What do you think?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

$20 + 2 NLHE on 'Stars last night. 36 left, all in the money, first hand after the bubble. Average stack is 16,000. I have 9,900 and am in the middle at my table. Blinds 600/1200, 75 ante. Tournament leader, 35,000, is at my table.

I'm UTG and pick up Q /forums/images/icons/heart.gif T /forums/images/icons/heart.gif I've played an agressive form of survival to reach the money. Two thoughts occur to me. 1) it may take others here a hand or two to slip out of the on-the-bubble tightness of the hand-for-hand we just finished, and 2) the gap concept. Thus, I widen the gap and open-raise for 3,600, perfectly willing to fold to a reraise. All fold to big stack on the button, who flat calls.

Flop: K /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif J /forums/images/icons/heart.gif 7 /forums/images/icons/club.gif giving me an open-ended str8 draw and back-door flush.

Question: What range of hands do you put button on with his flat call? To this point he's used his stack well, but is a solid player and is capable of laying down a middle pair or an ace-high to a bet here. He's also capable of betting into me without a pair if I check.

My thoughts and results later.

[Guy McSucker]

Okay, I make it 9600 or so in the pot and 6k or so in your stack.

You can't fold your hand if he sets you in. He might fold if you bet all-in.

I think this makes it an easy decision: all-in.

Guy.

[DaNoob]

If he had a big hand, I would have expected a re-raise from the BB, so I'm thinking he's got Ax or maybe a small pair. There's a small chance of two face cards, with KJ being a distinct possibility (since it's not an all-in hand PF and won't win usually unimproved).

Regardless, if he has Kx or even KJ, you've got 8 clean outs for the straight and a gutshot flush draw, so an all-in bet should be a pretty easy decision in this situation.

Then again, if you check-fold here, you still have T6000 left, which is more than enough to rebuild. If you were ready to muck PF to a re-raise, letting go of it here is always a possibility.

Hope it worked out for ya.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Like you, I put him on Ax or a small/medium pair. I discounted trouble hands like KQ, KJ or Kxs against an UTG raise. I pushed in and he turned over A /forums/images/icons/diamond.gif K /forums/images/icons/club.gif /forums/images/icons/shocked.gif

As you said, I had outs. Unfortunately, none materialized and I cashed a disappointing amount considering that I was happy with my overall play.

[Easy E]

"What range of hands do you put button on with his flat call? To this point he's used his stack well, but is a solid player and is capable of laying down a middle pair or an ace-high to a bet here. He's also capable of betting into me without a pair if I check."

This doesn't give me a good indication of what he's been playing around with on the button. You still have 60% of your stack to go with....

I'd put him on:
a) middle high pairs- QQ-99 (little weak on the 9's? with you UTG and no callers, I'd eliminate 88 and below)
b) Big suited connectors, from JT up to AK. I would think about single-gappers such as yours, but not two-gappers (unless he'd play any suited Ace to the raise on the button)
c) Possibly big slick.
d) Possibly T9s

I don't know if I could put him on gappers unsuited here.

Flop action- bet half your stack

[Easy E]

at least I guessed right on the hand.

Not sure, after thinking about it, if betting half your stack would be good after all- you'd be sucked into calling anyway, most probably

Could you have gotten away from the hand, and would he NOT have come over the top without a hand, if you'd bet T1K or so?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

a) and c) I thought he would have reraised preflop. Suited connectors or gappers wouldn't have impacted my post-flop decision since a big flop bet represents AK. I'll consider, though, that that might be a flaw in my thinking.

Flop action- bet half your stack

This I can't agree with. If I bet 3,000 into a 9,600 pot, he's not going away.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Well, it's pretty hard to drive somebody out of a pot by representing the hand *he's* holding /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif

This is an all-in/check-fold decision. The more I think about it, the less problem I have with my play. I just got outplayed, and now I know more about him. BTW - he went on to win the thing.

[ohkanada]

Muck pre-flop. Do you really want to put in 35% of your stack with that hand knowing if you get re-raised you are planning on mucking?

Depending on the stack sizes of the blinds, he could have a huge hand, a middle pair or something as ugly as KQ/QJ/JT.

If you believe he would lay middle pair down, then going all-in is correct.

Ken Poklitar

[Greg (FossilMan)]

As Guy points out, if you check and he bets you all-in, you need to call, as you've got well more than the necessary pot odds (i.e., calling is a clear overlay, and not so small that you can afford to pass it up).

And, since you've said he could fold a medium pair or Ax to your bet, it is clearly correct for you to go all-in, and give him a chance to make these laydowns.

Preflop, I hate your plan of folding to a reraise. I don't ever put in 1/3 of my chips preflop and then fold. Well, I could in this spot, but it would take either two more raises, or one more raise plus an overcall before I could consider, that is, there would have to be very strong evidence that I'm facing AA-QQ before I could fold after putting in this much of my stack.

In most spots, if I were going to make this steal attempt, I would just go all-in preflop. However, against some opponents, it is better to put in 1/3 of your stack preflop, and then bet the rest on the flop. Some players just won't fold certain "pretty" hands preflop for any price, but will give them up after the flop misses. For example, some people just can't lay down a suited A, even when the kicker is small. You'd hate to go all-in preflop and get called by Ah5h, only to know that this same player would've folded to your flop bet on the Jd7h3s board.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Push it in. The chance he'll fold, combined with your 31.5% chance of hitting a str8 if called makes it all too clear to me now. You're in the money now, and winning this pot will put you in a better position to finish higher than the miniscule prizes at the 36th place level.

al

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I tend to agree that mucking preflop is a viable option, tho I didn't discuss it. I generally don't play QTs in EP when I have a fairly small stack compared to the blinds. Really, I tend not to play it in EP anyway in tourneys.

al

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

You know, I winced when I raised, a little voice saying "don't do it."

This is the "philosophical" conundrum I have. Not defending QTs UTG specifically, but needing 9 more players out to move up the payoff ladder, about 1/3 of the way through this level, which will eat up 25% of my stack in the next orbit, and having a borderline "all-in or don't play" stack, I need to steal the blinds at least once every 2 or 3 orbits to move up. Once the blinds go up, I may be down to one shot and out. Was I impatient right here? Sure. But my blinds were coming up and I figured that this was probably the last hand I could raise without going all-in preflop. The opportunity to get by these blinds free seemed a reasonable risk to take with a hand that had some equity if I had to see a flop.

I had built my stack up by stealing twice during hand-for-hand and probably got a little full of myself. In middle stages, I'd probably muck this without a 2nd thought UTG. Here, I felt I had to take one more chance.

The learning process continues.

[sam h]

Kurn,

One thing to keep in mind is that other players may be thinking along the same lines as you. I often notice that once people get into the money, play gets very aggressive as a the shortstacked and medium stacked players decide to take a lot of chances to amass a big stack. IMHO, this is a more likely scenario than there being a residual tightness hangover from the bubble period.

[Rickfish]

I would fold with no hesitation UTG before flop.

Having got myself in this situation, I must admit I'd probably push it all in on the flop without thinking. That is the knee-jerk reaction to getting this flop. But I'm not sure it is a very sophisticated play. BB must have a good hand to call an UTG raise and you might get paid if you "slow-play" it. If BB has missed the flop you can steal later or hit A, Q, T, or 9 to win.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Point taken. You know, this factored a bit into my read. although I was in the middle chip-wise at this table, with the exception of the big stack, who was tournament chip leader, all that were ahead of me were not ahead by much. My biggest worry was that the big stack would loosen up his calling requirements. That obviously factored into my read of his call, making it easier for me to discount the possibility that he was trapping with a big hand. Live and learn. There is a fine line between being too timid and too reckless. I pushed the envelope and it broke.

[Tyler Durden]

I hate to be "that guy" and I admittedly don't know much about NL, but should you be playing this hand from UTG? I agree that it's an attractive hand but it seems that you have so many players to get through just to steal the blinds. And if you want more than the blinds, I don't know if that will work out too well. You have more than enough to survive a few more orbits. I'm not saying folding is the right play, but did you consider?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

What's funny is that I would fold this UTG without a 2nd thought at almost every other point in the tournament. At this point I thought that stealing the blinds with my BB coming up on the next hand was worth the risk.

[DaNoob]

I agree with your assessment of the steal scenario. In order to stay alive, stealing the blinds is paramount. When you get to the later levels in the tournament, where blinds represent a significant portion of your stack, steals are no longer possible, and you generally have to wait for a decent all-in hand. While this hand is certainly not an all-in hand (at least not UTG), it has some stealing potential since it could improve greatly if you are called (and not re-raised).

For those who said that they hated the 1/3 stack raise, is the only option left at this point of the tourney all-in? If so, what are the minimum hand requirements (if you're lucky enough to have the choice)?