But it was sooted...

Playing a local NL tourney on the weekend. It is a $75 NL tourney with no rebuys. You start with T6000 and blinds start at 25-50. There are only 2 tables.


This didn't happen at my table but here it is. 1st hand of the tourney.


Good Player (GP) limps in with 55. Decent Player (DP) limps in with KQ. Slightly Aggressive Player(SA) raises to 300 with AA. Normally Decent Player (NDP) calls with 43s. Blinds fold. All limpers call. There is 1275 in the pot.


Flop is Q65 rainbow.


GP checks. DP bets 1000. SA raises all-in. NDP calls. GP calls. DP folds.


Turn is T.


River is a 2.


NDP wins a monster pot with 43s.


Comments?


Ken Poklitar

Perhaps NDP thought that SA was on a steal and called to keep him from carrying it out.


On the flop, going against some obvious sets or lower (doubtful that the first two limpers came in with 87), an open-ended straight could be worth chasing.


DP was smart to get out of the way.

Well suited or not, I can't really like the flop play.


The preflop call is ok, if he chose to gamble with this hand, but ok considering the stack sizes and the multiway pot. T300 is about 5% of his stack so he can call here, and he also has position. However, one must be sure he is not likely to face a reraise.


On the flop he only flopped a draw, what he wanted is 2 pair at least. Plus his draw in only half a nut draw. Once the preflop raiser moves-in, he should be gone. He is not on a steal and even if he is, he has a better hand right now and there are 2 other opponnents to worry about, and one who has bet into the raiser.


This is a clear fold on the flop. Unles he was thinking the hell with it, I want to triple up or go home. Either way, this is not a +EV play, period.


And the guy with KQ should have folded preflop, evenmore after the raise and again evenmore after the raise all-in on the flop.


Hope you did well,


Nicolas Fradet (ThePrince)

I don't know if KQ should fold before the flop. This is NL, a major bluffing game. A raise doesn't have to indicate AA or KK, it could be AK. On the flop he has high board pair with a good kicker, beaten by AA, KK, or QQ and a few other pocket pairs (don't have the original message in front of me) that would give trips. This is where you need to know your opponents and what their bets mean.


I love the straight draw! You can figure most players are betting high cards and there are 8 outs for the straight. While this player is on the low end of the straight it is doubtful that someone has the nut straight because he'd have to have such mediocre cards 7,8 is it? I would have folded pre-flop with 4,3?, but now that this player is in, I'd be calling all the way to the river. You make money on drawing hands and this has the potential to be a monster! The player who made trips has 10 outs and unless I suspect someone with higher trips, I'd bet to the river as well for the full house.


Go ahead and tell me I'm reckless, but I don't think it's that bad of a play. Comments are welcome.

I don't think calling a raise with 43s is +EV. I have no problem with him calling for 50 but if it is raised when it gets to him he needs to muck. Now if 2 or 3 others have already called the raise then he could choose to gamble but he was the 1st one after the raise.


The KQ guy bet the flop and folded to the all-in raise. I am not sure if it was suited or not. Limping in early is a close call. Once it is raised and 3 callers I think he needs to call.


As for me, my all-in raise of TT at the final table met AK with a flop of KKx and no help for me. I think I am 0 for 3 with TT at the final table in the past year. Once KK showed up, once AA showed up and this time AK.


Ken Poklitar

With 6000 chips in front of me there is no question that I would rather call a 300 raise with 43 suited than KQ. It should be clear enough why, in fact the results demonstrate it to an extent.


Andy.

KQ is a very problematic hand, especially in NL HE. The problem is that when you do flop top pair, you will never know where you stand when you get significant action. And most likely, you will be beat.


With stacks this big, early in the tournament, you can be very patient. There is no need to play KQ here. As you can see the player flopped top pair and had to fold it (correctly) when he got raised on the flop. He lost about 20% of his stack with a hand that flopped well. That's problematic to me. I prefer to fold it.


Like Andy said, calling with 43s is much better since at least you don't have to worry about being dominated. There are times to call preflop with this hand, especially when the money is deep (like here). The hand is very easy to get away from on the flop, if you don't flop good to it. On the flop, I just cannot consider calling all-in for the draw a good play. You are going to bust here more than 70% of the time, it is simply bad tournament strategy and bad poker, unless you feel you are so outmatched that you really need to get lucky. I have not felt that way in a long time.


Most draws are death in NL HE.


Nicolas Fradet (ThePrince)

I did a quick simulation with TTH and here are the results:


PREFLOP win rate to showdown:


AA: 56%

55: 16%

43s: 15%

KQo: 13%


As you can see, 55, 43s and KQo are all in the same ball park, but 55 and 43s are hands that are really easy to get away from when you miss. And they are hands that would be well disguised against the AA player. Say the flop comes 833 or Q85. KQ is just not worth playing. He has to call after the raise, sure but only if he can get away from the flop when he flops well. It's a lot easier to just fold the hand.


Ken: I didn't noticed in my 1st post that the KQ had folded to the raise, he obviously did the correct play.


As for the value of the 43s, and whether it is a +EV or not, well, it will win 15% of the time so it is a 5.6:1 shot. It's getting much more than that (19:1). Obviously, there are many draws that the 43s hand should fold on the flop against an all-in bet and thus you would have to drop that 15% figure a lot. I still think you can make the call, especially since the raiser is aggressive as you indicated, it might be close tho. Even so, I think there are many advantages to making a call like this one early in the tournament. If you succeed, you get to be chip leader at your table and to play bully, you get to get paid more later in the tournament since any average palyer will think you are crazy. This could turn the call into a +EV play if you can manage to play well after that, should you hit.


Nicolas Fradet (ThePrince)