($60) advice wanted - gang tackling the shortie?

[bluefeet]

Kind of an obscure question - but one I've struggled with occasionally.

Assuming you can 'afford it', do you call raises with less in an effort to ensure a short-stack's demise?
Is this thinking even correct? Should your calling/raising standards be limited to the comparison of your hand to the openers?

In this case here, I had VERY little respect for Seat-1's raise. He had doubled up others at the table at various points with suspect hands - having only reached this point w/ a few river saves of his own. He was extremely LAG, and was raising with any two here (not that it was a bad move/gamble).

Do you consider joining the fray here? What type of hand WOULD you call (vs. raise) with the purpose of making it more difficult for shorie's random hand to hold up?

55+5 turbo
** chips before posting **
Seat 1: (6510 in chips)
bluefeet (5865 in chips)
Seat 5: (1125 in chips)
all post antes 50
bluefeet: posts small blind 300
Seat 5: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bluefeet [Qs 8s]
Seat 1: raises 600 to 1200
bluefeet: ????

Are there situations that warrant this more than others?

[pooh74]

[ QUOTE ]
Kind of an obscure question - but one I've struggled with occasionally.

Assuming you can 'afford it', do you call raises with less in an effort to ensure a short-stack's demise?
Is this thinking even correct? Should your calling/raising standards be limited to the comparison of your hand to the openers?

In this case here, I had VERY little respect for Seat-1's raise. He had doubled up others at the table at various points with suspect hands - having only reached this point w/ a few river saves of his own. He was extremely LAG, and was raising with any two here (not that it was a bad move/gamble).

Do you consider joining the fray here? What type of hand WOULD you call (vs. raise) with the purpose of making it more difficult for shorie's random hand to hold up?

55+5 turbo
** chips before posting **
Seat 1: (6510 in chips)
bluefeet (5865 in chips)
Seat 5: (1125 in chips)
all post antes 50
bluefeet: posts small blind 300
Seat 5: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bluefeet [Qs 8s]
Seat 1: raises 600 to 1200
bluefeet: ????

Are there situations that warrant this more than others?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Blue,

I think this is relatively simple in that you are only giving shortie 900 more chips by calling and losing to him (UTG must lose too) and if he doubles when you fold, he'll have a healthy stack anyway. The 900 more wont make as much a difference in the dynamic if he beats both of you, whereas by calling you lessen his chance of winning greatly.

I would call this with even up to 75% of hands.

[Kaeser]

I think you should also be concerned with whether seat 1 is going to be willing to check it down here. If he's as LAG as you say he may bluff you out of the small side pot and triple up short stack.

[bigt439]

[ QUOTE ]
Kind of an obscure question - but one I've struggled with occasionally.

Assuming you can 'afford it', do you call raises with less in an effort to ensure a short-stack's demise?
Is this thinking even correct? Should your calling/raising standards be limited to the comparison of your hand to the openers?

In this case here, I had VERY little respect for Seat-1's raise. He had doubled up others at the table at various points with suspect hands - having only reached this point w/ a few river saves of his own. He was extremely LAG, and was raising with any two here (not that it was a bad move/gamble).

Do you consider joining the fray here? What type of hand WOULD you call (vs. raise) with the purpose of making it more difficult for shorie's random hand to hold up?

55+5 turbo
** chips before posting **
Seat 1: (6510 in chips)
bluefeet (5865 in chips)
Seat 5: (1125 in chips)
all post antes 50
bluefeet: posts small blind 300
Seat 5: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bluefeet [Qs 8s]
Seat 1: raises 600 to 1200
bluefeet: ????

Are there situations that warrant this more than others?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I call here with almost any two. As a corollary, and I don't think this is what happened, but does anyone like the button intentionally making this raise to get you to come along and try and bust this guy? (i.e. if you were the button would you do this to try and get sb in the pot) I haven't really thought this out, but it could be an interesting idea.

[jon462]

money you win if doing this helps you knock out shortie - one buy in
money you lose if throwing away 1200 chips (which you are doing a very large amount of the time) keeps you from getting first or even second - 2-3 buy ins.

This seems like an easy fold with garbarge like Q8o. Either the lag donkey knocks out shortstack or he doubles him up and you are chipleader. Either is good.

[lastchance]

[ QUOTE ]
money you win if doing this helps you knock out shortie - one buy in
money you lose if throwing away 1200 chips (which you are doing a very large amount of the time) keeps you from getting first or even second - 2-3 buy ins.

This seems like an easy fold with garbarge like Q8o. Either the lag donkey knocks out shortstack or he doubles him up and you are chipleader. Either is good.

[/ QUOTE ]
Since when is Q8o garbage 3-handed?

I think you should call at the very least, your odds are too good. With a read against Button that he'll fold to your push over the top, I would do that as well.

[LordBP]

[ QUOTE ]
This seems like an easy fold with garbarge like Q8o.

[/ QUOTE ]

Come on it's suited.

I also don't think the 1200 chips makes a ton of difference heads up anyways.
If you knock out shortie you automaticallly win one buy in plus have a close to 50% chance of first worth two more buy ins than second. So by knocking him out you should win +2 buy ins.

[Roland32]

I think a call is mandatory here. This is a good example of proper ITM play.

[45suited]

Calling seems okay, but what do you do if you catch a small piece of the flop and bigstack starts building a sidepot? Next thing you know, he's built up a nice sidepot on the flop and turn, then pushes on the river. Then what?

Against certain aggressive players, I could let this one go so I'm not put in that position. Like someone else already said, if you fold, you're either going to be guaranteed 2nd or you will be the chipleader with 3 players left. I don't see how this is such a bad scenario either.

[Roland32]

I think if Lag wants to bet flop you give it to him unless your hand is extremely strong ie 2 pair or better

[jon462]

[ QUOTE ]
I think if Lag wants to bet flop you give it to him unless your hand is extremely strong ie 2 pair or better

[/ QUOTE ]
how often is Q8 going to flop a hand that is extremely strong? Considering OP's read to raiser I imagine you are gonna be pushed off the hand before the river quite often (sometimes with best hand, sometimes not.) With the chip stacks the way they are I dont see why hero is desperate for shorty to leave anyway.

[inyaface]

I don't mind a call here. Post flop you need to be careful not to bust if the SS folds obviously. Nobodys pointed out that if the SS calls the all in and you hit a piece of the board your probably ahead of the SS and even if you end up loosing to the laggy big stack because he hits something bigger then you you'll probably finish second. Also your hopefully protected a bit by the dry side pot and the bigstack bluffing into it. This is great for a hand like q8 sooted where you probably want to see all 5 cards.

[MrMoo]

You don't need an extremely strong hand. You need a pair or a flush draw. Either of which is likely to be better than original raisers given the read.

[AliasMrJones]

I think a reasonable question here is whether his frequent raises were min-raises or not. If not, then he is clearly inviting you to help kill shorty and will likely check it down. If he has been consistently min-raising, I'd call once and see how it goes. At least then you'll know for next time if shorty survives.

[bluefeet]

[ QUOTE ]
how often is Q8 going to flop a hand that is extremely strong?

[/ QUOTE ]

Answer: Equal to the number of times I elect to fold PF! (as in this case /images/graemlins/wink.gif )

I do like the point made regarding the size of the raise. I agree that a raise amount "enough to get shortie all-in", could appear more inviting (considering he could have just pushed to isolate). In theory, I'm just not certain if chip-preservation outweighs the immediate need to remove the third hand.

I guess an answer might be...how successful have I been on the bubble/short-handed in accumulating/maintaing chips. How bad is letting him double here without my help? With the binds at 3/6...he still only has 4 or so with a double. Of course I have less than 10 myself!

I think that if the blinds were lower and I have had luck throwing my weight around, it might be better to NOT join. Here though, where every pot involves an all-in of some kind...it might be better to join, hastening a HU with laggie.

My other regret on this hand, was that I was NOT in a position to maintain/accumulate. I of course, was card dead. LAG pushed every SB...and had made it very clear that he was willing to gamble calling a push. Not a horrible thing in itself I guess, but I was finding VERY few hands even close to "random" to push myself. If/when shortie came to life here, it was quickly becoming a 3-way coin flip (let's assume one has three sides /images/graemlins/wink.gif ).


EDIT: "it was quickly becoming a 3-way coin flip (let's assume one has three sides /images/graemlins/wink.gif )."....which, given the blinds, isn't much different had I called to see the flop - even w/ shortie tripling.

[jon462]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't need an extremely strong hand. You need a pair or a flush draw. Either of which is likely to be better than original raisers given the read.

[/ QUOTE ]

i think it is wrong to assume just because he is laggish he has no strength at all. That may be 44 or A2 or K9.. but rarely is he going to be miniraising a hand worse than Q8 here unless he is just a complete maniac.