NL hand from B&M tourney..comments welcome

[sdplayerb]

I played the $75 buyin, 1 rebuy for $50 at Lake Elsinore yesterday. 30 minute rounds.
600 chips at buyin, rebuy for another 1,000.
99 players, about 85 rebuys for 144K chips in play.

5 tables left, around 40-42 players.
We are at level 5, 100-200 with a 25 ante. About 8-10 minutes in. Next level is 200-400 50 ante, which is a huge jump (goes back to 50% jumps after that).

I am at 2,850 then post 200 in the BB.
A woman with around 4000 chips (and my read is she is pretty solid) has recently sat down and makes it 500 to go at UTG+1 (we are 9 handed).
All fold to me and i see 98s. i would fold for 400, but for 300 with 1025 already in the pot I call.
good or bad?

Flop comes KTx, KT are my suit (diamonds).

now that is interesting as i have the flush draw, but she raised and has me covered.

I bet out 500.

She pretty quickly pushed in.

So i count my chips for 1850 left and calculate there is now 4375 in the pot giving me good odds on my flush draw. I want better than good odds if i am going in. But very difficult to win with 1850 in chips, while with over 6,000 I can really go for the win, be 1st or 2nd in chips at my table and start playing really aggressive.

After about 3 minutes, I call.

results in the next post.

A) What do you think of my pre-flop call
B) What do you think of my flop bet/what should I have done
C) What do you think of my call to the Raise.

SD

[sdplayerb]

First my answers to my own questions:

1) I think it is close. It is only 300, but I am out of position and she has me covered, so a semi-bluff will lose a lot of the bluff value, particularly since she raised from early position.
2) I think the bet amount was bad. Any of check/raise allin, raise allin, to bet 800 (so then I could possibly push in for 1000 on the turn depending on the card) would have been better.
3) Per the situation I was in, i think the call was fine. 1800 would have left me playing for 7th-9th money while winning gave me a real shot at the top 3.

Here is what happened:

She flips over AQ diamonds..i don't think I could name two worse cards for me than that.
I am down to 5 outs.

nothing on the turn..J diamonds on the river. Giving me the third nut flush..and her:
The Royal Flush.

So that is cool I lost to a royal.

Other comments. If this had been online, people probably would have bitched about action flops a few times..such as my last hand.
Plus AA got cracked by QQ.
And Quad Ks happened.
So big hands do happen everywhere.

Numerous at the table got AA more than once (including me..doubled up from 450 before my rebuy..actually limped in early)

[Al_Capone_Junior]

All of your arguements at every step of the way are perfectly logical.

But the bottom line is that 98s is a drawing hand, and one that doesn't play well against a raise. I chunk drawing hands late in a tournamnet, especially when I'm short or kinda short on chips.

I suppose after all that on the flop, you probably had to call, but you'll still lose here around 2 out of 3 times.

al

[fnurt]

This hand would have played out a lot differently if you had position. It's hard to play drawing hands out of position, especially in these situations where one or two bets is enough to put someone all-in.

Given that you didn't have position, betting 500 on the flop is a big-time underbet of the pot that can only work to your disadvantage. You basically set yourself up by creating a situation where you would have to call an all-in raise because of pot odds.

I think your only two choices here are to check the flop and fold to an all-in bet (or call if the bet is somehow less than all-in) or else push all-in on the flop as a semi-bluff. Maybe your opponent is supposed to call an all-in bet with AQ of diamonds but I wouldn't be surprised to see an opponent fold that holding rather than risk becoming crippled if the flush draw doesn't come in.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I can only see one advantage to your flop bet. That is if this opponent would call the all-in with hands that missed the flop but are still strong (e.g., AQ, AJ, QJ), but will call now and yet fold on the turn when you fire again all-in (and they missed the turn). But, you'd have to know that this person might play the hand this way, and you didn't know them. Since most players wouldn't do this, it is a mistake against an unknown.

I might bet this flop all-in, since the pot is over half your stack anyway. Or, I might check and fold unless they bet small, like half the pot or less.

If they check the flop behind me, I might tend to bet all-in on the turn as a semi-bluff, as long as the turn is an apparent brick.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[ohkanada]

A) What do you think of my pre-flop call

I likely muck. I think this is a just a chip burner because normally you will muck on the flop or as in this hand you will need to gamble on a draw. Only rarely will you flop a monster. Now if you had more chips I think the call is fine.

B) What do you think of my flop bet/what should I have done

I don't like the bet. There is 1325 in the pot and you bet 500 into the pre-flop raiser? Not sure how often that will win you the pot. Even a hand like AQ or AJ will call.

C) What do you think of my call to the Raise.

It is correct unless she has a set. Based on the range of hands she might raise UTG the call is fine. Of course if you hadn't bet 500, even against top pair an all-in call would have been wrong(close but wrong).

Ken Poklitar

[cferejohn]

I muck this pre-flop without a second thought. Even if the raiser is somewhat loose, they are probably playing something that is a substantial favorite over 89s. Sure if you do flop a big hand, you double up, but I think you are risking too much of your stack on that possibility.

I like the rule the Bob Ciaffone/Stewart Ruben propose for this situation, which they call the '5 and 10' rule. Any time you are thinking of making a preflop call with a drawing hand, if it is less than 5% of your chips, you can usually call, if it is more than 10% of your chips, you should usually fold. In between, use your judgement. To be honest they are talking about calling with position rather than in the blinds, and I would think you would be even less prone to make such a call given that you are out of position.

Once you get to the flop, I agree with others that you either need to push all-in immediately or check-fold. If you make a bet and you intend to call an all-in reraise, why not go all-in yourself to put more pressure on?