A Frustrating Tournament Hand (in hindsight)

Monteroy

I forgot to get a tournament report from Party Poker (and you cannot bring up hand histories once you are eliminated from a tournament), but here is the situation:

This past weeks Party Poker Weekly $100k Monster tournament

- Very, very top heavy payout schedule.  To give an idea top table is 12,500 for 1st 250 for 10th.  11th is $120, 101-200th is $90, 201-400 is $80, 801-1000 was $40 so basically there is no point playing to get to the next money level only unless perhaps for final table.

Blinds are 3k/6k  I am in the BB with just under 70,000 chips, average stack is about 110,000 or so.

There are 120ish people left.

I get dealt  8 9 of clubs. 

2 folds, then a player who was moved to the table a couple hands earlier min raises to 12k.  All fold to me and I call

Flop is Ac 8h 3s

I check he min bets 6,000 I call.

Turn is the Kc 

I shove the rest of my chips, about 50,000.  He quickly calls and shows A2 off suit.

I do not improve and get knocked out.  As I am relaying the hand to a friend on Yahoo Messenger I notice a couple hands later that the guy who knocked me out called 2 all ins preflop (including a person who had him covered) with A 10 suited, and no shock he got smashed by both the AA and QQ the other two had (small chipper had AA to triple up, QQ knocked out this guy).

Thus, in hindsight I realized this was a loose player who vastly overrated marginal hands, and as a rule of thumb bluffing, even a strong semi bluff, is not ideal since they will call with weak hands a better player would fold that can unfortunately beat you.  Sure I had a bunch of outs when I shoved but I was still a 3-1 underdog or so, and I did not want a call.


I guess I am trying to figure out how I should have even played the hand in hindsight out of position against such a player had I been able to identify his style beforehand.  8c 9c  is not really ideal heads up but the pot odds were there for the call pre flop and the flop and turn were kind of my worse nightmare against a player like that.  Check calling likely a 6k or 12k bet on the turn was possible I suppose but if I miss and then fold river my stack is really kind of ugly (though not utterly hopeless).

Keep in mind that finishing 120th or finishing 20th is basically a difference of only $10 or 20, you need to make the final table to make the real payouts in this one.  That was a factor in my choice to shove on the turn.


Any thought appreciated.

CanadaDave

Hey Monteroy,

First, I think you can e-mail PP and request the hand history for the last tournament you played in. If you have the # it is even better; but I'm almost positive they can look it up for you.

Secondly, since the payouts are structured they way they are, you need to accumulate chips at this level, big time, so pushing, to get him to fold, and pick up the 18k in chips he invested so far was definitely a good move. The only problem is, since he is a new player, I may be inclined to respect his preflop raises for the first few orbits anyway. This could of let you know he was betting a sh~t ace, and that he wouldn't fold to a raise.

It's a tough situation though, since I would say that ,in the situation you were in, the way you played it would be correct 75% of the time. I'm saying that PP is 25% maniacs like this guy, so you have to include that in your decision making, when you are up against a player you have no history on.

but that's just My Humble Opinion.

Cheers,
Dave

Monteroy

Actually this guy was not really a maniac. A manicac would likely just shove on that flop. It is kind of hard to describe his style of play (keep in mind I only saw a few hands), but he is sort of the very loose player with often bad aggression. By bad aggression I mean he doesnt put real pressure on with big bets, and he will often min raise/ min bet with really overrated hands like A anything or K 10. That is the type of player that will not fold top pair any kicker post flop, so they will pay you off when you have big hands (like he did soon after calling two all ins with A 10), but the flip side is he will not go away if you have a big draw hand.

Annoying to get a big draw out of position at that point versus that player. Had I known his style I likely would not have shoved the turn but the hand would still be a near impossible one for me to get out of at any point given his betting.

ScoobyD

Ugh. I initially read the hand as he raised 12k not he raised to 12k. In the first case I think it's a fairly clear fold since it's unlikely you can get him off any type of hand with a resteal, and you don't have the implied odds to make the call with your small stack. But being as the raise is only 6k this makes it so much tougher to fold (especially knowing that you can stack him if you hit a flop since he calls too much). Hitting a marginal flop as you did is brutal, since god knows what his further min bet means (weak cont bet, weak made hand, monster?). Tough hand, I don't know if I play it much differently honestly (I assume you would have folded to a more std. raise though).