Something I See Often, but...
it is something I rarely do and I am wondering if that is a flaw on my part or is this strategy that many I see utilize just being done in really bad spots? Basically I am talking about the pre-flop resteal bluff.
This hand took place in the $3 rebuy the other day fairly deep in the tourney (think about 150 left at this point). Still, the payout structure is extremely flat until you get to the final 27 or so.
PokerStars Game #20463493466: Tournament #107931375, $3.00+$0.30 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXII (5000/10000) - 2008/09/16 20:10:57 ET
Table '107931375 229' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: poker-luser (149904 in chips)
Seat 2: Dahbiene (257612 in chips)
Seat 3: Monteroy (119420 in chips)
Seat 4: shanafp73 (510400 in chips)
Seat 5: megamulk (197095 in chips)
Seat 6: TWINTURBO88 (141329 in chips)
Seat 7: cooksallin (368692 in chips)
Seat 8: hvilla37 (784022 in chips)
poker-luser: posts the ante 1000
Dahbiene: posts the ante 1000
Monteroy: posts the ante 1000
shanafp73: posts the ante 1000
megamulk: posts the ante 1000
TWINTURBO88: posts the ante 1000
cooksallin: posts the ante 1000
hvilla37: posts the ante 1000
Monteroy: posts small blind 5000
shanafp73: posts big blind 10000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Monteroy [Jh 7c]
megamulk: calls 10000
TWINTURBO88: folds
cooksallin: folds
hvilla37: raises 50000 to 60000
poker-luser: folds
Dahbiene: folds
Monteroy: folds
shanafp73: raises 449400 to 509400 and is all-in
megamulk: folds
hvilla37: calls 449400
*** FLOP *** [5h 6s 3c]
*** TURN *** [5h 6s 3c] [8d]
*** RIVER *** [5h 6s 3c 8d] [4h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
shanafp73: shows [Th Kh] (high card King)
hvilla37: shows [Qd Qc] (a pair of Queens)
hvilla37 collected 1041800 from pot
Now, a healthy part of my concern of doing the play the BB did is that in this tournament many players will snap call with any pair, any ace rag and any KQ for any amount preflop (some because they are bad, some because they want to gamble to make final table), so I would never do what the BB did (with a fairly healthy 50+ BB stack while covered).
To me given the stacks and the tournament this seems like basically a spew, but conceptually I am wondering how much of a problem it is that I do not use the resteal play that often, and what characteristics would make it a more viable play.
I actually totally hate the play with K10 in this case and would think the play would be better with a hand like 89.
Edit: I had just moved to the table about 2 hands earlier so no reads on anyone.
This hand took place in the $3 rebuy the other day fairly deep in the tourney (think about 150 left at this point). Still, the payout structure is extremely flat until you get to the final 27 or so.
PokerStars Game #20463493466: Tournament #107931375, $3.00+$0.30 Hold'em No Limit - Level XXII (5000/10000) - 2008/09/16 20:10:57 ET
Table '107931375 229' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: poker-luser (149904 in chips)
Seat 2: Dahbiene (257612 in chips)
Seat 3: Monteroy (119420 in chips)
Seat 4: shanafp73 (510400 in chips)
Seat 5: megamulk (197095 in chips)
Seat 6: TWINTURBO88 (141329 in chips)
Seat 7: cooksallin (368692 in chips)
Seat 8: hvilla37 (784022 in chips)
poker-luser: posts the ante 1000
Dahbiene: posts the ante 1000
Monteroy: posts the ante 1000
shanafp73: posts the ante 1000
megamulk: posts the ante 1000
TWINTURBO88: posts the ante 1000
cooksallin: posts the ante 1000
hvilla37: posts the ante 1000
Monteroy: posts small blind 5000
shanafp73: posts big blind 10000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Monteroy [Jh 7c]
megamulk: calls 10000
TWINTURBO88: folds
cooksallin: folds
hvilla37: raises 50000 to 60000
poker-luser: folds
Dahbiene: folds
Monteroy: folds
shanafp73: raises 449400 to 509400 and is all-in
megamulk: folds
hvilla37: calls 449400
*** FLOP *** [5h 6s 3c]
*** TURN *** [5h 6s 3c] [8d]
*** RIVER *** [5h 6s 3c 8d] [4h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
shanafp73: shows [Th Kh] (high card King)
hvilla37: shows [Qd Qc] (a pair of Queens)
hvilla37 collected 1041800 from pot
Now, a healthy part of my concern of doing the play the BB did is that in this tournament many players will snap call with any pair, any ace rag and any KQ for any amount preflop (some because they are bad, some because they want to gamble to make final table), so I would never do what the BB did (with a fairly healthy 50+ BB stack while covered).
To me given the stacks and the tournament this seems like basically a spew, but conceptually I am wondering how much of a problem it is that I do not use the resteal play that often, and what characteristics would make it a more viable play.
I actually totally hate the play with K10 in this case and would think the play would be better with a hand like 89.
Edit: I had just moved to the table about 2 hands earlier so no reads on anyone.
Comments
If it was a steal attempt, it was a bad one. He pushed into someone who could knock him out. Bad move.
In this situation, the player could be raising for many reasons. He might be playing small ball strategy in order to make himself look like a maniac, then rake in on a hand like this, or he might have been raising a decent amount in hopes to get only one caller and pot commit him.
Either way, it worked for him very well. I'm just hoping he had a good read on the re-raiser when calling an all-in with QQ. I've seen too many busts with QQ. Like others having AK, AA or KK at the same time.
So, yeah, I would never push back on a pre-flop raise with that many people at the table, especially when it's only going to be two of us in the pot to see the flop. That's what you want anyway. Flat calling would be a decent move with his stack.
Dumb move on his part in my opinion, even if he did have a read on the original raiser.
KTs is above the range I put any random on in this spot - especially with an active villain. Although shoving is a little strong given their depth (I would prefer making it 170-180K), I think your going to produce a fold more often than the Button actually has a hand. That also includes the villain folding hands that are beating you.
Specifically in deep tournaments with very flat payouts - you have to take advantage of these spots when they come. If your resteal range on button steal attempts is only 99+, AQ+ you're gonna get completely run over.
That said - restealing is getting crazy right now - so I've been going alot with the reverse resteal lately (especially in cash games - restealing and squeezing are getting absolutely no credit).
Edit: Nevermind - misread the HH and thought villain was Button. MP raiser - fold er up.
pretty hard to comment on without a solid understanding of the table dynamics, which we do not have. if the original raiser has been raising a lot, it would hurt too much for him to call with a crap hand here, especially if BB is tight. if original raiser is tight, his raise looks like a mid-pair. again, a very difficult call without something huge like, say QQ+. so the re-steal with any 2 has a very good chance to work. having said that, perhaps a 3R plays a bit more donkish, so he should have known he had little fold equity and this was a bad play?
aj, you would be very hard pressed to convince me this is anything close to chip dumping. KT soooooooooooooted baby.
darryl, i'm with you. it is not a terrible move, again depending on the dynamics. you will even see people stealing from UTG these days so MP is nothing.
I agree that the move itself isn't a bad one necessarily, just too much. Why push everything you have into a larger chip stack on a steal? Didn't make sense to me, too risky. If he wanted to steal it away, I think a 2 or 3x bet might have been enough for him to get a better read on his opponent without risky everything he had.
OR his wife caught him playing online again and he had to bail in a hurry...that happens too
if the stacks were bigger that would be fine. raising 3x pretty much pot commits him so he might as well push OOP
- When is this move a good one?
Some decent comments on this, and I agree a better read would help (was not possible), but would looking up a players stats be a guide with no reads. As strange as this sounds, when I do try this it is usually when I have fold equity against a relatively better player. The -82% ROI guys taught me a lesson when I tried it with 78 suited once and got called by 10 8 o for 40 BBs :P
- How much does the tournament itself matter?
I play the $3 rebuy a lot and hours 2-5 are filled with really bad loose players who greatly overvalue hands, which is why I tend to not do "moves" too often if I have a reasonable stack, instead going for very high EV double up opportunities.
I wonder if this is a bad habit to get into as I venture into some of the higher buy in tourneys, where sure some players will still be bad, but I doubt to the general extent as seen in this level.
Also, the very, very flat payout structure in theory would make gambling a better option. I finished 12th yesterday for $240. Had I finished 112th I think it would have been a whopping 35 or 40 bucks while 2nd was 3k or so.
- How essential is the resteal to a tournament player?
As some have said here it seems to be all over, so does that make it more risky to use if people will give your reraises less credit?
I immediately dismissed this player's play as idiotic at the time, and then after I started wondering about it theoretically. I still do not like his choice of hands and timing stack size, but I am left wondering if very rarely trying this is -EV overall and if so how much.
And while I agree restealing is out of control - there are very few that have the balls to 4bet light - so it is definately a +EV weapon when used in the right situations. I'm suggesting your HH is borderline.
You have the right approach for the mid levels of the 3R and 5R. Tight is right here. I would open up towards the end. You finished 12th - go back through the HH of the last 50-60 hands. I guarantee the guys who took the big money had their game wide open.
Well, not really. For most of the last 2 hours of the tournament my stack was pretty shabby, around 8-10 BBs worth, and the one time it could have gotten decent it got crippled back to 8 BBs when my AK lost to A4. Not really much one can do with 8 BB but shove and hope you get called when you have a good hand and hope people fold when you shove on the button with Q2 suited.
Of the people that had decent stacks, there definitely were some very aggro players and some players that I politely called "pussies." The problem the aggro players had was they could never turn it off even when 3+ players were left to act preflop after them that had 5 BBs or less. Saw lots of KK vs J3 hands that way, which just seemed a bad time to be stealing since someone had to shove.
Those that could not control their hyper aggro ways basically either dumped their stack 5-10 BBs at a time (or more ), or generated immense stacks via a very unlikely series of suckouts. One guy won 4 all ins where he had 2 undercards vs an overpair preflop. It worked that time, but I suspect that is not what you mean by opening your game up
About 2 months ago I final tabled the $3 rebuy (3rd) and a $5 thing (won it) and in both I had a monster stack with about 100 people and I definitely loosened up my game a lot and stole many blinds and consistently built my stack preparing for the final table in essence.
What this type of hand showed me though was a strategy I rarely use, the re-steal and that is pretty much why I posted it, to get better insight in that approach at this stage in a higher level tourney where the play skill of opponents is likely overall better.
Anyway, here we go.
For the re-steal to be successful you need to know some things.
First, both of the players who raised before you have to have medium-weak hands.
You have to have position.
Now, to know both of the players have medium to weak hands, you have to have some decent reads on the players.
When I straight up steal after a raise, I only do it when loose passive players are in the pot and have raised, and when I have the potential of hitting a great hand.
Now, this usually doesn't pay off until the river. That player will call me all the way down to the river and might even raise me. Either way, most of the time this player will fold on the river.
So, you have to have this type of player that will fold to a decent raise.
Now, you need to notice a player that is regularly testing the guy who is trying to steal the blinds or the limpers money in the first place. This guy probably has decent position, so you need to be left of him, and obviously in better position. But, you have to notice a trend and obviously see if he's doing it more than just once in a while.
If this player is only trying to steal the other players raises every once in a while, he will likely have decent hands and you probably want to stay away from him.
Either way, there are a lot of things to think about, and I feel it's not worth it in the long run. You now have two possible hands that will call your re-steal attempt, and there is a good chance that one of those two hands are better than yours.
That being said, playing small ball may make you look like the original raiser, and if others try to re-steal after you raised and got re-raised, and you did have a monster, that is for sure potential to rake in a lot of chips.
Anyway, yeah, that's how I see the re-steal. I don't see much of a point in doing it. Too risky in my opinion. Though, I could see some situations where you might want to. Like if you are chip leader with 2 other players, you are on the button, and you hve more than 3x the chips either player has, I would for sure attempt a re-steal, even if I didn't haev a monster hand.