Bubble Boy Needs Help!!!!
Okay, I'm home from another stint at the Woodbridge tourney. I've played in it 4 times to date, won it once (50 players), then placed 30th/60, 12th/70, 18th/76. To my dismay, these late round exits are becoming more prevalent in most of my recent tourney's. I'm beginning to think it has everything to do with my poor play on the bubble, rather than cold cards or bad beats. I think I'm becoming increasingly worried about making it to the final table, so I tighten up so much that rigamortice basically sets in, and I am unable to make big plays in big situations. Here are a few late round hands that lead to my busting out. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hand #1. - Blinds 500/1000 (blinds up every 20 minutes)
My chip count - 6500
Dealt KQ :spade: in BB. UTG raises all-in for 8500. Folded to me. I eventually fold. My rational on this hand (if there is any!), was with blinds at 500/1000 UTG has no reason to panic and push all-in. It's a long way around the table if he is simply trying to steal the blinds, and the risk of someone calling him is too great for him to push all-in with a marginal hand. I had him on high pairs. Was this the bone head fold of the century?? Should I have flipped the coin on this and tried to double up? This is killing me just thinking about it. And wait......it gets better.
Next hand #2 - chip count 5500 (Blinds 500/1000)
The very next hand, I'm dealt J :club: 8 :diamond: in SB. BB is all-in with his final 1000. MP calls the blind. I call for 500. Should I have folded and let MP take out the BB? Flop comes 7 :diamond: 9 :diamond: Q :diamond: . I figure I have the straight draw and a diamond draw and I might be able to take it down right here. I push all-in for 5000. MP calls with 10 :spade: 9 :club: . BB has 4 :spade: 4 :diamond: Turn J
. River 2 :diamond: . I win with the flush.
Hand #3 - chip count 8000 (average chip count is 10000)
Blinds 1000/2000
I'm dealt A :spade: 10 :club: in MP. Everyone is stealing the blinds uncontested. So I raise to 4000 hoping to do the same. BB moves all-in for 9000. I eventually fold. He shows JJ. Again, am I playing way too tight at this point in the tourney? Should I have folded this hand pre-flop instead of raising? Or do I limp in with it? Or do I call the all-in and hope for the best?
Hand #4 - chip count 4000
Blinds 1000/2000
I'm dealt A 5 :club: UTG. I move all-in for my last 4000. SB calls. He shows TT. No help and I'm out. Now I know what everyone is thinking. "You'll fold A10, but move all-in with A5????? I'm thinking the same thing!! But based on my prior hands and my 2XBB chip count, I felt I had to move in with any Ace at this point. My Ultra super tight play earlier, put me in this position now. Do you fold this hand and wait for the BB to come?
So what do I need to do differently so that I don't tighten up to the point of being unable to play? I only played a total of 10 hands over 4 hours. Granted, I wasn't seeing too many playable hands, but when I did, I still didn't play them???? Was the KQ :spade: another huge missed opportunity? At this late stage in the tourney, do you have to gamble in these situations?
BUBBLE BOY needs all the help he can get!
Hand #1. - Blinds 500/1000 (blinds up every 20 minutes)
My chip count - 6500
Dealt KQ :spade: in BB. UTG raises all-in for 8500. Folded to me. I eventually fold. My rational on this hand (if there is any!), was with blinds at 500/1000 UTG has no reason to panic and push all-in. It's a long way around the table if he is simply trying to steal the blinds, and the risk of someone calling him is too great for him to push all-in with a marginal hand. I had him on high pairs. Was this the bone head fold of the century?? Should I have flipped the coin on this and tried to double up? This is killing me just thinking about it. And wait......it gets better.
Next hand #2 - chip count 5500 (Blinds 500/1000)
The very next hand, I'm dealt J :club: 8 :diamond: in SB. BB is all-in with his final 1000. MP calls the blind. I call for 500. Should I have folded and let MP take out the BB? Flop comes 7 :diamond: 9 :diamond: Q :diamond: . I figure I have the straight draw and a diamond draw and I might be able to take it down right here. I push all-in for 5000. MP calls with 10 :spade: 9 :club: . BB has 4 :spade: 4 :diamond: Turn J
. River 2 :diamond: . I win with the flush.Hand #3 - chip count 8000 (average chip count is 10000)
Blinds 1000/2000
I'm dealt A :spade: 10 :club: in MP. Everyone is stealing the blinds uncontested. So I raise to 4000 hoping to do the same. BB moves all-in for 9000. I eventually fold. He shows JJ. Again, am I playing way too tight at this point in the tourney? Should I have folded this hand pre-flop instead of raising? Or do I limp in with it? Or do I call the all-in and hope for the best?
Hand #4 - chip count 4000
Blinds 1000/2000
I'm dealt A
5 :club: UTG. I move all-in for my last 4000. SB calls. He shows TT. No help and I'm out. Now I know what everyone is thinking. "You'll fold A10, but move all-in with A5????? I'm thinking the same thing!! But based on my prior hands and my 2XBB chip count, I felt I had to move in with any Ace at this point. My Ultra super tight play earlier, put me in this position now. Do you fold this hand and wait for the BB to come?So what do I need to do differently so that I don't tighten up to the point of being unable to play? I only played a total of 10 hands over 4 hours. Granted, I wasn't seeing too many playable hands, but when I did, I still didn't play them???? Was the KQ :spade: another huge missed opportunity? At this late stage in the tourney, do you have to gamble in these situations?
BUBBLE BOY needs all the help he can get!
Comments
http://pokerforum.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=2262
Except later on in the tourney, you have to adjust the kinds of cards you'll play. KQ suited is a good late tourney hand imho. Especially if you are short stacked. Suited connectors have good potential too even if you are called. Pairs, straights, flushes, etc.
You cannot take it down right there. This is a dead pot. The BB is all in. You should only bet if there is a hope that you have the best hand. With jack high that seems unlikely.
Fold the K-Q.
The mistake was the J-8. That is the only error I saw.
I am far less experienced than you but here's my 2 cents. I'd love to hear feedback on my thoughts:
For someone to raise all-in UTG that early in the tourney, you'd have to put him on a big hand. Or he is a maniac. I'm guessing big hand. Say QQ or better. In that case, your KQs is a 2-1 underdog. I don't like those odds.
I'm 50/50 on making the original call. It didn't cost much to see the flop. But I'd hesitate to go all-in without a strong hand. No need to put your stack at risk quite yet. I would have put the MP on a slightly better hand. At the point you went all-in, you were behind and had 11 outs (a J gives MP a straight draw though). I say you got lucky but hey, luck is always a factor.
You were a 2.5-1 underdog against JJ. Of course you didn't know that. Your mistake was committing your stack to the pot but you, yourself, weren't willing to follow through on it. You couldn't afford to throw that many chips away.
What if you had gone all-in with your first bet? Would that have scared the BB out? If he suspects you are stealing, he's calling all the way and you likely lose. He'd certainly have to make a tough decision. This may have been a good spot to make the bet, though. Aces rule when you get short-handed and this is a pretty strong hand. Worth a gamble for a chance to get into the money. Sometimes you run into a brick wall.
People are suspicious when the short stack UTG raises. The blinds are about to kill you and you are looking for any excuse to get those chips out. I would be suspecting an Ace or connected hand. So if I had any kind of hand at all, I'd call you. Again, Aces rule and you had to make your stand. This was as good a spot as any. Waiting for the blinds is like roulette. Better to act when it is by choice.
If anything, I think it would have been better to push your chips sooner but I guess you tried that and got caught. Oh well, don't give up the fight.
This may not be correct. Consider a few possiblilies.
(1) Your undersize raise might induce someone to make a move. Good for you.
(2) Your full raise will not fold too many hands that a half raise won't. So, making a smaller raise will give you some other options.
I didn't read the A-T hand closely enough the first time. I would have called the re-raise. You are calling $4000 into a pot of $12,500. At better than 3-1 I am going to gamble and put my last $4000 in. Unless I have a HUGE tell on the BB that is screaming aces. This is very unlikely.
2. I actually like the way you played this hand, including the dry side pot bet. Be careful in your thinking: you obviously cannot "take it down right now" since there is an all-in player.
You are very likely to be the favorite (even though possibly not winning in terms of poker hand ranking) with 2 cards to come against the BB's random hand.
Betting into a dry side pot with a hand with *no* potential is clearly wrong, but your hand here may have as many as 18 outs against the BB. You're basically only in real trouble in the BB has a bigger diamond, and conversely it would be a hugely successful bet if the MP player *folded* a pair or a bigger diamond.
3. You have 4 times the big blind. Move all-in or fold pre-flop. The way it actually went, I'd say call the additional 4,000 since you are getting sufficient pot odds (3.25 to 1) to call any hand except AA.
4. Moving in here is fine. Time to gamb000L!
ScottyZ
Cheers!
I haven't looked at the other replies at all... figured I'd give you my unbiased first impressions before I see what the others think.
I'd fold too. You have king high. There's a temptation to let the fact that you have a Q as a kicker, and that they're suited, trick you into thinking it's a bigger hand than it is. When I have a decision with this exact hand, I always think "I have king high" and then make my move. If you had less chips, you should call.
No. A call here is the right play... you're getting odds to call for 500 more.
I like your push here. It's risky, but you have to take risks now.
I would have moved all-in myself, and I'd have probably busted out of the tournament. Good for you for being able to lay it down, but that's not what I would have done, FWIW.
This one's easy. You're going to move in on this or your next hand, so obviously any ace will do. Too bad someone had a hand.
A risky approach that I usually--but not always--employ is to move in when I have 6XBB with any two cards if I'm in LP and if nobody has entered the pot before me. On Monday night I had 6XBB in LP and it was folded to me and my 'spidey senses' were tingling, telling me to move in move in move in, but I couldn't pull the trigger (I had 62o, not that it matters). Sure enough, folded to the SB who just called and the BB checked. There's no way either of them would have called me.
I've said it before, and it's no secret: when you get down to 6XBB you still have enough to move someone of an average or slightly-above-average hand with an all-in raise with any two cards. Any more than that and you don't NEED to be making these moves (although that doesn't mean you shouldn't). Any less and you're getting to the point where someone (usually the BB) is almost obliged to call you with any two himself.
Bottom line: look for places to get your short stack in the middle with any two cards. LP, with no other players in the pot, is ideal, but even coming over the top of a relatively tight, average-stacked limper is sometimes enough to get the job done.
Regards,
all_aces
Ah, the sweet taste of victory. This leads to expectations of winning, instead of playing well.
I was beating the Pokerstars $3/$5 big satellite tournaments to the bigger Sunday Tournaments at will. And, then I was doing reasonably well in the big Sunday Tournaments. It became almost routine.
I'm not saying this happened to you. Instead I offer this as a personal experience which you may want to draw from. Now that Dave S. has given a name to it, it's much easier to describe. I found that the middle stages of the tournanment became very routine, and very boring. It was a necessary evil, to get to the fun part of the tournament where you can make tough decisions other's can't. Or where you can run over small stacks. The late stages of the tournament are a ton-o-fun. Once I've got the expectation of making the late stages, the middle stages are really boring.
With this boredom, Monkey Man quickly takes over my brain (MM), leaving Brain Man (BM) to watch TV and Testosterone Man (TM) quiet in the background. Before I know it, MM pisses away a few pots and bleeds some chips and I'm quickly fading with lower than average stack. BM springs into action and tries to help, but it's hard when BM is now arguing with TM about how to get back into the game. And, now that nice balance between BM and TM is gone, and MM is always ready to take over.
I think the key is to stay focused during the middle stages -- never bleeding chips uneccessarily, and scooping every last chip. The small/medium pots are an important part of getting to the late stages, and bleeding chips on these pots is disasterous.
Cheers
Magi