near bubble

ktree · #1 04-02-2004, 08:13 AM

I'm new here so bear with me. Have been playing hold em for abut nine months, mostly on-line tournaments; anyhow... Last night playing in a WSOP qualifier on Poker stars I was 31 out of 57 with 8k or so play has been brisk and blinds are only 100 200 no ante. I have AA utg and if I read Sklansky correctly, I should slow play big hands with small blinds, so I did. I called BB and flop is 6hQdJs four players. I small bet the Queen (400) to see where I am and BB goes all in. (2300). I am two hands removed from calling an all in with q10d that matched the flop and winning about 7000, sooo I'm thinking perhaps this is a replay of that and if so I have outs and what looks like ok pot odds. 2+1.:1 Even if the guy had a set of anything, I still like my chances. He had the QJ and the window ragged out. Was this a dufus call or was I close. Thanks

ZootMurph · #2 04-02-2004, 08:46 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I small bet the Queen (400) to see where I am and BB goes all in. (2300).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the part I really don't understand... You bet to see where you were, someone went all in against you (telling you that you had second best hand), and you called. In addition, in tournament play you are done when you bust out, so you need to have the best hand if you go are going to put all your chips in the pot. This other player told you that you didn't have the best hand... so you should have folded it.

As for the rest... I often slowplay AA UTG, hoping someone raises behind me so I can reraise. So I don't think that is a really bad play. However, if the play was loose to that point, I would have put in a decent raise.

As far as odds... as I said before, tournament play requires a different thought process when an allin situation comes up. Odds should be calculated solely on whether you think you had the best hand or not at that point.

Finally, consider the source when reading this reply: I play very little online, mostly small buy-in tournaments on Party, and I don't do THAT well. Most tournaments I play are B&M and I have a lot more ability to make reads.

ktree · #3 04-02-2004, 02:10 PM

Thank you for the reply. Just not tough enough to lay down AA yet. This is a question about multis that I am having a difficult time with. I was moved to a table with the chip leaders. tops about 28k, I had a little over 11K. On two separate occaisions I had 99 and 66 in BB and got sandwiched between two guys going all in. The first on each occasion was only a fraction of my stack, but the second was enough to just about bust me if I lost. I folded both times. Each time the 99 or the 66 would have won the pots against AJ, KQ against the 99's and A10s and K10s. I felt like I made the right move folding, but at this point of the tournament, 60 odd left out of 600 two moving on in the satelitte, just about every hand has being called all in by somebody. In ensuing all in hands I saw three different pairs of 66's win huge pots. I'm I screwing this up? Should I risk all my chips with a medium pair? Thanks for the input.

jw2k · #4 04-02-2004, 03:30 PM

I don't consider 100/200 blinds to be "small". Near the bubble is the point of a tourney where I switch gears and start playing more agressive, raising preflop with more hands, and hoping to pick up AA,KK,QQ or AK to double up with when someone moves allin against my raise with a dominated hand.