What do you think?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

$20 + 2 NLHE on 'Stars last night. 36 left, all in the money, first hand after the bubble. Average stack is 16,000. I have 9,900 and am in the middle at my table. Blinds 600/1200, 75 ante. Tournament leader, 35,000, is at my table.

I'm UTG and pick up Q [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] T [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] I've played an agressive form of survival to reach the money. Two thoughts occur to me. 1) it may take others here a hand or two to slip out of the on-the-bubble tightness of the hand-for-hand we just finished, and 2) the gap concept. Thus, I widen the gap and open-raise for 3,600, perfectly willing to fold to a reraise. All fold to big stack on the button, who flat calls.

Flop: K [img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img] J [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] 7 [img]/forums/images/icons/club.gif[/img] giving me an open-ended str8 draw and back-door flush.

Question: What range of hands do you put button on with his flat call? To this point he's used his stack well, but is a solid player and is capable of laying down a middle pair or an ace-high to a bet here. He's also capable of betting into me without a pair if I check.

My thoughts and results later.

[Guy McSucker]

Okay, I make it 9600 or so in the pot and 6k or so in your stack.

You can't fold your hand if he sets you in. He might fold if you bet all-in.

I think this makes it an easy decision: all-in.

Guy.

[DaNoob]

If he had a big hand, I would have expected a re-raise from the BB, so I'm thinking he's got Ax or maybe a small pair. There's a small chance of two face cards, with KJ being a distinct possibility (since it's not an all-in hand PF and won't win usually unimproved).

Regardless, if he has Kx or even KJ, you've got 8 clean outs for the straight and a gutshot flush draw, so an all-in bet should be a pretty easy decision in this situation.

Then again, if you check-fold here, you still have T6000 left, which is more than enough to rebuild. If you were ready to muck PF to a re-raise, letting go of it here is always a possibility.

Hope it worked out for ya.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Like you, I put him on Ax or a small/medium pair. I discounted trouble hands like KQ, KJ or Kxs against an UTG raise. I pushed in and he turned over A [img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img] K [img]/forums/images/icons/club.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

As you said, I had outs. Unfortunately, none materialized and I cashed a disappointing amount considering that I was happy with my overall play.

[Easy E]

"What range of hands do you put button on with his flat call? To this point he's used his stack well, but is a solid player and is capable of laying down a middle pair or an ace-high to a bet here. He's also capable of betting into me without a pair if I check."

This doesn't give me a good indication of what he's been playing around with on the button. You still have 60% of your stack to go with....

I'd put him on:
a) middle high pairs- QQ-99 (little weak on the 9's? with you UTG and no callers, I'd eliminate 88 and below)
b) Big suited connectors, from JT up to AK. I would think about single-gappers such as yours, but not two-gappers (unless he'd play any suited Ace to the raise on the button)
c) Possibly big slick.
d) Possibly T9s

I don't know if I could put him on gappers unsuited here.

Flop action- bet half your stack

[Easy E]

at least I guessed right on the hand.

Not sure, after thinking about it, if betting half your stack would be good after all- you'd be sucked into calling anyway, most probably

Could you have gotten away from the hand, and would he NOT have come over the top without a hand, if you'd bet T1K or so?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

a) and c) I thought he would have reraised preflop. Suited connectors or gappers wouldn't have impacted my post-flop decision since a big flop bet represents AK. I'll consider, though, that that might be a flaw in my thinking.

Flop action- bet half your stack

This I can't agree with. If I bet 3,000 into a 9,600 pot, he's not going away.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Well, it's pretty hard to drive somebody out of a pot by representing the hand *he's* holding [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

This is an all-in/check-fold decision. The more I think about it, the less problem I have with my play. I just got outplayed, and now I know more about him. BTW - he went on to win the thing.

[ohkanada]

Muck pre-flop. Do you really want to put in 35% of your stack with that hand knowing if you get re-raised you are planning on mucking?

Depending on the stack sizes of the blinds, he could have a huge hand, a middle pair or something as ugly as KQ/QJ/JT.

If you believe he would lay middle pair down, then going all-in is correct.

Ken Poklitar

[Greg (FossilMan)]

As Guy points out, if you check and he bets you all-in, you need to call, as you've got well more than the necessary pot odds (i.e., calling is a clear overlay, and not so small that you can afford to pass it up).

And, since you've said he could fold a medium pair or Ax to your bet, it is clearly correct for you to go all-in, and give him a chance to make these laydowns.

Preflop, I hate your plan of folding to a reraise. I don't ever put in 1/3 of my chips preflop and then fold. Well, I could in this spot, but it would take either two more raises, or one more raise plus an overcall before I could consider, that is, there would have to be very strong evidence that I'm facing AA-QQ before I could fold after putting in this much of my stack.

In most spots, if I were going to make this steal attempt, I would just go all-in preflop. However, against some opponents, it is better to put in 1/3 of your stack preflop, and then bet the rest on the flop. Some players just won't fold certain "pretty" hands preflop for any price, but will give them up after the flop misses. For example, some people just can't lay down a suited A, even when the kicker is small. You'd hate to go all-in preflop and get called by Ah5h, only to know that this same player would've folded to your flop bet on the Jd7h3s board.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)