This one caused a lot of debate
Last night, played a $100 tourney T30,000 starting stack. Blinds start 100/200 and are 20mins long.
Very first hand, Player A is in MP1 limps and MP2 raises to 4000! No, that's NOT a typo. Folds around to me in SB, I have AJo and insta muck. Folds to MP1 who calls and flop comes down A68r. MP1 check, MP2 bets 10,000, MP1 folds, MP2 shows 55.
Second hand, UTG and UTG1 limp, MP2 (same guy) raises to 5000. Folds to me on the button, I have AKs. I push allin, folds to MP2 who says WOW. Since we're heads up, he turns over pocket 6's, says he thinks he's ahead, and after a few seconds calls. Flop comes down K3K, turn is a blank, river is the fourth King. I pull in a very nice pot.
As I'm stacking, a player on my left asks me if I would have done the same thing in a WPT $10,000 tournament, pushing with AKs at the second hand. I said absolutely without hesitation, based on the information I had on this particular player.
Info I had. First, I've played MP2 before, both tourney and cash games, and have a decent read on him I think. Second, he notoriously overbets middle pockets, so pretty much knew I was racing and was willing to risk it to double up early (rebuys were available for the first 3 or 4 bustouts, but I wasn't planning on rebuying anyway). Thirdly, this particular player was quite vocal in his abilities. When he sat down, he immediately started with trash talk about how he was the best player at the table, and that his only goal was to outplay everyone and dominate the table. With this information, and previous history with this player, I was confident that my push was the right move. I would have been just as happy with a fold preflop.
I was then riddled with comments about pushing being the wrong play. I disagreed, but listened to what they had to say. If this had been a WPT 10,000 game, and if I had the same information on the same player, I still would have pushed, no question about it in my mind.
Right or wrong?
Very first hand, Player A is in MP1 limps and MP2 raises to 4000! No, that's NOT a typo. Folds around to me in SB, I have AJo and insta muck. Folds to MP1 who calls and flop comes down A68r. MP1 check, MP2 bets 10,000, MP1 folds, MP2 shows 55.
Second hand, UTG and UTG1 limp, MP2 (same guy) raises to 5000. Folds to me on the button, I have AKs. I push allin, folds to MP2 who says WOW. Since we're heads up, he turns over pocket 6's, says he thinks he's ahead, and after a few seconds calls. Flop comes down K3K, turn is a blank, river is the fourth King. I pull in a very nice pot.
As I'm stacking, a player on my left asks me if I would have done the same thing in a WPT $10,000 tournament, pushing with AKs at the second hand. I said absolutely without hesitation, based on the information I had on this particular player.
Info I had. First, I've played MP2 before, both tourney and cash games, and have a decent read on him I think. Second, he notoriously overbets middle pockets, so pretty much knew I was racing and was willing to risk it to double up early (rebuys were available for the first 3 or 4 bustouts, but I wasn't planning on rebuying anyway). Thirdly, this particular player was quite vocal in his abilities. When he sat down, he immediately started with trash talk about how he was the best player at the table, and that his only goal was to outplay everyone and dominate the table. With this information, and previous history with this player, I was confident that my push was the right move. I would have been just as happy with a fold preflop.
I was then riddled with comments about pushing being the wrong play. I disagreed, but listened to what they had to say. If this had been a WPT 10,000 game, and if I had the same information on the same player, I still would have pushed, no question about it in my mind.
Right or wrong?
Comments
What kind of crazy place is this where 20BB is the standard raise?
Never said it was standard across the board, just this particular player. Remember, I have a bit of history with him.
I absolutely love the way you played this. You went with your gut AND it worked.
Oh.. by the way. Right push..
but on a side note if this were the WSOP or WPT heads up or not, his hand would have been declared dead for showing you his hand.
Great play. Took guts.
House rule was headsup you could show your hand. Interestingly, there was a hell of an argument between the player above and another player just after this hand about the same thing. Player I beat above pushed with whatever he had left, got two callers. On the flushing flop, player told the other still in the hand to fold and not chase and showed a set. Other player folded. Player with the set got a warning because there was still another player in the hand even though he was all in.
Everyone at this game believes themselves to be the next DN or PI or PH. Its actually rather comically listening to the stories and hearing what happened. Gives a great read on players before the first card is even dealt. I just listen and store information for later use. ^-^
I was shocked at the intensity of the debate at the table though. Of the nine other players, no one agreed that a push was the right move. I was primarily looking for villain to fold of course, but I wasn't worried about a call either as I knew I was either way ahead or racing.
actually these days i might play it a little slower re raising less than all in or maybe shoving to his continuation bet on the flop with out much regard to the cards...
You say the villain is notorious for overbetting middle pockets. You did not say he does the same with Ax, KQ, etc. If that is the case, the odds of you being in a race (as a slight dog) are big and the odds of you having him dominated are small.
You did not indicate your opinion as to whether or not the villian has the ability/brains to fold a middle pair to a massive all-in re-raise from you. I'm assuming that he almost always doesn't based on his crazy call with 66.
You said that, although the tourney was a rebuy, you would not ... so you are, by your own estimation, choosing to coin-flip for your tourney life only two hands in.
You haven't stated if you had an edge on the field, but you almost certainly had an edge at your opening table with a spewtard like this sitting there.
With all this in mind, I'm not sure why would you want to coin flip for it all so early ... especially when doubling up at that point wouldn't hugely increase your odds of cashing/winning.
Another consideration is that either of the two limpers in front of him could have also had him pegged as an uber-aggressive raiser and limped with a monster just to trap his dumb ass. Not saying that this was super-likely or super-unlikely (it obviously wasn't the case this time), but it was a possibility. Those limpers could also easily be holding one or more of your aces or kings ... bringing your race odds down further.
Had the villain's pattern of overbetting fairly consistantly involved Ax or KQ instead of middle pockets, I'd shove for sure. In this case, assuming I'm 90% sure that neither of the limpers are coming over the top, I call (although I really hate flatting for that much) and hope for something good on the flop.
I played a couple weeks ago at a $40.00 rebuy game with 9 other guys who all happened to be cops and between the ages of 28-40 ( I am younger at 22 ) format was T30,000 and I actually showed up 20 mins late but they had posted my blind. They are all donkeys except my older brother who was there and one guy who I know to be a decent SNG player, I was surprised when i got there to see this player had already busted out. They were still debating what he had done and the sum of it is he opened MP very first hand with KK, guy in the BB reraised him all in and he called. Guy in the BB turned over AA, the guy who had AA also had been known to play a very aggressive type strategy, pushing often to make guys make tough decisions and making a lot of money off of people just wanting to maintain their life in the game.
All of the guys at the table said they never go all in first hand no matter what they are holding unless it's AA, one guy even said if he was out of position and thought he wasn't going to be the only one calling (as in a large raise and an all in infront of him ) he wouldn't even call all the time with AA, because he never wants to risk his tournement life on the first hadn. I said they were stupid and that I would go all in first hand with KK anytime, you are an 80% favorite over 2 randoms, and 65% against AKsuited. If you know the guy you're against is a total and complete nit maybe you reconsiderm, but I don't. And with AA I don't even think. The only guy at the table that agreed with me was the 2nd youngest guy at about 26 years old. They all thought your tournement life is more important then a quick double up.
Last night I hosted a home game, $20.00 with rebuys T1500 format with 15 guys. 2nd hand I get KK, blinds are 10/20 and it gets raised to 80 and then reraised to 200 in front of me. One guy I know is a loose player and the other one thinks he's the best player in the world ( see my other recent thread discussing a home game controversy with this player from the same night ) I decide, that I will shove with KK and get the best of it since I know both are likely to call me with worse hands. (AJ, AQ off) one folds and one calls and turns over ACES, I rebuy. Everyone at the table says I had todo what I did and just sucks I ran into aces, thought it was funny though as the oldest person at the table was 26.
Not saying there is a direct link between playing style and theory and age but it just struck me as odd.
What do you guys think?
I respect villain's ability in the past from the little I have played him. I've seen him make this move often enough to figure out that once he starts getting trashy, he lets luck play too much a factor. If anyone else at the table had made that bet, I would have certainly only called to see, but my gut told me to move now, and I did. I had position on him and the other limpers, and didn't see anything or suspect for a second any of them had anything worthy.
I had decided to play this game last minute, and told myself I wasn't going to rebuy if one were available (limited number of rebuys available, to fill empty spots at tables only, so if 56 players sign up, only 4 rebuys would be offered). I wasn't looking to build a monster this early in the game, but never look a gift horse in the mouth.
As it went, I had a brutal run two levels later and busted out, running back to back to back bad beats (one I posted) and simply got up and walked away. I hit two quads, one paid the other didn't, and played well, even when my aces got suckered punched by runner runner boat. Flopped 2pr with KQs, only to have someone playing 10c5c hit trip 5's on the turn. Crazy game, but that's poker.
PokerStars Game #50521915555: Tournament #316609479, $1.00+$0.10 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (50/100) - 2010/10/02 21:51:36 ET
Table '316609479 60' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: BrewersBball (1340 in chips)
Seat 2: TABLE DAWG (3330 in chips)
Seat 3: heater_ca (6360 in chips)
Seat 4: murphy1971 (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: jm151515 (1490 in chips)
Seat 6: sherryjohn (6530 in chips)
Seat 7: Hawkeye101 (1210 in chips)
Seat 8: pokergamer87 (2870 in chips)
Seat 9: cdnmoose07 (7080 in chips)
BrewersBball: posts the ante 10
TABLE DAWG: posts the ante 10
heater_ca: posts the ante 10
murphy1971: posts the ante 10
jm151515: posts the ante 10
sherryjohn: posts the ante 10
Hawkeye101: posts the ante 10
pokergamer87: posts the ante 10
cdnmoose07: posts the ante 10
TABLE DAWG: posts small blind 50
heater_ca: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to cdnmoose07 [Ad Jd]
murphy1971: calls 100
jm151515: calls 100
sherryjohn: raises 500 to 600
Hawkeye101: folds
pokergamer87: folds
cdnmoose07: raises 6470 to 7070 and is all-in
BrewersBball: folds
TABLE DAWG: folds
heater_ca: folds
murphy1971: calls 1390 and is all-in
jm151515 has timed out
jm151515: folds
jm151515 is sitting out
sherryjohn: calls 5920 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (550) returned to cdnmoose07
*** FLOP *** [7s 2d 6h]
*** TURN *** [7s 2d 6h] [4s]
*** RIVER *** [7s 2d 6h 4s] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
sherryjohn: shows [Jc 9s] (high card Ace)
cdnmoose07: shows [Ad Jd] (a pair of Aces)
cdnmoose07 collected 10060 from side pot
murphy1971: shows [Qd 4d] (a pair of Fours)
cdnmoose07 collected 4810 from main pot
sherryjohn finished the tournament in 398th place
murphy1971 finished the tournament in 399th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 14870 Main pot 4810. Side pot 10060. | Rake 0
Board [7s 2d 6h 4s Ac]
Seat 1: BrewersBball (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: TABLE DAWG (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: heater_ca (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: murphy1971 showed [Qd 4d] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 5: jm151515 folded before Flop
Seat 6: sherryjohn showed [Jc 9s] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 7: Hawkeye101 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: pokergamer87 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: cdnmoose07 showed [Ad Jd] and won (14870) with a pair of Aces
Or maybe they're just really stupid, don't understand how to read a player and can't get over their own ineptitude to see what a championship play and player looks like.
My money is on the latter
Everybody always plays loser during the rebuy period and this needs to be exploited as you did.
I like to find out which players are not planning on rebuying at this type of game and then treat them like my bitch until the rebuy period is over, as they are usually playing scared. Not saying this applies to you... Not saying it doesn't either.
As a side pot> I think it is bad luck for you to fold a hand that is also your name, AJ.
Disclaimer:
The opinions above are from a LAG who continually funnels money from his pay cheque to bank roll account.
Pretty good article here by Matt Matros about why an early double up is very worth it.
To Flip or Not to Flip
Analysis of an all-in 'coin-flip' situation early in a tournament
It's the first day of a five-figure buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament. You've gotten a good night's sleep. You feel alert.
You wade through all the railbirds and all the media and finally locate your seat. Just as you do, the tournament director announces, "Shuffle up and deal!" It's your big blind, and you toss two of your green chips onto the felt. You've now got $9,950 in chips in your stack. Everyone folds around to the small blind, who shoves all in for $10,000. You haven't even taken your chip protector out of your pocket yet, but you figure you probably won't need it on this hand. You're going to fold, unless you look down at aces. But there's a problem. The small blind doesn't have a protector on his cards, either, and when he looks down at them one more time, he accidentally exposes his hand. He has the A K. You look down at your hand, and find two black queens. You've done your research. You know you have a 53.8 percent chance of winning if you call. But should you?
This is a classic hypothetical question, and it creates raging arguments almost every time it's discussed. I believe there is a right answer to this question, one that doesn't depend on how skillful the player is, or what the player is hoping to get from the tournament. I hope by the end of this column that I will have convinced you.
First, let's look at the common arguments I hear for folding:
(1) If you're a good player, you want to use your skill to find a better spot to get your chips in.
(2) You don't want to risk your entire tournament on one hand, especially in a coin-flip situation.
(3) I don't play these big buy-in tournaments very often, so I want to get some experience playing them.
In case you haven't guessed, I strongly believe all of these arguments are specious. Here's a quick thought experiment: Let's say you're playing in a tournament with 1,024 people. How do you win this tournament? By getting all the chips, of course! This means that if you calculate your chances of doubling up 10 times, you will calculate your chances of winning the event. Now let's say that you have a 53.8 percent chance of doubling up whenever you get all in for your stack. This means that your chance of winning the tournament is .538 to the 10th power, or about 0.203 percent. The average player's chance of winning the tournament is 1÷1,024, or about 0.098 percent. So, if you consistently get your chips in with a 53.8 percent chance of winning, you will be more than twice as likely as an average player to win the event. It gets better.
Let's say you choose to fold the queens, thinking you have a better than 53.8 percent chance to double up in this event. If you decline the "coin flip," you're stuck with your initial starting stack, as you're expecting to have a better than 53.8 percent chance of doubling up at some point later in the tournament. If you accept, and win, the coin toss, you double up immediately.
You need to estimate, then, the expected value (EV) of your brand-new $20,000 stack size at a later point in the tournament - the hypothetical point at which you'd eventually double up after declining the "coin flip." Let's reasonably (conservatively, actually) say that when you double up right away, your stack will be worth $22,000 at that hypothetical future point at which you would've found your better spot.
It's time to do the math. If taking the "coin flip" gives you a 53.8 percent chance to have a stack of $22,000 later in the tournament, how likely do you have to be to double up later in order to fold your pocket queens? Well, you can answer that by solving this equation: x(20,000) = (.538)(22,000).
Do the algebra and you get x = .5918, or 59.18 percent. So, do you think you're good enough to have a 59.18 percent chance of doubling up later on? If you said yes, you're wrong. Go back to our thought experiment. If you could consistently have a 59.18 percent chance of doubling up, you'd win a 1,024-player tournament more than five times as often as an average player. Trust me, you're not that good. I don't think it's possible to be that good. I'm certainly not that good.
Here's one more way to look at it: Let's say you're a very good player. You win a no-limit hold'em tournament twice as often as an average player - which is a spectacular rate. You win the 1,024-player tournament one time in 512. Now we can work backward and figure out our chance of doubling up. We do this by solving the equation 1÷512 = (chance of doubling up) to the 10th power.
And we get the chance of doubling up, .536, or 53.6 percent (note that this is smaller than the chance of your two queens beating the A-K suited).
Using the same equation as above, it turns out that we would take any edge greater than 48.63 percent. Yes, that's right. I just made the argument that very good players should actually take slightly negative EV situations early in a tournament, because if they win the hand, they get to use their skill with their new stack. And that's more important than waiting around for a slightly better situation - much more important. Have you seen a lot of successful players using the "get chips or go broke" strategy early? This is part of the reason why.
Some say calling with the queens would amount to a good player letting his skill go to waste. Here's the thing about poker - the skill is about finding edges. And edges are precious. Think about it; on most hands, we fold before the flop. It's very hard to find a way to get our chips in profitably. And here, we have a known edge. We know that in the long run, we'll earn $810 by calling with the Q-Q. That's not a small edge. Folding here would be akin to flushing an hour's work down the toilet. Calling here doesn't negate our skill over the field. Calling here is our skill over the field.
You don't want to risk your whole tournament on one hand? Then you shouldn't be in the tournament. The only question you should be asking yourself is, "Will I make more money in the long run by calling here?" And even if it's "the experience" you're after, wouldn't the experience of a final-table run be much more valuable than the experience of playing for a day or so and then busting out near the bubble?
If you don't believe all of this math mumbo jumbo, I suggest a little record-keeping experiment. For every tournament you play, write down whether you double your stack or bust out before doing so. I did this for a little while, and I doubled up 67 times in 127 tournaments. That's about 52.8 percent of the time. I think that's pretty good! If, after a thousand tournaments, you find that you're doubling up more than 59 percent of the time or so, congratulations - you might be good enough to fold queens in the above situation. In the meantime, stick to getting your chips in with an edge. That's how poker tournaments are won in real life.
Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available at www.CardPlayer.com. He is grateful to Dr. Bill Chen for first presenting the above argument as The Theory of Doubling Up.
This guy has a pretty bleak view on tournament poker methinks
That's like calling all-in with pocket 2s because you are think you are ahead. Just lunacy.
Edit: Right...rebuy tournament --- i generally ignore this since I never rebuy and hate rebut tournaments. that's just me. so count the other guy might be thinking about re-buy, still doesnt really change my decision, just because you are almost never trailing.