Tourny hand for Discussion
After reading and posting about Dave Scharf's WSOP hand for Discussion I thought I would get some opinions about a hand I played in that was similar to Ralph's, except I was on the recieving end of the raises.
I was playing in the Venom No Limit $80 Bounty tournament last week, top 3 get paid an amount of $840, $240 and $140 (yes top heavy). There are 36000TC on the table and I have 5200TC, the blinds are 300/600. I am one of 5 players remaining out of the original 24.
The guy to my right (gtmr) had raised me three consecutive times when everything was folded to him on either his button or his SB. After the second time I said to him "I'll let you have it...this time" to let him know that I felt as if he was stealing. Unfortunately the 3rd consecutive time he raised me I look down to see 5s2s, fold.
Next hand I get in my small blind I see JJ and sure enough GTMR raises a bit more then he had been, he raises to 2600.
What do you do?
I was playing in the Venom No Limit $80 Bounty tournament last week, top 3 get paid an amount of $840, $240 and $140 (yes top heavy). There are 36000TC on the table and I have 5200TC, the blinds are 300/600. I am one of 5 players remaining out of the original 24.
The guy to my right (gtmr) had raised me three consecutive times when everything was folded to him on either his button or his SB. After the second time I said to him "I'll let you have it...this time" to let him know that I felt as if he was stealing. Unfortunately the 3rd consecutive time he raised me I look down to see 5s2s, fold.
Next hand I get in my small blind I see JJ and sure enough GTMR raises a bit more then he had been, he raises to 2600.
What do you do?
Comments
You've picked up a great hand to make a stand with against a frequent stealer.
ScottyZ
Is he shortstacked? The info we have is that there are 36K total chips on the table. At 5200TC he is under average, but not necessarily the short stack at the table. Blinds at 300/600 gives him a little time to do some waiting... are any other players short stacked (are any in danger of blinding out? less than 1500TC?)
How many chips does the stealer have? 2600 is a big raise for that size blind. He may not want a call (this is "a bit more than he has been raising") though if this is his standard raise, discount that point. Would his calling your all-in reraise and losing cripple him? If he has LOTS of chips, he may call because he can afford to. Have you seen any previous steal cards? Does he need big cards to steal?
He probably needs at least big cards to call you if you raise (Ace-paint/ two cards bigger than J) against this, you are about 50/50 to win (slightly better)... against a big pair, you're screwed. Against anything less, he should fold. I think he has junk due to the size of the raise and the history of you laying down to his raises. He will probably fold unless he is pot-commited (or he has an enormous chip stack) I think he will give you credit for a hand here.
if you double up, you are a better than average chip stack. Even if he doesn't call, you've picked up 3200 more chips which puts you above average and gives you a better stack to fly with for the rest of the tournament.
The only time I would not go all in is if two other players were soon going to be blinded out and you might be able to coast into the top 3 without doing anything.
At this point though, your hand is likely ahead if he calls and adding in the fact that he will likely go away to a reraise, you're good to go. Also if you fold here, he (and others) will continue to push you around, and you need to be able to take blinds down at this stage in the tournament.
I can't imagine an opponent playing with this much precision unless he has seen your hole cards.
If you move all-in, your opponent is being offered around 3-1 from the pot which may tempt him to call you with complete garbage (i.e. two undercards), or at the very least, hands which you dominate.
I think folding JJ here (or more generally, attempting to sneak into 3rd place) is out of the question no matter how the chip stacks work out due to the unusually small payouts for 2nd and 3rd places. With such a disproportionately large payout for 1st place, I think this is a rare case in a tournament where you favour making a decent gamble over going too far out of your way to simply survive.
ScottyZ
Regards,
all_aces
He flipped over QQ and I was out.
I later heard him telling someone that he had had a sick run of cards AA, KK, QQ within 10 minutes.
Unfortunate result when I got a hand that I was waiting for. Glad I played it well. BTW the flop came all rainbow under 10, I would have moved in on the flop to.
The remaining four players made a deal for 200 each and play for the remaing 250. I walked away with $75 worth of bounties.
Thanks for the replys
stp