Late Blind Defense in $20 MTT

phredd · #1 09-12-2005, 11:24 AM

I played in the Online Relief tourney on PokerRoom (yeah, yeah, I know) this weekend, and ran into a hand I wasn't sure how to handle. I've been at this table for about a half hour, and I've had a small stack throughout. I've picking up occasional blinds and hanging in, but I've not had an opportunity to make a real move. We are technically playing the first hand at the final table, but due to the transition from two tables to one, this hand was dealt only six-way. I have 15K chips (9th place), villain has an average stack of about 60K, and chip leader has 150K. Blinds are 2K, no ante. Villain has been very aggressive at stealing blinds, and will raise with absolutely any two cards if it is folded to him one or two off the button. (He has shown 94os in this situation previously.)

6-handed. Hero is BB, dealt K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].

Folded to villain in CO, who min-raises. Button and SB fold.

Hero should ?

In the actual event, I called the raise (reasons explained later). Flop is 7[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. Villain min-bets.

Given the PF call, Hero should ?

TIA for your thoughts.

fnurt · #2 09-12-2005, 11:41 AM

Against an aggressive blind stealer, I go for broke with this one.

phredd · #3 09-12-2005, 11:47 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Against an aggressive blind stealer, I go for broke with this one.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does that mean you would push PF, or only after you see the first three?

rwanger · #4 09-12-2005, 11:56 AM

I think it's perfectly okay to push here. You are 9th in chips, and you can be fairly certain you are ahead here. Even if he calls with a worse hand, (or a better on for that matter), you're in a decent spot to double your stack...and if you go broke, well...you were looking at 9th anyway.

This happened to me recently with a guy raising any two. Being the short stack, I pushed with A7o and he called with T2s getting slightly less than 2:1 on his money. I doubled up. A few hands later, I had the chance to do it again with K4s, and folded. I now regret not pushing that, even knowing that he'll call with a worse hand. There was no way to play survival poker with two giant stacks bullying.

You should be looking to double up, even if you only have a slight advantage (which you can be pretty sure of in this case).

fnurt · #5 09-12-2005, 12:06 PM

Well, I meant that I would push on the flop, since it didn't occur to me that I could give the flop back. But taking another look at the chip situation, you have only 15k, and coming over the top preflop increases your stack by 50%. While K7 doesn't exactly get me excited, I think you are way too short-stacked to be calling raises hoping to hit something. You simply won't flop a hand often enough, and the raiser will beat you up when you don't.

Getting back to the flop situation, it's entirely possible that villain is trying to suck you in with the minimum raises and such, but when you have 7 BB in your stack and you flop top pair-good kicker, heads up no less, there is simply no way you can plan on getting away from the hand.

phredd · #6 09-12-2005, 01:52 PM

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Well, I meant that I would push on the flop, since it didn't occur to me that I could give the flop back.

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I don't understand what you mean here. I was asking if you would push pre-flop, or only once you've seen the flop.

[ QUOTE ]
But taking another look at the chip situation, you have only 15k, and coming over the top preflop increases your stack by 50%. While K7 doesn't exactly get me excited, I think you are way too short-stacked to be calling raises hoping to hit something. You simply won't flop a hand often enough, and the raiser will beat you up when you don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, well, my thinking here was that villain was most likely raising with nothing, and that the odds were that he wouldn't hit the flop, either. So I was planning to push against virtually any flop, figuring that this way the aggressive villain would give me two BB instead of just one. A trap, if you can call it that, given that I have virtually no information about villain's hand. It's a risk, but in the information vacuum, no more risky than pushing pre-flop, I figured.

[ QUOTE ]
Getting back to the flop situation, it's entirely possible that villain is trying to suck you in with the minimum raises and such, but when you have 7 BB in your stack and you flop top pair-good kicker, heads up no less, there is simply no way you can plan on getting away from the hand.

[/ QUOTE ]

Glad you think so, too. I pushed it. Villain typed in "bad bet", called, and showed me 56s for the flopped straight, and I was out of the tourney. It seems you agree that I didn't play it too badly, though, so that makes me feel a bit better.