Flush and straight draw early against an all in

[juris]

$50 UB multi-table. I am in LP with 9-10d. I limp with 2 others and blinds complete. 5 to the flop.

Flop is

7d 8c Ad

Great. SB checks, BB makes minimum bet, first limper goes all in, second limper folds. It's to me.

We are in the first orbit, maybe 4 hands dealt so far. Zero read, blinds are basically nothing yet, all stacks at about 1000 with no significant difference.

I know what I did, and why I did it, but I'd rather hear thoughts and reasons before I say what happened and results.

Which begs the question: What do you do?

[Ignatius]

You're either on a coinflip (vs. toppair or twopair) or a 1:2 dog (vs. a better flush draw). There are hardly any plausible hands that you can beat (i.e. over which you are a significant favorite). There's almost no dead money in the pot and no implied odds. Easy fold.

[juris]

A couple things went through my head.

1. There are always crazy people at the beginning of a tournament who will go all in with nothing or next to nothing.

2. This may not be one of those people or times.

3. It would be nice to double up early.

4. It would suck to be out early.

5. I have a 10 high hand, with 15 outs if my math is good.

6. He could have A-xd, taking a lot of those away and with top pair.

7. I have 10T in the pot.

I folded, all others folded, and have no idea what he had. Part of me still thinks a gamble, even early, isn't horrible.

[triplc]

I'll see if I can beat CrisBrown to this one...

The fact that there are always crazy people at the beginning of a tournament doesn't mean that you should risk your stack against a possible maniac this early. If you are a solid player, and believe that with solid play that you'll get into the top three, then you should be able to throw away this hand and wait for one of those crazies to bet into you when you have a real hand.

You might even be running into someone that is using the same premise that you are, and is counting on a call from a maniac when he's got a monster.

That said, I go through the same things. I have played three tournaments against one player who raises to 150 on the first hand every time. It's tough not to keep him honest...I just hope someone else does it for me when I don't have a hand.

[CrisBrown]

Hiya CCC,

lol ... okay....

Cris

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
You're either on a coinflip (vs. toppair or twopair) or a 1:2 dog (vs. a better flush draw).

[/ QUOTE ]
Actually against top pair you have a decent cushion; it's 57-43. If you knew for sure that your opponent had Ac-Ks (for example), then it's correct to call this flop unless you're one of the top forty NLHE players in the world. However, I think with this action it's more likely your opponent has a flush draw than top pair, so folding is correct.

[SoBeDude]

Are you sure you have 15 outs to a WINNING hand?

yes, you have 15 outs to make your hand, but if you opponent is on a bigger draw, you may have far less outs than you think.

With 2 cards to come you are favored to make your hand by the river. So if you put him on top pair or something, a call is good. But this early in the tourney you can't have much read on this guy.

IMO, If he's going all in early like this, I put him on top pair, bad kicker. He doesn't want callers, he wants everyone to fold.

So it depends on how I'm feeling, but I'll make that call SOME of the time.

-Scott

[triplc]

Sorry, Cris...didn't mean to step on your toes...but I was merely trying to give credit where credit was due. I have used much of your advice to good success lately. The first piece of advice that I incorporated was to remain patient early on even when you strongly suspect that someone is trying to push you around. Sure, you might catch someone in a bluff, but one the other hands 1) he might have you dominated and 2) he might beat you anyway when you have slightly the best of it (or much the best of it).

Letting the 'rabbits' eat each other has served me well...