Hand for the day.

[lorinda]

This hand was played against a good player, however, for the purposes of this argument, we'll call the good player a total maniac.

Some people will want to know why, if you don't , jump ahead now.
Basically we had been five handed for ages, and the player to my right has worked out they are up against four rocks and suddenly hit the 'maniac' switch. They've had some ups and downs, but have offered a relentless pounding of something like 60-70% raises.
They even folded when I raised their blind and claimed they put down "QJ suited", just to show their mindset.
So, now they've taken a beat, I think they're raising for sure. This player isn't going down without a fight.

Ok, I put the chances of UTG raising here at 90%. For the purposes of this hand, assume that I am amazing and that this read is correct.

I also put the chances of them raising subsequent hands at 65%, again, assume this as 'given'.

The other two players are tight, but getting stressed, so anything might happen there.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t300 (4 handed) converter

SB (t2260)
BB (t3820)
UTG (t560)
Hero (t1360)

Preflop: Hero is Button with A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises to t560 (All-In)</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero......</font>.

There are several considerations here.

Firstly, there is a kind of inverse folding equity here.
If UTG is allowed to build up again, I'm going to lose even more chips through folding blinds and not being able to raise unless I pick up a hand.

Secondly, Despite wanting him out of the tourney, do I want to isolate him with a hand like A9o or would I call/check to increase chances of getting rid of him.
If I run into a big hand like QQ in the blinds, I can pretty much hope to get 3rd place on chip count, so that's not quite so scary.

Sorry it's a preflop hand, but there ya go.

Lori

[iMsoLucky0]

River quads?

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]

assume that I am amazing and that this read is correct


[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds good to me, [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]. I think Gigabet would concur, [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

I don't have too much time to think about this too hard. But here's my quickish analysis:

You'll not see a hand call from behind and dominate you more than 15.5% of the time.

You'll only get called by a hand ahead of you ~30% of the time. Again, half of the time here you won't be dominated.

You basically have no FE for the rest of the tournament unless you can take down the UTG maniac *right now*.

A9 is a pretty sweet hand vs. a maniac (considering you won't get to see many more if you fold here).

I push. But, if he really has been maniacal a call could be in order to encourage help knocking him out. I would not mind being allin this pot 3-4 handed. Since I'm getting my chips in either way, I like pushing to increase my chances of winning right here and having enough FE to take over the table.

I also give my best Phil Ivey staredown to the stacks behind me.

You're in a tough 4-handed spot.

Lemme ask one question though that perhaps may help (which I'm sure you've thought of). What do you do here if UTG folds? Whatever you do in that situation I think you can do here, more or less.

Yugoslav

[SuitedSixes]

Here is how I see it. When you get down to 4-handed there is a lot of perfectly acceptable collusion going on by communicating with the size of your bet.

If I just call the bet, I'm letting the two behind me know "I've got a good hand, that is probably better, but not a great one. Go ahead and help out if you got something strong." I use this with a hand like, A9.

If I push I am saying, "Back off I've got this one," and you're only going to be called by a monster.

In this case, I think a call serves your purpose best. You have a pretty good hand, and you've got a chance to really make some money by outplaying someone after the flop. If there is action behind you, you've got at least a 2/3 chance of locking up 3rd.

[johnnybeef]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry it's a preflop hand, but there ya go.

[/ QUOTE ]

at this stage thats pretty much what sngs are about. anyways...you mentioned that utg was a good player, if this is true he is probably pushing with any two right now as the next hand he will have no fold equity. as for the blinds, assuming they are somewhat decent players they will almost certainly fold any hand to a push and a reraise all in besides a premium holding. if they call with one, you are a heavy favorite to take 3rd. id say pushing is the correct play.

[curtains]

johnnybeef he has no fold equity right now, so he isnt going to push with any 2.

I believe I'd call preflop.

[johnnybeef]

yep sorry, i though the blinds were 100/200, thanks for the correction.

[curtains]

btw some people will push with any 2 there anyway [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But it doesn't make much sense.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Hi Lori,

In this situation, the BB should call with any 2 cards getting nearly 4:1 on the call. Realistically, this is very close to random hand vs. random hand if you get out of the way, meaning UTG more than doubles through about 55% of the time and busts the rest.

On the other hand if you push to isolate and the BB wakes up with a monster and busts both of you, you finish 3rd on chip count.

More often than not you have the best hand of the bunch. I think if you add the times you and UTG both bust with the times you win, there's less sense getting out of the way than mixing it up.
Easy push, I think.

[curtains]

If you call and the BB calls you are ganging up on the allin player. I think I'd rather try to keep them in here preflop.

(I might be totally wrong about this)