Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

... except for maybe the freemoney principle. My image is good, and this player both did not give me reason to believe he would minraise a big pair and was not a super calling station. There is nothing in my history at this table that would make it seem like I might pull this, and I've never played with Button before.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (4 handed) converter

Button (t2030)
SB (t8650)
Hero (t2240)
UTG (t580)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to t400</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t2215</font>,

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

I like to use this play a lot, and this seems like an almost-perfect spot. It's nice to have a little room for error (say, if you had an extra 200-300 chips in your stack), but this looks good to me.

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

What's the buy-in? Can we trust that the button knows to play tight on the bubble?

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

If the button is not a complete donk, I like this play a lot.

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

I guess I'm the only one who thinks that the risk / reward ratio of this play is a little off. I know that your move is predicated on the presence of the small stack, but I'm not a big fan of it for that very reason. Putting your tournament at risk on the hopes that your opponent has a brain seems a little FPS to me actually.

Granted, button mini-raised, but he did it with the super bigstack still to act in the SB. He could've simply laid back and tried to fold ITM, so he obviously has SOMETHING. Why risk your tournament (essentially) on the hope that he folds?

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

[ QUOTE ]
He could've simply laid back and tried to fold ITM, so he obviously has SOMETHING. Why risk your tournament (essentially) on the hope that he folds?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because I keep getting blinded off in these things and I'm trying to stop [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

I agree.

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Because I keep getting blinded off in these things and I'm trying to stop

[/ QUOTE ]

But you have 10 BBs. You're not the shortstack. Let him make the desperation moves. Ever since I stopped making some of the usual 2+2 fancy moves, my ROI has gone way, way up. At our level (we play similar buy-ins), make your money banking on the stupidity and bad play of your opponents, not by banking on them suddenly waking up and acting logically.

Most likely, he isn't thinking big picture. He is saying to himself, "I like my AQ and I'm not folding it."

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

[ QUOTE ]
Granted, button mini-raised, but he did it with the super bigstack still to act in the SB. He could've simply laid back and tried to fold ITM, so he obviously has SOMETHING. Why risk your tournament (essentially) on the hope that he folds?

[/ QUOTE ]

You see this as a reason why button has a hand, but I see it as him having a hand he's not willing to die with. In my experience, he would have just pushed here with a strong hand. Instead, he wanted to take down the blinds without committing his whole stack. I'm still pushing here.

Re: Ok, I am CERTAIN this hand is obvious...
 

[ QUOTE ]
You see this as a reason why button has a hand, but I see it as him having a hand he's not willing to die with. In my experience, he would have just pushed here with a strong hand. Instead, he wanted to take down the blinds without committing his whole stack. I'm still pushing here.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is probably buy-in dependent. I almost never do stuff like this at the 11s and 22s and I can almost guarantee that my results are in the top 5% at those levels. They are really just so unnecessary. Even if this play works, yes, it's nice, but you will be called way more often than you'd ever imagine at the lower buy-ins.