When not to give up...

[nightlyraver]

I'm posting this hand in order to illustrate a situation when my play equated to "giving up" the tournament. Don't reply with, "you played that poorly" as that is the whole point of the post. You may reply with, "I would have done X" - but I'm sure that the "correct" play would have been to simply fold the flop, but see my additional argument at the end of the post.

OK, so here is the situation: It's the middle stages of a $10 MTT on Full Tilt; about 230 players, 27 get paid with the real money being in the top 5 spots. There are about 40 players left, most of whom are playng decent, straight forward poker. People have started to tighten up a bit as we near the bubble, but the big stacks are taking some gambles to knock out the small stacks.

Here is the hand: The player that should be the SB has just been knocked out on the previous hand so there is no small blind. Blinds are at t200/t400 with a t50 ante (8 players at the table), so there is t400 in antes plus the t400 big blind. It's folded around to me on the button and I'm staring down at AQo - I'm sitting on about t4,800.

The BB is a pretty tight and conservative, not at all tricky. I decide to bring it in for a t1,200 bet, which is a standard raise at this table. I was expecting to win the pot right there, but the BB called - she only had me covered by about t600 so I had to put her on a pretty decent but not a stellar hand given her style.

The flop come JTx offsuit. The BB bets t600 into the pot of t2,800. I think for a while, but my mistake was that I was not playing the situation - I was playing "in the moment." I was getting about 5:1 on this bet, so I decided to just call and see what the turn brought. It was a brick and the BB bet another t600. I looked down at my stack which has now dwindled and concluded I was pot-stuck. I pushed all-in, was quickly called and shown AJo. Her hand stood up and I was out.

A couple of things bothered be about my play. First of all, if I had thought about her tight preflop play, her conservative postflop play and the texture of the board, I would have probably concluded that she AT BEST had AJ, but may have tried to trap w/ AA-TT. Therefore, I should have folded on the flop as she was committed to this hand with ANY of these holdings - even in the off chance she had 99. As it turned out, I was given the correct pot odds on both the flop and the turn to call and try and draw out; however, you should never play pot odds at this stage in a tourney when you will be crippled if you miss. I also would have easily lost my stack if I drew an A on the turn. Most will advocate that you should raise a strong draw on the flop, but that accomplishes nothing here for two reasons: 1) My A is dead so it's not that strong of a draw; 2) There is no chance that she will lay this hand down; 3) My draw is only decent if she has 1 hand out of the 6 hand range. Thus, I should have simply folded on the flop.

In hindsight, the analysis is fairly simple. What bothers me is the fact that I didn't run through this while the hand was going on. What bothers me more is that I pushed on the turn - this is simply giving up! Just because the pot was offering good odds didn't mean I should have called on the flop. Just be cause I would have been left with only about 6BB's if I folded the turn does not mean that I should have thrown in the towel. I could have used those chips to steal a bunch of large preflop pots or double up and I would have been right back into it. In the future, I encourage players not to make these same mistakes.

Lastly, I would like to comment on my preflop play. There is a strong argument to be made that I should have simply pushed preflop. If you reference Dennis Brag's article, Short Stack Play from the Small Blind, you will notice that a push on my part would have been +EV over time. I'm not sure exactly how large of a range we can put the BB on for calling off almost all of her stack, but even if we enlarge it to the top 25% of all hold'em hands, my push would have been +EV. In reality it I would have probably lost my whole stack since we know what came on the flop; however, she may have even laid down her AJ - who knows?

[Harv72b]

I'm far from an expert, but I think you missed a 3rd option for preflop, which would be raising the minimum. Against a tight, conservative BB it seems like this would be just as likely to fold her as a larger raise, regardless of what pot odds you are offering. This also commits less of your stack to the pot preflop, making it easier to get away from the hand when things go awry (as they did).

I also think that folding to the minibet on the flop getting better than 6:1 would be bad. You can't know at this point that your A outs are dead, and I don't think you can worry too much about a player you described as "not at all tricky" slowplaying AA-TT preflop from OOP. So I'm thinking that worst case is you're up against JT, next worst being AJ. If it's the former, you're going to win her entire stack if you spike the K on the turn. If the latter, you're drawing to 7 outs, again with good implied odds. I agree that pushing on the turn was bad, especially if you felt you had zero folding equity, but calling the flop bet seems utterly standard to me. And I don't believe you're at all pot committed on the turn, still having ~t3000 if you fold right there.

[nightlyraver]

Perhaps I understated her preflop tendencies: She easily would have flat called JJ or TT, maybe QQ - AA or KK are less than likely, but we don't know that since she has never come over-the-top preflop. She would not have called w/ JT and probably not with KJ. She knows I am tight-aggressive and I would have been ahead of those hands. Thus, her flop bet could only have meant that either my A was dead (30% to win) or she had a set (15% to win). I only had about t2,600 going to the turn.

It's heavily debated, but I agree with the majority of the authorities who state that playing pot odds in such a situation is not a good move. In a cash game it clearly is, but not in the late stages of a tourney where you will be crippled if you miss (I would have been down to only t2,000 if I called the flop and turn). Like I said, my draw was only good against 1 possible holding.

[nightlyraver]

Any other thoughts?

[bruce]

With your small stack I push BTF. When she bets the flop I would fold. You don't have enough chips to draw and you don't
know how many clean outs you have. As it turns out you had
7 clean outs and you weren't even getting the right price.
You are a 6:1 dog.

Bruce

[nightlyraver]

I guess I wan't really enthusiastic to push in 12xBB. I suppose the math dictates that I should have (see OP) but I think I wanted to leave myself an escape hatch in case she came over the top (would only have meant AA or KK for this player). Also, she played weakly after the flop and I guess I figured I could take the pot after seeing only 3 cards if she missed.

[nightlyraver]

Anyone else have any thoughts on this issue?