in the money--decision time

[Amaki]

An interesting hand came up for a buddy of mine in the late stages of a tourney last weekend in Pendelton, OR. What's the correct play here?

End stages of a 400 person shootout – 80k total chips in play. 13 players remain – everyone is in the money. 13th pays $600, first pays $25k, and the real money is in the top 4.

Table is 7 handed, 200-400 blinds, 50 ante, so there is T950 in the pot at the beginning of the hand. You are UTG with 99 and T9200 in chips. You make it T1200 to go (standard opening raise). Folds around to the BB, who is the only stack at the table larger than yours, with around T11000 in chips. He looks genuinely perplexed. He checks the clock (15 min left in the around, and finally says “all-in”. While you know that “hollywooding” is possible, your read says that his consternation was real, not feigned.

You perceive that the BB is a fairly solid player, certainly not reckless. You have been the most active player at the table stealing the blinds.

So two questions:

1) Call or fold?

1a) Why?

2) Do you like the opening raise to 1200? Is there a better play?

[schwza]

you're gonna have to call 8k to win about 19k total. so you have to be about 42% in terms of pot odds.

if he'll make this play with AQ+ TT+, that's 32 55% hands and 30 20% hands, giving you about 37.5% equity, which would make it a fold. if you think he would push with 88 or AJ, that's enough to make it a call. if you think your physical read means it's unlikely he has QQ+ (but he could have been debating a call vs. a push), then it's definitely a call. however, if the range is more like JJ+/AK, then it's an easy fold.

i think it's close, but i'd fold. but a read / physical tell can easily swing it.

[etgryphon]

1) I would fold this, but I would call with TT+. The reason is that if you think he was not "hollywooding" then what kinda of faces do people make with this face against a person who has shown strength in EP. I think youa re looking at a minimum of AQ-AT, KQs, JJ, TT. You only strongly beat 88-22, A9-A2 and I don't see the large stack going to the matresses with that weak of a hand.

2) This really depends on the table. If people are thinkinga bout the money and the table is waiting for premium hands, I think that this a good play. However, I think 99 is too weak to play upfront like this. I think I'm limping through MP and raising in later position. I might push if there are 1 or two early limpers.

-Gryph

[U235]

1) Fold
1a) I'm not going to war with 9s when going up against a solid player who I can cripple if I win. Even given my recent propensity for stealing blinds, I should be given credit for having a good hand UTG, and raising the big stack's blind. I'm certainly well behind the range of hands that BB has.
2) Opening raise is fine. I'd call an all-in from a stack of about 5,000 or less. Showing a good hand here may help future blind steals, if nothing else. I guess limping is an option too, but that's something I'd very rarely do with a hand like 9's.

[MLG]

I fold here pretty easily. If I'm reading this right, you have the second biggest stack at the table, with position on the biggest stack late in a tournament. If there is ever a time to avoid pressing slight edges this is it (an we're not even sure this is a slight edge).

[soLit]

1) Call or fold? I FOLD - Do you want to try to take first or do you want to wait a little bit, and play some more poker. You are either a coinflip, or behind, which does not justify this call vs someone with a bigger stack.

1a) Why? Because he is going to completly wipe you out. I dont think he is making this play with anything under a/10 which therefore makes it a coinflip if you are lucky. And if not you are dominated which does not make this a good call.

2) Do you like the opening raise to 1200? Is there a better play? If you have been dominating the table, I think the correct play would be to limp in UTG, and fold to any aggressive plays to players that would take 50% of your stack.


What do you think?

[Roman]

I fold without thinking about it too much. No need to gamble vs the big stack.

[JohnFR]

All right, so here is another one of those times that I advocate making a few strange plays, you are the second biggest stack at a table, with the only person that has you covered in the big blind and you are UTG. You have a very interesting hand in 99, in that AK,AA,KK,QQ,and JJ are much easier to play as are the hands AJ,AT,22-55, I think AJ, AT and 22-55 are instamucked so that makes them easy and the big pairs and AK are fairly easy as they are very solid hands that leaves us with AQ,66-TT and possibly JJ as hands that are going to be very difficult to play UTG. There are of course 5 plays that could be made with these hands, these are fold, limp, minraise, standard raise and all in. Here are my reasonings on each:

fold - 66-TT is too much of a hand to fold so I think this is out of the question.

all in - also out of the question only hands that call you either have you crushed or coinflipped, no reason to make this move.

standard raise - since we are getting closer to the final table, I like the standard raise IF the big stack wasn't in the BB, the reason is he has to put you on a decent hand from UTG, so he will only give you action if he has a BIG hand or if he has some sort of interesting drawing hand(JTs,KQs,pocket pair 22-88). If he calls with these type of hands if you get any action on the flop you will probably be in trouble. So if your standard raise is reraised by a decent sized stack(You didn't give stack sizes so let's assume there are a couple of 4k-6k stacks out there) then you will probably have to let it go, this screams of so much strength that I don't think I want to be put under the 10BB threshold. But if a small stack puts it all in(1k-4k) I would definately call. So there is some merit to coming in for a standard raise, but with the big stack in the BB, and the fact that we are UTG, if he pushes out of the BB or if he calls out of the BB we are going to have a very tough decision. Especially if he comes out swinging on the flop.

minraise - I don't think I like the minraise in this situation, if you minraise and a 4kish type stack pushes you are getting some very strange pot odds and you have no idea where you are at. Although the minraise is wonderful if the BB picks up a BIG hand like AA, KK, QQ as he might decide to get very tricky and let you flop a set, and you will be the big stack.

Limping - I actually like the limp in this situation, it allows you to sneak in with a decent holding, hoping one of the small stacks will try to blow you off of it since a limp screams weakness to some players. If you limp and a small stack pushes his range of hands is much bigger than if you make a standard raise and he pushes(ie. you will be able to more easily call them as their range becomes much larger). And if a medium or big stack decides to pop it, you can try to put him on a range of hands and decide to either see a flop or throw away the hand with minimum investment.
With a limp there is also less chips in the pot, which is a good thing when you have 99 you want to keep the pot somewhat smaller before the flop in the hopes of catching a good flop(set, OESD, overpair, overpair with gutshot,overpair with OESD) or something of this nature, and being able to put the heat on overcards when they are much more likely to throw their hands away. Also it will put the medium stacks and the big stack in a much more difficult situation with their hands as you have just done something they haven't seen before(I would assume since you said you have been stealing a lot that a limp would draw some attention). When your hand is disguised and you are able to pick up a lot of information(a medium stack putting in a decent raise shows some serious strength as he has to worry that you limped in with a monster) you are always in a good position. Also it will make it easier to see a flop and crack somebody's AA or KK, as a player will typically make a semi-small raise with these hands trying to get some action whereas if you have already raised a decent amount they have less reason to do this as there is already a decent number of chips for them to go after.

So the moral of this story is if you have a decent read on the medium stacks as well as the big stack I think a limp is by far the best idea as it will allow you to see the flops that can bust the decent stacks, it will also induce more bluffing from the BB who hits top pair on a 2 5 8 flop. And the last reason I like the limp as it increases the likelyhood that a small stack will push with some mediocre hands(A5-A9, KJ, 22-88 etc.) hoping to blow you off your hand.

John

[yoadrians]

This is a fold I've had to make a few times in close to your exact spot in a tournament. In the money. Getting close to the final 1 or 2 tables. Seriously. 99 UTG or EP1. I raise 3X bb. Chip leader - or someone who has me covered - pushed or re-raises to, like, 15X BB, and I thought for about 2 seconds before folding.

FWIW, just earlier this afternoon I was reading another thread, and some of the big names on this site were totally bashing the idea of raising 3XBB with 99 UTG. They suggested LIMPING and folding to any re-raise. They're smarter than me, but since I always think to give credit to an UTG raise late in an MTT, well, I would rather raise UTG than limp and have to fold to the bb who says 'DON'T LIMP ON MY BB."

But, hey, what do I know? Just my two cents. Sure as hell wouldn't go to war with 99 facing a chip leader and a re-raise, though.

[ZootMurph]

Without a stronger read, I'd fold. Your buddy still has 20xBB at this point, and can easily wait around for a better situation than this. I really don't want to race when I still have a solid stack to work with. I don't see you being up against a smaller pair, so it is either a race or a bigger pair. Not worth your still healthy stack to risk.

As for the raise, if it is the standard at the table, I'd be fine with it. Again, without more information on the big stack at the table in the BB, this is fine. I might also make a min raise or 4x-5x BB raise with some kind of read on him.

[Amaki]

Well, folding seems to be the popular choice by far, and that's what my buddy did. I actually thought calling here was the play, as I figured my buddy was slightly ahead with his pair, and winning that hand would give him a near lock on a top money finish (places 1-4) with a quarter of the chips in play. Here's his explanation of his call:

"Nonetheless, I folded. The reason I folded was that I had T8000 remaining, which was still enough to attack the blinds – I decided that I had lower risk in continuing to attack the blinds than I did in taking what was either a coin flip or where I was the dog – despite my statement, I decided he could have thought that long with TT or JJ, and I doubted he’d make the move with a smaller pair. My EV was -5000 if he had a bigger pair, and +3000 if he had overcards, so essentially I had to think he was 2:1 more likely to have overcards there than a bigger pair in order to make a call correct, and if I put him on TT/JJ/AK (figuring AA/KK/QQ calls quickly), then I’m not getting 2:1 it’s 16:12 or only 4:3. But it was very close – if I had TT I would have certainly called. If he had had fewer chips than me, I would have certainly called. If I had had fewer chips (say 6000 remaining after the raise) I would have certainly called.

In retrospect, though, I agree with [amaki] that a call was appropriate for the reasons he stated, and because the BB was a good player, and I should be willing to gamble it up with a good player in that situation, and his nervous laughter and explanations for what he was holding seemed forced. I was pretty confident I was on the right side of the coin flip, and there was dead money too. It is the only move of the tournament in retrospect I regret. After the tournament, he told me he had AK, and he had no incentive to lie to me at that point.

As for the initial move, a player whose play I greatly respect told me that he thought he might have simply moved all-in preflop initially – the reason is that you want to keep the tough decisions on the other players – if you run into AA/KK/QQ there’s nothing to be done anyway, and you keep the other players from making a move on you with a hand like AJ. The only problem here is that I hadn’t moved all-in pre-flop at all yet this tournament, but it is a move I used to make more frequently, and I think that if I had shown it at least once that it would have been the better play."

My buddy finished in 11th.

--Amaki

[Cleveland Guy]

It's a fold.

for those who say limp pre-flop, I don't like it, cause once we get to this level I can't recall the last hand I open limped with.

So for me it's between fold/raise.

I like the standard raise because you aren't that committed, but if a shorter stack, with say 3K left pushed, you are getting greats odds to call with a nice hand that is a coin flip, or possibly better.

But against the big stack, no need to gamble.

I would want AA-QQ and AK here to call.

[sdplayerb]

Most of that makes little sense.
He should call because the other guy is a good player? Why does the other guy being a good player make this more viable? It just means the guy has an overpair or AK, maybe AQ. A terrible player is all the more likely to play some crap there.

Then about just pushing in, that is awful, especially about nothing you can do against AA, KK, QQ. But making it 1,200 you can still get away from it against a reraise.
So instead you should risk 12K or whatever he had to hope everybody folds and you take down 950? So basically it is a bluff, or you are afraid to make a read.
You should no longer respect that guys opinion.

Your friend played that hand perfect. You have to raise there, 1,200 is totally correct. And you have to muck it there.

No offense, this really was not an interesting hand or situation. It was very straightforward and obvious.

SD