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kidpoker22
12-04-2004, 06:24 PM
This post involves an interesting hand I played a couple of days ago while killing time in a two-table Sit & Go tournament. I'm posting this hand for two reasons.

P.S. to the Intro: Sorry if this post is longer than both volumes of "The Wealth of Nations".

So, here's the backround. I'm killing time in a $50 sit & go on PS before philosophy class on Tues. We're midway through the second level (blinds $15/30) and I'm comfortably situated w/ $2600 chips or so. The player immediately to my right was sitting on a stack of $1100 or so and was generally pretty awful. It became apparent to me that this player had roughly the poker I.Q. of a waffle iron. He made erratic and illogical bets with little regard for value or pot size and was suprisingly timid when pushed.

With one limper, the action gets folded around to WI in the cutoff who makes a raise of 4x the BB ($120). I've got the button and am fortunate enough to get dealt 43, both clubs. For most this would seem like an attomatic fold, but I decided to take a flop. My reasoning is this--I've got position on this player and am pretty certain I can outplay him on the flop. Secondly, if I call, the early position limper will probably come too, creating an OK sized pot for a hand of texture. There is of course also the possibilty that I will flop huge to my hand and win a monster pot off either the limper or the raiser. So, anyway, I call and so does the limper.

The flop comes down J25 rainbow. Well, this wasn't exactly the monster flop I had envisioned, but then again it could be worse. After all, I am open-ended to the nuts which leaves me with a variety of creative plays I can employ if I sense weakness. Unfortunately and to my disgust, when checked to him WI decides to move in for all of his chips (roughly $900 or so).

Well, this is most definately bizzare. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what hand would merit this play this guy. From his previous play, I knew that he would not make this play with a J or probably any pair 5's or higher. He would definately try to extract some kind of value from his hand--even though it would certainly be in his own cooky way. It dawned on me that WI might hold something like AK or AQ, figuring that a jack probably helped neither of us and he could just pick up a nice pot by moving in right there. If this was the case, it would bring an entirely new element to this hand. That would mean that not only would any A or 6 win me the pot, but also any 4 or 3 might just be good too.

Now, by my estimation I have at least 8, but maybe up to 13 outs. Those being any of the three remaining A's (assuming one might be dead in the raiser's hand) any of the four 6's, or any of the three remaining 3 and 4's. I go from behind a 3:1 dog, a prohibitive favorite for calling in this spot to almost being, as Mike Sexton would say, in a coinflip for the pot.

The only problem here is the pot size. There is at this point roughly $1300 in the pot, but I would have to call off about %40 of my remaining $2500. Right now, I'm only getting 1.5:1 to call, which fankly isn't super-duper. I can't imagine that the limper would call here with an all-in raise and a call behind him--even with a J--so the pot's prolly not gonna' get bigger. So, here's my question. Given my stack and odds, how would you proceed (being almost certain that your opponent held AK or AQ or something of that nature)? How would you apply your tournament theory to this call?

Well, after taking all this into consideration and knowing that it probably was not a Mensa caliber play, I went ahead and called. The limper quickly folded and WI turned over the AT of clubs. I was happy he held what I had suspected, but still suspended in trepidation. The turn was a blank and the river was a 3, thus shipping me a $2600 pot with a pair of 3's.

I don't even know if I LOVE my play. I probably could have been patient and busted this guy on a later hand knowing his amentia worthy poker play. I am definately not looking for comments on my pre-flop call. I don't care about that. I'm curious about the play on flop.


So, that's it. Thanks for reading and thanks for your contributions and again appologies for the oppressive length of this post.

KP22
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zephyr
12-04-2004, 06:44 PM
Personally, I think your call is horendous. If you're such a better player than he post flop, then why put half of your stack in against at best a coin flip. You have a nice stack which should be used to push players such as him around, not call very thin all-ins with

Only my opinion,

Zephyr

kidpoker22
12-04-2004, 07:00 PM
That's like asking me why I would gamble half of my stack w/ AK vs. 88 in a tournament. You would. I would. And I'm still FINE even if I loose the hand. I'm back where I started.

SmileyEH
12-04-2004, 07:28 PM
If you are this confidence of your read in BOTH players (very important) its a good call. Going with your reads is something I have trouble doing.

Nice han.

-SmileyEH

zephyr
12-04-2004, 07:36 PM
[ QUOTE ]
That's like asking me why I would gamble half of my stack w/ AK vs. 88 in a tournament. You would. I would. And I'm still FINE even if I loose the hand. I'm back where I started.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please explain this.

Example: You're in the BB with AK, folded to the SB who pushes and shows you 88. Do you call?

Zephyr

theTourne
12-04-2004, 08:07 PM
Zephyr-
If you had 2600, there was 1300 in the pot, and it was 900 to call, you would fold your AK?

kidpoker22
12-04-2004, 08:46 PM
I make 13 outs twice roughly %50 of the time. You make a pair w/ AK roughly %50 of the time. My call here was the same as calling off half of your stack w/ AK--it's a gamble. I don't want to hear that my call was horrendous because it was w/ a 43s. It want to know if it's an acceptable call per tournament theory.

adanthar
12-04-2004, 09:47 PM
Under tournament theory, your call is marginally bad. It's bad because, with a perfect read, you are a small dog and have pot odds, but you will almost always have a better opportunity to take his chips later (ie, he'll call your QQ all in reraise with the same AT) and shouldn't really want to take a pure pot odds call as a dog. If your read is slightly off and he has AJ, you don't even have odds.

Your PF call, on the other hand, was atrocious.

SmileyEH
12-04-2004, 10:40 PM
He wins 200 chips per hand on average here. That sounds like a pretty good edge to push in this case.

-SmileyEH

zephyr
12-04-2004, 10:59 PM
[ QUOTE ]
He wins 200 chips per hand on average here. That sounds like a pretty good edge to push in this case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you honestly think that his read will be right 100% of the time. If his read is wrong, which it will be sometimes, then he loses a lot of chips. You can't analyze the hand after you know what villain holds.

zephyr
12-04-2004, 11:11 PM
[ QUOTE ]
My call here was the same as calling off half of your stack w/ AK--it's a gamble.

[/ QUOTE ]

I take it you're refering to preflop. With AK you're calling because you hope to have a dominating hand ie. against AQ or AJ. You're not calling if you know your opponent holds an underpair (unless you're getting some additional pot odds.)

[ QUOTE ]
I want to know if it's an acceptable call per tournament theory.

[/ QUOTE ]

A key element of tournament theory, is that you pass on a slightly +EV chance, if a larger +EV opportunity is likely to arise in the future. In you're situation, your read needs to be very accurate to even make this call +EV. In addition, since the villain is such an awful player there's a really good chance that a better opportunity will arise in the near future. Save your chips for a better spot.

Better yet, fold preflop. I highly doubt that you're good enough to play a hand like this in this situation. Actually, I don't know if anyone is.

Zephyr

Phill S
12-05-2004, 01:37 AM
nice call chum, gutsy play, i like it in my SnGs

theTourne
12-05-2004, 05:27 AM
Even though it wasn't to me, that was a good response. Thanks.