[Tailgunner]

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First off, and most importantly, calling off half your stack PF (keeping in mind that you'll be getting around 4:1 on any flop and will even have to call a push) is terrible poker and you will wind up going broke this way a lot.


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Don't make the mistake of assuming any advice is meant to mean "this is how you should play to play good poker". For me, at least, it is simply "how I am *likely* to play this specific situation given the limited information available (where normally I would have the entire tournament of play to reflect upon.)" I certainly don't recommend calling in half your stack every time just the same as I would not recommend never calling. It is entirely situation dependent, and my aim is to offer a line of reasoning and the logic that led to that decision on this particular hand.


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It is a very safe bet CO has some kind of medium pair or worse, but that in all likelihood one or two of your outs are dead.

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This is exactly why I would choose to call and fire at the flop instead of pushing preflop. Now I know on the surface it may seem like a rookie weak/strong type of mistake (and if it's interpreted as such, that much more to my advantage), but if CO has a medium or small pair, your hand is dominated... especially if one or more of your outs is held by MP.

Calling now and firing at the flop is the psychologically dominant play. By hesitating and then coming back I'm indicating either a trap, a small pair that hit a set, or maybe even a straight/flush, representing a more powerful hand than a preflop push would have portrayed and thus being more likely to scare him off (and with a great straight/flush flop you may even scare off AA/KK, something you could never do with a preflop push.)

If MP had chips remaining I would be more inclined to make that push, but once his chips are all in he is no longer a factor in my decisions. If CO has a monster, he's going to call no matter when you make the push, and after the flop you're still capable of making a larger than pot sized bet forcing him to choose to retain 2/3 or take a shot and possibly be cut down to 1/3 his stack. Beyond that, I can hand off the betting if I choose and still have a chance to escape if I hit a really nasty looking flop.

A preflop push screams AA/KK (there'll be a lot more uncertainty about your holding if you bet after the flop) but he may easily call... and he has the stack and almost a full orbit of position to do so with a wider range of hands. You can make a greater show of strength by not defining your hand and betting the flop. If you hit well, you are betting anyway and it may be interpreted as a bluff, bringing a call... however even if you miss you can show greater strength by betting out. You're toast if he hit better than you or started with a huge hand, but then you would have busted out had you gone in pre-flop anyway.

Other considerations in this strategy are based on the fact that it is tournament play. First, I feel much more comfortable with this play at $10+1 than I would at higher stakes where the competition is wiser/smarter/tougher. Second, the blinds are about to go up, I'm going to get hit by them next hand, and (this one is more subjective) I don't at all like a small stack going into the next level in the middle of the tournament. You'll never win waiting for prefection, sometimes you've got to pick the best of some bad ground and make a stand. I'll choose the aggressive play with a hand that has some strength to it. I may lose, but that's poker. In the long run what may seem a foolish play, if appropriately applied, will be +EV.

One of the things I love most about this game is that no matter how well you can calculate the "correct" play according to mathematical odds, it can still be swayed by that nebulous and ever elusive human factor, of which you can never be completely certain... less so when reviewing a hand after the fact [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]


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If CO had reraised, you would actually have an easy fold based on the updated read, but he's dumb and just called a pretty vulnerable hand, so there you go.


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I agree.

**Disclaimer: The above post is simply a glimpse in the furnace from which the steel of my strategy is forged, your mileage may vary.