PS $15+1, One Bubble Hand, One HU Hand

[JP Rocks]

Howdy.

Just checking my play. The villain in both hands, who was actually a really nice guy, was fairly aggressive, so in the first hand I saw it being a coinflip against 2 overcards. My rudimentry ICM calcs show a call is worth 0.289 against 0.339 for a fold.

Second hand I got 0.467 for a fold and 0.471 for a call against 2 overcards- not a big edge. Should I have waited for a better spot? The edge was bigger when the cards got flipped, but the decision was made at that point...

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t400 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

SB (t1790)
Hero (t5410)
UTG (t1470)
Button (t4830)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 6/images/graemlins/diamond.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to t825</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>.

Final Pot: t900

Results in white below: <font color="#FFFFFF">
No showdown. Button wins t900. </font>

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t800 (2 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Hero (t11445)
BB (t2055)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 4/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 4/images/graemlins/club.gif.
<font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t1600</font>, <font color="#CC3333">BB raises to t2005</font>, Hero calls t405.

Flop: (t4010) 7/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Turn: (t4010) J/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

River: (t4010) T/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Final Pot: t4010

Results in white below: <font color="#FFFFFF">
Hero has 4s 4c (one pair, fours).
BB has 2d Qc (one pair, queens).
Outcome: BB wins t4010. </font>

[45suited]

Hand 1: You both have huge stacks. I call and play for set value. If you miss, big deal. If you hit, you break the button and take the massive chip lead.

Hand 2: Easy push pre-flop.

[DasLeben]

Hand 1: I fold and continue to pick on the smallies. Don't mess with the other biggie if you can help it.

Hand 2: Put him in preflop.

[jaym96822]

Why not push hand 1? Only 3 spots pay, hard for villian to call.

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: I fold and continue to pick on the smallies. Don't mess with the other biggie if you can help it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I almost never just call a raise on the bubble, but here Hero is in BB with 5400 chips and only needs to call 425 (about 12% of his stack - almost the exact odds of hitting a set). I think this would be a good risk / reward play since the hand virtually plays itself after the flop. No set, no bet. I would have a hard time passing up the implied odds here. (I know, usually not a bubble consideration, but these are big stacks here.) Plus, maybe the other big stack will be less likely to pull the mini-raise bs once he sees that you will throw a call in.

Of course, I'm open to the distinct possibility that I'm wrong on this one...

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: I fold and continue to pick on the smallies. Don't mess with the other biggie if you can help it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I almost never just call a raise on the bubble, but here Hero is in BB with 5400 chips and only needs to call 425 (about 12% of his stack - almost the exact odds of hitting a set). I think this would be a good risk / reward play since the hand virtually plays itself after the flop. No set, no bet. I would have a hard time passing up the implied odds here. (I know, usually not a bubble consideration, but these are big stacks here.) Plus, maybe the other big stack will be less likely to pull the mini-raise bs once he sees that you will throw a call in.

Of course, I'm open to the distinct possibility that I'm wrong on this one...

[/ QUOTE ]

Ugh yeah, I should stop skimming over hand posts so much. I hadn't realized that 1. Hero is in the BB, and 2. The other stack basically min raised.

That being said, I'll call this. I'm just usually very averse to calling raises when the blinds are high.

Anyone else have any different ideas?

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
Why not push hand 1? Only 3 spots pay, hard for villian to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't have the stones to mess with the other biggie by pushing here. I really think that would be reckless given your relative chip position. I really don't see what's so bad about calling a small portion of your stack and seeing a flop here.

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm just usually very averse to calling raises when the blinds are high.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't agree more with you on that one. I'm much more comfortable playing the bubble all-in luck fest, but in this case Pokerstars has conspired to make the hero actually play a hand of poker on the bubble. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[jaym96822]

But the same is true from the villian's perspective. To put it another way, if you were the Button, what hands would you call the all-in re-raise with? AA-QQ, AK, AQ? Compare that to the range he could be raising with, any pair, any A, any K, any two 9 or higher, etc. Bad guy doesn't have to fold very often to make it +EV.

[45suited]

[ QUOTE ]
But the same is true from the villian's perspective. To put it another way, if you were the Button, what hands would you call the all-in re-raise with? AA-QQ, AK, AQ? Compare that to the range he could be raising with, any pair, any A, any K, any two 9 or higher, etc. Bad guy doesn't have to fold very often to make it +EV.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not trying to be a smart a$$, but are you just guessing on that last statement or did you actually run the numbers? I mean, I just can't see giving up a very high degree of certainty ITM in order to get into a war with the other bigstack. What if he has AK even and wants to gamble? I just call here. Usually I'm a bit of a bubble maniac, but villain has shown "some" strength by raising. Sure he could have junk, but then again... I mean, a PP pair plays itself for crying out loud. See the flop and re-evaluate. I would be interested in the numbers on this one, but my gut strongly tells me that pushing is bad.

[jaym96822]

You're more smart than smartass on this one, I didn't run the numbers, just that my standard play here is to push. I would be interested in seeing if that is a bad gamble, I'll take any bubble-play improvement I can get.

[JP Rocks]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm just usually very averse to calling raises when the blinds are high.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't agree more with you on that one. I'm much more comfortable playing the bubble all-in luck fest, but in this case Pokerstars has conspired to make the hero actually play a hand of poker on the bubble. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Very well put. I guess I showed pokerstars a thing or two by folding...

Thank you for all the constructive opinions, my main concern with calling was a lack of personal discipline if the flop came all low cards. As it happens, I burned off most of my chips getting outflopped, before cracking AA with K2 to get back on top of things. Still, I'd rather be good than lucky...

[Bigwig]

Hand 1: I'm calling this preflop raise. I'd probably lead out on most flops as well.

Hand 2: Push preflop--although that's essentially what you did.