Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

We’re playing a WPT supersatellite at the Commerce. We start with 60-odd players, and with rebuys, the prize pool is $34,000 or so. The top three spots pay a $10,000 tourney seat each plus $100, and the fourth position pays $2480. Fifth plays $1100.

The tourney is more or less normal until we’re down to six players, and then everything seems to happen all at once. I’m in the three seat. The seven seat and the nine seat get involved in a huge pot, where the seven moves in on a Tc 7c 2s flop and the nine calls. AJ for the nine and KcQc for the seven. Turn bricks and the river is the 3c, making the club draw. Neither player sees it for a moment, and the nine thinks he’s a winner. The dealer calls “club flush” and the nine pulls a Hellmuth: curses, stalks around, and knocks a chair down. He’s penalized, and the seven rakes a huge one: around 36,000 in chips.

The nine seat has 3200 left.

On the very next hand, I raise from the SB with KsQs. The BB, in the four seat, calls me all in with Q4. I bust him, and chip up to just over 17000. Here’s where it gets weird. The blinds go up from 800-1600 to 1000-2000. So there’s just one BB: that’s the seven seat, who is the chip leader, with over forty per cent of the chips in play. I have 17000 or so. The nine seat is going to get blinded off during the penalty, so he should be a non-factor. The ten seat calls the 2000. The three seat calls. We’re anteing 200, I think, so there’s 7000 in the pot, and I look down on the button and see two black eights. I consider stacking off, but that seems to be a bad play, for if I move in and lose, the player on penalty will move up one spot; in contrast, and I can lock up fourth by letting him blind off. Not wanting to emulate John Bonetti, I call.

The dealer flops the 6c7c9c. To my shock and astonishment, the BB (in the seven seat) then says: “I never acted.” The floor is standing right there, and says, “that’s correct. Dealer, reshuffle the flop back into the deck and put out a flop without a burn.” I’m furious, and it shows. I barely avoid a penalty myself. The dealer shuffles, then flops 4h 7s 2c. The BB bets out 2000 and the ten seat calls, leaving him with 4500 more. I call. The turn comes 5d. The BB bets 4000 more, and the ten seat mucks. I have 13000; the ten seat has 4500 and is about to hit the blinds; the three seat has about 22000, and the seven seat has 30000. There’s 17000 already in the pot, so I’m getting five and a quarter to one.

If I call and lose, I finish fifth and win 1100. If I call and win, I’ll have at least 30,000 and have the chip lead and a likely seat, with well over a third of the chips in play and one very short stack. If I muck, I’m a lock for fourth because the player on penalty is going to be blinded off; and I have a solid shot at $10,000 seat, given that I out-chip the ten seat by almost exactly a factor of three. What’s the right play? Keep in mind that your second-pair straight flush draw has just been taken off the table and redealt because of a dumb-ass dealer mistake, so your heart is thumping about 130 BPM and it’s tough to do math.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

Why didn't you push on the flop? I mean, how often is 88 an overpair?

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

The right play, if 4h would be easy at the end by folding and 3rd would be close, is EASILY to fold PF.

The initial flop wasn;t necessarily any better for you, btw. Matter of fact, i think it was worse. The SF draw LOOKS great and all, but unless the 4th club is a 5 or T, you can't be happy, and you have 2nd pair only. If you were going to make an actual play at this pot, it was on the flop. Your hand is likely still ahead on the turn too, but as I said before, it sounds like you were better off folding PF.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

Ok, so the BB says "i never acted" when his action was going to be to check anyway? That doesn't affect the hand in anyway! If he would have checked before the cards came out, they'd be in the exact same situation.

So when you think about it, since the BB really has no reason for saying "i never acted" since it would have no consequence on the hand being he didn't intend to raise, it makes me believe that he had a good hand and was contemplating a raise, and just blurted out "i never acted"... but then thought to himself "oh, screw it, I'll just see the flop"... Did end up having a set or overpair?

I'd be pretty pissed if a BB stopped the game to say "i never acted" and then just check. That may be a new angle if you're in the BB and don't like the flop!

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

When there are 5 players left with one out on a penalty and one about to get blinded off and you have the 3rd largest stack with little chance of being blinded off yourself, YOU FOLD EVERYTHING PREFLOP!!! Think about it, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd get the same prize. Barring some incredible run of all ins by the 10 seat you have already won. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose by playing.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

[ QUOTE ]
The right play, if 4h would be easy at the end by folding and 3rd would be close, is EASILY to fold PF.

The initial flop wasn;t necessarily any better for you, btw. Matter of fact, i think it was worse. The SF draw LOOKS great and all, but unless the 4th club is a 5 or T, you can't be happy, and you have 2nd pair only. If you were going to make an actual play at this pot, it was on the flop. Your hand is likely still ahead on the turn too, but as I said before, it sounds like you were better off folding PF.

[/ QUOTE ]

To me, this is a clear fold pre-flop. If this were a regular tourney, then I would think all-in on the flop with either flop is correct, but since top 3 pay the same, put your cards in the muck before the flop with anything except Aces and even then I'd have to think about it. The other fools you were playing with obviously didn't understand the implications of the prize structure payout and I don't know if you did either.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

results?

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

The BB showed a bluff: no pair and a gut draw on the turn. Given that he unwound the action, I was surprised to see a hand as weak as that, and thought it was a bit of an angle-shot. His unwinding the action made me think he was much, much stronger than he was, particularly because overpairs would HATE the three-connected, three-suited flop.

On the next hand, the player on penalty put in the BB and the ten seat stacked off. Everybody mucked. The penalty player was all-in for his SB and ante the next hand; I had 3 9 and mucked, thinking that the deep stack would surely raise. But then he mucked, and the short stack won $2K in a walk, with the penalty player finishing fifth. The ten seat then doubled through the deep stack. I, meanwhile, went card-dead, then pushed in UTG two orbits later only to have the BB find KK.

So I finished fourth.

IMO the turn call is a close question, but I think folding is the right answer. Getting 4.5x preflop, I think a call is OK so long as I'm willing to fold to a big bet from the BB. The flop call was a tilt play: I did it instantly, without going through my usual processes, as a result of the dealer mistake. It's likely wrong.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

Actually, I did. I recognized that when the ten seat called preflop, he's got 6500 left with 7000 in the pot. If he plays and wins for his whole stack, he overtakes me for fourth position -- and his call indicated some strength. In that spot, I'm getting 3.5 to one, and am likely ahead on any low flop. I'm not sure that a preflop fold is correct, given that I can lock up fourth automatically if I can retain discipline on the flop. The flop call on my part is a tilt: I was really furious when that flop was unwound. I agree that it this spot, it's probably a muck. Query, however: what does my muck on the flop do to the ten seat's incentives? He doesn't have to worry about my hand, but he also knows I can't go bust against the deep stack on that hand. I'm not sure which way that cuts.

In any event, it was a really screwed-up situation. If you play this game long enough, you'll see some strange-ass things.

Re: Freakish Tourney Situation: What Would You Do?
 

You need to work on getting a better understanding of what you are playing for, and a better understanding of the people you are playing against. 4.5-1 pot odds mean little if you are against an aggressive big stack.