Satellite tourney hand

ScoobyD

This was an odd one for me, and I felt lost the entire hand.

Here's the situation. 3 left. Top 2 to get entries into $650 dollar tourney. 3rd gets a measly 33 bucks. So payout for top 2 is leaps above 3rd.

The stacks: Hero is sitting comfortably in 2nd. Roughly 2:1 chip advantage on short stack. Big stack has roughly 2:1 chip lead on hero. Chip leader has been fairly aggressive bullying the short stack. The short stack's play for lack of a better word seems very weak. Limps into pots OOP vs. the big stack who then punishes him by raising. I'm very happy with this, and big stack and I have generally been avoiding any sort of confrontations with each other.

The hand:

*********** # 238 **************
PokerStars Game #2807646260: Tournament #13527544, Hold'em No Limit - Level XVIII (10000/20000) - 2005/10/15 - 02:41:35 (ET)
Table '13527544 7' Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: buford3 (120194 in chips)
Seat 3: porkadobo (598551 in chips)
Seat 7: ScoobyD (265255 in chips)
buford3: posts the ante 1000
porkadobo: posts the ante 1000
ScoobyD: posts the ante 1000
ScoobyD: posts small blind 10000
buford3: posts big blind 20000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScoobyD [5c 5h]
porkadobo: raises 40000 to 60000
ScoobyD: ???

Here is my dilemma. I know the big stack has been a liberal raiser preflop. I do NOT want a massive confrontation with him for obvious reasons. Short stack looks close to the allin point (I smell blood). All I want in this hand is to force the short stack to fold while not confronting the big stack. (I know, I want my cake and eat it too). Fold, call or reraise? In general, I think my choice was the worst of the 3 but maybe I'm tainted by results... Thoughts?

SirWatts

Just muck it. There's no reason to play this hand.

DJP

Yup, unless it was folded/checked back to you in the BB, it
was a fold. There was no reason to risk 1/4th to 1/5th of
your chips at that point. Let the big guy take him out, and
then try to pick him off heads up.
But then hindsight is 20/20......

Speaking of hindsight, there would be no heads up here....lol

pkrfce9

It will be very hard to stay in the hand after the flop if you don't hit it. Even if you do hit it, there always a chance he hit a higher set. Trust me. (See one of my more recent posts.  ) Chances are extremely good you won't hit it anyway. I don't think I'd take any big risks until the short stack doubled.

Since first and second pay the same and third pays almost nothing, you shouldn't take any extra risk until you have to. Make the short stack get lucky.

ScottyZ

A very easy fold.

While you might like to force the short stack into a 3-way all-in hand as a general tactic, the short stack is far from making a guaranteed call here. For now, you'd be well served by letting the big stack whittle away at the short stack with his hyper-aggressive play.

Wanting to "force the small stack to fold" is not a very appealing strategy. You'd love the short stack to get involved in a hand for all his chips.

While I think that calling is a merely poor choice, re-raising here would be a significant error.

ScottyZ

pkrfce9

Was that the serious Scotty or his evil, sarcastic twin?

Chugs

Easy fold. At this point and those chip stacks you are waiting for the short stack to be forced into making a stand.

Get out of the way and let the short stack make a mistake.

ScottyZ

pkrfce9 wrote:

Was that the serious Scotty or his evil, sarcastic twin?

If I respond to this, you'd just have to ask if the response was sarcastic. So, in the interest of ending the infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop infinite loop

ScottyZ

ScoobyD

Glad to see the consensus of a hand that I looked back at and said "What the @#$% were you doing getting involved there for?"  In short I chose to call, trying to convey the message to the big stack that "I have some sort of hand" And I didn't really mind making the short stack beat both of us.   I had no intentions of committing more chips to the pot, but I thought it would be next to impossible for the short stack to overcall (of course I made the error of giving him trememdous pot odds to do just that).  In short I was committing 50k of my own chips hoping to cause the short stack to drop another 20k by folding.  I'm still boggled by my convoluted thought process (or lack thereof) in this hand.

Results:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScoobyD [5c 5h]
porkadobo: raises 40000 to 60000
ScoobyD: calls 50000
buford3: calls 40000
*** FLOP *** [2c 2d Ks]
ScoobyD: bets 60000
buford3: calls 59194 and is all-in
porkadobo: folds
*** TURN *** [2c 2d Ks] [9s]
*** RIVER *** [2c 2d Ks 9s] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ScoobyD: shows [5c 5h] (two pair, Fives and Deuces)
buford3: shows [8s Kd] (two pair, Kings and Deuces)
buford3 collected 301388 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 301388 | Rake 0
Board [2c 2d Ks 9s Qs]
Seat 1: buford3 (big blind) showed [8s Kd] and won (301388) with two pair, Kings and Deuces
Seat 3: porkadobo (button) folded on the Flop
Seat 7: ScoobyD (small blind) showed [5c 5h] and lost with two pair, Fives and Deuces

Ugly. Now I'm the crippled stack due to stupidity.  Shocking I didn't tilt out the next hand.

A few hands later I get my lucky break... (The big stack was pushing me in every orbit in my BB and I didn't really think I had the luxury of waiting any longer here)

POKERSTARS GAME #2807682237: TOURNAMENT #13527544, HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XVIII (10000/20000) - 2005/10/15 - 02:48:33 (ET)
Table '13527544 7' Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: buford3 (179388 in chips)
Seat 3: porkadobo (714551 in chips)
Seat 7: ScoobyD (90061 in chips)
buford3: posts the ante 1000
porkadobo: posts the ante 1000
ScoobyD: posts the ante 1000
ScoobyD: posts small blind 10000
buford3: posts big blind 20000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScoobyD [7d 8d]
porkadobo: raises 100000 to 120000
ScoobyD: calls 79061 and is all-in
buford3: folds
*** FLOP *** [5c 9c 6s]
*** TURN *** [5c 9c 6s] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [5c 9c 6s 5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ScoobyD: shows [7d 8d] (a straight, Six to Ten)
porkadobo: shows [Js Kd] (a pair of Fives)
ScoobyD collected 201122 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 201122 | Rake 0
Board [5c 9c 6s 5h Td]
Seat 1: buford3 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: porkadobo (button) showed [Js Kd] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 7: ScoobyD (small blind) showed [7d 8d] and won (201122) with a straight, Six to Ten

And a few hands later it's over...

POKERSTARS GAME #2807710562: TOURNAMENT #13527544, HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XVIII (10000/20000) - 2005/10/15 - 02:54:15 (ET)
Table '13527544 7' Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: buford3 (105388 in chips)
Seat 3: porkadobo (644490 in chips)
Seat 7: ScoobyD (234122 in chips)
buford3: posts the ante 1000
porkadobo: posts the ante 1000
ScoobyD: posts the ante 1000
buford3: posts small blind 10000
porkadobo: posts big blind 20000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ScoobyD [4c 3d]
ScoobyD: folds
buford3: calls 10000
porkadobo: checks
*** FLOP *** [6d Td 2s]
buford3: checks
porkadobo: checks
*** TURN *** [6d Td 2s] [8h]
buford3: checks
porkadobo: bets 100000
buford3: calls 84388 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [6d Td 2s 8h] [7s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
buford3: shows [Ks Qc] (high card King)
porkadobo: shows [2h 8c] (two pair, Eights and Deuces)
porkadobo collected 211776 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 211776 | Rake 0
Board [6d Td 2s 8h 7s]
Seat 1: buford3 (small blind) showed [Ks Qc] and lost with high card King
Seat 3: porkadobo (big blind) showed [2h 8c] and won (211776) with two pair, Eights and Deuces
Seat 7: ScoobyD (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

In short, I got very lucky when I shouldn't have needed to...  I think I need to work more on thinking through situations instead of making those stupid impulse reactions...