Inspiration and a badly played hand.

[Peter Harris]

Inspired by Fossilman's exceptional progress at the WSOP, i reneged on my abstention from poker to play a 1053-player multi, finishing 59th after 3 crippling hands. I am happy with the finish though, it's thanks to all the people who post in this forum!

This is a hand i think i played well on the flop and didn't follow through; could you tell me how to play it from PF to the flop?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t800 (9 handed)

UTG (t17188)
UTG+1 (t6492)
MP1 (t14469)
MP2 (t957)
MP3 (t14613)
CO (t65857)
Button (t7332)
SB (t5760)
Hero (t26752)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, MP3 calls t800, CO folds, Button folds, SB folds, Hero raises to t1600, MP3 calls t800.

Flop: (t3600) 3/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 5/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 4/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="blue">(2 players) </font>
Hero bets t8200, MP3 calls t8200.

Turn: (t20000) A/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players) </font>
Hero bets t800, MP3 calls t800.

River: (t21600) T/images/graemlins/diamond.gif <font color="blue">(2 players) </font>
Hero bets t4013, MP3 calls t4013 (All-In).

Final Pot: t29626

What are the right bets? This is after we all money, but still 95 people to go, booby prizes being handed out.

Results to follow.

Help!
Pete Harris

[DougBrennan]

Well, you eventually got your opponent all-in, which I assume was your original goal, so that's all good, the only question is the road you took to achieve your destination.

My thought would have been to raise more pre-flop, maybe the 3-4000 range. What were you attempting to do with your minimum raise? This is not rhetorical, I really am curious.

Post-flop? I'm not so sure. Your pre-flop raise wasn't enough to completely rule out some kind of holding you REALLY don't want to see at this point, like 56s, for example.

Clearly your opponent has something likeable, as evidenced by the call for 8000+ post-flop. Given the board, your set of Aces ins't that impressive to me, since if he had a good hand it probably beats three-of-a-kind.

So, I don't know that playing to trap with the min raise on the turn, then putting him all-in on the river makes a lot of sense either.

To sum up, if all the money had gone in preflop, that would be great. The more I look at this history, the more I think you priced in a hand that beat you. A made straight or a flush draw that hit could both have played the hand exactly the same.

I hope I'm wrong, but I sense doom!

Doug

[AceKQJT]

PRE-FLOP
I don't really like the min-raise pre-flop. My standard raise would be to T-2400.

FLOP
Overbetting the pot into that dangerous flop was not the best course either, especially after the tiny pre-flop raise. A pot-sized bet of T-3600 would give you the information you're looking for, IMO.

TURN
He called a 2+ X Pot bet on the flop...do you really think you are ahead right now? What could he have? If he had flopped a set, I imagine he would have pushed on the flop after your huge bet...He put you on big cards , probably a big pair, and would be fairly sure that he is way ahead with a set. Nope, he has A2s.--------Check-fold the turn.

RIVER
If he checked behind on the turn, check-fold the river.

--Casey

[Peter Harris]

MP3 Showed K /images/graemlins/diamond.gif 4 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif for middle pair on the flop and the flush.

The mistakes i made were the following:
1) The min-raise on the flop. I usually raise 3xBB with Aces, but tried to trap him by raising just 1 more bet.

2) Flop bet was fine ONLY if i set him on the turn no matter what. If i think like that, i should set him on the flop.

3) Turn bet is inexcusable. Obviously my logic was that i'd made my set and was ahead

4) River bet is bad as it should have been done 2 streets earlier and i simply bet when i had given away the hand.

Quite right, i priced a bad hand in. This hand was the only one of the tournament i played BADLY. Whilst it didn't cripple me, it made life harder and i guess it's a high factor in why i crashed out 36 players later.

I think the bad play came from my relaxation; it's the first time i made it to the money in a 1000 person tournament and I guess i lapsed. It wasn't tilt, but it was supremely bad play.

I am taking a couple of weeks off poker as i have university exams; i very much look forward to playing more multi's this summer as they have much appeal.

One question is this: Surely to play in MTTs you must have to be an excellent player to show a profit. Yesterday i outlasted 96% of the pack (19-1 in "player odds") and was paid 2-1 ($12-$6 stake for a win of $18; bless 5+1s whilst i'm still learning).

Isn't it, by that rationelle, a -EV play playing MTTs? You outlast 19-1 odds to be paid 2-1.
The winner only gets 20% of the prize pool - that's 166-1 odds for beating 999-1 players odds.

How do people reconcile "getting the worst of it" in multi-tournaments? Or am i missing something? My only answer is that it's fun and i *may* make a big score, but i doubt the odds are ever that good enough.

Congratulations to Fossilman, leading the remaining 9 with a 2x chip lead over second place. Whilst he must be more worried staring down a $5,000,000 top prize (25% of the prize pool or 499-1 on his 2052-1 player odds), the $18 that i won was purely inspired by him, and i felt a bit ashamed to mess up this hand.

Peter Harris

[Gomez22]

I don't have a WHOLE lot of experience in MTT's, Pete, but here are a few things I see...

1. Your PF raise is WAY too small.... sure, you'd like to trap someone, but as I've been warned and told about here, what's more important is staying alive and healthy in a tourney.... I'd up this to at LEAST T3200, if not more PF.

2. You massively over-bet the pot and he's called on the flop.... this sucks. To me, it looks like a set, or a straight(We all know how Party players like any ace).

3. The small bet on the turn... I think if you're going to bet the turn AFTER he called you huge flop bet, you need to be setting him all-in here(even if he DID have a 2, you still have 2 things going for you - 1. You have him covered, so you can't bust..... 2. If you are behind at this point, you still have 10 outs on the river to improve)

4. As I mentioned above, I think the river is a little late for you to set him all-in.... No worse hand is really going to call you here, unless they're drooling retards.(We CAN make a case for this guy in this situation, but that's beside the point).

Basically, I think you should ahve tried to get your money in PRE-FLOP, and made him think a little, maybe....