What did I do wrong here or was I doomed

[rybones]

he asked the question to:

A) check his thinking -- isn't that what the forum is for?

B) to see if there might have been something he missed -- I think there was. I say he should have raised to 900 pre-flop or bet 1/2 the pot on the flop to see where he was at. Either bet would have given him either a small win or 800 to try and outlast the other short stacks.

just my oponion

Ryan

[The once and future king]

QQ here is only going to be easy or feckin hard to play post flop.

No over cards = easy
Over cards = hard and probably expensive.

The way he played the hand he played it exactly the way K8 guy wanted him to.

The way to "gamble" on this hand is to push all in and hope from a call from either a dominated pair, Ax or KX all these will probably call a reraise.

If you dont get called you take down 450+ the blinds that at this juncture is no small potatoes. In the long run pushing here is by far the most EV play and therefore unless one is makeing a specific play against a specific opponent should not be deviated from.

Just cold calling is by far the most EV move for the initial raiser.

[rybones]

you speak so difinitively about this and I am not so sure it is that easy. First, I am not sure you can really figure out ev unless you know something about the person you are betting against. Secondly, you are right about the post-flop choices being either really difficult or really easy. However, I would like to think that good poker means not being afraid of the difficult chioces. imo the largest sums of money change hands when things get close. i.e. when you have trips but a flush is showing or you have Q,Q and a K is showing. being able to play these well post flop mean a ton both in terms of ev and in terms of not paying off others ev bets. Daniel Negreanu wrote a great article about this and why the wsop should be a pot limit event. If I wasn't so lazy I would find the link, but it is a great article about peoples' fears and inability to play after a flop. He argues that this format would largely eliminate the push or fold strategy that has come to play so big in tournament poker.

again, this is just my opinion and comments are welcome.

Ryan

[tallstack]

A couple of things from your replies stand out to me.

[ QUOTE ]
Now, any reraise I make in this situation would have to be all in as my stack was too short for anything else. I did consider that, but I was concerned that he would have to call because he was pot-committed at that point. With KK or AA no doubt, but QQ is very vulnerable to the kinds of hands MP would call an allin reraise

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
The scared money reraises to takes down the raise and blinds. I was trying to be sneaky and double up. Also there is no guarantee he does not fold to the reraise. The result is the same if he calls. Not to mention that but suppose he has KK or AA. Ever stared down that barrell after reraising all in?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that you should be concerned that he calls your reraise pre-flop. You are only a dog to AA and KK. The only other hand that comes close to being even money is AK. You are a large favorite over every other hand. Even against the top 10% of hands, you are on average a 2:1 favorite.

If you end up against AA or KK consider that you may very well have lost all your chips by calling pre-flop anyways. Your opponent will not need to hit an overcard to your QQ to beat you, and you will likely not see it coming when the money goes in.

IMO, the reraise all-in is certainly not scared money. Your opponent has already shown some strength in a situation where you very likely have the best hand. When you reraise all-in you will move up into 2nd position all the times he folds and you will move up to a very healthy t3680 stack about 2/3 of the time he calls. This move is hugely positive in terms of chipEV, and is also pretty safe in that you will increase your stack size well over 2/3 of the time (depending on how often he folds).

The flip side is calling and seeing what happens on the flop. I do not believe that QQ is worth slowplaying here. It is vulnerable to an A or K flopping and this will happen about 40% of the time. When it does, you will have to act first and will not know whether your opponent is bluffing you out if he bets.

If the pre-flop raise gets you more chips well over 2/3 of the time and you will only like the flop when you called about 60% of the time, then I do not see how calling works to your advantage here.

Dave S

[gyndok]

[ QUOTE ]


I don't think that you should be concerned that he calls your reraise pre-flop. You are only a dog to AA and KK. The only other hand that comes close to being even money is AK. You are a large favorite over every other hand. Even against the top 10% of hands, you are on average a 2:1 favorite.

If you end up against AA or KK consider that you may very well have lost all your chips by calling pre-flop anyways. Your opponent will not need to hit an overcard to your QQ to beat you, and you will likely not see it coming when the money goes in.

IMO, the reraise all-in is certainly not scared money. Your opponent has already shown some strength in a situation where you very likely have the best hand. When you reraise all-in you will move up into 2nd position all the times he folds and you will move up to a very healthy t3680 stack about 2/3 of the time he calls. This move is hugely positive in terms of chipEV, and is also pretty safe in that you will increase your stack size well over 2/3 of the time (depending on how often he folds).

The flip side is calling and seeing what happens on the flop. I do not believe that QQ is worth slowplaying here. It is vulnerable to an A or K flopping and this will happen about 40% of the time. When it does, you will have to act first and will not know whether your opponent is bluffing you out if he bets.

If the pre-flop raise gets you more chips well over 2/3 of the time and you will only like the flop when you called about 60% of the time, then I do not see how calling works to your advantage here.

Dave S

[/ QUOTE ]


I appreciate your thoughtful answer and the mathematics involved.. It is a good guide for future action. In this case I feel I would have been called and the result would have obviously been the same.

QQ is obviously a tough hand. I cant tell you the number of times I have busted with it.. (that and JJ also, but that is another story) All of my reading has indicated that while QQ is the 3rd strongest hand in holdem, it is extremely vulnerable and playing it like AA or KK is foolish..


Thanks for your insight..

[zephyr]

[ QUOTE ]
However, with just cold calling pre-flop, I think you need to bet 1/2 the pot to see where you are at.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, tell me that you wouldn't make this play. Why would you bet ~40% of your stack to see where you're at? You should know enough about your opponent by now to put him on a range of hands that he would raise 3xBB preflop with. I guarantee you its a lot more than AA, KK, AK. And then once you've thought about what hands he could be raising with preflop, you would immediately come to the correct decision to raise him all-in preflop.

The hand was played terribly.

Only my opinion,

Zephyr

[golFUR]

When trying to take into account all possible motives and outcomes there is room for several different flavors of logic. You've developed one here to defend your call preflop. Consider abandoning it though. You asked for advice on the hand. Every response seems to believe you played it passively. Instead of defending your position against each comer why not take the advice offered and consider that reraising preflop is probably correct? If you were stuck on your own line of logic no matter what, why post?

[gyndok]

[ QUOTE ]
When trying to take into account all possible motives and outcomes there is room for several different flavors of logic. You've developed one here to defend your call preflop. Consider abandoning it though. You asked for advice on the hand. Every response seems to believe you played it passively. Instead of defending your position against each comer why not take the advice offered and consider that reraising preflop is probably correct? If you were stuck on your own line of logic no matter what, why post?

[/ QUOTE ]

It is not a matter of taking advice or not.

I will now admit with this limited sampling of responses that not rerasing all in was a mistake.

I have to admit that the one-sidedness of the opinions caught me off guard and I was merely trying to suggest that the decision was, to me, not as black and white as it was made out to be.. I am also surprised a bit by the tone of the responses, but I am a big boy and I won't be put off too much. I have been playing this game for about a year and will readily admit I am still learning. I have read just about every book I could get my hands on during that time. I have played a dozen or so B&M tourneys in Nevada and Louisiana and have fared well, so I know I am on the right track. Forums like this can serve to improve my game so I thank those of you who took the time to respond..

[img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[kamelion44]

Great reply Zephyr. Also, as far as the Negreanu article was concerned, I very highly doubt he would advocate playing the way you suggest if 1) it was online where reads are virtually non-existant without prior knowledge of the player or long reads on betting patterns (i.e. have you seen this guy make a 3BB raise, at this stage in a tournament, 5 times before...). I also doubt he would advocate trying to outplay the opponent post flop when there is so little "post flop" to contend with. By this I mean that the stack sizes in comparison to the blinds and bets are tiny. This obviously reduces the skill factor, at least how Daniel was talking about it.

As for this specific problem, I think the problem with just calling, and then betting a small amount, is that too many players will consider themselves pot-committed, or smell weakness on you, and push on you, whether or not they hit their overcard. This puts you in a terrible spot, and you'll be outplayed no matter what from what I can see. You're out of position, and don't have stack intimidation on your side. If you're going to go ahead and push/call on the flop no matter what comes, why not push preflop and push out the overcards to begin with? The fear is that he's got AA or KK? So what? You're still all-in no matter what, when the flop comes rag-rag-rag. And if you're just going to fold when an overcard comes, you're simply paying too much to see the flop to just fold. Too many players will view themselves as pot-committed or will simply sense your weakness, and they will push you off your hand with stuff like 88-JJ, or unpaired high cards that didn't hit, or good drawing hands.

It's my experience that the raiser could easily have a lower PP, and all sorts of unpaired high cards (or high card and rag, like he actually DID have). Why not push these hands out? If it were a side game, with deep money, I'd be all for calling and trying to trap or outplay.

[rybones]

[ QUOTE ]
You should know enough about your opponent by now to put him on a range of hands that he would raise 3xBB preflop with. I guarantee you its a lot more than AA, KK, AK. And then once you've thought about what hands he could be raising with preflop, you would immediately come to the correct decision to raise him all-in preflop.

The hand was played terribly.


[/ QUOTE ]

wow, I respectfully disagree with a lot here.

1. this is a sng and while I often know the range of hands my opponents will raise with when it gets to this point, I do not always know and I think anyone who says they do is fooling themselves.

2. I do agree that the range of hands is greater that A,A K,K or A,K. all the more reason to try to play this hand for it's fullest value by not raising. and all the more reason to bet to see where you are at in the hand.

3. I can still play and make the money with only 40% of this stack. can't you?

4. hands are not played terribly or amazingly, they are either played with or without thought.

It strikes me that this and many of the other posts in this thread go against what I thought was the spirit of this forum which was to investigate different lines of play. I have no problem with the pre-flop push and agree that it is usually a positive ev move. However, to argue (as I think many here have) that that is the only right move is absurd to me.

I have now responded in this thread four or five times. I guess I am stuck to this thread as it really makes me wonder why people would want to come here for advice?

while I am fairly new to 2+2 and try to always present a personia of somone who is investigating I wish to take a stand here. I think that posts where someone's play is merely vilified are extremely unhelpful. This is perhaps even more true for the ones posting their black and white advice. I wonder if you are just fortifying your own resolve to play situations the same every time they arise. For my money, you are limiting your own poker education when you post in black and white. For those who still think I am wrong on how to play this hand, really read my first responce carefully. I think you will find that I presented the idea that he may have been on to something but that if he was going to try it there were two other ways to go about it. Is that so bad?

as always, just my opinion


ryan