"Crunch time" @ Foxwoods $340 NL HE tournament

339 Entries..$102K prize pool, 1st Place is $35K...We are down to 12 players, 6 per table.


I am in the 7 seat with about T20,000.Blinds are 1K/2K with 400 ante. There are no easy players left at this table. In seat 2 is a very loose/aggressive player who was shortstacked a few minutes ago, BUT, has gone on an allin orgy over the past few hands, made the miracle hits and has managed to get big stacked AND put most of the table on tilt in the process! In the 8 seat is a very strong player: a consistent high finisher (whom I greatly respect), but he is on tilt big time. Our loose/aggressive hero in seat 2 is clearly enjoying putting the table on tilt with his casual, swipe of the hand, "allin" raises. Lets put it this way: if we each had a pistol with one bullet in it, there would likely be only one casualty at the table.


New hand, our hero is UTG and waves his hand allin again. All fold to me.I am on the button and find black pocket tens. BB & SB yet to act, both with more chips than me. I think first as to what range of hands he's shown down. Anything from A rag to small and med pp's. BUT, on just about all of them he has hit what he needed to take down the hand: it's clearly his time in the sun. I then think about both BB and SB. Will they try to chase him down for whatever reason? The prize money has little effect on my decision, as I'm at $1027 right now and have got to get to 9th (final table) to get a jump up, and it's only to $1556 (not that big a deal, I think).


If I had more $$ than our hero, I'd rr him allin to get it heads up, but I don't. It's either call allin or muck my hand. I'm worried that my allin call doesn't give enough information to either SB or BB, and that their tilt factor will lead them to comes into the pot, thereby diluting my hands value. On the other hand, If I call and take down the pot, it will put me in a reasonably good position to contend for top 3 spots.


What is YOUR move in this situation? Please critique/add to my thoughts.


I will post results further down the string.

Interesting. Personally in this situation i would have probably shoved in, but what makes the decision more difficult is that he has, as you said, been running the table over in the last couple hands.


Players in gambling mode are very dangerous; i've noticed that when players are on a great rush, they are more susceptible to making mistakes because they are more confident about their hands. calling an all-in bet with TT is also dangerous. He may have AJ or AT,(in which case you're not in REALLY bad shape) but most likely no better than that or lower pocket pairs. Worst case scenario would be that he has JJ, QQ, or KK, but would he have gone all in with those pairs? probably not. So he's probably drawing as well. I would have moved all in, see the blinds fold and get it heads up. So, tell us the results!!!!

Time to go!


Vince

Hi J,


It rhymes with Tall Gin.


See you later.

Maybe I'm out on a limb here but I don't think it makes a big difference ! Everyone would, in effect, have their "standard" for how big a pair they would play here. You would call with QQ, right ? And fold with 88 ? Probably call with JJ, probably fold with 99 ? Ask player A what he would do, he might consider JJ to be "on the bubble" and say FOLD ! Player B might consider 99 to be OTB and say CALL ! And we might think "wow, we have three completely different players here", but that's not the case is it ?


My point is that quite often you know, through experience, that a decision is close. And I'm with you, TT is CLOSE here. A couple of posts above say go for it, if you think so then why not, but what do you do with 99 ? Or 88 ? What do you do when you know it's close ? You look for some external factors to the cards and the play of the hand. Instead of just agonising, shall I or shan't I (IMO most players who are average or weaker are not thinking of anything helpful when they go into a long funk, they are just agonising), look for a tell in the blinds. Either likes his hand ? Either looks like he's going to fold ? Look for a tell in the raiser. No tells ? OK, consider your table. Are you one of the best players ? Can you accumulate chips with minimal risk in future hands ? If so then tend to fold. Or are there too many good players around ? Are you going to be lucky to double up (being honest with yourself is good here) ? If so then tend to call. And what's your aim in this tournament ? Win it and take all the money (call) ? Or make the final and see your name in Card Player (fold) ? OK most people would say win it, but is a place in the final worth more than its monetary value to you for reasons of self-confidence, image or just plain ego (be honest again :-)) ? That last question is real. I have made folds in big tournaments without really thinking it through, and I now believe that subconsciously I wanted to make the final for the reasons given above. Now I would just play it for £££. I hope :-).


There are other questions along similar lines. Are you playing your best (fold), or are you dog-tired (call), and so on.


Get my drift ?


Andy.

From your chip position and long climb to get to the bigger money, you are going to have to gamble. I would push in here, but not like someone worried about losing. I mean that I look at my cards and immediatley put it all in like I just found AA or KK. I need to have the blinds fold. They will be happy someone is taking on the maniac and unless they have real big hands they will not come in with you.


This was my dilemma on the bubble. All you happy players can thank me for going out tied at 36. The button raised my small blind with about 4 times the big. I find pocket Queens. I push all in, knowing he'll fold, however, Carlos, in the big blind finds pocket Aces.


Oh well.


(Raiser had A-10 and said he would easily have folded.)

3 guesses as to who was in the SB, directly behind me!??


His first name begins with Carlo......and he had been cracked TWICE in the last tem minutes by our maniac pal......


Does that add further texture to my dilemmna??

Wow,


I did not see Carlo play a bad hand at my table, of course some he did not show. I think that if you go all in against the maniac that Carlo would have folded anything but a high pair. I'm only guessing of course. The odds of the blinds finding a hand are small, so I think you have to play it as though you will be heads up. The only question is, do I want to play heads up against the maniac with 10-10 for all of my chips?


At this point, I would.

First, thank's to those who responded.......


I thought long and hard about this one.......I mucked the hand and I'll tell you what my thinking was.


Once we hit the money (36 places), we broke for dinner hour. I attempted to focus my priorities during that time. I came up with #1 - play each & every hand to the best of my knowledge and ability. #2 - make the final table. After some serious soul searching, I now believe that these two goals were contradictory.


To get a bit deeper, when I saw our hero the maniac putting the whole table on tilt, I was bound and determined to not be part of it. I firmly believe in Feeney's definition of tilt: "Tilt is any adverse impact of emotion on one's play". So, in an attempt to adhere to my goal #1, I ended up underplaying my ppT's as my fear of being put on tilt overrode my card sense. In essense, I went on tilt because I was afraid of going on tilt!! I rationalized my decision at the time by being overly concerned with the potential action of two very good players who had yet to act.


I think what I have now learned from this whole experience is that like positive and negative numbers, there are positive and negative degrees of tilt! Does that make sense? We can overreact or underreact: we can overplay or underplay a hand. There are sins of commision & sins of ommision. What really appears to matter most is being totally in touch with all of the factors that go into our decision making process.


Both blinds mucked and one flashed pp6's. Our hero showed his pp9's. I silently called for an air sickness bag.....I hope the best remembered lessons are the hard one's. I sure as hell will never forget this one.

"Tilt is any adverse impact of emotion on one's play".


"I think what I have now learned from this whole experience is that like positive and negative numbers, there are positive and negative degrees of tilt! "


With all due respect to John Feeney, whom I've never met but truly love and respect I do not agree with this definition of tilt. Of course this, is not the time to argue whether it is a correct definition of tilt or not. The question is why did you fold? So I will stick to what I feel happened to you when faced with the situation in which you found yourself. Please consider that this is just a mere opinion of a humble tournament player wannabe.


There are a number of elements (technical and pschological playing skills) that I believe a tournament pro must master to be a consistent money winner. One of those is survival skill. My only comment about tilt is that had you been on tilt I don't believe you would have gone through the process of considering the consequences of your action. In this case being knocked out of the tournament if you lost. What I believe happened was that your survival skills just overrode any other consideration that I am sure you took into account. If "hero" had turned over A,J and the other opponent Q,Q you would feel just the opposite of what you are feeling now.


Should you have called? You had 20k. Blinds 1k & 2K with an ante. The answer lies, paradoxically, in the element of survival skill. Survival skill teaches us to play in a certain way to put ourselves in a position to win the tourmnament. One concept of survival skill is to avoid stiuations that could knock you out. Another is to try be the aggressor. We all have hear that when you raise your opponent there are two ways you can win. One he can fold and the other is by making the best hand. The paradox is that if you avoid all situations that could knock you out you could very well be ante'd off which is diametrically opposite of the desired affect of your survival skill. Certainly you survive one more hand or many but it always comes down to the situation where you have no choice and must put in your last chips albeit voluntarily or involuntarily via blinds.


I believe that you went through the correct thought process when you considered your action here. I don't believe you should let the result influence your thinking in the future. If I were in your position I believe would have put in my chips. My chip accumulation skills at that point would tell me that I needed to get some chips to survive and to win the tournament. Ray zee told me that I should not wait so long when the blinds are so high. He was right in my case. I looked for a hand. I should have moved without a hand when it was folded to me on the button.


Well that's my opinion. Please consider I finished 15th and you finished much higher. Next time please say hello.


Vince