Bellagio $500+40 Hand

[beggars]

Interested in thoughts on a hand I played in the Bellagio $500+$40 last Sunday. I've never posted a hand before but this one has gotten mixed reactions from other players I've talked with.

This was around the 5th hand of the entire tournament. No reads on anyone other than to expect solid play at a game this size.

I'm dealt K-K in middle-late position. Folds to me. I raise to $200 (blinds at $50, $2K total to start with).

Guy to my left calls for $200. Big blind completes for another $150.

Flop is 2-4-9. Rainbow.

Big blind bets $500.
I make it $1000.
Guy to my left goes all-in for around $2000 straight ($1000 reraise).
Big blind thinks for about 30 seconds and calls.

$1000 to me. $3625 in the pot. It's all my chips basically.

How would you play it?

[Exitonly]

call.

i would have pushed after the guy bet 500 fwiw.

[ZeroPointMachine]

Can't really see BB leading out with AA or a set(not impossible though). So, your only worried about the guy on your left having AA, 99 and an occasional 44/22. I call.

[Kaeser]

Your getting 4.5 to 1 and you only have 800 left if you fold, I think you got to call this. Also I agree with exit I'd have pushed after the 500 bet.

[ QUOTE ]
call.

i would have pushed after the guy bet 500 fwiw.

[/ QUOTE ]

Since you have to call if anyone pushes, you need to push yourself. There's plenty in the pot to win right now.

[schwza]

it's pretty tough to fold this one. there's no way that anyone has 42/92/94, and it would be a pretty thin call with 44/22.

it's hard to tell exactly what's going on in terms of stack sizes - it looks like BB calling the reraise is only for about T100. you've put in 1k, guy on left put in 2k, BB put in 500 and SB put in 25 before the BB makes his call. after his call, there's 3625 in the pot, so he only called 100.

i'd call pretty quickly, especially since you have 2 outs to the nuts, but it'd be nice to get a better sense of stack sizes.

[beggars]

I ended up mucking the hand. Other than a set, the only hands I could really put either one on was a pair higher than 9 or A-9. The big blind and all-in raiser had each acted too strongly for me to think that's all BOTH of them had. I still had chips.

Initial all-in raiser to my left flipped J-9o. The big blind flipped over 10s. A King hit on the river to add insult.

Looking back, I agree that I should have pushed early or called. My play was definitely influenced by the size of the buy-in (big for me) and my expectation for the level of play. I didn't want to be 1st or 2nd out. Lesson learned.

Good news is I ended up going deep in the tourney with my remaining stack, so I suppose there is something to be said for that too.

[Exitonly]

[ QUOTE ]
Good news is I ended up going deep in the tourney with my remaining stack, so I suppose there is something to be said for that too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Imagine how deep you would have gone if your stack was SIX TIMES as big, if you ahd made this call [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Pot odds are way too good to fold this. You're likely up against a set, but there's a good enough chance that you're ahead or at least will be on the river to justify this call. Next time, push instead of miniraising when a guy bets 1/4 of your stack.

Ouch. This is bad. You sound like a pretty good player, but your play here befuddles me. Notice how your tentative played left you with the difficult decisions instead of your opponents. Just because the big blind makes a pot-sized bet right into you, does not mean you should go on the defensive. This is a standard stop-n-go play/semi-bluff (big blind may have thought he had the best hand) largely based on the texture of the flop. He is thinking that if both you and your opponet missed the flop (likely given the texture), his bet should take the pot down uncontested. Your first mistake was overestimating his strength on what was nothing more than a standard play. Your second mistake was making such a pitiful re-raise. It was essential to move all-in here and leave your opponents with the difficult decisions. If they both flopped sets, so be it. I mean, in tournaments like this, you have very little time to accumulate chips and you need to push your good hands to the maximum. You should have been very happy to see so much action with your strong hand as opposed to shying away from the action. If this was the WSOP, where stacks are much deeper in the early going, something could be said for slowing down a bit.

It should be noted that the big blind played this hand quite poorly. His call before the flop was marginal, I cannot totally criticize him there because his pot odds were OK, and his bet after the flop was a decent play as well. However, after a raise and and re-raise all in behind him, he had no business making that call with a pair of nines and a jack kicker. He deserved to lose.