Another tournament beat question.
[This may be a long post because I need to get this outta my system. skipping to the question at the end is allowed.]
Alright, let's set the stage again.
Playing in a 200 FPP Limit Hold'em tourney on Poker Stars. 607 players entered, payout of $1000 is divided to the final table as follows:
1st - $400
2nd - $200
3rd - $120
4th - $80
5th-9th - $40
There are 10 players left in the tournament, I am sitting sitting in fourth place with a little over T76,000, second at my table by not much with the chip leader's stack in the neighbourhood of T290,000. Limits are 6000/12000 no ante.
The chip leader is playing loose, everyone else is playing tight, waiting for # 10 to fall. In mid position I am dealt A6s. UTG folds, I raise, CL cold calls on the button, the blinds both fold.
Heads up, the flop brings 3TA rainbow. Beautiful! I bet, CL calls. Turn comes J. I bet, CL calls. River comes Q. No flush on board. I sigh. Check, CL bets... You see whats coming here... I call. CL gets his gutshot on the river. T93000 pot to him.
That puts me in the back of the pack and now fighting off blinds and others. After two rounds of blinds, I pickup AKs, get all in and get beaten by a set of nines. Bang, I'm #10. I'm out of the money.
No complaints here about others play... I collapsed at the end of a long tournament and take full blame.
But the question is: In that type of situation what strategy do you use? I mean I did not have a large enough lead to be able to put myself on "Sit Out" and make the money. So what is the correct play. Play super super tight and try to squeak into the money or make a play or two and try to hit the table rolling and with a big stack?
Though historically I have leaned toward the latter, I find it somewhat defeatist.
Thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Mike
Alright, let's set the stage again.
Playing in a 200 FPP Limit Hold'em tourney on Poker Stars. 607 players entered, payout of $1000 is divided to the final table as follows:
1st - $400
2nd - $200
3rd - $120
4th - $80
5th-9th - $40
There are 10 players left in the tournament, I am sitting sitting in fourth place with a little over T76,000, second at my table by not much with the chip leader's stack in the neighbourhood of T290,000. Limits are 6000/12000 no ante.
The chip leader is playing loose, everyone else is playing tight, waiting for # 10 to fall. In mid position I am dealt A6s. UTG folds, I raise, CL cold calls on the button, the blinds both fold.
Heads up, the flop brings 3TA rainbow. Beautiful! I bet, CL calls. Turn comes J. I bet, CL calls. River comes Q. No flush on board. I sigh. Check, CL bets... You see whats coming here... I call. CL gets his gutshot on the river. T93000 pot to him.
That puts me in the back of the pack and now fighting off blinds and others. After two rounds of blinds, I pickup AKs, get all in and get beaten by a set of nines. Bang, I'm #10. I'm out of the money.
No complaints here about others play... I collapsed at the end of a long tournament and take full blame.
But the question is: In that type of situation what strategy do you use? I mean I did not have a large enough lead to be able to put myself on "Sit Out" and make the money. So what is the correct play. Play super super tight and try to squeak into the money or make a play or two and try to hit the table rolling and with a big stack?
Though historically I have leaned toward the latter, I find it somewhat defeatist.
Thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Mike
Comments
Your CL had quite a few possible winning hands. Let alone the longshot straight draw.
3, 3
3, 10
3, J
10, 10
10, J
J, J
A, A
A, 10
A, J
I think I would have folded the aces. Tough call. Taking on the chip leader means he can pull you all in anytime he wants. Something to think about.
In this case he got lucky on a straight draw. Any of the above hands may have happened too though.
You're 2nd UTG? I'd call that early position instead of middle position.
I'd fold pre-flop here. This seems like neither a legitimate raising hand from early (or middle) position, nor a good stealing situation.
Like you mentioned, you *do* want to be looking for more chances to steal the blinds when people are playing as tightly as described, but trying steals from too early of a position dramatically increases your chances of running into a real hand behind you. Do try to steal more in the general game scenario you described, but wait for suitable spots.
ScottyZ
Not five minutes before that I told myself: "Only premiums and the flop needs to hit. Just the nuts."
I guess I am still at a level where I hate getting pushed around, especially by someone who has shown that he is not above being aggressive with trash.
Lesson hopefully learned. And it came cheap, as it was essentially a freeroll. The good side of this whole situation was that I wasn't steaming after that beat. I was steaming after getting knocked out, but never during the tourney.
But really, should that be the strategy? Let's say you are in this position, late in the tournament, a few players off the money with a midrange stack. You get American Airlines and the flop comes with a scary straight flush board. Loosey Goosey big stack bets out. What do you do? Neither of your rockets is suited to the board. You win this hand and you are really sitting pretty. Fold, call or raise?
Mike
Note, at this point, there are only 5 players at the table. So I am in the cutoff seat. Button folds and I have position.
My thinking was that with second in chips at this table, the big stack may be less likely to try to push me around compared to someone he could easily force all in.
But also like I said. Bad judgement playing that hand.
Mike
Oh, I see. Forget what I said then.. I was thinking one table of 10 players...
Let me go through the hand again.
Pre-flop raise is fine. Ace-rag is a monster hand 5-way.
Post-flop play seems fine to me too. Betting for value seems like the plan throughout. Check & call the river seems good to me. Checking is very good... there's no sensible reason I can see for you to bet the river. If it was *no*-limit, there might be more of a decision to be made after the opponent bets.
ScottyZ
Which is why I wasn't steaming.
But the question remains, what would be your late in the tournament strategy? Super tight/passive or situationally aggressive?
Mike
I'd probably only adjust to the threat of the bubble if I was 2nd shortest (maybe 3rd, if the second condition still held) stack *and* it was a short enough stack for it to be unrealistic for me to make the top paying spots.
ScottyZ
If you are close to the bubble and the big stacks have far, far more chips than you (ie, if winning the pot and even doubling up doesn't really give you much of a chance to finish 4th or better) then things are different, because you don't gain much equity if you win. But in this case if you win you are one of the big stacks and your equity goes up by a lot.
Sometimes you make the right play, someone sucks out on you, and it costs you. I think that that's what happenned here.
Keith