A potential race / A potential bluff.

Fulltilt.com, 24+4, Guaranteed 12,000

1. One spot to right of Dealer with A9o. I've been playing aggressively up to this point. 2300 chips, 25/50 blinds. I raise to 200. Both blinds call.

Pot 600

Flop: 10 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

SB bets 150, BB calls. Action to me:

I know that SB is weak, he's been doing a lot of these mini-continuation bets, praying to win, ready to fold whenever raised. Unfortunately, BB just joined the table and I don't know his style. This could just be a smooth call by him, justified or not. What I do know is just how much time he took to make the call, I have a feeling he is on something like A10 or K10. What's my best strategy here?

2. Early position with 99. Blinds now at 40/80. Now at 2200. Raise to 200. Player in mid position, with 930, takes a long time to think about it and then pushes all in. Everyone folds to me. I write out "I know what you have," he respondeds "hmmmm..." I put him on KA, I'm 99% sure of it. What I'm not so sure of is whether I should take this race now. I'm a little under the chip average and the way these guys have been playing, if I can get up to 3,300, I can play aggro more comfortably and maybe get into a position where I can leap from 4,000 to 7,000 when I finally hit some cards (what a long week). Gotta keep building chips to win. Should I call? Or should I wait until my EV is better and guarantee being 25X BB?

[rockythecat99]

fold this. If bb folded I wouldve raised sb and expected to win. As soon as BB gets in you are drawing to 3 outs. And don't think they will fold to an all in either. At these buy ins 20-30$ people will call your all in with top pair.

I think I call the all in.

[otnemem]

It might be your terminology that's throwing me off...

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I know that SB is weak, he's been doing a lot of these mini-continuation bets, praying to win, ready to fold whenever raised.

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You raised preflop, so this is not a continuation bet. He's not continuing anything.

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This could just be a smooth call by him, justified or not.

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This is a smoothcall. Why do you say it could be?

Fold and fold. In the first hand, there's no reason to waste more chips. With a bet and a smoothcall by BB, there's no reason to try to make a move. BB could be slowplaying two pair or a set of deuces and there's no reason for you to be sucked into this pot...

Second hand is an easy fold. You're most likely either very far behind (I could even see TT or JJ making this same push). Or you're barely ahead. I suppose there's the possibility that Villain holds 66-88, but how much faith do you want to put in that read.

IMO both very easy folds.

If you truly are 99% sure he has AK, then you have the best hand and there is dead money sweeten the pot (blinds plus your raise). Call. If you aren't sure he has AK, then it depends.

Pardon the confusion in terminology - I have yet to attain much experience in writing these posts, but in time, I'm sure that I will have an adequate grasp on such.

As to play 1, the idea of folding is probably best. If I had known BB, then maybe I would have pushed. However, given that he just joined the table AND he smooth called, a fold is the right play. Fair enough.

Play 2 is a little trickier. Yes, I have "at best" a race. Though, theory aside on his range, my FEEL, my GUT, two factors I find greatly underutlized by some players, said he had AK. So I was basically assuming AK all along.

The more general question becomes when in a multi-tourney do you want to take your 56/44 given about 1.8 to 1 pot odds. At 2200 chips with the blinds soon to go up to 60/120, I'm thinking that this might be the time. On the other hand, since most players at the table were fairly easy to read, I may have wanted to try to chop away at them on flops and turns for another round. Of course, everytime I would be trying to win a flop, I'd be potentially sacrificing anywhere from 25% to 100% of my chips. Had the blinds still been at 25/50 with, say, 5 or more minutes to go, this would have been a much easier fold. At 40/80 with two minutes to go, much harder. This is the game theory predicament that I'm most concerned about.

[KneeCo]

1. Fold

2. Call. You have to call 730 into a pot of 1250 and are 99% sure (why so certain by the way?) you're a favorite.

[tdomeski]

1. I tend to fold here early in a tournament pre flop. . .I like making the people behind me think I'm a tight player with small blinds then take advantage of that when blinds get bigger. For same reason if I were to raise pf I would fold flop nearly everytime. .Let them think you are a weak tighty then make them pay later when it is more beneficial to you.

Hand 2 I fold pretty much everytime. .For what it's worth timing tells here indicate a very strong hand (stronger than AK). With a short stack facing a raise many players will auto push AK. . .as there is only one way to play it. . Although these types of timing tells aren't always accurate it can be very helpful. .As a general rule of thumb I just assume everyone with AK here would play it very fast and not do the long stall thing. .thus, I fold. Plus best case scenario most of the time is coin flip, no need to flip for half your stack at this point. That $1.2K in chips in the pot or whatever is pretty insignificant at this point.

Knee,

In internet multi-table tournaments, more than in money games, pre-flop instincts become essential to winning. Ranges just aren't enough sometime, you really have to dig. In this case, my opponent had just been sitting there for 10 minutes, waiting and waiting to make a move. You think, a weak tight player - what hands are floating in his head to move like that. What's he so afraid of? So, immediately, I have him down to 1010, AK, or AQ. Could he have AA to JJ - maybe, but from my experience, weak tight players are more excited than anything else to have JJ or QQ preflop when they are 10 XBB. More excited than having AK or AQ, because for some reason, they think that QQ or JJ is really that much better.

Then I started to pry - it's amazing what people on the internet will tell you if you just ask them in that little chat box. I just kept saying "yeah, I know what you have. I have a really good feeling." He said "Hmmm..." and I knew he had AK. Maybe I'm not "99%" sure, but I'm damn close.

Sorry, btw, if this thread is less advanced for most. I'll try to get a better flop to discuss soon enough.

A'

Domeski,

Thanks for the intelligent response.

Just to re-update for rest of group:

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40/80 blinds to go up to 60/120 in two minutes
After early position raise with 99, I'm down to 2000 chips
Villain in middle position (weak-tight and at 930) raises me all in. Fold to me.
Assume he has AK (rightly or wrongly), I decide to call.

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You don't think that with the blinds a minute or two away from being at 60/120, with 2200 chips, that taking 1.8:1 pot odds for a coin flip is good? That's not a rhetorical, I'd just like a little elaboration, if possible. Yes, I lose another 740 chips if opponent hits, but how playable are those 740 chips saved at 60/120, now down to 2000 chips. In the alternative, how playable is 1250 additional chips, now with 3200 total (if I win) at 60/120? I think in the short run, the call doesn't look that good. But in the long run, the 50/50 of having 3200 is more valuable than the 100% of having 2000.

If this reasoning is faulty, why, and how much longer should I have waited before starting to take a race?

[KneeCo]

If the villain flips his cards over after making the push and he actually has AK, no one would argue you should fold your 99 in this situation. However, I think you misread Domeski's reply, I think he isn't arguing against taking the race, he is arguing against the villain necessarily holding big slick.