"Presto" on the bubble!

[willperkins]

How would you play this hand?

UTG was very LAG at the beginning of the tourney, got very lucky and tripled up. He then tightened up considerably and has played very few hands as of late:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

UTG (t5260)
Button (t2845)
SB (t3470)
Hero (t1925)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 5/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t300</font>, <font color="#666666">
2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">

Hero?

[Sykes]

Calls and pushes on a safe flop (Unless you think he's doing this with a decent pair (88-AA)).

[SNOWBALL138]

I might put up w/ one or maybe 2 mini-raises when the blinds aren't totally soul crushingly huge. W/ "presto" though, I think you have to push here. You are in horrible shape to fold yourself ITM, so you totally have to take a stand.
Its discouraging that UTG has been tight lately, but not that discouraging. Presto does about as well against JT as it does AK (JT does better). Presto does just as well against AA as it does TT.

[SNOWBALL138]

why not check-raise a "safe" flop? You gain more when you are ahead, and lose the same amount when you are behind...

[ilya]

Just fold, the guy hasn't been playing a lot of hands and you still have more than 10xBB.

[BradleyT]

[ QUOTE ]
Just fold, the guy hasn't been playing a lot of hands and you still have more than 10xBB.

[/ QUOTE ]

[mizaun]

You need to at very least call here i think, I'm not sure whether your chip count is after your blind or not but i think you have at least the odds to go for a set/ragged flop. Part of it is impiled odds but i don't think its too hard to get a preflop raiser/big stack to give you some chips here.

[Newt_Buggs]

you are only getting good enough implied odds to call for a set if you are almost positive you will take his entire stack if you flop one. This doesn't sound like it is the case. It is also going to be very hard to bluff a good flop out of position. fold and wait for a better place.

[mizaun]

Well your calling 150 into a 525 pot, so the pot is 675 on the flop, you only have to get 500 or so out of him... i don't think that's very hard. If you check to him do you really think he's not going to bet? I just can't see folding this in this situation, There are going to be alot of times you take this down on the flop unimproved or later to make up for it not being perfect. I mean what does it take for you to call a min raise?

[Newt_Buggs]

you will only flop a set 1/8 times. even if you know you will get your/his whole stack in the middle you will not always win the hand, and you are not looking for a break even chip ev play, so lets say you are looking for 10:1 return. It costs you 150 to call, almost 10x your stack (1775 at this point). Even if you know you can take his entire stack this is a very marginal + chip EV play, and probably not +$EV. The above poster forgot to note that when you take down a pot it is not all profit, some of those chips are chips that you already put in and are just getting back. That is why you do not need just 500 more out of him.

[Bigwig]

[ QUOTE ]
and you still have more than 10xBB.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's why I call and see I flop.

[the shadow]

1. Don't fold. There's $525 in dead money and you're likely ahead preflop.

2. Don't call and bet just on a safe flop.
(a) I'm not sure how I could tell if a flop's safe for me or not. Any flop with a card higher than a 5 (that is nearly any flop) risks villian flopping a higher pair. Any flop with wheel cards risks villian flopping a straight or a straight draw.
(b) The more dangerous the flop, the better for me. Any broadway cards cause the villian to wonder if he has the best pair or the top kicker. A pair causes villian to worry about trips. A color or rank coordinated flop causes him to worry about a flush or straight.

3. Go with a stop and go. You're got position. You've got a large enough stack that you likely have some FE after the flop. You've just called so the villian likely will put you on a wide range of hands.

4. If (a) you flop a set and (b) there's no flush or straight draw, check or maybe even min-bet.

The Shadow (who thinks that this hand looks a lot like Dali's in Question for Daliman (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&amp;Board=singletable&amp;Number=203 7229&amp;fpart=&amp;PHPSESSID=))

Edit: Thx to Unparagoned for proofreading my post.

[Unparagoned]

[ QUOTE ]
3. Go with a stop and go. You're got position. You're got a large enough stack that you likely have some FE after the flop. You've just called so the villian likely will put you on a wide range of hands.


[/ QUOTE ]

This was what I thought when I read the OP (though replace the "you're" with "you've"...)