why do i keep going out early? something wrong or unlucky?

[jaydoggie]

Tonite I played in a 20+2 tourney on pokerstars.

Less than 20 hands in, I get dealt KK in MP.
The only hands Ive played thus far were in the blinds.

Folds to me, I raise from 20 to 80.
1 LP caller.

flop comes 9Q5r

I bet 100.

anything wrong so far?

My oppenent raises it to 600.

I raise him to 1100. and he puts me allin for about another 250. leaving himself 100 in chips.

should I have just called for 600 and called down?

however he shows JTo.

the board paired on the river which kills 2 of his 6 outs, but one of his miracles still manages to hit on the river.

this happens to me all too frequently. am i playing bad or am i making the proper play and getting unlucky?

[Justaloser]

I think you played it pretty well. I raise a little more on the flop. T200 or so. (80+80+30from blinds puts the pot around 190).

If someone raised me that much, I'd only fear one thing. Trips. The fact that he bet that much on a straight draw means he probably busted out halfway through the tourney (if not sooner).

At this point, it's all-in or fold. Calling really doesn't do much. You're can't expect your hand to improve (although you'd like for it too), so you're either ahead or way behind.

FWIW, he played it very badly and sometimes that happens. If you feel you're busting out too early too often, maybe pull the aggressiveness back some. Try to win smaller pots.
Build your stack slowly. Be aggressive when you've got the nuts, but not all-in too much.

Good luck.

[jaydoggie]

yeah the problem is alot of these players play aggressively. beings i was first to act on the flop and i bet, he could assume i had an unimproved small pair, or AJ, AK, and he was just testing me. thats what i was really asking.

I assumed he had QJ, KQ, AQ, QT? And potentially a set, possibly AA. In most cases I was a mile ahead, in the other few i was alot farther behind.

Poker gets real frustrating when you cant win [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[FeliciaLee]

When you raise only 4x the BB, that is like a tease to most SNG players. That entices them to call. They say to themselves (wrongly), "hey, look at the pot I could get if I win this thing!" They call with very dominated hands, hoping for a miracle. Sometimes they get it.

I would suggest raising about 10x the BB. If they want to play a drawing hand, fine, but make them pay for it. Make them pay to see the flop. 80 chips out of a 1500 chip stack isn't that much to a bad player. But 200 chips? That makes them think twice.

Have you already beat the $5.50 and $11 SNG's? If you aren't beating them consistently, I would suggest moving back down. The $22 players don't seem that much better, on the surface, but when you get down to 3 or 4, they are better. Between the early bad beats and the later better players, $22 SNG's are harder to beat than $11 SNG's. I know, you get more out of the $22 in return, but if you aren't beating them steadily, you aren't getting a good EV at all!

[jaydoggie]

wasn't a sit&go, was a regular tournament with over 400 players. i dont play sit&gos frequently but ive played in 10 in the past month placed in the money 7 of those 10, and 5 of the 7 i took first.

however i keep busting out of the 300-400+ tournaments. and im usually getting called or calling with the best of it, and just getting outdrawn and i was looking for a defense strategy. and i guess my only defense is to go harder preflop. because once they catch their open ender, middle pair, or backdoor flush draw they cant help but throw the chips in the middle to push me out :[

[cferejohn]

Well, keep in mind that even the best player will usually bust out of a 300+ player tournament. All you can do is get your money in as a big favorite, which you did.

[cferejohn]

Risk 200 to win the dinky 1st level blinds? I don't really see the point. Sure it will probably work, but I'd rather make a smaller raise with KK (4xBB sounds about right), hope to get a caller and punish him, just as you did, except for the part where he sucked out on you...

[Jon Matthews]

Nothing wrong with winning the blinds on any level IMO, once you don't show your cards all the time it's good for the table image and that can be the deciding factor at a critical point in a later hand...

[Ignatius]

> [preflop and flop bet] anything wrong so far?

I would have made it T100 preflop and T200 on the flop, but your play is still OK.

> should I have just called for 600 and called down?

No way: Just move in here. His huge reraise on this flop usually means that he is drawing or overplaying top-pair. Twopair seems unlikely and most pls would tend to slowplay a set or at least raise less.

[mrbaseball]

It's the nature of the beast. The very large multi player touneys will have several "shot takers". Folks trying to double up now and fast.

You played KK fine and ran into a suckout. More often than not you will run into a painful suckout in these tourneys. The trick is to have enough chips to absorb the bad beats which means you will inflict some pain to others as well.

Whenever I have done well in one of these things (no limit) it is because I got off to a good start and could at least cover the stack(s) I was up against. In this same tourney ($20 stars monday) for example I knocked out a guy who had pocket AA with my pocket QQ but I had him covered 4 to 1. Bad beat for him? Sure! But that's what happens in these things. I got brutally knocked out myself at the last table. I'm in big blind with shortish stack (about 30K) and it's folded around the SB who has me covered about 3 to 1. He raised about 12K and I went all in with Ah Jh figuring it was a pure steal. He called and flipped up 9s 4s. Flop and turn were blanks but the river was a 9 and I was gone.

The key is getting into position to cover the other stacks because then the bad beats and suckouts won't end your day. Throughout the night I was involved in several all in confrontations in which I made some suckouts and got sucked out on. But the only one that hurt was the one I didn't have covered.