Tournament hand for discussion.
I’ve been thinking about my play here for a couple of weeks and thought I’d throw it out here to see if I should have played it differently. It is midway through the tournament, quite a ways from the money, with blinds around 300-600. I’m in the BB and have around 5000 in chips (average is probably around 8000) after posting.
UTG is short-stacked with about 1800 and pushes all in. The player to his left (pretty conservative I think with an average stack around 8000) considers for a few seconds and calls. Everyone else folds to me and I look down to see 10-10. Reading the caller as weak I decide to push all in, thinking I have the best hand and there is an excellent chance he will fold to a big raise. He considers for a moment and quickly calls.
Shit, I’m thinking I misread here, and he most likely has an overpair, or if I’m lucky AK. He flips and shows AJ :spade: . To make a long story short, the flop is Jack high and I’m eliminated. (FYI, UTG hit a set of 8’s to triple up)
Anyway, was I too aggressive here? Should I have maybe just called and hoped to flop a set? I’m not even sure I could have gotten away from the 10’s with a J high flop.
UTG is short-stacked with about 1800 and pushes all in. The player to his left (pretty conservative I think with an average stack around 8000) considers for a few seconds and calls. Everyone else folds to me and I look down to see 10-10. Reading the caller as weak I decide to push all in, thinking I have the best hand and there is an excellent chance he will fold to a big raise. He considers for a moment and quickly calls.
Shit, I’m thinking I misread here, and he most likely has an overpair, or if I’m lucky AK. He flips and shows AJ :spade: . To make a long story short, the flop is Jack high and I’m eliminated. (FYI, UTG hit a set of 8’s to triple up)
Anyway, was I too aggressive here? Should I have maybe just called and hoped to flop a set? I’m not even sure I could have gotten away from the 10’s with a J high flop.
Comments
I think you want to call and see the texture of the flop before committing your tournament. If the Ace hits, you know you are likely dead to either player and can fold with confidence. You can then use the information from his flop play to tell you if you are good or not.. Hes likely not going to bluff you into a dry side pot.
Definately, never call and hope to hit a set as your only chance to win. It's 8 to 1 against you.
I'm on a short stack, starting the hand with ~9 big blinds. The average stack is also quite short. It is moving time, and I am willing to take any close +EV play until I build a stack regardless of the variance. Aggressive mode is very on.
Okay. He could have a wide range of hands. UTG players often make the mistake of prefering to push now rather than face the BB next hand. I put UTG on a reasonable, but not huge, hand. Something like any pair, any suited Ace, two big cards, etc.
Harder to read this hand. Unless that I peg this guy as one of the better players in the tournament, I wouldn't put him on a big hand here. It's hard to put him on an implied odds hand, since he is playing a pot with an all-in player. It's got to be some hand which is not strong enough to re-raise with, but one he thinks has a decent chance of being ahead of the UTG player. Possibly a hand like a middle pair, KQ or a medium Ace.
This would probably be one of the tougher hands to play in this spot if the stacks were deeper. Being a farily short stack, I would push all-in. Note that the chips in excess of 1,800 are only at risk to the calling player, who hasn't suggested to me that I am a big dog to his hand.
A sensible read I think, and it's certainly worth giving him a chance to fold now.
Oh well, if he trapped me with a monster, so be it. I'd still feel pretty good about my hand if he had to think at all. With JJ or QQ, he probably would have re-raised before me, and with KK or AA, he'd probably call my re-raise instantly.
If he really went into the tank here, I would probably do anything I could to win his call, putting him on something like 99.
Oh well. I got all my money in with the best of it at a time in the tournament when variance wasn't a big concern to me. Chalk it up in the "played it right but got knocked out" column and not the "played it wrong" column. Unlike a lot of poker players, I tend to be far more devastated by the entries in the second column than the first.
I don't think so. You're probably not in bad shape (i.e. against JJ-AA) against the player who has chips left. Better to give him a chance to fold of you really are facing a near coin-toss situation.
I wouldn't. You would only have 3,800 left in your stack in an attempt to make such an implied odds call. You're risking 1,200 for a maximum possible win of 1,800*2 + 300 + 600 + 3,800 = 8,300. This is a maximum of 6.9 to 1 for your money, which is insufficient to call with the intention of flopping a set and folding otherwise.
Knowing that you could not execute such a plan is another reason you can't call with the intention of flopping a set and folding otherwise. This is not meant to be a criticism of playing the TT in this example through a J-high flop--- quite the opposite actually.
My thinking is that there aren't too many flops you could easily get away from if you were to just call pre-flop. You will have a reasonable hand on most flops, and a huge (main) pot which will be hard to get away from. Better to get the money in pre-flop where
1. The TT probably has the best of it.
and
2. You give the caller with chips remaining a chance to fold.
Also note that calling with the intention of auto-pushing on the flop is very bad since you'd be pushing into a dry side pot.
FWIW, I think the play of this hand by the AJs is horrible.
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I agree this situation is a very tough one and I have misplayed it in similar situations many times. Would folding here be out of the question? I'm not sure that you can rule out JJ and QQ based on the way it was played and the fact that he was a conservative player. Without being at the table it's hard to say what range of hands I would put him on but I see all kinds players who will make similar plays with a very wide range of hands here.
Knowing I probably push here...is folding out of the question? I don't see AJ folding here regardless of cards...and I'm not sure you can say that you're guarenteed positive EV here. It would be quite possible to be against four overcards here making a big dog.
I do agree that calling is not the way to go since you will be left with little play and there would be very few good flops for you...I again think I push but do you think folding would be an acceptable play?
Edit: Sorry, for asking the same question three times...I guess that's what happens when you start something, leave it...comeback....leave it again...rinse repeat...leave it again...I think you get that I'm wondering if folding is a valid option?
So, I don't hate folding. Personally, I wouldn't have that fold in me... everything about this particular circumstance screams 'push all-in' to me.
I agree...I'm not sure I am even good enough to think about folding here...it just seems that he got about as good as he could have hoped for with an underpair and two overs ...but I think it would be much more likely to be in a much worse situation.
As I mentioned, if your stack is much deeper (or equivalently, the blinds smaller) it becomes a very difficult decision between all three options (fold, call, raise), and even if you do decide on raising, how much to raise is also tricky.
I think a hand like AJs absolutely should fold to your all-in raise. The prospect of your opponent folding and allowing you to save your additional 3,800 chips, combined with the fact that you don't even mind that much* if he does call with this kind of hand, makes pushing all-in a very strong play here.
ScottyZ
*Again, in a deep stacked situation, you would strongly prefer your opponent to fold.
Not to be an ass ... butt ... I tried to say earlier...what should happen and what will happen are two different things. The fact that is there are simply more bad players than good...again I was not at the table which makes it impossible to decide whether UTG+1 (AJ) is a good or bad. I think pushing would be right if AJ is willing to fold but since he didn't fold here I would guess that AJ made some other bad plays along the way. That being said...what if you decide AJ is not going to fold to your reraise? Does knowing the AJ will not fold marginal hands make folding here a better option than pushing?
I think that if you have AJ pegged as a player who will not fold marginal hands here you are better off getting out of the hand without putting any chips into the middle.
Again, though I don't think I have this fold in my arsenal...though I am starting to think it would be valuable...thoughts?
If the AJs shows me his hand and tells me he will call me if I move all-in, and if all of this is legal* and the action binding, I will still move all-in.**
This is to say, to sound less contrived and theoretical, if I read my opponent for two overcards, and know he will call with that hand most of the time, I will move all-in.
As Dan Harrington said in one of Bob Ciaffone's books, "I like the action." :cool:
The key here is being a short stack myself. I would not do this if I had a lot of chips.
Avoiding unecessary variance in tournaments is vital. Just as important is realizing that 'unecessary' is not just a filler word in the previous sentence.
ScottyZ
*Which it is most certainly not, in case anyone is getting any ideas.
**And assuming I am not allowed to instead call and simply play the hand with knowledge of his hole cards.
Some more information. Here's my thought process at the time
1)UTG pushing all in seemed like a desperation move. Like Scotty said, he would blind away half his stack in the next two hands anyway, so I figured he could reasonably have pretty much anything above average.
2)UTG+1 was fairly new to the table, just a couple of orbits I think so I can't say I had a solid read on him, but, just the way the he looked at his cards, hesitated a few seconds and called, screamed "weak" at me. I honestly thought he would fold to a raise here. As I said, the player "seemed" pretty tight, as he had folded to reraises in the past. So, when he called my raise pretty quickly, I was absolutely sure I'd made a bad read. I turned over my 10's and said "you got me", thinking he had to have an overpair. When he turned over AJ, I was pretty stunned. I guess I pegged him as a better player (unless of course he thought I was bluffing, which I guess is entirely possible).
Am I out in left field here? I'm just not confident that pushing against an all-in opponent (who could have a wide range of hands) and a caller (assuming that they will probably call you) will be a +EV. I do agree that if you think that there is a good chance AJ will fold then pushing is the right play.
Ok.. We are are in a slightly unique situation here.. We've got an opponent all-in preflop and two players who are relatively equal in chips that neither wants to dance with the other.. The only time I see these two players going all-in is if our Hero pushes pre-flop. Most players play by the "Don't bluff into a dry sidepot" so neither is going to bluff. Most players are also interested in "Busting out players at any cost" which increases our chance for a cheap showdown.
I think this gives us a great opportunity to see the flop and check it down to the river. TT vs two overs is a coin flip, but we can flip for only 1/5th of our stack. If we lose, we've got enough chips to survive a few rounds. If we win, we're sitting pretty.
Calling just seems to risky. Yes, you will still have life after calling but you will basically be in big trouble.
On a big stack (15-20BB plus) I really like calling.
I think it's likely enough that my hand is better than both opponents'.
Yes I am.
I believe you have miscalculated the possible win. There is currently $4,500 in the pot.
ScottyZ