Fast action NL

Last month's Soaring Eagle end-of-month tourney. First place pays $5900 plus paid $2000 TOC. 20 players in the money.


The tournament is played in a split format: the first 8 rounds are limit, then the rest of the tourney is NL. Each round is 30 minutes long, although with so many all-ins in the late stages, not very many hands are being played per round.


14 players left, 7 players each table. Total chips in play approximately 600,000. I have 40,000 before posting the blind. Blinds of 4,000/8,000, antes of 400. I'm in the big blind.


All fold around to a player in mid-late position, who raises all-in for 50,000. All fold to me. I have As-10c.


Not much in the way of NL players in this tourney, and this man's move looks quite obvious that he doesn't want a call, but is not bluffing. I put him on a small-to-medium pair.


I'm curious to hear how other player's would handle this raise. Comments? Results to follow.

Well, you're getting 46-32 on the call I make it which is good provided your read is correct.


One question would be, how likely is it that a raise from you will take the pot down uncontested (in general). The more respect I was getting, the more I would tend to wait for an opportunity to get it in first.


The other is how sure are you of the read ? If I was the raiser and I had TT or AJ I wouldn't want a call. Can you rule these hands out too ? Are you _sure_ he doesn't have a big hand ?


I just like to be the raiser in this kind of situation. I'd probably fold more often than not, and look for something to play in the next round. Mind you I don't play with antes very often which does make a slight difference in favour of calling (in favour of making a move earlier generally).


Andy.

I would fold. How can you possibly call all your chips preflop on what could be a severely dominated hand? AT is strong, but is a big dog to any stronger Ace, TT, JJ, and needs to hit very very well to win(in most cases). His all in raise gives so little information about his hand that it's almost impossible to call without a huge hand. You can probably rule out A9 and lower, so you're probably up against a pair, or a bigger Ace. Also, why would the chip leader risk his 50K with a marginal hand, like JQ, or very small pair(unless he's a fish)? It could have been a steal-bluff, but are you willing to pay 40,000 to see? i think not. Lay it down and move on.


In any case, even if he has 88 or any other small pair, you MUST improve to win....are you willing to go 50/50 with AT?


I always tell myself, before going all in, use EVERYTHING around you to give you possible tells. Read the situation....position, chip stacks, player action history, bet/raise sizes, etc.

if you folded your AT, pat yourself on the back and hope for a better target.


One more thing; i've seen moves similar to this where a big stack moves all in preflop, making it look like a semi-bluff-steal. I've seen Louis Asmo use this technique against David Chiu. Here was the hand:


The inaugural TOC championship. Chiu and Asmo are the chip leaders. Chiu makes it 70K to go preflop with KK, and Asmo, to his left, goes all in, for about 600,000. Chiu thinks, and flips over KK for the laydown. Respectfully, Asmo turns his hand: AA. Great laydown for Chiu, but the issue here is Asmo's action. His reraise all in looked like he wanted to just blow Chiu off his hand and wanted NO action. Asmo was playing ultra tight as well, so putting him on no less than KK was pretty easy, but Asmo, after the hand, said that he was trying to represent AK, JJ or even TT, meaning he wanted to make it look like he wanted NO ACTION. A very controversial play, indeed, because he could have trapped, but Asmo KNEW Chiu KNEW that Asmo was playing ULTRA tight. If Asmo cold called the 70,000, Chiu would have most likely smelled a rat anyway. As it turns out, Asmo's counter-counter reverse psychology play was good, but Chiu read the situation correctly and folded. Now how do you feel about your AT? : )


Misctwo

Well if you call you be a big dog or a small dog, which do you prefer? Seriously this is why this hand has got to go in the muck. Unless the guy has K-10 (even KJ does not make you much of a favorite). I would certainly move in with A-10, but I sure dont want to be calling with it--If 40% of my chips were in I would probably call, but you only have about 20% in, I think it is better to fold.

"mid-late position"


With 7 players, you have SB, BB, UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2, cutoff and button. So I would assume mid-late means UTG+1 or UTG+2.


If the raise comes from cutoff or button then he could well be on a steal and your AT probably does well.


The other consideration is the other low stacks on the table and how the money changes from 14th to 1st. If you fold and fold the SB you will have 27k or so. You will need to find a hand where you can raise all-in before you get to the blinds again.


Ken Poklitar

This is an excellent post and illustrates the difficult decisions we must make near the bubble. Part of me would look at all those chips. I'd lick my chops and think wow they would sure look good in my stack. I'd call. I have made this call many times. How is this player playing at this moment? Is he bullying? I think it is OK to fold. Just be prepared to be the first one in at the next opportunity with less of a hand.

I called. Here's my reasoning:


The pot contains 12,000 in blinds, 2,800 in antes. His call of 8,000 plus a raise (the part that constitutes my stack) of another 32,000. Total pot of 54,800 versus a call of 32,000, approximate pot odds of nearly 2-1 (precisely 1.7 to 1). And yes, for those who don't play NL, you do this in your head in a NL tourney.


The second part of my reasoning is my read. We're not playing TJ or Keller here, these are for the most part weekend warriors with no high level experience. Some of them are indeed very good limit players, but I didn't see any recognizable faces. My read came to me like a lightening bolt, just one of those things that after you've played awhile, you sometimes know instantly what the all-in move means. For some reason, I didn't even consider that he had two big cards, I just KNEW that it was a middle pair, which was in fact what it turned out to be, 7-7.


The third part of my reasoning was the same point that Chico mentions in his post: Yes, this is a 50-50 decision, but I'm getting much more than the price I need, AND if I put those chips in my stack, I'm going to be very hard to contain at the final table.


Result: I got no help and lost. Would I do it again? With the same read and the same set of circumstances, absolutely.

Earl,


I see many such bets in the tourneys that I play. They are very often this easy to read. How would you have played the hand if you were the raiser? Is this good evidence for a standard raising amount? Thanks.


KJS

Thought I posted this yesterday so apologies if it comes up twice. Anyway, I think you are mis-reading the situation. In the posted scenario, both players have 5-6 BBs in front of them, a little less than the average stack. The Chiu/Asmo situation is on a different planet as they both have large stacks. It isn't valid to draw any comparison at all.


Andy.

"And yes, for those who don't play NL, you do this in your head in a NL tourney. "


Looks like I need some practice. I can't even get it right with a pencil and paper - forgot his 8000 call. It's easier when you can see the chips in front of you :-).


Good read, bad luck !


Andy.