Live $500 Buy-In NL Hand - Page 6

Jason Strasser · #51 01-25-2005, 01:04 PM

No, you are clear. Your point is well taken.

If the description is right, and everyone folds 77, 66, 55 and hands you are very happy to get called by, then sure, 88 is the same as 22.

But would I push 22 here? Well normally not. But if you actually think about the range of hands you are going to get called by, it doesnt seem so bad. This tournament is obviously not your standard online tournament where I can guarantee there is a big difference between 88 and 22 here.

You could use the fact that you are only going to get called by TT-AA, and AK AQ if you push UTG, and be shoving lots of hands. Even though you have to dodge a lot of hands, this criteria for calling UTG all ins may encourage you to shove lots of hands here. With an 8xBB stack, I'm going to war for those blinds.

So yes, if this table was truly tight like this (and I still have trouble believing a person holding 77 in the BB wont look you up here) I might just gambool it up from EP.

-Jason

Jason Strasser · #52 01-25-2005, 01:07 PM

Mike,

You have 8xbb, you want to raise 3xbb and fold to a raise? Not to mention you are in the BB next hand and have now lost a lot of your ability to steal blinds, which is something which should be valued here. However tight the players in this tournament are at calling 8xBB raises from UTG, I promise they will not be nearly as tight when calling 5xBB raise from the same spot. Overlay from the blinds can be your best and worst friend.

Betting and folding to a raise is bad, but I think that raising to 6k instead of 4.5k is even worse because often a 4.5k raise will do the trick, and the 1.5k extra you shove into a pot you are willing to fold pf.

Yuck.
-Jason

Jason Strasser · #53 01-25-2005, 01:16 PM

Ok, good post.

So you are at solid, aggressive table and have had some decent hands but have not had the chance to steal blinds because of big raises in EP. This is combined with the fact that a push from UTG will get a lot more respect because the players are decent then an open push from the CO. Doesn't the answer to all this point to the fact that you should start stealing from EP with some speculative hands, like say 89s or 45s or XXo once in a while so that you have a shot at maintaining your current chip stack and buying more time so that you can find better spots to put your money in play then posting and folding blinds?

Obviously Im not suggesting that you push UTG constantly. I'm just suggesting a nice steal raise with a mediocre hand may be profitable because of the stringent calling requirements for all-ins from that position.

Even if you are going to only get called by hands that beat or are in a race, I still think pushing is very correct. I'd push 22 here as well because well.

MarkD · #54 01-25-2005, 01:19 PM

[ QUOTE ]
But would I push 22 here? Well normally not. But if you actually think about the range of hands you are going to get called by, it doesnt seem so bad. This tournament is obviously not your standard online tournament where I can guarantee there is a big difference between 88 and 22 here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I may be too stringent on my requirement for these players to call my UTG raises but this is what I thought at that instant in the tournament and still do think they were playing that tight. I'm willing to expand their range of hands slightly but not a lot.

{\[ QUOTE ]
You could use the fact that you are only going to get called by TT-AA, and AK AQ if you push UTG, and be shoving lots of hands. Even though you have to dodge a lot of hands, this criteria for calling UTG all ins may encourage you to shove lots of hands here. With an 8xBB stack, I'm going to war for those blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]
I also think it's easier to take about pushing with junk like J3o from UTG+1 then it is to do it. At least for me it is. But this isn't the point of the thread. In this case I have a decent hand and still there is no clear answer (that I have seen) which indicates one play is clearly right.

MarkD · #55 01-25-2005, 01:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Mike,

You have 8xbb, you want to raise 3xbb and fold to a raise? Not to mention you are in the BB next hand and have now lost a lot of your ability to steal blinds, which is something which should be valued here. However tight the players in this tournament are at calling 8xBB raises from UTG, I promise they will not be nearly as tight when calling 5xBB raise from the same spot. Overlay from the blinds can be your best and worst friend.

Betting and folding to a raise is bad, but I think that raising to 6k instead of 4.5k is even worse because often a 4.5k raise will do the trick, and the 1.5k extra you shove into a pot you are willing to fold pf.

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree with all of this.

MarkD · #56 01-25-2005, 01:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Doesn't the answer to all this point to the fact that you should start stealing from EP with some speculative hands, like say 89s or 45s or XXo once in a while so that you have a shot at maintaining your current chip stack and buying more time so that you can find better spots to put your money in play then posting and folding blinds?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you may be right. And I wasn't sitting on my chips, but I also wasn't going to put them in with a hand like J3o. I would much rather push with 56o or 56s. I was never in that spot. I got dealt 88 UTG and I'm still rather confused about what I should have done.

etgryphon · #57 01-25-2005, 01:33 PM

I'm with MarkD.

The Stop N Go is tough to play UTG. You have to be pretty sure you are going to close the action. If you where talking about this in LP I think the SnG is possible but then I'm pushing in LP with more confidence.

-Gryph

Jason Strasser · #58 01-25-2005, 01:39 PM

Huh?

I dont understand completely. You are willing to steal with 56o and 56s, but stealing with 88 is not kosher?

No one is forcing you to shove it all in with J3o. It wouldn't be a bad play in my book though because of the reasons I stated, but a hand like 88 or 56 has a much better shot against a hand that may call you because you are (certainly? well according to you) not sharing any cards. Hand values in this spot are not all too important.

There is no exact science or correct answer to this. Good tournament players find a way to steal the blinds and still maintain a table image of tight and aggressive. Bad tournament players abuse this idea of hand values being unimportant at this stage and then players at the table will lose respect for them and as a result look them up with speculative hands. This is not a horrible result, and can often explain the reason why so many players who misunderstand the game, yet are extremely aggressive can win a tournament (esp shallow stacked tournament). Bad players will also be too tight, and fold too many hands and put themselves in a spot where under ideal, even lucky situations, they will follow a pattern of dropping big chunks of their stack, doubling up, and not progressed at all and then having to deal with bigger blinds.

You are looking for an exact answer in a very inexact science. This is a tournament and you are shortstacked. Your play should be more like a Jackson Pollock artpiece then of Vermeer.

-Jason

Jason Strasser · #59 01-25-2005, 01:40 PM

You can not stop and go from UTG unless stop and go means something other than what I think it means.

MarkD · #60 01-25-2005, 01:58 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Huh?

I dont understand completely. You are willing to steal with 56o and 56s, but stealing with 88 is not kosher?

[/ QUOTE ]

I knew this would be confusing. I'll try to clarify. I would be more inclined to steal with a hand like 56s than with J3o. I didn't say that I would be inclined to steal with that hand specifically and I did not say that I would be inclined to steal with 56s than with 88. If I did than I wrote something that I did not mean to write. What this thread is all about is the situation that I found myself in during the tournament. I never got a hand like 56s or 56o or 22 or whatever. I got hands like J3 and Q2, etc., or someone raised 3BB in front of me when I had a hand like A9s and I decided to fold. And then this hand came up and I didn't know the right play and hence this post.

You are talking about an overall strategy that has you stealing from UTG with a lot of hands and thus you think 88 is an easy steal hand to push with. I wasn't viewing this as a steal situation exactly since I was UTG and I don't often think of stealing from UTG. I'm not going to pretend that this is correct, I am not a tournament expert. Maybe we should be discussing stealing from EP in a tournament like this and what kind of hands should be doing that as it's not something I know much about. It feels as if you are taking an entirely different approach to this hand than I did - and I like that. I think I am understanding where you are coming from a bit more now.