Gambling at the final table

[centja1]

I've been focusing on trying to find some nice spots to gamble late in the tournament with hands that I'm not necessarily a big fan of.

Does anyone have any comments on this hand from a MTT the other night? I suspect that calling in this spot is probably not extraordinarily good nor bad, but possibly a spot where I would like to gamble a little bit with my M up at about 7.

Blinds 1500/3000 with T200 ante
BB has stack of T20,000. Everyone else is clustered around T75,000. FT and down to 6 handed. At a FT, where most of the hands are raise and take it before the flop, does anyone gamble here with a call?

Preflop: Hero is Button with Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 10[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
2 folds, MP2 calls, CO calls, Button calls, 1 fold, BB raises to T20167 (All-in), MP2 folds, CO calls, Hero??

[prayformojo]

You're getting about 3:1 odds, BB has every reason to push a very broad range of hands, CO has been given two chances to show strength but has done nothing, you have position, and you're closing the action. I think your decision is between calling and pushing, and I'm leaning towards pushing.

[centja1]

Besides the obvious fact that pushing will more than likely fold out CO, do we not raise a little suspicion flag by not pushing the first time but pushing the second time? Most players who pay attention will correctly call with pairs down to 66 and 55, not to mention Ace high, which I'm pretty sure would not be what i want.

I don't think I have the best hand here, and quite possibly am in third place at the moment. I know i have an overlay, but if CO calls, then that overlay is gone. Another aspect, which you touched on, is that i have position on the one remaining active player. Should I be more willing to push and negate that position or simply call and see if he wants to check it down?

I'm essentially trying to weigh the costs of committing the rest of my stack against the value of knocking out the BB should i completely miss.

[LethalRose]

and your stack is?

[centja1]

i had T80k to start with. this was about what everyone else had as well.

If CO folded I would call, now I'm folding tho since I don't want to gamble with 25% of my stack in this situation.

What can CO have here when he just calls preflop when it's a "raise and take it" part of the game and then he just calls of 20k to BB's all in? Got a range for him? How have he been playing? YOu should have a pretty good read on him by now but from what I am seeing, this can be a trap and even if you hit a Q or 10, you may not be in good shape.

[centja1]

i thought it was just about even money that it was a trap as opposed to him simply calling with the knowledge that it would be checked down to eliminate BB.

i leaned towards it not being a trap since he should have just gone ahead and raised it up once he had BB all-in and had gotten any action that he wanted to induce by limping.

Combine that with the fact that I had a hand that wouldn't mind seeing all cards, had position, a nice chance that it would be checked down and close to T70k in the pot, I leaned towards a call.

granted, this was for 25% of my stack, but i thought this might be a nice spot to try and catch a big hand and win a nice pot.

I've always played it TAG at the final table by raising lots of hands and grinding my way up, but this was a new situation where i had to put in a sizable portion of my stack but might get a nice return on it if I hit.

[Exitonly]

Fold
Not a gamble you need to make, unless your stack is really small. And even then, i dont think i like it.

[centja1]

just to point out that there was a limper to CO when he limped initially. i think this also points out that he probably does not have a monster since he would be gambling that myself or one of the two blinds had enough to raise two limpers.

[nath]

I probably fold too, but I'm not crazy about how this hand was played.
I do like the thinking that suggests a reraise all-in preflop, though. (But be aware of what it does to your image, and if you can exploit that with the chips you will win, then do it.)