Another hand opinion wanted - $10+1 rebuy at Stars

[heyrocker]

After doubling up early with 72o in the BB (772 flop, thank you poker gods) I work my way up to about 18000, then a horrific run of cards grinds me down to about 10K, which is where this hand takes place.

Blinds just became 600/1200/75. 105 left, 45 paid. Table is fairly quiet a lot of preflop raising taking blinds, or two people seeing a flop, one bets other folds kind of thing. I have 10K after posting, and I get 77 on the button. Folded to me. SB is at about 55K but he's been mostly hunkered down. BB has me covered but just barely. Does anyone not push in here? I did, and my thought was I could raise to like 3600, but if i get called im going in anyways. I feel like my middle game in the multis is getting better and I'm pretty sure this was the right move, but just felt i needed some confirmation.

Oh, he had 99 and i tanked.

[SossMan]

good move...he woke up with a hand..not much you can do.

[Ruddiger]

7s are how I went out, except the other person had queens.
not a lot you could do there

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[whiskeytown]

either play works....you'll maybe get rid of hands like A/8 or A/9 if you do the all in push...

you're right though...once a third of your chips are committed to the pot, (as the 3xbb raise would suggest) - you're pretty much pot committed - so all-in in this spot ain't so bad...though I hate it with 77 - but what can ya do...

next time -

RB

[Goodie]

I think this is a terrible play. If the raise has to be more than half of your stack, then all in is reasonable. This is not the case. If you raise to 3600, given your description of the SB and the stack size of the big blind, your probably not going to get played with unless your beat, or one of them has AQ, AK or AJ. Given there are many more hands that your a 4 1/2 to one dog to than even money, you could fold to an all in. This would leave you with 6400, plenty to make a meaningfull raise with.

I know a lot of what TJ says in his book is not good advice, but he talks about how bad a play it is to move in with a small pair when you don't have to.

Raise a standard amount, fold to a re-raise. Now, if you called, the flop came rags, he checked and you moved all in with him calling with 99, I couldn't fault you there. But why risk 10,000 and your tournament for a little over 2000 in dead money?

Peace

Goodie

[cferejohn]

I'll back you up. I go all-in here every time.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I think this is a terrible play. If the raise has to be more than half of your stack, then all in is reasonable. This is not the case. If you raise to 3600, given your description of the SB and the stack size of the big blind, your probably not going to get played with unless your beat, or one of them has AQ, AK or AJ. Given there are many more hands that your a 4 1/2 to one dog to than even money, you could fold to an all in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think there are several flaws in the thinking here. First off all, 1/2 is way too high a number to be your 'all-in threshold'; if you raise over 1/3 of your stack and get re-raised all-in, you should almost always call. You are at less than 10X the BB which is "getting desparate, but still enough to hurt someone"; this is all-in or fold territory.

Also, your statement that "there are many more hands that you're a 4 1/2 to 1 dog to than even money" is just wrong. There are 42 hands that he is a big dog to and 36 (that you claim will call - AJ/AQ/AK) that he is even with. 6 hands is hardly 'a lot'. Given this range of hands, folding to a re-raise after going in for over 1/3 of your stack is a mistake. Additionally:

1. Some players might call with more than that against a desperate short stack, particularly the big blind. Also, some players might call with a worse pair.

2. Some players might go all-in vs any non-all-in bet (irrespective of their cards) since doing anything other than going all in with less than 10X the BB looks weak, whereas they would have folded to an all in. Letting one of these players get 1/3 of your stack without ever seeing a flop is disasterous.

I would probably only make a 1/3 of my stack raise if I *wanted* someone to come over the top.

[Scooterdoo]

I haven't read TJ's book and would be curious to hear his logic. One of the problems with making the kind of raise you're suggesting is that hands like Ax and even KQs are likely to call you for a 2-3x BB raise but wouldn't call you otherwise AND even though you might have the better hand when all the cards come out many flops will cause you to lay down your hand and now you are in a really bad situation but you could have won two ways (either he folded or you outdrew him) but will never know for sure.

Last night in a SitnGo I was in a fairly good chip position relative to the other 4 players left, but the blinds were now at 250/500 (I had around 2500 chips). I get dealt A7s in midposition and thought about pushing, but decided to raise raise it to T1000. The BB with about the same chips as me thought and thought and decided to call - I really think that he would have went out to an all-in. The flop comes something like JJT (none my suit) and he pushes all-in. I felt I had to fold.

[heyrocker]

I think scooter makes some interesting points, however I have to fall in with cfrere on this point:

[ QUOTE ]
I think there are several flaws in the thinking here. First off all, 1/2 is way too high a number to be your 'all-in threshold'; if you raise over 1/3 of your stack and get re-raised all-in, you should almost always call. You are at less than 10X the BB which is "getting desparate, but still enough to hurt someone"; this is all-in or fold territory.

[/ QUOTE ]

For a long time I used to not got into desperation mode until around the 3-5BB area, and i always lost. The reason I always lost because I would be forced to go all in with decent but not great hands (say KQ, KJ, Ax, middle/low pairs) and get called by anyone or everyone because my stack was not a threat. I have gradually come around to the feelings of most people here that especially late in a tourney, that kind of stack is not acceptable. There is no way to steal with this kind of stack. Many players with sizeable stacks will just put you to the test with any decent hand, knowing that if you call and win its no big sweat off their 50BB stack. Personally I never play this way because I hate to double someone up, but online this is the attitude of many players.

Since this hand I have had several run ins with middle pairs and I have to say they're pissing me off. What do people do with these in the late running? Early on I generally will call one bet to see a flop with them, but my feeling has always been that later on they're a much more playable hand. However the more and more I play the less and less luck I have with them. As scooter says, the only people who will call you are the ones you're a coin flip or worse to. Just today I twice got bitten by them getting into bubble territory in a $3 rebuy on stars. What do other people do with these when you're getting towards the later rounds?

[cferejohn]

Point of order: that was Goodie who's post I was responding to, not Scooter. Scooter more or less agreed with me.