Hand discussion from stp's tournament
A couple hands are lingering in my mind after stp's tournament last night, so I'd like to get some feedback on what you'd do...
The tournament was a 30 person freeze-out, top 6 win an entry into the tournament. Each player started with 1,000 chips.
Hand #1: Blinds 100-200, 13 players left, 6 at this table
Button (950)
SB (3,100)
BB (Hero) (4,100)
dealt to Hero: (Qs, 2d)
Folded to the Button who calls, SB calls, BB checks)
Flop: Qh, Jh, 3h
Checked to the Button who bets 300, SB folds.
What do you do?
(My read: Frustrating bet on a dangerous board. Player just got moved to the table, but is he making a play at the pot based on the fact that we checked?)
Hand#2: Blinds 100-200, 11 players left, 5 at this table
BB: (3,100)
UTG(Hero): (5,000)
dealt to Hero: (Jc, Js)
Hero raises to 600, folded to the BB, who thinks for a moment, then pushes all-in.
What do you do?
(My read: The player is naturally aggressive and I can see a good range of hands that he could play in this spot. The player has played more carefully this tournament than what I'm used to seeing from him)
The tournament was a 30 person freeze-out, top 6 win an entry into the tournament. Each player started with 1,000 chips.
Hand #1: Blinds 100-200, 13 players left, 6 at this table
Button (950)
SB (3,100)
BB (Hero) (4,100)
dealt to Hero: (Qs, 2d)
Folded to the Button who calls, SB calls, BB checks)
Flop: Qh, Jh, 3h
Checked to the Button who bets 300, SB folds.
What do you do?
(My read: Frustrating bet on a dangerous board. Player just got moved to the table, but is he making a play at the pot based on the fact that we checked?)
Hand#2: Blinds 100-200, 11 players left, 5 at this table
BB: (3,100)
UTG(Hero): (5,000)
dealt to Hero: (Jc, Js)
Hero raises to 600, folded to the BB, who thinks for a moment, then pushes all-in.
What do you do?
(My read: The player is naturally aggressive and I can see a good range of hands that he could play in this spot. The player has played more carefully this tournament than what I'm used to seeing from him)
Comments
2. I call, I feel he is trying to pick up your 600, my guess is he has 88 - 1010 or a medium A, i don't think you are behind, and at WORST you are a slight favourite (coinflip situation)
Average chip stack to finish in the top 6 is 5,000. You've got plenty of chips, and being a satellite tournament, you don't need to get involved in close and/or dangerous situations when you are on a big stack.
For hand #1, you have a very vulnerable holding which is a weak holding even to begin with.
In hand #2, your opponent would have to be pretty crazy to re-raise you all-in with a hand worse than JJ. Why would he/she want to take on the chip leader with less? A big bluff from your opponent on a slightly above average stack going against the chip leader is just too reckless.
The "thinks for a moment" suggests AA.
ScottyZ
I'd probably still fold in hand #2, but the decision would be much closer in this case.
Hopefully this doesn't carry the thread too far away from the original tournament, but it's worth noting the changes that need to be made due to the satellite nature of the tournament.
ScottyZ
Hand #2: Fold. The risk is not worth the reward. I put him on a bluff but you never know what the flop will bring and I wouldn't risk it. You want the top 6 and risks like that aren't going to get you anything.
Mike
I still call the bet. I would want to put a lot of pressure on the short stack. Depending on the player, I would find it odd that he only raised it by 300 (leaving him with 450). He is already comitted and it would be hard to let the pot go. I think he's trying to buy the pot but won't go all-in in case he's beat. There is no confidence in his bet.
Having said that, I played in a tourny last night ( 4,000 chips to start 25/50 with blinds doubling every 20 min) , my hole cards were 7 & 3.
The flop comes up as overcard:club:, overcard:club:, 3 :club:
I have no clubs and zero possibilty of making a flush hand.
Joe-agressive-gung-ho-is-he-ex-Vietnam?-Chairman-Mao-in-training-40-something-year-old Pushes 500, I fold. So what comes up?
Turn: 7
River: 7
Making my hand full house 7's full of 3's I could have taken him out of the tournament. I made the smart play...
Even worse badbeat story: my hole cards are Ace Ace and the flop comes up :club: :club: :club: :club: Q
With Joe-Newbie being chip leader pushing 500 all the way. I fold my Aces.
As for the second hand, I'd have to be there to figure that out. He could be full of shit, he could have flopped a high(er) pair. It sounds like he's trying to buy the pot.
Hand #1: This one hurt my brain because I just kept overthinking the hand. The hands that I'm worried about are made flushes, a Queen with a better kicker, a flush draw or an open ended straight draws. The fact that the button limped, for such a huge % of his stack made me believe he was on a monster or some sort of drawing hand.
I can eliminate the flush, because I'd probably check to induce one of the other players at taking a stab at the pot. A flush draw was iffy because I might want to take off a free card, but the amount of the bet was just unusual. He made a 1/2 pot size bet, so anyone on a flush/straight draw would have the odds to continue with the hand. (I also respect the player and have to believe he knows this too)
If he wanted to kill draws, he could have pushed all-in into the 600 pot, making it wrong for draws to call. The bet just screamed "Pay me off!" But then I thought if I wanted good players to fold, I'd make it look like I wanted to be called ("The problem with bets that look like they want to be called is that they usually are")
In the end I was just too damn curious about what he had, I wasn't going to be crippled by the played, so I pushed all-in. He called and turned over JTo (no diamonds). No help, for him and I won the pot.
Hand#2: This one was agonizing. Leading up to the hand in the previous rotation and a half of the cards, I had made a 3x bet to steal the blinds, so this was the third time in about 8 hands that I had made this bet. The player in the Big Blind hates to be bullied and is quite aggressive, and when he pushed all-in, I knew from previous experience that there was a wide variety of hands that he could have made this play with.
Once again, I put myself in his head and the thought that came to mind was "The big stack at the table is ONCE AGAIN trying to steal the blinds, but this time I have a hand!" I put him on a low probibility of having AA or KK. At that point there was just the two of us in the hand, so why try to steal just my raise with a monster hand? I did admit that re-raise with those hands was a possibility, but it just didn't feel right. The only hand I was really worried about was QQ, but I felt it likely he could make the same move with 77-TT, or AK-A9s. In one of the cases, I was a dog, and in the rest I was either a slight favorite or a huge favorite.
My instincts told me I was ahead, but then I had to determine if making the call was justifyable based on the tournament format. If I fold here, I keep just over 4,000 which still makes getting paid-off very doable. If I call and win, I can sleepwalk into the money. If I call and lose, I'm down to just under 10BB's (about half an average stack) and would have some work to do, but I wouldn't be crippled.
In the end, I went with my instincts that said I was ahead and took the risk to get the cakewalk into the money. I called, and the SB turned over TT. No Ten came I was one of the two large stacks going into the final table.
I agree that, for the tournament format, this was a bad call on my part. There was no reason to risk the tournament on this call except for the fact that I felt I had a good read on the situation. Still even having the read, it was a questionable call.