Bubble play Party 11 SnG

[stlip]

I'm mainly a limit player and I've been struggling for a year to learn NL. I got some great help in this forum about a year ago when I was clueless, but each SnG still feels to me like it takes a Titanic effort to have a shot at finishing ITM. I only play one table at a time and try to read the daylights out of everyone's play.

The good news is that in a bit more than 500 $11 SnG's I'm up close to $400, so I'm clearly a crummy player who can barely handle the pathetic level of play at this buy in, but at least I'm not losing. The other good news is that I hope I'm finally starting to get some of this.

This was play where I think villain made a mistake and not me, but I felt my play was a close decision. Let me know if I'm right about either of those beliefs.



Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)


UTG (t1565)
Button (t795)
SB (t4360)
Hero (t1280)

Villain likes to play a bit loose and has seen a lot of flops with limps and min raises. The small stack is so tight that he is bordering on letting himself get blinded out. The big stack (as so often happens) is the worst player at the table.


Preflop: Hero is BB with 9/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 9/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t400</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="red"> Hero raises all in </font>, UTG calls t880.

UTG holds A /images/graemlins/spade.gif J /images/graemlins/spade.gif

I pushed even though there was a decent chance to just sit back and finish in the money because I was pretty sure Villain would fold rather than take a risk like this on the bubble. I read the size of his raise to mean that he probably did not have a premium hand and was hoping to just take down the blinds with a hand that would be strong to draw to if he did get called. If he did call my push I felt my pair would still be the favorite against most of the hands in his range, but clearly I was playing for the fold equity more than the coin flip while on the bubble.

[splashpot]

This isn't a bad play if you think there is a slightly reasonable chance he'll fold.

[tigerite]

I think you did fine. Button is not low enough yet that you can rely on him busting out before you, especially with blinds only at t150. I don't think you have much FE, but the chances are you're ahead by quite a bit of what his range is here, you were unlucky he had a hand as good as AJs.

[stlip]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you have much FE, but the chances are you're ahead by quite a bit of what his range is here, you were unlucky he had a hand as good as AJs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, that's the second part of my question, because if I was villain I would have folded even a hand as good as AJs in that spot since I'm so likely to be dominated by a better A or facing a pair and needing to hit my draw.

[tigerite]

I don't think there's any way he can fold AJs here needing to only call 900 more into a close to 1800 pot. I suspect even by ICM, and given the small stack, he needs to be about 40% favourite at most to call here.

[stlip]

For the pot odds it's worth the call. I was just thinking that the call instantly makes him the favorite to finish fourth when the alternative still leaves him, roughly speaking, with a 2-1 chance of finishing ITM.

[tigerite]

2-to-1? A little generous, methinks. I haven't done the ICM calc yet, I could do it later though, as to what % of the time he needs to be good here to call. I would think it's low enough that he has to call unless he can put you on exactly AK,AQ,AA,KK,QQ or JJ though, which just ain't happening, to be fair.

[HesseJam]

I had a slightly different scenario with 99 yesterday. 6 players remaining. I had pushed like 5 in 7 times (went from small stack to #3 stack) before the 99 came up and in the chat I could see a rebellion forming with people encouraging others to call me (I started with more borderline pushes but then got great cards but never could show them down). I lost the 99 to K7o of the big stack. I guess the 99 was still a push?

[tigerite]

Absolutely, you want to be called by idiots with K7o.