My HU Dilemma: 4 game turning hands

[GtrHtr]

I “thought” I was a fairly good HU player, guess not. I usually go into HU with between 2000 and 3000 chips, usually build it up to even or slightly ahead and lately the bottom falls out.

In HU play I will vary my calls, raises, pushes from the SB to keep them guessing and widely expand my calling standards from the BB. If I hit the flop or second pair I will usually attack the pot.

September stats started to get me to focus on my HU game. 44%ITM and 25% ROI with only 10.0% 1st’s and a ton of 2d’s. This month to date my ITM is 45% and my ROI is 18% with only 2 1sts and a ton of 2ds. The hands below are some examples and come from my very frustrating final set of 4 last night where I went 2/2/2/2.

I debated posting an entire HU HH a la DFScott, but thought I’d post the “game turning hands” to see the thoughts and opinions and hopefully learn something. I’m very willing to post entire HU HH’s if that is preferred beyond what I’ve written about my style of play above.

Any thoughts or opinions welcome,



***** Hand History for Game 2831757288 *****
600/1200 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360030) - Wed Oct 05 20:50:48 EDT 2005
Table Table 12111 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 6: Villain (3484)
Seat 10: Hero (4516)
Hero posts small blind (300)
Villain posts big blind (600)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9c, 8h ]
Hero calls (300)
Villain checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 9d, Th, 5s ]
Villain bets (1000)
Hero raises (3916) to 3916
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (1884)
Villain is all-In.
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 7h ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 2s ]
Creating Main Pot with $6968 with Villain
Creating Side Pot 1 with $1032 with Hero
** Summary **
Main Pot: 6968 | Side Pot 1: 1032
Board: [ 9d Th 5s 7h 2s ]
Villain balance 6968, bet 3484, collected 6968, net +3484 [ 9h Ac ] [ a pair of nines with ace kicker -- Ac,Th,9h,9d,7hAc(kicker card) ]
Hero balance 1032, bet 4516, collected 1032, lost -3484 [ 9c 8h ] [ a pair of nines -- Th,9c,9d,8h,7h ]



***** Hand History for Game 2831682716 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360060) - Wed Oct 05 20:38:46 EDT 2005
Table Table 18329 (Real Money) -- Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 6: Villain (3970)
Seat 10: Hero (4030)
Hero posts small blind (200)
Villain posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ah, 6d ]
Hero raises (3830) to 4030
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (3570)
Villain is all-In.
Creating Main Pot with $7940 with Villain
Creating Side Pot 1 with $60 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 7h, 6s, 3s ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Qs ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 9h ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 7940 | Side Pot 1: 60
Board: [ 7h 6s 3s Qs 9h ]
Villain balance 7940, bet 3970, collected 7940, net +3970 [ 9c Qh ] [ two pairs, queens and nines -- Qh,Qs,9c,9h,7h ]
Hero balance 60, bet 4030, collected 60, lost -3970 [ Ah 6d ] [ a pair of sixes -- Ah,Qs,9h,6d,6s ]

***** Hand History for Game 2831668820 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360034) - Wed Oct 05 20:36:27 EDT 2005
Table Table 18327 (Real Money) -- Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: Villain (4040)
Seat 10: Hero (3960)
Villain posts small blind (200)
Hero posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 9d, 9s ]
Villain raises (1300) to 1500
Hero raises (3560) to 3960
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (2460)
Creating Main Pot with $7920 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ Jd, 5c, 8h ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ Ac ]
** Dealing River ** : [ 7c ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 7920 |
Board: [ Jd 5c 8h Ac 7c ]
Villain balance 8000, bet 3960, collected 7920, net +3960 [ Js Ad ] [ two pairs, aces and jacks -- Ad,Ac,Js,Jd,8h ]
Hero balance 0, lost 3960 [ 9d 9s ] [ a pair of nines -- Ac,Jd,9d,9s,8h ]

This one I was never able to double up my initial HU stack of 2300 and went down in flames fairly quickly.

***** Hand History for Game 2831625609 *****
400/800 Tourney Texas Hold'em Game Table (NL) (Tournament 16360018) - Wed Oct 05 20:29:17 EDT 2005
Table Table 12161 (Real Money) -- Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 5: Villain (6405)
Seat 10: Hero (1595)
Villain posts small blind (200)
Hero posts big blind (400)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 7c, Kd ]
Villain calls (200)
Hero raises (1195) to 1595
Hero is all-In.
Villain calls (1195)
Creating Main Pot with $3190 with Hero
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 5s, 3h, 2c ]
** Dealing Turn ** : [ 5c ]
** Dealing River ** : [ Ts ]
** Summary **
Main Pot: 3190 |
Board: [ 5s 3h 2c 5c Ts ]
Villain balance 8000, bet 1595, collected 3190, net +1595 [ Ah 5d ] [ three of a kind, fives -- Ah,Ts,5d,5s,5c ]
Hero balance 0, lost 1595 [ 7c Kd ] [ a pair of fives -- Kd,Ts,7c,5s,5c ]

[downtown]

Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[GtrHtr]

right, I pushed all 4, am I missing something?

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
right, I pushed all 4, am I missing something?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, I edited. I would have pushed the first hand preflop.

[SoCalPat]

Hand 1: Fold or raise PF. You shouldn't be limping with crap like this, and if you face resistance, you should be able to ditch it.

Hand 2: I'm all for a raise here, but going all-in is too much. Bad players don't want to slug it out, but rather, will risk it all on one hand and hope to get lucky. It's my experience, however, that there's something more sneaky and deviant about small raises from the SB.

Unlike your previous hand, you've got a decision to make if your opponent comes over the top PF, or bets out the flop when you catch a small piece of it. But I'd rather be there than blindly pushing all-in when it's not necessary.

Hand 3: Nothing you can do here. Tough to imagine one of you not being all in before the flop here. You just got marginally unlucky.

Hand 4: You did the right thing, but you were also behind all the way.

You'll notice that in two of the hands you were behind from the start, and in a third (99 vs. AJ), you lost a coin flip. Short of your SB play in the first two hands, I'm not seeing anything here that would lead me to question your skill. You just got unlucky, that's all.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 2: I'm all for a raise here, but going all-in is too much. Bad players don't want to slug it out, but rather, will risk it all on one hand and hope to get lucky. It's my experience, however, that there's something more sneaky and deviant about small raises from the SB.

[/ QUOTE ]

You deviantly raise to t1000 and Villain pushes. What's your action?

[SoCalPat]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

At 200/400 and with 4K in chips, the blinds are nowhere near "too high" to be pushing with 89o. I'm not going to debate the point in pushing in the other three hands, but it's silly to do so here unless you know your opponent is weak-tight, and even then you can accomplish the same (stealing the blinds) with a modest 2-3X BB raise.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Push
Hand 2: Push
Hand 3: Push
Hand 4: Push

Blinds are too high to nancy about with any other moves than pushes here. Your long term results will thank you.

Edit: I meant push preflop on all hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

At 200/400 and with 4K in chips, the blinds are nowhere near "too high" to be pushing with 89o. I'm not going to debate the point in pushing in the other three hands, but it's silly to do so here unless you know your opponent is weak-tight, and even then you can accomplish the same (stealing the blinds) with a modest 2-3X BB raise.

[/ QUOTE ]

BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[SoCalPat]

If Villian's MO is to push with inferior hands, I'll call.

If this is the first push I've seen from the villian, I'll fold. In his case, it still would've left me with 2,500 or so, and I've come back from far greater deficits.

[SoCalPat]

[ QUOTE ]
BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[/ QUOTE ]

My bad. I saw the last three were 200/400 and wrongly assumed the first hand in his thread was the same.

At Paradise SNGs there is no 300/600 level. The top level is 500/1000, and there it's push with just about anything decent. Prior to that, it's 250/500 and 150/300. Obviously a different animal than 300/600.

The crux of what we're debating is whether or not the blind structure is so high that it forces you to push on any two cards, right? That's not what you're saying, is it? Because pushing with 89o when you have the chip lead certainly sounds like you are.

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[/ QUOTE ]

My bad. I saw the last three were 200/400 and wrongly assumed the first hand in his thread was the same.

At Paradise SNGs there is no 300/600 level. The top level is 500/1000, and there it's push with just about anything decent. Prior to that, it's 250/500 and 150/300. Obviously a different animal than 300/600.

The crux of what we're debating is whether or not the blind structure is so high that it forces you to push on any two cards, right? That's not what you're saying, is it? Because pushing with 89o when you have the chip lead certainly sounds like you are.

[/ QUOTE ]

With the stack I have, I could've laid that down PF. I think the biggest mistake was coming over the top of his flop bet, but so often you see that kind of bet just to steal the pot. Interesting.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
The crux of what we're debating is whether or not the blind structure is so high that it forces you to push on any two cards, right? That's not what you're saying, is it? Because pushing with 89o when you have the chip lead certainly sounds like you are.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would push somewhere between the top 80% to 100% (all) hands depending on my opponent when the BB=t600 at an 8000 chip game.

There have been posts in the past that have shown with some degree of reliability that against a reasonable opponent's calling range (can't recall the post right now) pushing any 2 once blinds are 200/400 or either of you has <10BB is correct. I've fooled around with SNGPT (ICM calcs) with this quite a bit and it's very interesting (SNGPT - highly recommended by me).

I use this strategy for the most part and it's extremely effective. It's also extemely hard to play against an opponent who plays this way. The whole reason I started playing this way... because I ran across someone who played this way and he ate my lunch. It's higher variance in the short run, but in the long run you'll get way more value from always pushing correctly HU.

And for the meaningless small sample size proof: I have 9 wins and 2 losses HU in the 55s this month. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[GtrHtr]

good point on SNGPT. I'll run some hands to get a range. Bad variance I guess.

[illegit]

Try getting luckier in races. Your results will improve dramtically.

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
Try getting luckier in races. Your results will improve dramtically.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, good point. I'll reset my pattern mapper when I get HU.

[pergesu]

HU sucks because you can play perfectly and go through dry spells. [censored] happens.

All looks fine with the exception of the first hand. Blinds are waaaay too big to be completing anything unless it's as a trap, and even then I'm at least going to jack it up at least a little.

Push all of these preflop and you're a HU pro. Right now you're 75% of the way there /images/graemlins/wink.gif

After villain limps my default play would be to see a flop with K7 but that's me. Everything else looks just fine, especially the 99 hand I mean cmon, there's no other way to play that is there?

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
Push all of these preflop and you're a HU pro. Right now you're 75% of the way there



[/ QUOTE ]

Smartass /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Ya know what? I'm not even sure I was aware of the blinds in hand #1 as I think back. We'd gone on quite a while HU and its possible I missed it. Leaky leak.

There is nothing you can do here. I think you played this as well as you could. What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that...sounds like you are playing well, just getting a little unlucky on your coin flips.

[Bluff Daddy]

[ QUOTE ]
DFScott

[/ QUOTE ]

whatever happened to this guy

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that

[/ QUOTE ]
That guy was a moron for letting hero see such a cheap flop in the first place

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
DFScott

[/ QUOTE ]

whatever happened to this guy

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, he made a brief comeback to the forum about 4-6 weeks ago saying he'd been having computer problems and had gone on vacation. I certainly miss him, excellent poster.

[Scuba Chuck]

I was gonna read all the posts, but then noticed a trend on whether 89o should be pushed pf.

Hands 2-4, played to perfection

Hand 1: Your preflop play here depends a lot on prior action, so to blanket advice hero here to push or fold preflop is very poor advice. Have you read this post (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=&Number=1861331&page=&view =&sb=5&o=&fpart=) before?

Anyhow, given the way you played this hand, there is some troubling issues on the flop. Villain bet more than the minimum. Without a read, meaning that you believe villain could do this with air, I think you could be in trouble. Had villain bet the min, I would think it could be air, str8 draw, bottom pair or better. In this case, your range here is only average. I seriously doubt villain has better than one pair here. So, essentially, you're looking at a coinflip type of scenario, against the likely calling range by pushing. You're only getting called by 9x, Tx, 87, QJ or better. (Note: had the stacks been more uneven in favor of villain, this increases the chance villain plays 5x here.)

Anyhow, absent a read, I think pushing here is essentially a coinflip at best. If you're comfortable with that, then ok. Away from the table, this hand is a little easier to analyze, and makes you consider folding considering the chips behind remaining. In the moment, I might have raised. Just so you know, the deciding factor in this analysis is the raise greater than the minimum. My 2 cents.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that

[/ QUOTE ]
That guy was a moron for letting hero see such a cheap flop in the first place

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, you might want to quantify this 'advice' by the blind size.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
Try getting luckier in races. Your results will improve dramtically.

[/ QUOTE ]

Best answer so far. Wish I thought of that.

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that

[/ QUOTE ]
That guy was a moron for letting hero see such a cheap flop in the first place

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, you might want to quantify this 'advice' by the blind size.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Hero posts small blind (300)
Villain posts big blind (600)

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh...A9...blinds 300/600...villain was a moron for letting hero see the flop for free. Not sure what's wrong with anything I said.

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that

[/ QUOTE ]
That guy was a moron for letting hero see such a cheap flop in the first place

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, you might want to quantify this 'advice' by the blind size.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Hero posts small blind (300)
Villain posts big blind (600)

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh...A9...blinds 300/600...villain was a moron for letting hero see the flop for free. Not sure what's wrong with anything I said.

[/ QUOTE ]

Light bulb?

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What i find troubling was the first one you posted where he limped with A9. nothing you can do when you get blindsided like that

[/ QUOTE ]
That guy was a moron for letting hero see such a cheap flop in the first place

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL, you might want to quantify this 'advice' by the blind size.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Hero posts small blind (300)
Villain posts big blind (600)

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh...A9...blinds 300/600...villain was a moron for letting hero see the flop for free. Not sure what's wrong with anything I said.

[/ QUOTE ]

Light bulb?

[/ QUOTE ]
Getting dimmer by the minute /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[the shadow]

I'm posting without reading the other comments.

1st hand: If you want to be aggressive, calling the flop and leading out on the turn represents a stronger hand than coming over the top by pushing the flop. I almost always bet top pair, often bet 2d pair, and sometimes bet low pair or even an underpair, but I'm less likely to come over the top with second pair. Fold.

EDIT: I've now read the other posts. Without knowing how the hand turned out, villian just completing, at these blinds, is either just wrong or an attempt to trap. I'm not sure I'd push pre-flop.

2d hand: Short stack to BB ratio is about 10:1. I like the push.

3d hand: Same ratio. I like the push.

4th hand: Ratio is about 4:1. I like the push. I would push any two.

A couple of suggestions:

1. If you want to improve your HU play, play lots of HU matches. I've been playing only HU for over a month now.

2. If you play enough, losing 4 in a row is well within the variance you should expect, even if you win 60% HU starting with even stacks.

3. The hands with big pots aren't necessarily the big hands that decide the tourney. Without seeing the rest of the hands, it's possible that you're failing to exploit other opportunities.

The Shadow

[ QUOTE ]
The hands below are some examples and come from my very frustrating final set of 4 last night where I went 2/2/2/2.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would dance around my room with a set like that. I just had a set of 8 where I went 10/4/4/5/4/6/3/2, and I felt perfectly normal. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

And I think I would push every hand. At blinds like 300/600 there are few hands I don't push, and I don't think I'm making any -EV moves there..

[sunek]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar på:</font><hr />

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

I looove when my opponants play like that HU - that makes them super easy to trap when you get a large pp or a hand like AK, AQ or AJ.

sunek

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

I looove when my opponants play like that HU - that makes them super easy to trap when you get a large pp or a hand like AK, AQ or AJ.

sunek

[/ QUOTE ]

This sounds like something one of my opponnents would say HU in the 22s or 33s... something like, "keep doing that, it works everytime but once," and I say, "Ok gl." And then they have lost their stack in 2 or 3 rounds of blinds so it doesn't matter anymore, the game is over. Good luck waiting for those premium hands HU.

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
Hand 1: Your preflop play here depends a lot on prior action, so to blanket advice hero here to push or fold preflop is very poor advice. Have you read this post before?


[/ QUOTE ]

Scuba, very valid point, although I did write this:

[ QUOTE ]
In HU play I will vary my calls, raises, pushes from the SB to keep them guessing and widely expand my calling standards from the BB. If I hit the flop or second pair I will usually attack the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

In this particular hand, we had been HU for a fairly long time at this point. I was varying my play from the SB quite a lot.

[ QUOTE ]
Anyhow, given the way you played this hand, there is some troubling issues on the flop. Villain bet more than the minimum. Without a read, meaning that you believe villain could do this with air, I think you could be in trouble. Had villain bet the min, I would think it could be air, str8 draw, bottom pair or better. In this case, your range here is only average. I seriously doubt villain has better than one pair here. So, essentially, you're looking at a coinflip type of scenario, against the likely calling range by pushing. You're only getting called by 9x, Tx, 87, QJ or better. (Note: had the stacks been more uneven in favor of villain, this increases the chance villain plays 5x here.)

Anyhow, absent a read, I think pushing here is essentially a coinflip at best. If you're comfortable with that, then ok. Away from the table, this hand is a little easier to analyze, and makes you consider folding considering the chips behind remaining. In the moment, I might have raised. Just so you know, the deciding factor in this analysis is the raise greater than the minimum. My 2 cents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good points. I'm comfortable folding, raising or pushing the first hand PF. The flop play, as you identify, is what I too was concerned about. His bet was either from strength or weakness. I guessed weakness and guessed wrong which cost me the tourny.

The theme that all my troubles will be solved if I push any 2 PF with the blinds at 300/600 remains to be seen. I completely agree that calling at this stage is bad. I like your line with if I chose to play the hand, raise something more than the minimum.

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm posting without reading the other comments.

1st hand: If you want to be aggressive, calling the flop and leading out on the turn represents a stronger hand than coming over the top by pushing the flop. I almost always bet top pair, often bet 2d pair, and sometimes bet low pair or even an underpair, but I'm less likely to come over the top with second pair. Fold.

EDIT: I've now read the other posts. Without knowing how the hand turned out, villian just completing, at these blinds, is either just wrong or an attempt to trap. I'm not sure I'd push pre-flop.

2d hand: Short stack to BB ratio is about 10:1. I like the push.

3d hand: Same ratio. I like the push.

4th hand: Ratio is about 4:1. I like the push. I would push any two.

A couple of suggestions:

1. If you want to improve your HU play, play lots of HU matches. I've been playing only HU for over a month now.

2. If you play enough, losing 4 in a row is well within the variance you should expect, even if you win 60% HU starting with even stacks.

3. The hands with big pots aren't necessarily the big hands that decide the tourney. Without seeing the rest of the hands, it's possible that you're failing to exploit other opportunities.

The Shadow

[/ QUOTE ]


As always, nice post and good insight. I have been playing a few HU games in addition to my normal sets and I continue to learn...

[GtrHtr]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The hands below are some examples and come from my very frustrating final set of 4 last night where I went 2/2/2/2.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would dance around my room with a set like that. I just had a set of 8 where I went 10/4/4/5/4/6/3/2, and I felt perfectly normal. /images/graemlins/smile.gif



[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not giving the money back or anything but I carefully selected the word frusterating and not another word for a reason. You left out the sentence before the sentence that provides the context:

[ QUOTE ]
September stats started to get me to focus on my HU game. 44%ITM and 25% ROI with only 10.0% 1st’s and a ton of 2d’s. This month to date my ITM is 45% and my ROI is 18% with only 2 1sts and a ton of 2ds. The hands below are some examples and come from my very frustrating final set of 4 last night where I went 2/2/2/2.

[/ QUOTE ]

[pergesu]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Any time the SB completes, shove your stack in his face. Sometimes you get called, most of the time you don't, and you get walks from there on out

[/ QUOTE ]

I looove when my opponants play like that HU - that makes them super easy to trap when you get a large pp or a hand like AK, AQ or AJ.

[/ QUOTE ]
I looove when my opponents play like that HU - means 93% of the time I get their blind, and when they finally do call, I'm just a 4-1 dog at worst, and often as good as a 2-1 dog.

[Bluff Daddy]

[ QUOTE ]


3. The hands with big pots aren't necessarily the big hands that decide the tourney. Without seeing the rest of the hands, it's possible that you're failing to exploit other opportunities.

The Shadow

[/ QUOTE ]

this is a good point

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]

BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not raise to t1500? Then analyze your next move based on villain's action. I seriously don't think push is your only option. Hero has a lot of chips behind here. Think my friend.

[downtown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

BB in the 89 hand is t600. There's no other move than the push.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not raise to t1500? Then analyze your next move based on villain's action. I seriously don't think push is your only option. Hero has a lot of chips behind here. Think my friend.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why I don't raise to t1500:
1) I'm exposing myself to a bluff or stop n go on flop - I like to apply the pressure in the SNG, not have it applied to me.
2) I feel compelled to call an all-in unless I can put the villain on TT-AA, a.k.a. almost never in a SNG
3) I've fooled around with similar situations in SNGPT a bunch and I feel it increases my EV to just push in this spot.

I think it's the best move here. I don't feel like hero has a lot of chips behind here, I feel like hero has ~7.5BBs and villain has 6BBs. I would be hard pressed to find any situation in any of my HH's where I min raised HU 300/600 - I really hate this line. Are you folding to a push? If not, push first HU IMO.

FWIW I would not necessarily automatically push this in a 55, but in an 8000 chip game this is an autopush to me.

So I answered why not raise to t1500 in hand 2, now I ask you, why?

P.S. "Think, my friend," sounds patronizing to me... especially since I've thought about this a lot, typed my reasoning, and essentially you've just made a "why not this?" argument with no thought behind. Though I do enjoy the disagreement and I'm glad to hear your response.

[JudoGirl]

Without having read the other replies yet:

Hand1: I push here too. middle pair and rnr rnr str8 potential with the blinds like they are, I think this is standard.

Hand2: I probably just raise here about 70% of the time. Call 15% of the time, Push 15% of the time. Of course, it depends how my opponent is playing. You have room to outplay your opponent here.

Hand3: Standard push I think

Hand4: Obligatory push.