Playing Against Me

[jen]

10-10-20. 40-to-go. Five-handed.

UTG opened for $60 w/QQ (unsure of the suits). Folded to me in BB. I made it $260-to-go (w/~$1800 behind). UTG (who had me covered) called.

Flop: [9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]]

I went all-in for ~$1540 more. What should UTG's action have been here and was it close?

[Nero]

It really comes down to how UTG would weight your range of hands given the overbet on the flop.

I see three possibities(given a range of hands to be AA-TT/AKs):

1. AA-TT/AKs are all equally likely and you will push with all these hands, I call.

2. AA,KK/AKs are more likely than JJ,TT. Such would be the case if you thought he couldn't lay down an overpair and you wouldn't want to commit with JJ/TT. I fold.

3. JJ,TT/AKs are more likely than AA,KK. Here you may be protecting your weak overpair/draw and would probably like to get more value out of AA/KK if you thought he may be drawing very thin. I call.

Change the hand range or weight these in any direction and I can see it being close/easy call/easy fold.

[Ulysses]

How does UTG think you think he plays?

If UTG is someone who calls a lot and goes broke too easily, he should fold, since you will expect him to call w/ hands like TT and thus could easily push w/ AA/KK and would be less likely to put your whole stack in vs. this player w/ something like TT.

If UTG is a reasonable player, he should call, since you probably have something like AsKs or JJ, as I think you would expect most to likely fold to this big overbet and you would want to get more value out of AA/KK.

Of course, if he's a very good player capable of figuring out that you would be unlikely to push w/ AA/KK and he knows that you know that, then he should fold if he thinks you are crafty enough to figure him for figuring that and thus push w/ AA/KK expecting a call of this overbet.

[Nero]

[ QUOTE ]
How does UTG think you think he plays?

[/ QUOTE ]

The levels of thought here made my head hurt, thus my ambiguous reply.

[jen]

Too ambiguous. How about this: if you were UTG, El D., then what would your action have been?

[Matt Flynn]

jen only the regulars at LC's can answer that for you since the rest of us don't know how you play. i would suspect, however, that you are fond of calling in the bb with AKs and TT. the next question is would you ever pull the gross overbet all-in move with AA or KK. suspect not too likely. so we're into unlikely and unlikely, and it's unlikely i can give you a good answer. so i call so you can tell the bad beat story when you have KK and i spike the Q.

we will leave out the discussion of how envious i am that you get to play in that game. sadly, our bigger "home" games in raleigh are now considerably more difficult than lc's, and there is smoking.

matt

[theBruiser500]

I think UTG should fold. When I see good players making big overbets more often then not they're playing mind games and representing a draw or bluff (cause why would you play AA like that?) but in reality have a very good hand. AKs is a hand UTG can beat but it is not worth it with the range of hands you can have.

I was just thinking, maybe you were trying to put a play on him and then hit a good draw on the flop in which case you'd probably push like you did. Then I realized this guy is UTG, you'd probably choose another time to make a play on him. This is another thing that tilts your range of hands toward AA KK.

[Matt Flynn]

post's too old to edit. in case it wasn't clear, normally as utg i would fold.

matt

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
UTG (who had me covered) called.


[/ QUOTE ]

With QQ, I would jack it up one more time more often than not. Depending, of course, on the raiser and stack size. I have little idea of your playing tendencies.

The overbet is quirky - in a good way probably. I could not tell what to do unless I were at the table. That said, I have no problem tossing the Queens and getting on with the next hand.

-Zeno

[Ian]

what should jen have done? in general, an $800 bet on the flop is more likely to induce a fold here than either an all-in or pot-sized bet. on the other hand, a pot-sized bet is more likely to result in an all-in situation than an all-in bet. so if you want utg to fold, bet $800. and if you want utg to play all-in, bet the pot. i'm at a loss to see a situation where an all-in bet is optimal here. btw, is the e.e. cummings-type styling in your username intentional, a typo, or mere laziness? it strikes me as pretty cool for some reason.