FINAL TABLE, another JJ hand.

[citanul]

sorry zaxx, it appears that for once we agreed on something, and i duplicated your post. though perhaps more eloquently. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

citanul

[citanul]

I had been sweating Tyler for this final table.

To me, the UTG chip leader, miniraiser had appeared pretty tight. I wasn't paying full on attention, but bells and whistles went off in my head when he did this. Given that we hadn't seen much post preflop play at all, I couldn't tell you much about the tightness/agressiveness that would have been expected, or the ranges of hands that I could put UTG on.

Like I said, he had appeared pretty tight, so I don't even know if he was raising something like AJs, KQs UTG. I don't think that most people would miniraise pairs smaller than QQ, and Aces smaller than AK. Generally, I see this move with AK, AA, KK and QQ, though sometimes you see it with nonsense, but that's mostly at sngs.

Given that chip leader could have decided to get aggressive at any time, he doesn't have to be doing it all the time, I thought that he could, in theory, have had lesser hands, like AQ, and possibly felt like he wanted to leave himself the ability to fold for a reraise, that would have been more difficult had he opened for say, 35,000, since he's kinda committed to calling a reraise to ~90-100k at that point.

So at the time, my personal idea was to either flat call and make a decision on the flop, or to fold outright. I know Tyler was trying to win, not move up, but I thought he could, at this tight final table, pick up chips without having to enter into raised pots without the goods. We discussed the hand briefly at the time, and then immediatly came to the follow up question, which was:

Well, what would we do with QQ here?

I think we decided that QQ is a 100% push on short stacks at this juncture. Mostly because of the loose call hands of AQ and KQ that all of the sudden don't kick your ass. Additionally, you're now beating JJ, instead of losing to opponent's QQ as a tradeoff from having JJ.

The reraise smaller, committing yourself, but possibly scaring the willies out of a sophisticated opponent is indeed an idea. Any plan that involves reraiseing and then folding to a push stinks, in my opinion. You cant seriously put in about 40% of your stack, then fold, leaving yourself 6BB with the blinds coming through you in a couple of hands. That can't be the plan.

I regret not having more info on the UTG player, but I was doing chores around the house.

citanul

[adanthar]

nm

[j0wlev]

The fact that UTG is tight AND chip leader makes moving all-in the most desirable play here. With his min-raise it leaves 45500 in the pot, winning uncontested pre-flop gets a nice second place stack of 160k roughly. Since you're around back the blinds will reach your shorter stacked opponents before you and leave them in desperation.

I don't think you can really label UTG as all that tight after this call, he committed 45-50 percent of his chips on a coin-flip. If I were in the commanding lead that UTG was in, I woulda tossed that AK without much deliberation, making it look like I was trying to bully with junk.

Using this play, UTG can pick up a real hand, AA or KK, and make that same min-raise. I think after seeing the play that went down on the previous would allow something like TT to come over the top at him.

The all-in move is golden here, it's just a shame that it had to end in it's burning downward sprial. Had he not hit an A on the flop, you woulda been a favorite for top 3. Nice move, I commend you. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[zaxx19]

Or it looks like the leader will abide being played back at and fold marginal hands....inviting more players to play back at him which isnt the best mindset I would want as the chip leader...you see it cuts both ways really. I dont thin there are Meta-Reasons why he would fold AK here.

[Bigdaddydvo]

TD,

It's OK to treat JJ soft early on in a tourney where you can fold to obvious strength. But 7-handed, you have to loosen up a bit and give the PF raiser credit for a wider range of hands. In my somewhat limited PP Final Table experience, the real premium hands just don't come around that often. He could have easily made that minraise w/66-TT, or even something as weak as AJ to open the pot. That said, JJ is no fun when overcards flop, so I believe it's best to just get your money in when you did. Pros have struggled for years to stay out of coinflip situations, but sometimes it's just inevitible. I think you played fine.

[zaxx19]

Sounds reasonable to me...Hard to fold 4th strongest hand in the game here and then tell yourself you were "playing to win not to lose" after you blind yourself of in 5th trying to steal with A9s or something.

[samurai_tony]

Personally i would have called and seen if an a or k flopped and get a read from him then, the man has balls if the ace didnt help and he moves in on the flop with one but my reasooning in this... if you are going to shove anyway see a flop and if the ace hits you can get away without risking all your chips, if its a low board and he shoves with ak then you are in way better shape than the pf reraise and you are doing your chips anyways to aa kk qq. I think any of the reraise or call options are fine, you have position which i thikn tilts it very slightly in the favour of call and play a flop. To answer your other question i tend to think a mini raise is a decent hand, usually ak or a low pair, rarely is it aa or kk in this situation i have found.

[Jon Matthews]

I haven't read all of the other replies yet.

My read on UTG here is AK-J or a bigger pair, possibly TT. More likely overcards.

Here I think there are a number of reasons to flat call.

You have position. JJ flops undercards around 50% of the time. The other 50% of the time the board is dangerous and you don't want to be all in or pot commited, so you can fold if bet into. If checked to on an undercards flop you can bet 30k and if checkraised you can probably fold to the overpair he's representing.

You want to keep the pot small against this guy, since he has you covered and you can easily outlast a few of these other players as they try and double up. What was the pay structure at this point?

I'm really hungover so apologies if this makes no sense, but it does to me!!

Jon

[zaxx19]

JJ flops undercards 50% of the time?? 3 x 3 = 9

9/12.5 > 1/2 right??? Wow I suprised you play poker and were under that impression.