s Kc]

Hero: checks
CO: bets 3,825
Hero: calls 3,825

*** TURN *** [5c 9s Kc] [7d]

Hero: checks
CO: checks

*** RIVER *** [5c 9s Kc 7d] [6s]

Hero: checks
CO: bets 15,300
Hero: calls 15,300

CO: shows [Jc Qc] (King high)

Hero: shows [Tc Ts] (a pair of Tens)

*** SHOWDOWN ***

Hero collected 45,900 from pot

What I thought during the hand

Preflop:

I have TT UTG at a seven handed table and 25 big blinds¹, there’s not a ton to think about really. Maybe I can raise a teensy bit bigger or whatever, but clicking buttons is easy, and really with 25x it’s probably fine anyway.

Getting called by the CO here is a little bit annoying with this hand and these stacks, but mostly whatever. He should have a pretty tight range, and I should have a pretty good hand, though I should prepared to both lean on my range on a lot of flops that aren’t great for me and also do a bunch of checking, but be kinda sticky on flops that are good for TT but bad for my range.²

Flop:

Well, crap. That feels like an extremely annoying board. My hand is obviously too good not to continue past this street in some way, but there’s definitely a lot of K in his range, since all the KQ, and most of the KJ both suited and unsuited can be there (more on KJs later) and I block a lot of the drawier portion of his range. On the other hand there are still a lot of draws, plus plenty of nonsense he could stab with and a family of marginal made hands like A9s or 88 that probably mix checking and betting. Checking and betting both seem fine for me. I check. Villain clicks the half pot button (see, clicking buttons is easy) and I’m a little annoyed because I hoped he’d click the one-third pot button. Still feels like my hand is obviously a continue so I call.

Turn:

Well the 7d certainly isn’t a card that’s supposed to be good for me, though there’s not much in his range it helps either. I believe we call those a blank.³ I check again, he checks. Hmmm. Ok. Let’s upweight the good draw and marginal made hand portion of his range and downweight the good made hand portion of his range.

River:

Well. Now we have a four-liner out there. I check I guess…don’t really know what I’d be valuebetting against, nor do I really think trying to bluff makes sense.⁴ I think I have a pretty obvious bluff catching candidate. He clicks pot (I wish clicking buttons was harder). And now, I dunno man. Like, yes, any eight makes a straight, but what eights is he supposed to have here? I guess we’ve got three possible combos of 89s and all four A8s and six combos of 88, assuming all of them bet the flop? Which seems like we’d need to downweight it some because lots of that checks the flop sometimes. Also, 89s doesn’t always get in there preflop and while 78s and T8s aren’t really supposed to get in there preflop maybe they do.⁵

Speaking of preflop, there’s a problem here on the missed draw side of things as well. My TT is annoying since it blocks half the JTs and QTs that might fit this bluffing bill. Not hard to imagine A5c/A4c, maybe even not of clubs for that matter here. The other annoying thing is that I know QJs is supposed to 3-bet a lot preflop, though KJs is as well, but lots of regular-ish small winners at microstakes aren’t taking that spot, and also given that the CO was covered by the button, he might REALLY not be taking that spot.

Anyway that’s a lot of thought happening quickly, but it kind of all comes down to whether I expect a King to pot the river if it gets here. Like if KQ got nitty on the turn is he now potting the river. Really it swamps all the other considerations. If yes I’ve got a clear fold, if no, it’s not hard to find enough bluffs in his range I can call.⁶

I call.

Hurray.

What I learned from studying

Preflop:

First off, technically I’m supposed to raise to 2.1.⁷ Sue me. Opponent showing up with QJs is kind of vindication because it’s a clear spot that he should take (at least according to free GTO Wizard it’s a shove for chips the vast majority of the time, and KJs is a pure shove at 25x CO vs. UTG1. But it’s tricky to execute for reasons Sam went in POTD #187.⁸ With QJs calling is ok, if a little bit of a niche choice. Also I ranged him right on the low side, which ends up mattering in this hand, negligible T8s, no 87s, 89s is a mix. Always nice to get those basics reinforced.

Flop:

The solver says this is a flop where every hand in your range mixes. I find this very validating. Looking at this flop and thinking…this is an annoying flop in this spot is more or less correct and the solver throws its little electronic arms up and just says, mind your frequencies.⁹ I’ll try Mr. Robot¹⁰. One thing I’ll say here is that in my, admittedly, fairly limited in the grand scheme of things experience, decent microstake players are good at identifying range bets, and they bet, and good at identifying range checks, and they check, and when confronted with a range mix they….bet their best hands, and maybe some bluffs, and check their worst hands. I think it’s really important to remember to check KQ and up here a bunch, maybe like a third of the time, and if you’re not consciously doing it, you’re gonna mess up these spots and make yourself really easy for even merely competent players to play against.

One place I was a little too cavalier, interestingly, seems to be the call on the flop where I didn’t give it much thought. Turns out him clicking a different button was more important than I realized at the time. Against one-third pot, TT has an auto continue and occasionally even raises, against 55% TT actually folds if it doesn’t have a club. I probably wasn’t finding that. So, I wasn’t wrong, thanks be to the poker gods, but that bigger bet matters way more than I thought.¹¹

Turn:

I think down the turn line is where mediocre players (myself included here) and good players really separate. Nothing in this hand is complicated until here, and thankfully, as it turns out, I had the easy half of the hand. The bet or check decision for the CO here is tricky and basic GTO Wizard wants to fire again with lots of good draws that don’t particularly love the idea of getting check raised. You got 98s, you’re betting. A8cc, fire the heck away. The relatively rare occurrence of 88 betting the flop, go nuts. It almost always bets KQ, and mixes KJo. Oh also it can have a lot of AA here which it also continues betting on the relatively innocuous turn the vast majority of the time.

Another interesting thing is that even with all that betting, the combo draws to the high side are notably excluded. CO can’t have QTcc in this hand obviously, but when he could and he does, it’s a check, same for JTcc. I assume what’s going on is that when you’re firing a turn barrel the folds you want come from QQ/JJ/TT a lot so you choose hands with a chunk of equity but that don’t block those folds to balance your value bets.¹² I’m pretty sure if I was in CO’s shoes my ranges would have been all out of whack here.

River:

First, solver doesn’t block with my combo (I assume it has something to do with the backdoor flush draw interaction, but don’t really have any concrete idea) but does block 10% of pot with the other two combos of TT with a club 100% of the time. Which makes sense now that I think about it, given my tough river decision after I checked, but also I never thought about it during the hand. Another lucky node where I walked ass-backwards into the correct decision.

So, the solver doesn’t like my call. Also, the solver gets here with a bunch of KJo and bets it about half the time, when it gets here with the times it mixed KQo and KQs it bets over 60% of the time, and big. The sliver of AA that checked the turn, obviously betting. This is a close decision. The solver calls with Q9s, presumably because we block 99/K9s/KQ and mixes J9s but folds TT.¹³

And so, here’s my question. Should I think that a random guy, even a regular, in a 10 dollar tournament is keeping close enough of an eye on his frequencies that he takes the check turn/bet river big line with KJ/KQ/AA enough to agree with the solver’s fold? Should I do that even though he has done nothing but click call/half pot/check/full pot in this hand? Should I think he’s doing this despite the fact his river bet is 100% of pot when the solver’s only “acceptable” bets are either 85% or jam for 136%?

On the other hand I also don’t know if “never gets to the river and pots with KQ” should get paired with another assumption like “can have 87s” or “has more 88 than expected” etc. etc. So, I was right, and after looking at basic solver outputs I’d probably still call, even though the solver thinks it’s wrong, but I also still don’t know if my call is right.¹⁴

That’s poker baby.

If you made it to the end of the post and are interested in being the subject of a future Sunday Special, let me know. Do not be shy if you have a lack poker skill or accomplishments. No solver analysis is required from you and I’d much rather have amateur poker players, who are good writers that can produce clean copies and clearly articulate their thought process than editing the writing of 99% of accomplished poker players.

1. 27.5 BBs. I am sorry to begin this project by being a nit.

2. In theory, the CO should be flatting a specific range here that is rather strong and should have a range advantage versus you. In reality in a $10 tournament there’s always a they’re chance flatting 97o and I’d guess your range is stronger than theirs on average.

3. It’s a blank in that it rarely improves either of you (unless he flatted the 97o I mentioned in footnote number 1), but it does create a lot of one card gutshots, which you do not have, which shifts where TT fits in your range as a hand like 98s is clearly higher EV than TT now. The turn is not as blank as an offsuit 2, but it’s a pretty big blank.

4. You’d be value betting against A5,6,7, but mostly worse 9x. There’s no reason to consider bluffing when top pair will probably never fold and QQ-JJ are hands he should never have preflop

5. Generally speaking if he has extra 8x combos postflop it means he also has extra bluffing combos. When you only need to be good 1/3rd of the time, 12 combos of QJo can easily make up for some extra combos of suited eights.

6. I generally agree with all of this. Full pot represents a straight and and it’s unlikely he has a hand in between a bluff and 66.

7. I am not even sure if this is “technically” true. It just means that’s the size GTO Wizard ran their sims with. I don’t know if they tested several different sizes and even if they did the correct opening size is contingent on the three and four bet sizes used in the sim and the exact stack configuration.

8. In the CO facing a 27bb opener when you are 35 deep with the button and shallower with the blinds, I’d imagine QJs mixes call and shove.

9. Some of this is due to the board being annoying, but also just because range vs range equities should be close and you’re OOP. So there is rarely a dominant play with anything.

10. God I hated that show.

11. The bigger bet matters for two reasons. It’s a larger bet so you are getting worse pot odds. By betting larger the solver is representing a stronger hand. One should be careful with folding hands that have relatively strong absolute value versus players who aren’t precise with their sizing. In theory 55% pot is supposed to indicate a stronger range than 33% pot, vs some players it’s just their size with everything.

12. The more important dynamic here is that you don’t want to bluff the river if you miss. QcTc is a hand you’d rarely want to bluff on the river if you miss, because you want MLG to have hands like AcQc or AcTc. QTcc is a monster draw, but still not a hand you want to get all-in with on the turn, especially if MLG check shoves a hand like the nut flush draw. You’d rather bluff hands on the turn that can profitably bluff on the river and don’t care about folding to a checkraise like Ah4h. Of course being able to call a check-raise all-in and having more pot equity are nice qualities to have in hands that barrel the turn, but having lots of pot equity and being able to river a very strong hand are also nice qualities to have in hands that check back the turn.

13. The general rule here is that on the river you’d almost always rather bluff catch with a pair on board compared to a pocket pair. The reason is not just because you block some value bets, but also because you have one card that doesn’t block bluffs. To put it another way the Tc and Ts are never in his value bets, but occasionally in his bluffs. If he never value bets with the 9c in his hand, Tc9c is still preferred because you only have one card in your hand that he bluffs with.

14. Generally I agree with the analysis here, which is that his line looks like he has a hand that improved on the river. That’s a very hard thing to do given the preflop positions and post flop action. So if you want to ask yourself, what’s more likely is that he checked back KQ on the turn and is value betting it for full pot on the river or that he’s bluffing ~1/3rd of the time. Calling seems like a reasonable pivot. Sure you’d rather call with Ac9c, but you’re allowed to call with both.