6 left, Blinds 100/200, QJo UTG, your play?

[1C5]

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (6 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

CO (t1625)
Button (t660)
SB (t1375)
BB (t2045)
Hero (t1065)
MP (t1230)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with Q/images/graemlins/club.gif, J/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#CC3333">Hero ?

[kyro]

Push and hope BB makes a spite call with QT /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[adanthar]

Easy push

[1C5]

Thanks guys. I find myself questioning everything I am doing as I am down close to 30 buy ins in the last 2 nights. I seem to be playing alright though, just bad luck I think.

[schwza]

ignore the poll results. this is a push.

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
ignore the poll results. this is a push.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really looks like with almost everyone in Vegas the newbies have taken over all at once.

Not that it's always bad, but the polls and horrible advice this week are cracking me up.

[11t]

I would only like to do this if I knew the BB was pretty tight. I would probably push and close my eyes until the next hand was dealt.

[Moonsugar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ignore the poll results. this is a push.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really looks like with almost everyone in Vegas the newbies have taken over all at once.

Not that it's always bad, but the polls and horrible advice this week are cracking me up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why you are considered one of the most respected posters is beyond me. You give poor advice and demean fellow posters. At least citanul's advice is good.

All 5 spots have to be tight for this to be a profitable push. It is not an 'easy push'. You have 2 spots on this table likely to loosen their standards, shorty and BB. If there are any other loose spots you should fold this. If your read is everyone is tight (77+, AT+) then its a push. But even if they just loosen their calling standards to include A9, A8 and A7 then this becomes a fold.

[tigerite]

I voted push, but it's very close, in my opinion. I'd prefer to have reads as to BB's looseness (i.e. - likeliness to call) to say for certain.

[adanthar]

Eastbay's tool is useful, but as usual, you're using it wrong. The catch is that if you don't push now, you lose all FE after the next two hands. (edit: OK, 90% of FE then, and about 99% of it after the blinds go up, which will probably be before you hit the BB again. Close enough.)

If you want to call me out on poor advice I gave, that's fine, but pick a better spot.

[tigerite]

I agree that your FE will be reduced, but even if the blinds go through you, you still will have 700, this is a lot in terms of chips (as opposed to BB) compared to most of the table to make them fold, I think. It's over half the stack for most of them.

[kyro]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ignore the poll results. this is a push.

[/ QUOTE ]

It really looks like with almost everyone in Vegas the newbies have taken over all at once.

Not that it's always bad, but the polls and horrible advice this week are cracking me up.

[/ QUOTE ]

stop reading my posts and you'll be all set.

[adanthar]

Level 1 thinking: 'my hand looks good, I'll call'
Level 2 thinking: 'he's a short stack, he's pushing with lots of stuff, I'll call'
Level 3 thinking: 'he might be pushing with anything, but I lose half my stack and most of my FE calling this, I'll fold'
(there's also a level 4 when you have small pockets and are doomed to lose FE anyway and so on, but this should be enough)

There are otherwise very good 2+2'ers that don't get this one right. I don't expect a typical opponent to think that far ahead or care.

[Moonsugar]

No, you don't loose all your FE. You lose alot but not ALL. After your SB people will be offered 2:1 by your push for the rest of this blind structure. People pass this up all the time.

It seems like you are implying that no matter how loose the players are its a 'easy push'? Because I see no discussion of that in any of your posts in this thread. And if the opps. are loose enough it is a -EV push NOW, at this decision point, forget about some fantasy future FE I lose. If I get called and lose I have no FE, period.

If you want to be helpful and stop all the 'horrible advice' that you talked about maybe you should help the 'newbies' and talk about these factors in your decision making process besides posting 'easy push' and then some wiseass comment, or two.

[tigerite]

The FE is why I voted push but I still think it's quite close. The 'level 1 thinking' lot are those that also think 'he's UTG and about to hit the blinds, he has junk, I call', sadly.

[Scuba Chuck]

This used to be autopush for me. I only half agree with what Adanthar is saying. You do/will lose FE here. But sometimes the correct decision includes losing FE. At higher levels, maybe you get more respect for an UTG push with 5xBB, and perhaps you get so little respect for a push from anywhere with 3.5xBB.

IMO, you're risking chips vs. shorty and some other calling hands within an expected calling range.

Sometimes, I'm on a tight table, so I'd be more likely to push this hand. Lately the tables seem to implode at level 5. Making it more profitable to fold here. By implode, I mean that everyone decides their hand, whatever it may be (like I've seen quite a few KT's lately), is good enough to battle it out.

AT higher levels, I assume the assumption of handstrenght for a 6 handed UTG push is something like AT+ or pocket pair with a ~15% chance of a bluff. That requires some higher level thinking.

Regardless, the question of whether to push or lose FE is probably an interesting debate in itself. One very important factor in determining this answer is the number of players left. With more players, I'm more willing to lose FE, with fewer players, I'm not. 6 players is really the cusp of where the line is grayed (for me at least).

Good luck at the tables.
Scuba

[adanthar]

Yes, I am implying that it's an easy push (almost*) no matter how loose they are (after a certain point, their looseness benefits you, having a big stack on the bubble is another point eastbay's tool doesn't cover, etc.) *There's some inflection point where they're loose enough to call with exactly K8o but exactly not Q9o, and if they fall into that 1.5% of the population and your read is so good that you can figure this out, go ahead and pat yourself on the back.

It's an easy push because the vast majority of the time you should be looking at this hand and not thinking about it. I post my thought process all the time, sometimes in great detail, on postflop or occasionally preflop hands that have two ways to play them. This one's automatic and should be treated as such, and, well, I'm tired of people posting automatic hands this week.

If you want to be helpful, stop using eastbay's tool to make replies without putting some thought into the things it doesn't cover.

[adanthar]

Maybe I should start a thread about this, but:

If a decision is mathematically close with 6 people left and I have a medium stack, it is not 'really' close at all because correct play on the bubble as the big stack picks up more chips than anything else you can possibly learn. Therefore, take the flip.

The problem is that along with the recent influx of weak/tight newbies, which exactly coincides with a lot of the big forum names not being around to correct them, eastbay's tool has been causing more problems around here on seemingly 'narrow' margins than it's solved.

Some guy yesterday posted a QQ bubble fold because the big stack pushed into him and people were applauding this. In order to use that piece of software properly you at least have to input a correct range, not to mention figure out that when you take over as the big stack you will be able to steal half his chips before the bubble bursts.

OK, now I'm done.

[applejuicekid]

Adanthar is correct. Not pushing here is a big mistake.

[applejuicekid]

This is blowing my mind. How is folding ahead in the poll? If you fold this you lose 30% of your stack, and probably all FE. While QJ may not be the greatest hand, if you fold here you may not get a chance to steal on the button or CO and then may be forced to go all in UTG on the next round with very few chips and probably a terrible hand.

I'm not one of the better players on this forum, but I cannot imagine how this can be anything other than a push. To be honest I would push any two in this position so when I have a hand like QJ I can't push fast enough. If you successfully steal these 300 chips you will have many more stealing opportunites now that you have those chips. However, folding will give you very limited stealing opportunites.

For those of you that said fold, what is your plan? To push all in later when you absolutely have to? To call a push from the BB? Or to pray to the poker gods that they give you a premium hand?