11-01-2002, 11:13 PM
So I was excited to be entering my first NL tournament in ages (fricking senior essays), today's $500 WPF event. Then barely into the event, the following hand came up. I'm posting it here because I'm not really interested in the "tournament" aspects of it, just in how it works as a NL hand:
246 players left (that's all of them), blinds are 15-25 and most people have around their original T1500, I have a little less.
In the cutoff, I have AdQs and I raise to T100, and only the BB calls.
The flop is Qc4h5c. BB checks and I bet T200. BB check-raises, making it T400 total. Of course, I figure he might do this with a wide variety of hands, including straight draws, flush draws, or a queen with a worse kicker. In fact, I make a pretty strong read that he's "testing" me, most likely with a draw.
I reraise and make it T800 to go. He thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks, and then dramatically pushes all-in. "Time to go home." My first instinct is that I'm pot commited, and that I should call -- but then I realize that this is classic BB hits his set behavior, and that I'm probably something like a 45-1 dog. I fold -- he shows his 55 before throwing it in, and I eventually bust out in the second round.
So here's what came out of this:
1) I thought back, and realized that almost every time I've put the "testing me" read on someone, they've had a set. A similar thing happened when I reraised Jimmy Tran's small check-raise at the Legends of Poker. Again I folded, and he showed 22 for the set.
2) I'm not happy with my reraise amount. I think folding to a small check-raise on a drawing board would usually be giving up too much, but T800 has a very clumsy feel. Actually, I think I made the raise with the intention of calling a reraise, and just changed my intention. Of course, raising less might allow someone to draw, and raising more (i.e. all-in) would just be too much.
3) From the tournament perspective: while my stack was dwindling, I noticed that very few people seemed to be making strong moves with draws in the early going. Perhaps this is psychological? such moves are obviously pos. e.v., but higher variance, which most people are afraid in the first rounds where they're imagining themselves as the winner. Also, after watching many small check-raises, it seemed everyone who made them had the goods. Anyway, this tourney had a very different texture from some others I've played where the action has been faster. Also, I felt it was a bad play on my part, though I would probably make the same play routinely in a ring game.
246 players left (that's all of them), blinds are 15-25 and most people have around their original T1500, I have a little less.
In the cutoff, I have AdQs and I raise to T100, and only the BB calls.
The flop is Qc4h5c. BB checks and I bet T200. BB check-raises, making it T400 total. Of course, I figure he might do this with a wide variety of hands, including straight draws, flush draws, or a queen with a worse kicker. In fact, I make a pretty strong read that he's "testing" me, most likely with a draw.
I reraise and make it T800 to go. He thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks, and then dramatically pushes all-in. "Time to go home." My first instinct is that I'm pot commited, and that I should call -- but then I realize that this is classic BB hits his set behavior, and that I'm probably something like a 45-1 dog. I fold -- he shows his 55 before throwing it in, and I eventually bust out in the second round.
So here's what came out of this:
1) I thought back, and realized that almost every time I've put the "testing me" read on someone, they've had a set. A similar thing happened when I reraised Jimmy Tran's small check-raise at the Legends of Poker. Again I folded, and he showed 22 for the set.
2) I'm not happy with my reraise amount. I think folding to a small check-raise on a drawing board would usually be giving up too much, but T800 has a very clumsy feel. Actually, I think I made the raise with the intention of calling a reraise, and just changed my intention. Of course, raising less might allow someone to draw, and raising more (i.e. all-in) would just be too much.
3) From the tournament perspective: while my stack was dwindling, I noticed that very few people seemed to be making strong moves with draws in the early going. Perhaps this is psychological? such moves are obviously pos. e.v., but higher variance, which most people are afraid in the first rounds where they're imagining themselves as the winner. Also, after watching many small check-raises, it seemed everyone who made them had the goods. Anyway, this tourney had a very different texture from some others I've played where the action has been faster. Also, I felt it was a bad play on my part, though I would probably make the same play routinely in a ring game.