Holy Cow! Bad table or great one!

$340 NL NEPC event. Blinds at $10-$25 45 minute rounds. Start with $1000 in chips. Line up=


1 seat= Spanish wild man

2 seat= Tight Aggressive Good Player

3 seat= ME

4 seat= tighter than tight

5 seat= Loose-Passive

6 seat= Maniac #1

7 seat= Maniac #2

8 seat= Solid Player

9 seat= Lost Player

10 seat= Don't Know-Didn't play a hand


Button starts in 9 seat. 1st 3 hands, much action, Aces, Jacks and Queens all lose to worse hands that got out. 1,6,7 pick up the chips. 1 player already out by 4th hand. I fold both my blinds. On button, 1 limper, then 1 seat grabs 2 chips ($50) but drops 1 back and just calls. I think he thought about raising. I have AJ off. I make it $100. Only 1 seat calls. Flop is Q,J,6 rainbow. He quickly checks to me. I think it missed him but I'm a bit worried that he might have AQ, maybe QQ because of his posible thought of raising. But I bet $100 to test the waters. He re-raises to $400. I muck.


I steal once with 1 limper and back to $790. Button passes me again. 3 players are knocked out in the meantime. Hand of note. 5 seat goes all-in on for $465 preflop, Maniac #1 asks for count, thinks and calls, only caller. (He had doubled thru when he cracked aces.) 5 seat shows A6off...Maniac #1 rolls over 2,2. Yuk, what a terrible call! Flop brings a 6, but river is a deuce.


I am 1 off the cuttoff, 8 seat limps, 1 seat limps, I have QJ hearts. I call. SB folds, BB checks. Flop is 9h,8c,6h Check, check, 1 seat bets $200. He has played by my count all but 2 hands, shown 1 and overbet everytime he bet, by alot!. Once he bet $275 into a $60 pot. I read him for A9 or K9. I weigh my decision carefully. Important info... after winning back to back sats, I am free-rolling this one with profit to boot and this is the only event I am playing. I really believe that I have 3 outs to nut straight, 9 outs to a winning flush and the 10h gives me open ended str8 flush draw and the good flush, and I feel my overcards are good if I hit one. So I'm sure I have 18 outs, and he might be bluffing. Seat #5 moves all-in for $750, seat #1 moves all-in. I'm still sure of my read on #1 but he might have the Ace of hearts too, so I don't want to see a 4 runner in hearts. I read seat 5 as pair with a 7 or maybe, but not likely the str8. I am getting more than 2 to 1 on my money. If I win this hand I am ok for a good 3 levels and can maybe pick up some of these maniacs chips as we go on when I get great cards. If I lose, hey, what the heck I'm free-rolling anyway. I call.


1 seat rolls over K9 clubs. Great read huh? 5 seat shows 7,8 off...another good read. Results are here cuz there's no suspense needed. Runner, runner clubs gives the 1 seat the flush. 5 seat makes 2 pair. We're both out.


Comments? I hate to go all-in on draws but I think that I needed a good stack to play this table. Is this a good table or an un-lucky seat draw? Does free-rolling play into my decision...yes, should it?


Keep Playing Hard!

Glen,


"Does free-rolling play into my decision...yes, should it?" Hell No !


Heads up against the wild man I would probably play the hand however, hang on a moment, what's happening here - seat 1 bets, then you call right ? Then seat 5 goes all in and 1 goes all in. Against two players with maniac tendencies this is close. Did you consider raising in the first case ? Would this knock out a hand like 87 ? No, just a minute, we want 87 to stay in. He only hurts you if you hit a Q or J _and_ he hits a 6, 7 or 8.


This boils down to if you're reasonably sure the flush will be good you can probably call. In the event your reads were good so you had 12 nut outs and a Q or J wins sometimes as well.


As for the table line-up it's case of balancing getting chips so you have a great chance to double again against a chipped-up maniac (and giving yourself much more time to find a really good situation), vs. finding a better situation to double up first. Close again.


I just can't understand why the freeroll comes into it. You normally play harder than that !


Andy.

The table looks great. I think you picked the wrong hand to try to take advantage of poor players.


You say yourself that you get plenty of chips and plenty of time to play in this tournament. Why risk your entire stack against TWO players this early (you don't say what round it is, but your description to that point seem to indicate that it is the 2nd or 3rd round)? Even crazy, maniacal, horrible players can wake up to two Kings, and even more often they make stupid plays with T7s and WOW flop the nut straight! I'm not saying you should expect that your opponents have you beat, but it's awfully early in the tournament to be getting yourself completely committed to a draw against TWO players. Sure, you made good reads, you KNEW they had hands that beat yours if you didn't catch, but you put your entire stack in anyway. And, although in this case your reads were correct, I think that unless you have played with these guys a few times in the past and can be 100% positive about the labels you put on them, you might be able to convince yourself that the first guy was trying to bluff you off the pot, but the guy who comes over the top after you've already called likely is not kidding. Besides, if that guy really was loose passive, the all-in bet should have scared you to death. I'm all for doubling up and then getting to sit back, but I'd prefer to do it when I AM THE ONE with the best hand on the flop.


As for the freerolling concept - if that's your attitude, why not just sell your buy-in to someone who's standing in line and go get a massage? Don't take that as a lecture, I'm seriously wondering - why sit down and play at all if you're just "taking a shot". Go get a massage or bet it all on Black or something that doesn't take up so much time and effort. I suspect that if you really felt that way you wouldn't be posting a note asking if it was the composition of the table that knocked you out. Play to win or don't play at all and you'll never have to worry about your own motives.

You're both right about the freeroll aspect. I should have said that it simply meant less pain getting knocked out so early. I always play to win, and did so in this instance. I felt that I needed a decent stack to be able to selectively go after these maniacs with great cards later on. This hand, though not a great one was giving me a chance at a huge chipleader stack that I could then work with. It certainly was a gamble, I rarely, if ever, put all my money in on draws, but I was firmly convinced that my 18 out were all good. And the pot odds were mmore than enough to make the call based on that. Seat number one was playing almost every hand, yes he could have walked into one, but with no preflop raise I knew, with certainty that it wasn't much.


I believe in taking more risks early on in most events. Big chip stacks are important to get you through the tough middle rounds were the tight players are running low and making last chance stabs. I've seen too many tight agggressive players get few hands and go out b4 the money. It seems to me that a large percentage of final table candidates make early aggressive moves, as I have when I post wins, and get big stacks early that allo them to then control the tables.


Thanks for the comments and candid opinions, I figure this one was going to be controversial.


Keep playing hard!

Glen,


In other events, especially satellites, your approach has merit, but I believe no- limit hold'em requires a great deal of patience to play

well.In the event yesterday, excluding two free plays in the big blind, I played no hand until the last but one of the second level(sixty-two in all!).This may seem ultra- tight, but in that time, I never held a pocket pair higher than fives, or any ace better than A-9.The play at the

table was, overall, tight in those two-three levels.

Here is the way I see it:


In the early rounds of a non-rebuy NL tournament..


..you never put your last chip in without a greater than 50% chance of winning the hand unless not doing so will leave you totally crippled.. no matter what "pot-odds" you seem to be getting.


50% is the absolute BOTTOM. And should even be avoided. High win percentages when your last chip goes in is crucial. And in this case I do not believe you had a high win percentage situation.


With a perfect read you still wont be winning all that often in this situation.. now factor in that your read just might be wrong.. if one guy has a better flush draw then there goes 9 of your outs. Devastating.


Again a mainiac just sit back and wait for premium hands. It is not your job to put him back in line. It is your job to survive. It is the job of a big stack to put him back in line.


Am I correct in thinking that he has a big stack and is playing much the same way YOU would play had you a big stack at this point? He probably started out playing very poorly but as his stack got bigger his play, although it hadnt changed any, became less poor just by the virtue that his stack got bigger.

You're all correct here. I lacked my normal patience because of the texture of this game. I got caught up in the moment and saw my chance to be chipleader where I would then conrol game tempo on this out-of-control table. Normally I would never make this call.


Thanks for the scoldings, they help.


Keep playing hard!