Good or Stupid Play?

Limit HE tournament. 100 people out of 200 left. I am in the BB

with T3000 and all fold to the button who has T800 left. We are

playing with 200 and 300 blinds and he raises. I sense by his

demeanor and body language that he is weak. The small blind folds and I have A4o. I call and put my opponent all in. My suspicions are correct. However I am outflopped and my opponents

T8o holds up. In effect I risked over 25% of my stack with a

very marginal hand at best and I really put myself in a bad

position after losing the hand. What does everyone think? Should I have folded preflop? How large does your stack have to be to call with just about anything in the blind in this type of situation? Thanks.


Bruce

You're putting up 500 to win 1300 against a player you sense is weak. Playing your hand (ANY hand) will almost never be wrong. Somebody could easily come up with exceptions, but there won't be many in a regular tourney, and none of them will likely apply when half the field still remains and you're so far away from the money.


The only issue here is how to play your hand. You have two options. The first is to reraise all-in preflop and race the guy. The other is to flat call, and then bet the flop unless you flop something really strong. The bet here is an attempt to get him to fold hands like T8 that missed the flop. Probably the only time you check is when doing so virtually guarantees his money will go in on now or later, and there is little chance that he can catch up with you. A set, a made flush, or a made straight are the only hands likely to be worth slowplaying here, maybe aces up.


I like the second option most of the time.


later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)