Pushing hands in Limit tournies

I am asking your opinions on this. I am not strictly a tournament player. I enjoy tournament poker the most though. I play tournament poker whenever I can. This is just my 'general rule' to help me make decisions. My rule is this..In limit tournaments, I tend to value bet a medium strong hand more often on the river.


My thinking is this. You only have a limited number of opportunities to get chips in a limit tournament. The times when you actually do have a decent hand are few, so I tend to value bet the river more often than I would in a cash game. I am not talking about being too stupid about it or anything, just betting the river more often when I have a decent medium strong hand, betting MOST of the time even if a card falls that could have completed a draw.


This rule has done quite well for me up until lately. When I value bet on the river, they have always out drawn me somehow and I end up loosing some chips that I might have saved in a ring game.


Let me try to give you an example of one of these situations.


Small buy in tournament, close to the beginning of the tourney, I pick up AA on the button (woo hoo). The blinds have went up once and are at 25-50. UTG player (who is decent and kind of tricky at times) raises, (I know he is very strong to raise from this spot) new player in middle position just calls the raise cold and I re-raise to get out the blinds and try to get it three way between me, the decent player and the new player. Everything goes as planned and decent player caps it, ends up three way action between me, tricky decent player (TDP) and new guy (NG) who has been a calling station thus far and has been getting very lucky. Capped pre flop pot and what I thought was a dream situation for me.


Flop is Q 9 7. I like it. TDP bets out, NG calls and I raise. TDP loads up to re-raise, thinks a bit, looks at NG and calls, NG calls with thoughts of donuts and gumdrops. I knew TDP had a big pair from the preflop action. Because he just called here, I am a little scared of a set of Queens. I was thinking from the preflop action that he might have had the other two aces, KK, QQ, or JJ...I just know from his demeanor that he has a big pair. Just don't know which one yet. The fact that he acted so strongly preflop and didn't raise here really bugged me. Who knows what NG has and who cares. He has chips and I want them. Greedy Joe!


Turn card 10..board is now two suited but I don't mind that card too much. DP loads up to bet, then thinks and checks, NG quickly checks, I bet, all call quickly.


River card 7 so final board is


Q 9 7 10 7, no flush possible


Both quickly check to me. Because this is a tournament, I value bet here. I get called in both spots. I like that ...I show my aces expecting to win the pot..DP shows KK and mucks, NP gets a smug look on his face and shows 67 off and pulls in my pot... In a ring game, I would have been less inclined to bet the river because of the straight possibilities and the 7 pairing at the end also my feelings that TDP was slowplaying might have kept me from betting. In a tourney, I will ALWAYS bet in a situation like this. I would have probably made this bet with as little as AQ. Is it wrong for me to make this strategy change?


TDP either had a good read on me for aces..or he may have been slowplaying his hand. If he would have played his hand more agressively, NG might not have been around for the river. This whole hand was just a weird mess to me. My thinking totally fell apart after it and turned me into a weak tight confused fish. I had to go tell about 10 of my friends this bad beat story and now I am telling it here. I want opinions on how I might have played this hand better and thoughts on my 'rule' to value bet more often in a tournament. I feel there is something obvious I should have done after putting TDP on a big pair..but just don't know what the heck it is.


All opinions and help are most welcome! Thanks in advance,


Joe

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Joe, my feelings on this matter is that in limit poker, particularly cash games (I have most experience with them), people are doing far too little value betting. Giving people a free showdown could be as devasting as giving someone a free river card, if they were going to call you down anyway. Spotting where a good value bet is called for at the river, is a *very* important quality for a limit Hold'em player.


This is particularly important in small pots, where suddenly the price of calling you down goes down a very big percentage if you miss one of the big two streets.


As a winning Hold'em player, you want a strong image as a player who will have people pay off his strong and even semi-strong holdings and a player that it will cost dearly to keep honest.


Thus, you can save you river checks for AK-no-pair on a ragged board (unless you really believe a bet can make an opponent fold a better hand - usually unlikely at the river).


In tournaments, especially when the blinds a huge and you are getting close to the money pool or already inside it, lots of various factors unknown to cash games will be important and there are situations here that I too would slow down with a semi-strong hand at the river.


lars