$27 Trying to steal with AT

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PokerStars Game #2799445274: Tournament #13765969, Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2005/10/14 - 00:53:22 (ET)
Table '13765969 1' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: michael6666 (2200 in chips)
Seat 3: Charles2 (1545 in chips)
Seat 4: Scuba Chuck (1265 in chips)
Seat 5: Edawg1269 (2320 in chips)
Seat 7: Stew Lives (2830 in chips)
Seat 8: byee614 (1535 in chips)
Seat 9: Slickster123 (1805 in chips) is sitting out
Slickster123: posts small blind 50
michael6666: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to byee614 [Td Ac]
Charles2: folds
Scuba Chuck: folds
Edawg1269: folds
Stew Lives: folds
byee614: raises 200 to 300
Slickster123: folds
michael6666: calls 200
*** FLOP *** [5s Qd As]
michael6666: checks
byee614: bets 300
michael6666: calls 300
*** TURN *** [5s Qd As] [Ks]
michael6666: checks
byee614: bets 935 and is all-in

What do you think?

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[darkcore]

hard without reads.

i'd raise more on the flop. you are most likely ahead, but the BB could easily defended his blind with two facecards, giving him a combination of draws (pair, straight, flush) he won't fold for getting 3:1.

the turn is one of the cards you don't want to see on the boad. i would slow down here.

I would say the king of spades is the worst possible card in the deck for your hand here. That said, why would you push when it comes on the turn? If he has Ax, you probably just scared him into folding. If he has AQ or AK, he's not folding. 2 spades, no fold. J10, no fold. AJ is the only hand better hand I could see you getting to fold with this push, and without a read I can't see worse hands calling. I don't really like it without a read (e.g. gets married to Ax).

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I would say the king of spades is the worst possible card in the deck for your hand here. That said, why would you push when it comes on the turn? If he has Ax, you probably just scared him into folding. If he has AQ or AK, he's not folding. 2 spades, no fold. J10, no fold. AJ is the only hand better hand I could see you getting to fold with this push, and without a read I can't see worse hands calling. I don't really like it without a read (e.g. gets married to Ax).

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Obviously a better hand than mine won't fold. My worry is that Ax will call with a spade. I really don't want that 4th spade to fall. I know it's already probably way to risky. Do you check/fold the turn then?

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I would say the king of spades is the worst possible card in the deck for your hand here. That said, why would you push when it comes on the turn? If he has Ax, you probably just scared him into folding. If he has AQ or AK, he's not folding. 2 spades, no fold. J10, no fold. AJ is the only hand better hand I could see you getting to fold with this push, and without a read I can't see worse hands calling. I don't really like it without a read (e.g. gets married to Ax).

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Obviously a better hand than mine won't fold. My worry is that Ax will call with a spade. I really don't want that 4th spade to fall. I know it's already probably way to risky. Do you check/fold the turn then?

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You have position and a decent shot at having the best hand after the turn hits. Check behind and call a reasonable bet on the river. If villain hit, he will try to extract with a smallish value bet. A8 might think he is good, too, and bet 200/300 on the river which you can gladly call. A push will put you in a tough spot, but a non-spade river (which will occur 34/44 times) blank would make a push look really fishy to me and I might look him up (depending on my reads). So, checking gives worse hands a chance to bluff at you, limits the amounts you lose when you're behind, and doesn't scare away worse aces. I don't think the danger of giving Ax with one spade a free card outweighs the benefits of checking behind on the turn (better hands don't fold, worse hands get scared away), but it's probably pretty close. One key thing for this hand would be whether the villain whiffed a checkraise on the turn, or whether he just checked because he wasn't sure how strong his Ax or 2nd pair is on this board -- is he tricky or straightforward? Is he a calling station?

Results?

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Results?

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I pushed the turn. He calls with A9, 9 of spades. Spade falls on the river.

Looks to me like you were committing yourself to the pot after the flop -- a very bad card came on the turn and you pushed anyway -- so maybe you should have pushed the flop.

If I've added correctly, you bet 300 into a 650 chip pot after the flop. You're giving him better than 3:1, which isn't enough to chase away a flush draw. I'd like to bet about 450 and then give up if that doesn't scare him off, but the stack sizes might mean you really ought to push.

In the end, he had 11 outs (9 spades and 3 nines) plus 5 kings or queens which split the pot. So, he wins 2185x12/46, 625x5/46, and loses 935x29/46 -- he's plus 48.5 chips on average when he makes the call (have I done this right?). So, it looks like he was right to call your all-in.

But, I think Ax (one spade) is a marginal hand for his actions so far. You could easily be losing to a made flush at this point, or to an AQ (or maybe a KQ -- people seem to like those). Though I guess he should have tried to chase you off potential flush draws with AQ or KQ (and Ax) rather than checking the flop. I'm sure that missing from all this is what hands we can reasonably put him on.

[junkmail3]

What do you think about checking the turn? If you're going to get your chips in (and I'm not sure if I would yet), but it would give him a chance to bluff at you with a much worse hand, (which he would fold if you pushed). If you didn't want to get all in with this hand, then I'm not really sure what I'd do. Probably bet out a 400ish blocking bet. Though I wouldn't like it.

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What do you think about checking the turn?

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Like I said before, checking the turn is stupid because it give any spade a free card to beat me.