Bubble Play: Should I have pushed or folded here?

[jdock99]

Another $30 SnG, another 4th place finish. My read on the villian was that he would make this play with just about any 2 cards and might actually fold a bad hand if I pushed back at him. The main reason I made this play was that I already had 25% of my chips in the pot and if I folded this hand and most probably my small blind also I only have $750 left. The other 3 players were playing tough so I wasn't gonna squeak into the $$ through bad stategic play on their part. I was gonna have to double up at least once to make it to 3 players, and I chose to do it this hand because K10o is a pretty good hand and I still had enough chips that doubling up would do something for me. That being said, do you all think this is a mandatory push?

Aside: I am really starting to enjoy playing these tournies. They are so much more complex and interesting than the cash games I am used to, in which most of the plays are obvious and mechanical and all of your profit comes from others making bad plays, as opposed to you actually making a good play. Obviously I need to work on my bubble play as I have probably played 7 of these tournies, and finished 4th 3 times, worse 3 times, and 1st once. Of course the 3 times I finished 4th I never won a single race, and the tourney I won I won a couple races, so maybe my results would be better if I was doing better in the races.

Also, when I try to plug these into bisonbison's hand converter it is telling me that it is not a recognized format. I never had this problem with the cash game hands I plugged in for 2+2. Is there some special way to tweak these hand histories to make it work.


NL Hold'em $30 Buy-in + $3 Entry Fee Trny:11246633 Level:6 Blinds(150/300) - Tuesday, April 12, 20:02:00 EDT 2005
Table Table 11531 (Real Money)
Seat 7 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 3: airederien ( $2142 )
Seat 4: Markzoll ( $1946 )
Seat 7: norahughes ( $2707 )
Seat 9: poohbearsy ( $1205 )
Trny:11246633 Level:6
Blinds(150/300)
There is no Small Blind in this hand as the Big Blind of the previous hand left the table.
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to poohbearsy [ Ks Tc ]
airederien folds.
Markzoll folds.
norahughes raises [600].
poohbearsy is all-In [905]
norahughes calls [605].
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, 6s, 7s ]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ac ]
** Dealing River ** [ 2c ]
norahughes shows [ 9d, 9s ] a pair of nines.
poohbearsy shows [ Ks, Tc ] high card ace.
norahughes wins 2410 chips from the main pot with a pair of nines.
poohbearsy finished in fourth place.

[jdock99]

Either this situation isn't that interesting (which seems counter-intuitive because it would seem to be the most interesting situaiton at the most interesting time) or the post got buried before anyone looked at it. I don't know, so I'll give it another try

[eastbay]

Since raiser is going to call you unless he's a complete and total idiot, we can model this hand as you calling his all-in, which is effectively what you're doing.

If you can really put him on any two cards here (and I wouldn't do that by default, there would have to be good reason to), the call is a good one:

http://sitngo-analyzer.com/poker/KTo-call-anytwo.PNG

However, this quickly turns into a fold as you tighten up your read. For example, 22+,A2+,K9o+,K7s+,QTs+,JTs is an easy fold:

http://sitngo-analyzer.com/poker/KTo-call-JTs.PNG

For something like 22+,A2+,K2+,Q6o+,Q2s+,J9o+,J7s+,T8s+,98s, it gets pretty close:

http://sitngo-analyzer.com/poker/KTo-call-98s.PNG

Given a standard $33 game, I think you're making a pretty bold read of any two. I probably fold this hand in a typical $33. It's certainly not mandatory in my book.


eastbay

[Nottom]

Two things to think about.
a) Your opponent will almost never fold here.
b) KTo is a crappy hand to call off all your chips with.

You really don't want to be racing on the bubble as the shortstack, so avoiding those situations is good. If you think your opponent really is pushing any 2 here then you should call, but if he is actually using any sort of criteria to which hands he is playing this can become a fold much easier than you seem to think.


* Eastbay beat me to it again, and with pretty pictures too.

[jdock99]

Thanks for the response. I have one more quick question. At any point do I take FE into consideration. For example, should I be more likely to go in as a statistical underdog to his range of hands, if by folding I am left with such few chips I have no fold equity and have to win my next all-in.

For the record, at the time I made this play I didn't realize that the two other players were not in a much better situation than I was, so I could have tried to wait them out, but they were playing tactically snug enough that I thought this was unlikely. Man this bubble play is tough.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the response. I have one more quick question. At any point do I take FE into consideration. For example, should I be more likely to go in as a statistical underdog to his range of hands, if by folding I am left with such few chips I have no fold equity and have to win my next all-in.


[/ QUOTE ]

In short, yes.

[ QUOTE ]

For the record, at the time I made this play I didn't realize that the two other players were not in a much better situation than I was, so I could have tried to wait them out, but they were playing tactically snug enough that I thought this was unlikely. Man this bubble play is tough.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't want to wait them out. You want to hammer on them with raises all-in.

eastbay

[curtains]

Note that hero won't have much fold equity after folding thru his blinds, although I admit they fold a lot more than you'd expect with 750 and 150-300 blinds.

My gut instinct is to move allin here preflop, and I'm surprised that the numbers say otherwise.

[FishBurger]

[ QUOTE ]
Note that hero won't have much fold equity after folding thru his blinds, although I admit they fold a lot more than you'd expect with 750 and 150-300 blinds.

My gut instinct is to move allin here preflop, and I'm surprised that the numbers say otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no SB this hand so hero is BB and will have ~900 chips if he folds and won't have to post a blind again until next go-round.

I too thought this was a call given the hero's hand and stack size but, as eastbay showed, ICM says it's a clear fold if you put villian on any kind of range.

If hero had to post a SB next hand, I would probably call here. Additionally, if it seems like the other players have been pushing a lot I would probably call here. However, given that hero won't have to post a SB, if I think I will have a chance to push before the blinds get to me again, I would fold (or at least I would think to myself that "I should fold" before I hit the "call" button).

I like to keep a 1000+ stack when blinds are 150/300, so this would be a tough one for me to fold.

[jdock99]

I guess this shows how much of a newbie I am to this particular format, but I assumed the button would freeze and I would have been small blind the next hand. I am pretty sure this is what happens in the b&m tournies I play in (but then again I do not play in enough of those to know for sure either). You are correct, that extra $150 makes a huge difference in what I should do.
Then again, if what you are saying is correct, then I would have button the next hand and the player currently utg would be small blind and he would get to skip big blind altogether. Is this what would have happened assuming I folded or won the hand??

[FishBurger]

[ QUOTE ]
Then again, if what you are saying is correct, then I would have button the next hand and the player currently utg would be small blind and he would get to skip big blind altogether. Is this what would have happened assuming I folded or won the hand??

[/ QUOTE ]

I am 96% certain that that is what would have happened. I believe the button only freezes when the SB gets knocked out on the current hand. Since SB was knocked out last hand, you would be the button on the next hand.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
My gut instinct is to move allin here preflop, and I'm surprised that the numbers say otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely disagree with this line. If, during a game situation, you have the thought of getting all your chips in on this hand, you should definately do a stop and go here. As you read the post, villain is the button, not the SB. There is no SB in this hand. The stop and go is by far the best play here. Not a preflop push.

Furthermore, Hero will not post SB next hand, as he will be the button. I think folding here is the best move.

So in order
1) Fold
2) StopNGo
3) Push

[kevstreet]

In this case the Stop N Go definitely gets called by an overpair and an open-ended straight draw, however, I've been trying to incorporate this in my play a little more and I like the thinking that goes along with it.