Is this bad play?

[coolhandj]

I agree with the first raise in this situation, but if it you are only in the early to mid stages of a tournement you need to start folding in this kind of a situation. you need to avoid gambling you whole stack early in a tournement period. It almost does not matter what the other player has. there are better places to put your money in.

lets say you have him dominated and you are going to lose only 1 out of 5 times. if you make this call for all your money three times during the tournement, you now have a 3 out of 5 chance that you will get eliminated, and thats if you have him dominated every time. this is why it is important not to risk you entire stack early in a tourney.

However this play is ok much later in the tournement, but i would still want a read on my opponent.

as far as what kind of hand he has, AK makes perfect sense. AK is one of the biggest "pushing hands" in tournements, especially when there is already a raise in the pot. when a unsophisticated player looks at AK, he is not going to fold for one normal size raise (rightly so), and he knows that AK is a raising hand, but he's afraid to play it through (what if I miss and he bets? what do I do then?) so he pushes in all of his chips to aviod making hard decisions. this is probably more true for higher buy in tourneys.

[A_PLUS]

Thats really not accurate. Of course you will get more bad calls in a low buy in event than a high buy in event, but the resteal can be extremely profitable in low buy in events.

Many low buy in events, the players who make it close to the bubble tend to be the uber-tight players, with a few lucky LAGs thrown in. The Tag players usually try very obvious blind steals, and are great targets for resteals.

We sometimes get carried away with how bad we think low buy in competition is. Generally they ae just very straight forward in their thinking, and exploitable, but not necessarily "call an all-in raise with QTo" type bad.

[A_PLUS]

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if it you are only in the early to mid stages of a tournement you need to start folding in this kind of a situation. you need to avoid gambling you whole stack early in a tournement period.

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See what I mean about the resteal being profitable. This type of thinking is pretty common in the mid-late stages of low buy in events.

[Lloyd]

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if it you are only in the early to mid stages of a tournement you need to start folding in this kind of a situation. you need to avoid gambling you whole stack early in a tournement period.

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See what I mean about the resteal being profitable. This type of thinking is pretty common in the mid-late stages of low buy in events.

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[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] It's nice when other people make your point for you. And I agree that a re-steal would be profitable. I just don't think it's done at this level or even that frequently in larger buy-in tournies.

[Lloyd]

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you need to avoid gambling you whole stack early in a tournement period. It almost does not matter what the other player has. there are better places to put your money in.

lets say you have him dominated and you are going to lose only 1 out of 5 times. if you make this call for all your money three times during the tournement, you now have a 3 out of 5 chance that you will get eliminated, and thats if you have him dominated every time. this is why it is important not to risk you entire stack early in a tourney.

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Quite bluntly, this is not a good way to play and you need to evolve to the point where you understand why. If you read through these boards and some of the archives you'll improve your game a long way.

[coolhandj]

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.

in a tournement, chips have no monitary value, and although a resteal may have a positive EV for the HAND, Its tough to convince me that it has a positive EV for the tournement. the only play that is profitable in a tournement is the one that gets you in the money. No money is awarded to the player who has the most chips early in a tournement, only to the player who lasts the longest. In a table stakes game this would be a good play, or in the LATER stages of a tournement. you would need to provide some kind of mathmatical proof to convince me that this is a tournement winning strategy. This "common way of thinking" is common because it is a tested and proven winning tournement strategy. I have lost many pots to players who do what you suggest, they steal alot of pots from me, but I almost always place higher than them in the tournement. this is because they make this play over and over until sombody draws out on them, and they lose there whole stack on one hand before they even get close to the money.

currently I have placed in the money in just over 30% of the tournements I have played in this year.

[A_PLUS]

Coolhand,

I realize you probably are having a hard time accepting this advice. But try to be open minded, this really is a HUGE deal for your game.

First: It sounds like you are playing very low buy in events. If you want to win the most moneyw with tougher fields your insanely tight strategy will take a miracle to work.

Second:What would you rather do, finish just in the money 3/10 times, or finish in the top 3 once?

Third: Where is it proven that your strategy is good, or even profitable? (and do yourself a favor....please dont say TJ's book).

Honestly, you can learn a ton from someone like Lloyd, just try to keep an open mind

[betgo]

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Many low buy in events, the players who make it close to the bubble tend to be the uber-tight players, with a few lucky LAGs thrown in. The Tag players usually try very obvious blind steals, and are great targets for resteals.

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The TAG or LAG players making steals on the bubble are generally fairly good players and in that situation the steal is obvious. This is a good time for a resteal.

Generally in low buyin tournaments the play is too loose rather than too tight.

I generally play a lot higher than $5 buyin, but I don't see that many people folding to a reraise until pretty late in the tournament.

For example, in the last $600 MTT on Paradise with about 1/4 of the field left, someone raised from early position and I reraised with AA. He called and the flop came Kxx. He checkraised the flop and I pushed. He folded after losing 2/3 of his chips and told me he had KQ. I told him what I had and he said that's what he thought I had. Well if he thought that he should have called, since he had pot odds, but he would be in worse shape against AK or KK. Now how can you call a reraise with KQo? This hand shows you the trouble you can get into. Now I didn't make an overbet push, but I raised almost pot, so it would like like it might be a resteal rather than a big pair. Some people just won't fold to a reraise.

This wasn't a reraise, but in a $20 rebuy today past the rebuy period, I open pushed for 18xBB from the SB with 99. Now this play is EV+, since it is unlikely the BB has a bigger pair. I like to push because I am better at math and feel for opponents and tables than at postflop reads. I also thought there was a good chance I would get a call by a hand I was ahead of. Maybe two overcards, but even better a lower pocket pair or A9 or lower. Anyway, the BB calls me with T8o. Now how could he possibly be ahead of any hand I was pushing with? It seems like he was offended by the overbet push and wasn't going to be pushed around.

My feeling is that most amateur players at any buyin will not be pushed around. Therefore, a resteal is often dangerous.