Hands 3 and 4

[DOTTT]

Hi everyone, I'm going to post hands 3 and 4 together.

Hand #3:
NL live tourney 39 entrer top 5 get paid.
We're down to 16 players blinds are at 200/400. I have 2900 in chips and right now I'm in 7th or 8th place. I just got moved to the table an orbit ago. Chip leader at the table has a massive stack just over 7000, and boy is he bullying! I've seen him raise 6 out of 9 hands. People I spoke with say he's been doing this all night. Here's the hand. I'm in the sb chip leader in the bb. All fold to me I get dealt 8c 8h. I make it 900 to go he raises me all in! Do you fold this?

Hand #4.
Another NL live tourney. This time your at the final table 9 remain, top 6 get paid.
First $2800, second $1600, third $1000, fourth $700, fifth and sixth $300.
Blinds are 300/600. You have 7500 in chips. You’re in the bb and get JJ. mp (chip leader t9000) makes it 1600 to go, lp player who's the short stack calls and is all in for 1500. Do you move in on chip leader? No real read on him, final table was just formed two orbits ago, but from what you've seen he's been aggreasive stealing blinds when ever he gets a chance.

Thanks for the input.

[cferejohn]

Hand 3: I call like a shot. You already put about 1/3 of your stack in; there's no way you can fold a medium pair, especially not to a bully, and especially not when he could easily put you on a steal and re-raise with any 2. Frankly, this is all-in or fold territory preflop anyway. I would have pushed with 88 from most positions (maybe fold it UTG/UTG+1).

Seems like this is a pretty brutal blind structure. If 2900 chips is good for 7th place, and the chipleader has only 7000 (<20x the BB is never 'massive'), I have to imagine that almost everyone is in all-in or fold territory.

Hand 4: That's a little tougher. If it was just a raise by the aggressive chipleader, I think I would push. If he's being that aggressive, odds are you have him beaten here, perhaps quite badly (I'm guessing hes raising most, if not all, pairs here). The push by the LP player makes it a little tougher, though he is pretty desparate, so this could easily be any pair or any reasonable ace. I think I would push here too though. Yes I'm putting my tournament at risk, but I'm playing to win, not to cash (your milage may vary), and unless you are up against AA-QQ, you are easily getting odds whether the chip leader calls or not.

Maybe if I knew LP was really tight (i.e. would only do this with AQ/AK and TT-AA), I would fold.

[Tyler Durden]

[ QUOTE ]
he raises me all in!

[/ QUOTE ]

That's what you should have done. You need to give him a reason to fold. Your raise isn't large enough to do that. If the BB is 400 you need to raise to at least 1200, but doing that is a large portion of your stack so you should have moved in yourself.

Once he comes over the top, I ain't folding.

[DOTTT]

Hi John, you're right the blind structure for the first tournament was horrible. I think it was because they never had that many players enter before. I called, he turned over AJ and caught a jack on the river. I see why I should've pushed in myself, but it probably wouldn't have helped me anyway in this case. I guess I was just trying to get away with a cheap steal, but obviously I played it very weak.

I posted the second hand because I was having trouble with the idea of not playing with a stack that can bust you. I mean I understand the logic behind it, but when do you draw the line. I thought jacks were a good place so I raised all in myself. He took his time and called with queens. I caught a miracle on the river, but beside the fact that I got incredibly lucky would everyone make this play? Can calling ever be a better option? How about folding??? BTW lp player also had queens. Thanks for the input.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
(Hand 3) I called, he turned over AJ and caught a jack on the river. I see why I should've pushed in myself, but it probably wouldn't have helped me anyway in this case. I guess I was just trying to get away with a cheap steal, but obviously I played it very weak.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, in this kind of blind structure you're going to end up with some coin-flips, its kind of inevitable. When I do end up in one, I'd rather be the one pushing than calling.

[ QUOTE ]
(hand 4) I posted the second hand because I was having trouble with the idea of not playing with a stack that can bust you. I mean I understand the logic behind it, but when do you draw the line. I thought jacks were a good place so I raised all in myself. He took his time and called with queens. I caught a miracle on the river, but beside the fact that I got incredibly lucky would everyone make this play? Can calling ever be a better option? How about folding??? BTW lp player also had queens.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be honest, I rarely take the 'don't play with a stack that can bust you' thing into account unless I am very near the bubble (and obviously in a sattelite it becomes much much more important). I'm usually just making the play that figures to make me the most chips, in my opinion. Like I said, this one was close. The all-in caller (at least) seems likely to have a big hand; maybe calling to try and get more chips off of the raiser would be possible, but it just seems like a move that is likely to win you a small pot (or no pot) or lose you a big one.

You know, the more I think about this one, the more I think I should have said fold. Like I said, if it were just the aggressive open-raiser, that would be one thing, but someone has a hand that they are comfortable calling off all their chips with; it's hard for me to imagine that is anything other than JJ-AA or AK, which means you are way behind, a coinflip or (rarely) tied.

I have had a tendancy to overplay JJ (as, I think, most people have); this may be the place to lay it down. You know, this made me think of the WPT finals from season one. Alan Goering raised with his JJ. He got called by Karil, Brunson went all-in, and Ted Forest went all-in behind him. Goering called and won (Brunson was essentually bluffing with K8 and Forest was either being very foolish or had a hell of a read on Brunson with AJ). Goering ended up winning and gettting a big chip lead that he sat on until it was heads up. In that situation, his opponents had shown even more strength (chip leader raises and *two* people go all-in behind him), and he still called. Upon reflection, I don't really like that call, and I think the fact that it worked subconciously raised my opinion of JJ.