A few hold 'em situations

Situation 1: The tournament pays 9 places. There are four tables remaining f/ original 10, blinds are 200-400 with limit 400-800. 80,800T chips in play, I have 3600T in chips, an average stack would be about 2000T. Limits increase every 20 minutes.


A player in middle position open raises to 800T, and only has about 300 in chips remaining. The player two to his left pushes in for his remaining 600T. I am in the cutoff with TT. I have the button and small blind covered, and the big blind is a very loose and aggressive player that has me covered. Three-bet or fold?


Situation 2: 12 players remain, I am in the big blind with Qc-9h. The blinds are 300-600 and limit 600-1200. I have 2300T after posting my big blind. The table is six-handed.


The button is a first-time tournament player that has a massive stack of chips (way more than me) who has been playing too loose but has been hitting. Will see the flop with almost anything. He open limps. The small blind thinks a little and folds. I check. The flop comes Qh-10s-3s. I bet out, the button raises. Your play?


Results in next post.


js in mn

Situation 1: I folded. The big blind ended up three-betting, leaving him against the two all-in players. Big blind had T9s, MP1 had 66, and MP2 had TJo. Didn't like to see those hands flipped. My TT would have held up. Too tight?


Situation 2: I three-bet. He came over the top once more and I shoved my remaining 1100 in. He had Qs-7c (board Qh-Ts-3s), and unfortunately the turn and river came 8s-9s.


Comments and criticism appreciated.


js in mn

JS, if I'm interpreting your post correctly, you have left out key information. I believe that this was Wednesday's "bounty" tournament at Canterbury Park. There was a $30 buy-in and $10 entry fee. Everyone had a bounty on his head. If you knocked a player out, you got a $5 chip. A real $5 chip. I've now entered that tournament twice and have yet to pick up one of those elusive nickels, but I stink at tournaments. I think that you might have a three-bet with your TT anyway, but the chance to pick up an extra $10 in pocket money swings it to a definite three-bet in my opinion.


More key information left out: how many other people were in as much trouble as you chip-wise when the second hand came down? If you were the shortest stack in the tournament, you'd probably have to tough it out. If there were several other tiny stacks, and you were quite sure you were beaten, you might have thrown it in and waited for a better spot. Given your characterization of your opponent, I think you have to call it down. I wouldn't like it, but I don't see much choice. If he's playing really loose, he may well have a worse Queen (yikes), or something less than that. That he open-limped on the button in a tournament is a pretty good sign that he doesn't know what he's doing. Even if he were playing well, he might just have a draw. If you fold, you'll have $1700 left. If he puts you all-in and you win, you'll have $6100. I have a sinking feeling that he limped in with a big pair hoping to induce some action. Hope you hit your kicker. /images/smile.gif


It was nice meeting you the other night. Sorry if it seemed like I was blowing you off. I hope we'll see you at a final table this week. /images/smile.gif

I would have reraised in both situations.


1) Both pls. have to make a play soon and it's very likely that you have the best hand. Also, you can easily afford to play, as losing wouldn't cripple you if you keep other players out. The chance that any single player behind you has a better hand is 2%, so even if you get played with, you'll most like are a favorite to win the side-pot.


2) You have top-pair and not enough money worry about better hands. Commit and raise and reraise or bet all-in on turn.


cu


Ignatius

Wow, I totally forgot to take the bounties into account. Very good point. I'm just not used to taking that into account I suppose. I had already knocked two players out at that point, so winning with my TT would have reduced my investment to only $20.


In the second hand, there were two others to my left that had about what I had left. Next time I think I'll take an extra couple of seconds to make a decision which could involve being eliminated.


Thanks for the response and nice to meet ya /images/smile.gif


js in mn

Hey, I remember that 2nd hand. I was the small blind. I was thinking of raising to get it heads-up, but I was in a good position to make the final table so I didn't need to get involved. I had about 6500 at that point. Plus, as you said, he literally could have had anything.


I would have done the same thing you did - he may have been betting a T or even a 3. (At the final table, I doubled up through him - I open-raised A2o on the button, he called in the BB with K2o - and then check-called me down when a 2 flopped). Also, at this point, the smallest stacks had enough chips to cover their blinds at least twice, so no one was was in danger of being blinded off and you couldn't sneak in to the final table that way. You were going to need to win a hand and this seems like as good a shot as any to take.


He later said that this was his first time ever playing Holdem, although he had played a lot of poker before. It was pretty obvious that he was new, but he just kept getting hit over the head with the deck.


After your hand, while he was stacking his chips, he turned to me and asked "Why did I win that hand?" /images/oh.gif He didn't even know he had a flush...


He was one of the top 2 chip leaders going in to the final table, but got seriously outplayed and ended up 8th. I busted out in 7th (again) - this time when AKs lost to A6o on the river /images/frown.gif