Early "all-in" decision

[bakersh]

Less than 10 hands into a NL tournament. Blinds are 10-20, start with 1500 in chips. Player A has won a couple pots, mostly committing all in after the flop and taking it down so he's up to about 2,000 in chips (give or take... basically, has me covered). I get A [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] 10 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] a couple from the blinds. Fold to me, I raise to 200 (too little, too much? not a veteran of NL, mostly play limit). Player A calls, everyone else folds. Flop comes J [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] 10 [img]/forums/images/icons/diamond.gif[/img] 2 [img]/forums/images/icons/heart.gif[/img] . I bet the pot, A goes all in. Question 1: should I have bet more, less, not at all? Question 2: what do I do now?
I called and he turns over KQo and catches an Ace on the river, no more hearts. I'm out.

I assume in a ring NL game that my play would be okay (again, don't know as I don't play that much NL... actually, only a couple times), but in a tournament situation should I have given up my hand when faced with going all in? I honestly didn't put him on J 10 (but in hind sight, there's no reason for me to think he didn't have that), although if I did, I would think I still would have a decision to make.
Comments?

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[sam h]

preflop i think your raise is too big. you will have to dump the hand to any substantial reraise so why commit 15% if your stack to win 30 chips? with the blinds so small, the only time i would make such a big raise rather than the standard 3 or 4 times the BB is with a big hand, gambling on getting more action.

im assuming the other player called your raise behind you rather than out of the blinds. on the flop i think your pot sized bet is good. you got a lot of the flop but you should be happy to take the pot down right now.

after you get raised, you have an easy call and its not even close. as far as i can figure, you are calling 870 to win 2160. your opponent could show you jack ten and you would still have a call getting 2.5 to 1 and with nine flush outs plus three other aces. and in this case, it seems likely that your opponent has a less than two pair or a set.

notice that if you had made a more reasonable raise before the flop, then potted it on the flop, you would be able to get away from the hand more easily if you wanted to. in this case i think you want to shove in, but you wouldnt want to be pot stuck against a tight opponent with an ace high flop not knowing if your kicker was good.

if this was a live nl game with the same stack sizes then you have an easy call as well. but generally in nl the stacks will be much deeper, making the decision a lot dicier.

just my two cents.

sam

[bakersh]

Thanks for your reply. I wasn't sure about the preflop raise. And you are correct, the guy who called was not in the blind.

I had bet the pot after the flop in hopes that he would try to come over the top of me and push all in, however when he actually did it, I hesitated just a bit. I assume the time in the tournament shouldn't matter: It being early and feeling that I was one of the better players (nobody played NL very much, and I certainly was better overall IMO [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] )? I guess proper odds are proper odds no matter when. Although I'm a firm believer in not chasing during a tournament and don't like to push small edges. I prefer to lay back and wait for others to try and make incorrect moves.

[ohkanada]

A couple things pre-flop. I am not clear what "a couple from the blinds" mean. Does that mean you are in early position or late position? Although ATs looks nice, I would be wary raising with it from early position. Too many players to act after you. In late position it is fine to raise. With blinds of 10-20 you should be making it 60 or 70. In general your raise to 200 which is 10x the BB will only get called by better hands although there are exceptions.

Against this opponent (who has gone all-in post flop a few times already 10 hands in) on this type of flop I would call all-in.

Ken Poklitar

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Any raise more than about 4x the big blind is too big. About the only time to raise more is when a "standard" raise will use up a big percentage of your stack, in which case going all-in instead is a very reasonable move.

As for on the flop, you should basically never consider folding here. Even if 3 people ahead of you go all-in you've just flopped a through ticket to the river. Against one very aggressive player, there is no set of circumstances where I would fold this hand on the flop.

In reference to your other post in this thread about avoiding drawing hands and close gambles, those comments simply do not apply to these facts. By the time you got reraised on the flop, you were getting a very large payoff for your call, something like 900 to win 2100. Given that your hand makes you a favorite over many of the hands he might hold, just about even with others, and only about a 2:1 dog even if he has a set, this is NOT a close gamble. This is a hugely +EV situation. If you fold here just to be cautious, I can almost guarantee that you will be cautiously folding your way out of the money in pretty much any tourney you play.

Your edge here is huge, so folding should never be an option. Early more so than late in the tourney.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)