Hand Analysis - Need Feedback
Need some feedback on my play, I think I am a decent player but always looking to improve.
Playing Party Poker hold'em $10 buy - in no limit.
Four people left in the tourney, chip leader has about 3500, the three others (including me) have about 1500 each.
chip leader is in the small blind and has been playing aggressively, blinds are 100-200
My hole cards are A-10 offsuit
Under the gun folds, I raise to 400 hoping to take the blinds, if I get called I figure I am ok.
Small blind (chip leader) goes all-in. Big blind folds.
So now what the heck do I do?
Call here or fold?
Did I make the right play by betting 400 pre -flop?
I called. Chip leader had pocket 9s. There was a 10 on the flop, 9 on the turn and rag on the river. I am out.
Was I stupid to throw in all my chips on a coin flip against an aggressive opponent? I could have folded if I wanted to play tighter and let someone else bust out fourth but I am not in these tournaments to finish in third place, I want to win.
Thanks for any comments
Playing Party Poker hold'em $10 buy - in no limit.
Four people left in the tourney, chip leader has about 3500, the three others (including me) have about 1500 each.
chip leader is in the small blind and has been playing aggressively, blinds are 100-200
My hole cards are A-10 offsuit
Under the gun folds, I raise to 400 hoping to take the blinds, if I get called I figure I am ok.
Small blind (chip leader) goes all-in. Big blind folds.
So now what the heck do I do?
Call here or fold?
Did I make the right play by betting 400 pre -flop?
I called. Chip leader had pocket 9s. There was a 10 on the flop, 9 on the turn and rag on the river. I am out.
Was I stupid to throw in all my chips on a coin flip against an aggressive opponent? I could have folded if I wanted to play tighter and let someone else bust out fourth but I am not in these tournaments to finish in third place, I want to win.
Thanks for any comments
Comments
I hate A/10 even 4 handed.
I think you just ran into some bad luck with the pocket nines and then the 9 on the turn.
I like it when people answer thier own questions.
Do you want to risk your tournament on an unmade hand?
Lets say the chip leader had 33. It is almost the same as 99 percentage wise. It is a race. 55 to 45 approximate. Fold and move on.
Even if you had AK your still a dog, though most people would call, including me.
Get your chips in as the agressor, not the caller
This, I think, is the key element that would dictate how I would end up playing this hand.
A strong holding 4-handed. Unless facing action from an unusually tight opponent, I'd assume I have best hand most of the time pre-flop, and on a short stack of 7.5 big blinds, there isn't much of a chance of either
1. getting away from the hand post flop, or
2. adding fold equity to the hand post-flop by saving chips for a later aggressive play.
After UTG folds, I would generally (see below) make it 600 to go with the intention of moving all-in on any flop if only called pre-flop, or calling all-in if facing a re-raise pre-flop.
Simply moving all-in right away also strikes me as a reasonable play.
Well, I had already decided on calling, but the fact that an aggressive player has come over the top makes the call with the AT even easier, whatever amount I had bet pre-flop. Against an aggressive player, there is a good enough chance that my hand is in good shape that I'd be willing to take a stand now with a relatively short stack.
If my only priority was to win the tournament (which it would not be), then calling all-in against the aggressive chip leader is virtually automatic here.
It depends. One of the main purposes of your bet should be to induce the aggressive big-stack player to get all-in with you here, particularly since you only care about finishing in first place. The ideal bet size is the one where you anticipate the big-stack aggro to move in on you. It might be making it 400. It could be that just limping-in will induce a big raise. If the big stack was incredibly loose (even if not so much aggressive), moving in yourself could be better.
A standard bet here would be between 500 or 600, but this is not necessarily the correct bet size to use in this specific scenario.
This, I think, is not the correct way to assess the situation. Just because the result was a race situation, this does not mean that the hand should be analysed as such. In fact, it's almost the exact opposite.
Because you describe your opponent as aggressive, there is a far smaller chance than usual that your opponent has to have a pocket pair here. Namely, you'd expect an aggressive player to have a range of hands that includes many hands where you are far better off than a toss up.
Folding the AT to an all-in bet from a rock, or even an average/unknown player might be sensible if the betting sequence was the same. I'd beat an aggressive opponent into the pot in the scenario described.1
ScottyZ
1Once again, assuming that winning the tournament was my only priority.
I would agree if the prizes were high, but in pp (and I assume other sites) third place pays $20 so the profit is $9 - not so enticing.
Also read about Erik Lindgren being pissed off ending up fourth in a final table after going into the table with the smallest stack. I dont equate myself with this type of player at all, but I thought it was a good attitude to always try to win.
Sometimes. The only priority I have is maximizing my expected (monetary) payout. Different tournament scenarios will have different optimal strategies. Playing any specific tournament (which pays out more than one spot) with the singular idea of winning at the tournament at all costs is probably not optimal strategy.
I don't understand why the absolute level of the prize payout should matter. Relative payouts matter. The difference between +$9 and -$11 is big if you are mostly playing tournaments with an $11 buy-in.
If you mean to say that the amounts -$11, +$9, +$19 and +$39 are all irrelevant in terms of your poker bankroll, then you should play in the way that entertains you most. For example, in Lindgren's case, perhaps the WPT final table payouts were somewhat insignificant relative to his poker bankroll. Perhaps finishing first place was a priority to him for the prestige value or something like that.
I'm certainly not suggesting that it is always the correct strategy to prioritize making the money above all else. If you think about it carefully, this, I think, would be essentially the same thing as prioritizing coming in first place above all else.
Different tournament scenarios demand different styles of play, and the payout structure should (moreso at some points in a tournament than others) be a significant factor in your overall style of play. This often also includes observing how your opponents are adjusting their play to the payout structure.
ScottyZ
No, I am NOT man flirting!
Thanks. I'm trying to squeeze in a few solid posts myself before those Team Canuck heavy hitters are back in town and running the show again. :cool:
I think I've lost track of the spirit of this idea... is that a good thing or a bad thing that it wasn't a man-flirt?
ScottyZ