PP 20+2 A9o

[TStoneMBD]

were 6handed with blinds 50/100. I'm on the button with 700 in chips. SB has 650.

SB has played tight. There was a somewhat tricky play that he made earlier. From my little memory of playing with him in the past, I believe him to be a winning player.

I havent really caught any cards up till this point, and have been bullied out of a couple hands, while paying off a couple of winners. I haven't raised preflop very much, but every time I have I've had to fold after the flop. Not the best image I could have.

I raise it up to 250 to go, SB calls.


Flop comes K22r. SB pushes. I fold.

Is my hand good here enough of the time to call?

[SmileyEH]

Push preflop so you never have to make a decision like this.

The nearly-pot-comitting-raise-with-a-fairly-weak-hand is horrible.

-SmileyEH

[NotMitch]

[ QUOTE ]
were 6handed with blinds 50/100. I'm on the button with 700 in chips. SB has 650.

SB has played tight. There was a somewhat tricky play that he made earlier. From my little memory of playing with him in the past, I believe him to be a winning player.

I havent really caught any cards up till this point, and have been bullied out of a couple hands, while paying off a couple of winners. I haven't raised preflop very much, but every time I have I've had to fold after the flop. Not the best image I could have.

I raise it up to 250 to go, SB calls.


Flop comes K22r. SB pushes. I fold.

Is my hand good here enough of the time to call?

[/ QUOTE ]

Push or fold preflop with that stack and here I push.

[dethgrind]

Definitely push this preflop if you're going to play it (which I think you should).

But supposing you accidentally raised 250, let's see. If you fold you will have 450 chips. If you call and win you will have 1450. Call and lose and you have 50 chips.

There are 6 people left, so assuming there are no tiny stacks, increasing your stack from 450 to 1450 roughly increases your $EV in the tournament by a factor of 145/45 = 3.2. Let's round this down to 3 and assume that having 50 chips is worthless.

So I think your A9o only needs to win roughly 1/3 of the time to make calling and folding equal in terms of $EV.

Your opponent might realize that there are only 5 cards that are helped by this flop, and that the 2 deuces are pretty unlikely from a preflop raiser. If he knows you'll only call with a king, deuce, or pocket pair, then this is an excellent bluffing opportunity for him.

This is a pretty tough decision, that depends a lot on how likely your opponent is to be bluffing. If he has a king or deuce, you're in very bad shape. Even if he is bluffing, it might be with a better ace. You still win around 1/3 of the time against a better ace, so this is alright.

My experience tells me that a typical opponent will bluff often enough in this spot for a call to win more than 1/3 of the time. I would reluctantly call.