JJ on the bubble

[Rickfish]

2 tables of 5 players, last 10 out of 73 runner live rebuy PLHE tournament. 153,000 chips in play. I have 8600, one player at our table has about 50,000 so there are lower stacks than mine. blind 800/1600. UTG+1 raises pot (5600 to play). I have JJ. I would like to reach the final but the lower prizes are not worth sweating about. What do I do?

Firstly, I noticed the way he put his chips in was a bit different to other times which I read as a lack of confidence. I put him on a weak Ace. At this point in the tournament I believe he will raise on any Ace. If I raise he is forced to call and he can only just cover me. If I win the pot it will give me T19,600 which is above average for the final. Now there have been times when I have passed in these situations but because I thought I had a read on him I went all in. What do you think considering that my read might have been wrong?

As it happened he flipped over As,4s against my Jd,Jh. This is almost exactly 2-1 in my favour. But I lost. I'm in two minds over this hand. I think if I win this I have a good chance in the final (he went on to win it) but I know this will be a showdown and I don't need to play the hand. If you keep having all-in showdowns in tournaments you will get knocked out. I don't like putting all my chips in when I know the other person can't fold. I know there are some enlightened players who would fold but I think most would agree with the all-in. I really am not sure which is best.

[gunboat]

I would also go all-in. It is about as good odds as you are likely to get that will let you into the real money. He certainly doesn't want you to play, which means you should. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[Ignatius]

You did the right thing. Not moving in here would have been a huge mistake (even w/o your read).

[Greg (FossilMan)]

If you could be really truly sure that he has Ax where x is not K or Q, then you might have just called preflop. You can then fold whenever an A hits, or get it all-in otherwise. However, if he raised the pot, that is going to be about 3/4 of your stack already, so you would actually almost have pot odds to call for your 2-outer.

Also, if you just call, maybe somebody else comes along, and this might hurt your chances more than it helps your EV. So, raising all-in was almost certainly the best decision.

However, if his raise were more like 1/3rd of your stack, you were very sure of your Ax read on his hand, and you were quite sure nobody else would tag along, then the alternative play of waiting for no A to flop before committing probably becomes correct.

However, there are some big ifs in there, especially your read on his hand. You'd hate to lose to KT because you couldn't get away from your hand on the K73 flop. Especially if he would've laid KT down to the reraise. ;-)

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)