Tournament hand for discussion
An interesting hand from last night's local tournament that I have been thinking about. I post it here for discussion.
There are 16 players left. Ten places are paid. Heavily waited to the top three spots. The average stack is about $4500. I have $5600. The blinds are $400-$800.
Under the gun player (UTG) limps in. He has more chips than I do be a reasonable amount and might even be the chip leader. I have played only a few hands with UTG at another table. I have him down as an "ABC" player, by which I mean someone who will tend to bet the value of his hand. But, I am aware of that fact that I don't really have enough evidence to write the book on UTG.
I am middle position and find Ah-Th.
Question #1: What should I do? (answer the question before looking ahead).
.
.
.
.
.
.
I decide that I could win this hand with a raise. I make it $3000 to go. The button calls all-in (about $1200). Then, UTG moves in. Ugh...
I am facing a call of $2600 (putting me all-in) into a pot of $11,000. I am getting the odds to call against anything other then A-A. But, there is an all-in player who is a skilled cardsharp himself so I have to give the all-in player for something. I will give him credit for a big ace or any pair.
Pros -- a stack of $13,600 will be dominant at this point and give me a good chance at the top three pay spots.
Cons -- I am out of the tournament.
I spent a long time over this and even opened conversation with UTG to try and sniff out a tell. I thought that he had a strong hand, but not aces. But, I was far from certain.
Question #2 -- Do you call? (answer before looking ahead)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I called. UTG had J-J. I can't remember what button had. I spiked an ace and won the hand.
Sadly for UTG I busted him a few hands later when I ran my A-9o through his K-K. Not one, but two bad beats.
There are 16 players left. Ten places are paid. Heavily waited to the top three spots. The average stack is about $4500. I have $5600. The blinds are $400-$800.
Under the gun player (UTG) limps in. He has more chips than I do be a reasonable amount and might even be the chip leader. I have played only a few hands with UTG at another table. I have him down as an "ABC" player, by which I mean someone who will tend to bet the value of his hand. But, I am aware of that fact that I don't really have enough evidence to write the book on UTG.
I am middle position and find Ah-Th.
Question #1: What should I do? (answer the question before looking ahead).
.
.
.
.
.
.
I decide that I could win this hand with a raise. I make it $3000 to go. The button calls all-in (about $1200). Then, UTG moves in. Ugh...
I am facing a call of $2600 (putting me all-in) into a pot of $11,000. I am getting the odds to call against anything other then A-A. But, there is an all-in player who is a skilled cardsharp himself so I have to give the all-in player for something. I will give him credit for a big ace or any pair.
Pros -- a stack of $13,600 will be dominant at this point and give me a good chance at the top three pay spots.
Cons -- I am out of the tournament.
I spent a long time over this and even opened conversation with UTG to try and sniff out a tell. I thought that he had a strong hand, but not aces. But, I was far from certain.
Question #2 -- Do you call? (answer before looking ahead)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I called. UTG had J-J. I can't remember what button had. I spiked an ace and won the hand.
Sadly for UTG I busted him a few hands later when I ran my A-9o through his K-K. Not one, but two bad beats.
Comments
If he only calls, this gives me the ability to push a still sizable bet in on the turn, if i think i can get him to drop the hand. (ie. the texas holdem two step)
UTG goes all-in: i swallow hard and push all-in also because the at this point the pot is laying great odds against everything except for aces.
For the record my guess on the way he played it had me thinking he had either TT, JJ or QQ. Ie. good enough to limp, big enough to still push all-in and needing the protection of pushing all-in to get you off of various possible hands, if he sensed you feared getting all-in.
You've got a good limping hand, but middle position is a little far from stealing territory, particularly with an UTG limper who could have almost anything. Limp re-raising UTG with AA is not quite ABC, but it's far from exotic.
2. Call. This is a pretty easy call just based on the stack & pot sizes I think. Sometimes you'll run into a dominating hand, but you might be giving the UTG player too much credit here if you're putting him on TT or better or AJ or better. Your UTG opponent may simply have heard of the notion of isolating, or geting it heads-up with, an all-in player. He may choose to do this with a mediocre hand.
ScottyZ
But with 11K to win with a call of 2400, you must certainly call.
.
.
.
.
.
With the limper moving all in A 10 suited is not a strong enough hand. I would fold.
One of my rules is never raise with 2 or more limpers in ahead of you, unless you have a monster.
I have in the past exited two very good tournaments on A J suited with a limper UTG or in first position. The way this happened to me lately, I would have called and seen the flop. Call me gun shy at the moment.
i think it would probably be better to limp as well....a stack of 5600 with 400-800 blinds seems pretty small to be making pot-committing raises like you did with ATs....with the average stack at 4500, there is probably going to be a lot of preflop all-in bingo, and i'm not super enthusiastic about being all-in with AT....so if you're going to make a raise, maybe going all-in first is better, to try and take the pot down preflop. but i think i prefer just calling to see what the rest of the table does
raise to 2000 total
and call because you are pot committed.
I like the raise in MP with an Ace and solid suited kicker, to often I get outdrawn by worse hands (ace/rag) and kick myself for not raising preflop. I don't agree with the passive play of just calling and giving your opponent a free ride to the flop, make em pay for it.
Did you end up in the top 3?
stp
Just wondering if anyone would have called this if the same senario came up in the WSOP or any other major tourney
A-Ts was, I think, too good to lay down pre-flop. So, call or raise. And, how much? Raising definately pot committed me unless I had an uncanny read on the limper.
Then... am I REALLY pot committed? Looks like aces, smells like aces, tastes like aces... must be aces! Course... it wasn't so I guess I guessed right. That and with 2600 left I was not out. I really wanted the big stack since even with "insane blinds" a big stack can be a BIG advantage.