cadillac;146457 wroteYour points are great. I just don't know what play you are advocating here. Push or fold I think? AMIRITE?
I appreciate your input. This thread never really found any legs and I am honestly no smarter than I was before.
I consider the re-raise for several reasons. This table is horribly weak-tight and it is a live table. This is an NL tourney at a casino that only spreads limit and the play is really weak. My stack if I raise and fold to a push is perfect for push-botting and I can likely short-stack ninja my way back into a stack easily.
If he calls my re-raise I know exactly where I am at (crushed) and if he pushes I know where I'm at (crushed-flipping at best).
As far as pushing preflop my stack was an awkward size for it. I would be making a raise of 6X his pre-flop open (I have him covered so this is effective stacks) and it really reeks of a big Ace.
I know what you are saying about the odds he is getting on my push. I would never do it online. The only problem is in a live tourney with a weak field I see the under-pairs folding here like ALWAYS. "ZOMG - Tourney life," and all that nonsense.
Any who that's my reasoning warts and all. Not saying it is correct just that I had a reason for the hand even if it was the wrong one.
I am certainly advocating either push or fold here. That decision is really a gut one at the time and don't think many could help you out there. It depends on whether the blinds are likely to fold, if this guy saw you fold the previous three hands when he got to the table, how comfortable this guy looks right now, how well you can shove in your chips in a steady manner and then sit relaxed in your seat staring at the cloth, etc.
So what I can summarize is folding is not so bad, calling is ok but be careful and probably get out if you don't hit, shoving is not so bad and reraising is completely wrong. And the only reason calling is ok is that you have position.
Also think of it this way. If you fold or shove, you have no further decisions and cannot therefore make a mistake. If you call, you can make a mistake on the flop (like you did). If you reraise, you could make a mistake by folding to his reraise (which it would have been for many reasons).
If you keep the game simple, you will do better and make less mistakes. Plan ahead. If you call there and the flop comes A T 2, what are you going to do? What if it comes K Q 9? What if it comes K 8 4 with two diamonds? When you are making your preflop decision, you should also be thinking about this sort of thing. What if you miss the flop completely? What if he bets? What if he checks?
You probably already do this on many hands without even thinking. For example you are LP with 3 limpers and you have 22. You call and the flop comes A T 6. See you already knew what you were going to do on the flop. If it didn't have a 2 or a miracle straight, you are going to fold. That's an easy one, either you hit a set and build a big pot or miss a set and fold.
Well you should do this on virtually every hand before you enter the pot. It's just that give the situation in the hand you described, there were more possibilities so you have to give it more thought.