2nd pair and OESD

[dfscott]

I'd been stealing fairly liberally against the BB up to this point, but he had recently started going over the top of my pre-flop raises and I had to give up a few hands. Button (BB's girlfriend) had been down to a chip and a chair, then doubled-up three times against the BB (BB was calling with really marginal hands, but I didn't really suspect collusion).

Home No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t280 (3 handed). Everyone is in the money (50-25-15-10 payout structure).

Button (t2000)
Hero (t4000)
BB (t5000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with J/images/graemlins/heart.gif 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif
Button folds, Hero raises to t1080, BB calls.

Flop: (t2080) Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif, J/images/graemlins/club.gif, T/images/graemlins/spade.gif (2 players)
Hero bets t1920 (all-in), BB calls.

Final Pot: t8000

My question is more about pre-flop -- I feel like I might be a bit too aggressive in the later rounds. Is this hand too marginal to attempt to steal with? If not, should I be raising less than 3BB? I found that once I raised 3BB, I needed to go all-in to make a meaningful flop bet.

Assuming I even play it, would I be better off raising less pre-flop (maybe t500) and then firing another 500 into the pot on the flop?

[lorinda]

I think this is one of those lines that is all a big 'depends' preflop, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the play at any point.
I think that given you were going to steal, the raise is a good size, although 900 would probably do the same job.



Lori