Final Table Raising

Blew my chances at last nights PL holdem tourney in the following scenario.


7 players with a 45/25/15/10/5 payout. I have 12.5k out of 92.5k in play with blinds at 2k/2k. I raise 2+6 UTG with QJs and get called by the first blind (who only has 2k left). Flop gives me a open str8 draw (T9x). Check check. Turn x. Check, opponent all-in for 2k. I call. He turns AK. No help on river and I'm crippled.


The question I'm asking here is how often does everyone have to fold to make this play reasonable. There had been a lot of open-raise, all pass hands, and I thought this was a reasonable opportunity to get chips before blinds taking me to having 4 chips. I reckon to only get called by A-big or pair TT or higher. How often will one of the 6 other players have a hand like this?


Was this a reasonable move or should I have mucked and waited for something better?


Thanks in advance


Dave Veitch

Dave,


My gut feeling with 6 opponents is "too often".


I would normally fold this one, have a look to see if I can work anything from the blinds, and if not then I have to make a move on the next circuit. Certainly if I had only 4 BB in front of me I would raise with QJs, and many many other hands, but not with 6.


Basically this is a pure steal because, according to your reckoning (which sounds reasonable), there is only one hand you will get called by (TT) which you are even level with, the rest you are losing. I prefer not to make pure steals with a low stack, until your chip and blind position dictates that you have to.


Andy.

Thanks Andy,


On reflection I thought this was a questionable, but not entirely unreasonable move. However, I think that the possibility of getting called, added to the chance of doing something in the blinds, and still having another round, probably dictates a fold.


It would be great to see some numbers though if anyone has them.


Thanks


Dave


PS Do I still get my name on your pokersoft site if I email you the 'phrase that pays'?

For sure. E-mail me though, or everyone will want one :-)

If youre a lucky bastard wait for a better hand.If not get on with it!!!!

I tend to agree with Andy on this one. It appears you are about an average stack which implies there are 1 or 2 others that have much smaller stacks.


I decided to try the mathematics of someone having at+ or tt+ in the next 6 players.


Assuming you have QJ. There are 6 ways for AA,KK,TT. There are 3 ways for QQ & JJ. There are 16 ways for AK & AT. There are 12 ways for AQ & AJ. So assuming only big aces and TT+ will call, there are 80 hands that would call out of 1325 possible hands. So the chances no one has one of those calling hands is 68.821%.


I think the other thing to note is that big stacks and small stacks may call you with a wider variety of hands.


Ken Poklitar

Unless the table is super tight and you can pick up the blinds with a good degree of certainty

I would pass on this hand.


Bruce

Thanks for that.


My feeling at the time was that I would get away with this most of the time, which would appear to be correct. Does that still make it such a bad move?


Cheers


Dave Veitch