Stop and Go

[24wizards]

Was at the final table of a B&M no limit holdem tourney.
The blinds are 3000 - 6000 and going up to 5-10 on the next hand. I and the utg (Omaha 8 player) each have 41,000 and all the other players are over 100K. He limps as he often does with a WIDE variety of non-raising hands and everyone else mucks to me. I find 5,5 in the pocket so move in. He calls with K9 off suit /forums/images/icons/confused.gif and we see a flop of 5 - 7 - J. An 8 turns and the 6 rivers /forums/images/icons/crazy.gif and I am down to 1000 and out. Oh well. One of the experienced tourney players suggested that I just check before the flop and then go all in on the flop.
This probably would have worked and sounds much like the Stop and Go play that I read about in the Mid Limit forum. Is that a good play in tourneys and, if so, is the above situation the right time to employ it?

[ohkanada]

The problem with doing that move with a small pair, is that type of opponent will call you everytime when he hits a pair but will fold when he misses. So you will win the minimum and lose the maximum unless he actually hits a pair below your small pair.

One situation that Fossilman has mentioned several times is where someone raises from late position. You have a decent but not great hand. Your opponent might be stealing but he is likely to call your re-raise all-in based on your chip count. So you just call the raise and then go all-in on any flop. In many cases your opponent should call the flop bet based on odds but will instead fold.

Ken Poklitar

[cferejohn]

But in this case he flopped trips. Unless you were talking about raising all in after the flop no matter what hit (although I can't really see why you would want to do this)

[Greg (FossilMan)]

The stop-and-go play isn't quite the right name for what you're suggesting. If you had been raised, then flat-calling now and betting the flop could be called SNG.

However, for your variant of SNG, you've got too many chips. When you bet the flop all-in, you are betting much more than is in the pot. In that case, what you're risking is much more than what you can gain, and by waiting until after the flop, you're giving the opponent 3 cards to hit any pair to be ahead of you.

When I use the SNG, it is most often when I cannot raise enough now to get them out preflop, but if they miss the flop, they will often fold to my all-in bet. So, let's say that somebody raises your big blind from 200 up to 1000, and you have 1600 left after posting. If you raise all-in, there will be at least 2900 in the pot, and it will cost them 800 to call. Clearly, even if they were bluffing with two small connectors, they will call when getting over 3.5:1 on the call (or they should). However, if you just call now, and then bet your last 800 on the flop, they will have a hard time calling if they missed, because 3.5:1 isn't enough if they think they only have a few outs.

Here, if you raise all-in preflop, you would normally expect to win it right there very often. Similarly, if you bet all-in on the flop, you expect to win everytime they've missed, plus some of the times they've hit something.

The key concepts to the SNG play are you don't have enough chips to make them fold now, but they might fold on the next round of betting, YOU are already pot-committed, and your hand is weak enough that you would prefer they fold to your bet or raise.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)