A bad call?

[David BB]

10$ 1 table SNG on Stars. Names changed to protect the innocent.

Papa Bear has been playing his short stack agressively and making this all-in move a few times already when someone raised his blinds. When I call him here I expect him to have two overcards and I know that I'm a small underdog (about 40% chance of winning). If I win this one I'm in the money with a decent chance of moving up. If I lose I still have a small chance of making a comeback. What do you think?

PokerStars Game #324092586: Tournament #1149714, Hold'em No Limit - Level IV
(50/100) - 2004/03/08 - 03:55:39 (ET)
Table '1149714 1' Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: David BB (1405 in chips)
Seat 4: Muffinman (5895 in chips)
Seat 6: Papa Bear (1055 in chips)
Seat 8: Gnuen (5145 in chips)
Muffinman: posts small blind 50
Papa Bear: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to David BB [6s 5s]
Gnuen: folds
David BB: raises 200 to 300
Muffinman: folds
Papa Bear: raises 755 to 1055 and is all-in
David BB: calls 755
*** FLOP *** [9c Jh 6d]
*** TURN *** [9c Jh 6d] [Ac]
*** RIVER *** [9c Jh 6d Ac] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Papa Bear: shows [Qd Td] (high card Ace)
David BB: shows [6s 5s] (a pair of Sixes)
David BB collected 2160 from pot

[Sheriff Fatman]

Not much to say other than that its a truly awful call and you got very lucky. Basically, this play makes you a hot favourite to finish 4th.

Suited connectors, particularly low cards go way down in value heads up. High cards and pocket pairs rule the day here.

The odds are almost 2:1 against you winning this hand. For that you are willing to double up the short stack and leave yourself as an overwhelming favourite to finish out of the money.

There really is no justification for making this call in this situation. Trying to steal the blinds (the game will no doubt have tightened up on the bubble) is one thing but to call an all-in bet here with those cards is so awful that I can't find words to describe it.

My advice - be very grateful for getting lucky this time around and NEVER do it again.

[David BB]

Calling an all-in with 65s is not something I usually do. In this case the pot is giving me 2 to 1 - if I fold here I'm also very likely to finish 4th.

Also I'll take a suited connector as an all in hand over dominated crap like AXo in many situations.

[Stagemusic]

I am having a very hard time balancing these two statements.

[ QUOTE ]
Calling an all-in with 65s is not something I usually do. In this case the pot is giving me 2 to 1 - if I fold here I'm also very likely to finish 4th.

Also I'll take a suited connector as an all in hand over dominated crap like AXo in many situations.

[/ QUOTE ]

Compared to:

[ QUOTE ]
If I win this one I'm in the money with a decent chance of moving up. If I lose I still have a small chance of making a comeback. What do you think?


[/ QUOTE ]

Now, did you really want to know what we think or did you just want someone to say..."Great job, you are magnificent"?

Even you said yourself that you are a 60-40 Dog against any random hand. Reconcile that with your statement that you will...

[ QUOTE ]
Also I'll take a suited connector as an all in hand over dominated crap like AXo in many situations

[/ QUOTE ]

Hard to reconcile the two statements isn't it? Decide which of these you want. Either justification or an honest analysis...then get back to us. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[jwvdcw]

You could've folded and still had the 3rd most chips, so I See no reason why you folding means you'll likely finish in 4th. You made a stab at stealing the blinds and got caught...lay it down. If you really must call all in here, for whatever weird reasons it may be, it would be better for you to just go all in to begin with because then the pressure will be on him to call.

[David BB]

Justification... honest analysis... both works but I haven't gotten either /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Yes, I think it was a marginal but good call but I'm not really sure. Thats why I'm posting the hand here. Does that mean I shouldn't post my own thoughts? I'm looking for a dialogue not one sided critique.

[schwza]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm looking for a dialogue not one sided critique

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, here's another side: that was a really bad call.

[PrayingMantis]

David,

[ QUOTE ]
I think it was a marginal but good call.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. It's a terrible call. People here are telling you the truth about it. No one is trying to make you feel bad.

Raising with 65s in order to take down the blinds, if you believe the players are tight and passive enough, might be fine. But you say yourself that BB has made some aggressive moves, while short-stacked. That means you can expect him to move on you with a wide range of hands, to most of them you are probably a dog, if not a major dog. That makes your initial raise pretty questionable. It's better to push, if you really want the blinds here, and you believe no one will call.

After his predictable push, no pot-odds calculation can justify your call here. It is very weak. You got lucky, that's all. It dosn't make it "marginal", not to mention "good".

Only my opinion,

PrayingMantis

[David BB]

This is getting a bit off track =)

Now I don't think any of you are lying to me or trying to make me feel bad! I'm not saying you're wrong either. I'm just making sure you're aware of the thought process I went through.

If I don't make this call I'm down to about 1k chips with blinds at 50/100. I'm gonna have to make a move and double up soon and unless I get lucky and catch a big pair its gonna be with a marginal hand and the pot I'm gonna win will be a lot smaller. I'm not saying this is a great situation to be in but its likely the best I'm gonna see before my stack gets too small - so at the time it seemed like a good call to make. Does that make sense?

I'm not sure what I did to deserve some of these sour replies. I seem to have offended some people but that was never my intention - sorry!

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure what I did to deserve some of these sour replies. I seem to have offended some people but that was never my intention - sorry!

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you are seeing in these replys. All I'm seeing is a bunch of people who thought you made a bad call. I mean, if someone thought this call was good, or OK, I'm sure they would tell you, but it seems like you are taking disagreement as "they hate me", which it isn't.

As for this call, you are behind every single hand that would re-raise you here. If the re-raise had been for another couple hundred chips or something, well then OK, but you are calling a significant portion of your stack as either a moderate underdog or a huge underdog (maybe a slight underdog if you are lucky). If you can guarantee overcards that are not of your suit or 22-44, you are getting pot odds - barely. I don't see how you can rule out being a massive underdog to a pair here though, and once you factor that in I think is an auto-fold. And you are still 3rd in chips so you don't 'have' to double up to make the money, 4th place does...

I don't hate pushing with 65s. You gain some amount of equity from just buying the blinds some of the time (the tighter my opponents, the more likely I would be to move in here). If you are called by very good overcards, you are likely less far behind than you would have been with something like K6 or Q8.

Calling here, however, is exactly the sort of play that is guaranteed to lose you money if you do it 1000 times, and that is what you are trying to avoid.