is this a good move?

[DMACM]

I am never sure on how to play a big stack. I pushed here. 11 dollar tourny, no reads but I wasnt pushing much.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Hero (t1340)
BB (t605)
UTG (t1685)
UTG+1 (t600)
MP1 (t815)
MP2 (t1035)
CO (t1415)
Button (t505)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 9/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, MP1 calls t100, <font color="#666666">5 folds</font>.

Final Pot: t250

[Matt Walker]

Without any reads I think my default play would be to make it 400 with the intention of pushing all in on any flop. Call it my modified stop and go. At these low levels players will call 400 with about the same range of hands they will go all in with, so you might as well give him two chances to fold. If he goes all in for the other 400 you would obvously call. I'm curious what others think of this play. I know it violates the 35% rule but could this be an exception given that you are acting first on the flop and hes only 1 in 3 to improve IF he calls?

[Matt Walker]

No one else has any suggestions? What do you guys think of my play? Curtains?

[prepotency]

I think a raise of 400 is a little scary here: he doesn't have the "big stack" to be playing that aggressively, IMO. I think a raise is good but I'd put it more towards 300 so he doesn't find himself in dire straits if the hand goes south. Furthermore, I think it really depends on how many people are behind him - I *think* that it's just him and the BB when he makes the raise but somehow he messed up the converter because it says there were 5 folds after his raise. If there are still 5 people in the hand, I definitely wouldn't raise like this personally because it's just too large of a risk here and you're tempting to push some smaller stacks all in with that raise as well. If there are really 5 people still in the hand then I'm smooth calling.

[EverettKings]

[ QUOTE ]
Without any reads I think my default play would be to make it 400 with the intention of pushing all in on any flop. Call it my modified stop and go. At these low levels players will call 400 with about the same range of hands they will go all in with, so you might as well give him two chances to fold. If he goes all in for the other 400 you would obvously call. I'm curious what others think of this play. I know it violates the 35% rule but could this be an exception given that you are acting first on the flop and hes only 1 in 3 to improve IF he calls?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's an interesting idea. But I still prefer the outright push.

Hands like AJ, KJ, KQ probably fold to a push but might call 400. If they call, you lose. In this case, 2/3 of the time you win 400 off them, and 1/3 of the time they hit and lose 800. Thats breakeven roughly, no better than 99 all in preflop vs AJ. A push often wins you 250 right then and there, or you get a coinflip and are breakeven. This is clearly better.

ALSO, a small pair hand like 55 or 88 would probably call all in if theyd call 400, as small pairs arent trying to hit and like to get all in preflop on coinflips (which sound soooo good to 10+1 players). So if you raise 400 and they call, they fold lots of flops and you miss out on half their stack that you coulda had by pushing.

There just aren't enough chips around to try to get tricky here. However, I didn't even think to do anything like that, and I like that. Keeps me fresh, as that play might be more viable in another spot.

-Kings

[Apathy]

A push is fine, calling is second best while raising to 400 or so is really bad. You don't want to bulid a pot OOP with 99.

Just understand that a push gives away a lot about your hand, but that probably doesnt matter at the 10s anyway.

[Matt Walker]

Um, your entitled about raising to 400, but you mention that you don't want to do it because your OOP. There's no way I would make this move unless I was out of position as I have to be able to fire the other 450 chips into the pot on the flop no matter what comes that way he folds if he misses. Think abuot it. Most 10+1 players will call 400 with only slightly more hands than they wuold call an all in with. This is more then made up by the fact that they ahve to let a ton of them go on the flop whenthey miss and you fire out. The only argument which I believe holds merit against this is Evees small pockets claim. However I believe it is unlikely a limper has this (he would most likely push) and if he does the time i only get half his stack is more than made up for by the other range of hands.

[EverettKings]

[ QUOTE ]
The only argument which I believe holds merit against this is Evees small pockets claim. However I believe it is unlikely a limper has this (he would most likely push) and if he does the time i only get half his stack is more than made up for by the other range of hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I actually find that the most frequenly limped hands in spots like this are smallish pockets, and hands like AT. At teh 10+1s at least. I do agree that being OOP works FOR you in this situation with your proposed line, but you just don't have enough flexibility to make it work.

-Kings

[Apathy]

If you plan to push ALL flops i suppose betting 400 PF is ok, you really don't want to race for your stack here though, you have a nice stack and can use it better elsewhere. My point is most people wont fold overs on the flop after they miss when half their stack is already in.

The only time I would want to bet less then all in would be if I thought they would fold more hand because I was betting less. This is unlikely at the 10s.