Bellagio $1500 pot limit hold'em event, any easy answer?

[J.Brown]

I spent the last week at the Bellagio, playing live action, satellites, and tournaments. Here is my results from Friday's pot-limit hold'em event, with a question about my final hand played.

A side note to this post is that I have noticed a new trend in these poker tournaments with all of the new faces starting to play tourney poker due to the WPT and what not. Everyone seems to be a little more cautious for the first hour or so and you can literally watch the weak and inexperienced go broke while they struggle to handle their chips, cards, betting amounts, etc. I saw some amazing plays this week and not just weak calls, but also some funny slowplaying when people were horribly unaware of the strength of their own hands, anyway just a thought, then when the loose and weak money was gobbled up it was like the tournament really go started...this isn't a new phenomenon by any means, but it seemed more exaggerated than usual.

I am seated at the only tournament table inside the main poker room to start, so I know that we are the first table to break. No need getting to know these fine folks, but it seemed like a pretty good table. I only know three players, Chip Jett, tough and dangerous tourney pro, Aidan Bennett, Irishman and good big bet hold'em player, and Jack Crawford, old cowboy with no fear and a WSOP bracelt.

Our table lasts about 30 min. I pick up A-A the first hand in middle position, raise, no callers, and I play K-Q off from the button, raise before the flop, get 2 callers and win with a bet on the flop with a K-10-3 board. Table breaks.

I draw seat 2 at my next table and count my chips before I move and have exactly 150 more than the starting 3000.

My new table isn't great, but I have seen worse. I do however seem to have some bad postion. Seat 3-Chris Gregorian, Seat 4-Tony Ma, Seat 5-an older Englishman who has about 15K in chips and just busted 3 player prior to my arrival, Seat 6-Mohammed Ibrahim, he is chipped up and super aggressive, a couple of unknowns and the Mike Laing in the 9 Seat.

I go completely card dead for the next hour and a half. I raise twice and get no action, once with jacks in the middle, and once with 87suited late, other than that I am silent and I am looking like a rock, this is not good.

Everyone else is either going broke or builiding towers of chips, me I am feeling helpless. The blinds are now 100-200 and I have a little over 1500 when I double up with QQ vs. a flush draw and am back to my starting chips of 3000, which is now way below par.

Our table breaks and I am grateful just for the chance at a new table and being able to maybe have some better position on what few weak players are left in the field.

No such luck to name a few my table included, Ken Goldstein, David Levi, Tom McEvoy, T.J. Cloutier, Alex from Costa Rica, and couple other familar faces that I didn't get to know all that well because of the following hand.

I am 2 from the big blind and look down to J-10 of clubs.

Alex sitting on my right under the gun limps, I limp. question 1, correct play? any other ideas including mucking?

everyone else folds, small blind calls, big blind checks.

flop is 10-4-2, 4-2 of clubs--pot is 800

check, check, check, I bet the pot. question 2, correct play?

fold, fold, Alex calls. I have a little over half my chips in the pot at this point, he has me covered.

turn is red jack, I now have top two pair and a flush draw.

His smooth call set off the warning bells for me, but I quit hearing them when I saw this turn card. I essentially put myself all in after he checks and he makes sure I am all in by doing the symbolic check raise.

Ahhhhhhh, a set of fours for him, well played, but I have 15 outs, the river Queen is not one of them and I am done.

Anything I could have done different to avoid this hand?

I would love any and all ideas. thanks--J.Brown

[Paluka]

The only way you can do anything on this hand is check the turn and fold your top two pair to his river bet. Seems pretty tough to do on a short stack.

[sam h]

I played with Alex in smaller pot limit games and tournaments when I lived in Costa Rica. He is very loose and very aggressive and will stay in pots without premium holdings if he thinks you are weak and can be pushed around when a scare card hit.

For these reasons, checking the turn might not be a terrible idea. Alex would probably have bet a flush draw on the flop with only one player behind him. So unless he has some strange low straight draw (a possibility with him), you are probably way ahead with him drawing slim or behind with many outs. Given that Alex is so aggressive and you have a bit of a weak-tight image, it might be worth it to check the turn and let him fire away on the river, with the intention of calling down.