Final Table W/ 3 Players Left

I accidentally posted this in Mid-High Stakes Forum early this morning before my coffee and was wondering where the heck it was. So here it is:

This was at last night's 30+3 at Party.

I was the chip leader when there were 6 players and decided to stay on the sideline and let the short stacks slug it out unless I get good cards. The plan worked and there were 3 players left maintaining my top position when I got involved in this hand.

Blind was 15M/30M when I got KcQc in Sb with 920.5M. BB with 44.5M is tight, defensively predictable and will not get involved unlewss he has an ace or pocket pair. Third player who is pretty solid with 400M raised to 162.3M. I pushed. (Right or wrong at this time?) BB folded, solid player called.

Board was 9d Jc 9c 4h 4s. Solid player doubled up with two pairs (7d 7h).

As an after-the-fact analyses given my read of solid player, should I have just called and pushed on the flop?. How would the experts play this hand? Thoughts appreciated.

BTW, thank you Tosh for pointing out my mistake and your thoughtful insight.

[gergery]

If that was the tourney with 1700 people, then great job and nice payday. I think I saw that hand, if your name is five letters beginning with an ‘A’ and you were in the 3 seat an your opponent in the 8 seat.

I think its close call, but I probably fold it. His raise was big enough that he won’t lay it down (if your read of solid, good player is correct.) since he’s getting 4:1 on a call. Then it’s a question of what he has: you need 47% equity here (400+45 to 400 risked) to make getting all-in correct, and KQs wins 43-45% of the time vs. any pair any ace type hands. Versus 77 this is ~chipEV neutral. So you really need to think he’ll fold this 20+% of the time for the push to be correct.

Having said that, its possible a weaker player could fold, wanting to outlast SB who’s out in two hands, and get 2nd, and a chipEV neutral proposition isn’t terrible since you are a huge favorite to win it all with a win, but are tied if you lose.

But at a macro level, with the bigstack, I’d prefer to fold this and stay as big stack and keep raising aggressively to steal blinds, esp since SB will be about out in 2 hands, and this makes it much tougher for solid guy to call your raises.

But if I recall, you played quite aggressively with good effect after that, so you seem to have bigstack play down [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

--Greg

Greg,

I'm impressed with your memory. Yes it was I in the 1700+ tourney. I was bothered by that hand because I really thought it was the wrong play. You and Soss confirmed it. But I played quite more aggressive than my norm and on top of getting good cards when near the bubble, plus a few lucky suckout of course, (like my QQ against KK and hitting Q on the turn, and my AQ vs AK and spiking a Q on the river), I was able to steal quite a few pots that brought up to the top 10 late in the tourney.

Ironically, but a good news is that the good player busted and I was left with the passive one and won the whole thing with my A5o against his A3o when there was a 5 on the board. I was so excited as this is my first 5-figure win. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I value your thoughtful insights which are among the ones that help me play better. Thanks. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]