2 steals and a crappy scenario with AQ

ClaytonN · #1 08-12-2005, 02:32 PM

All of these hands are from a $22 tournament

Here was the hand that set hand #2 up:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter

saw flop|saw showdown

SB (t1710)
BB (t5495)
Hero (t1183)
UTG+1 (t4039)
MP1 (t3621)
MP2 (t2570)
CO (t5385)
Button (t750)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Hero posts a blind of t100.
5 folds, SB calls t50, Hero (poster) raises to t1283, SB folds

Final Pot: t1383

SB was a limp,limp, minibet tard. Easy steal scenario for me, I didn't want to play postflop with a hand like KQo, so I stole it.

The very next hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter

saw flop|saw showdown

CO (t1710)
Button (t5395)
Hero (t1283)
BB (t4039)
UTG (t3621)
UTG+1 (t2570)
MP1 (t5385)
MP2 (t750)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
UTG calls t100, 4 folds, Button calls t100, Hero raises to t1333, 1 fold, UTG folds, Button folds.

Final Pot: t1633

SB is now button, I'm in the SB. UTG is a passive player from what I've noted, so I figure him for a marginal hand. Same with limp-limp minibet tard on the button. So I push again. And steal. Is this an okay play?

Lastly, an AQo hand. I have 1200 behind me after the raise, and the reraiser is the passive UTG player from hand 2. How the hell can I play it after his minraise preflop?

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (8 handed) converter

saw flop|saw showdown

SB (t4205)
BB (t1710)
UTG (t7715)
Hero (t1583)
MP1 (t4489)
MP2 (t3671)
CO (t5235)
Button (t450)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
1 fold, Hero raises to t300, 1 fold, MP2 raises to t500, 4 folds, Hero....

Baloosh · #2 08-12-2005, 03:02 PM

Maybe I'm just being an idiot, but how did SB go from (t1710) in the first hand, to Button (t5395) in the very next hand?

gumpzilla · #3 08-12-2005, 03:09 PM

Hand 1: Take the flop. If he's limping in with all kinds of garbage, KQ will be fine - you can flop top pair and be quite confident that you're good to go. You'll extract more chips this way and run into fewer coinflips with 77 that I don't think you really want here.

Hand 2: I don't like it. UTG limper, followed by a somewhat meaningless button limp, and BB yet to act is already a little dicey. Given that you just pushed the hand before, I think this is a bad spot for a steal and you'll get looked up way more than you're going to want with Q8.

Hand 3: Call the reraise, get your stack in (probably a c/r all-in) if you hit an A, make a judgment call if you flop a Q, run like a little girl otherwise. I think you're getting good enough odds to spike an A which will be good often enough. I'm not wild about pushing, since I think you'll have little folding equity and from a passive player he's probably got a pretty good hand to be making that 3 bet.

Ixnert · #4 08-12-2005, 03:14 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Hand 3: Call the reraise, get your stack in (probably a c/r all-in) if you hit an A, make a judgment call if you flop a Q,

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe I'm just being dense here, but isn't that the other way around?

betgo · #5 08-12-2005, 03:15 PM

The KQ hand is an easy push. I usually push in this situation when the SB completes. Sometimes the smartass loose passive SB will all me with A5o or something and think he was really cleaver trapping me into going allin with Q7s.

The Q8o push is read-dependent. The early position limper probably has a better hand than you and could be trapping. I would usually just complete or fold.

The AQ hand is really read-dependent. Do you think the minireraise means a big pair? I would be tempted to push and find out.

gumpzilla · #6 08-12-2005, 04:06 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Hand 3: Call the reraise, get your stack in (probably a c/r all-in) if you hit an A, make a judgment call if you flop a Q,

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe I'm just being dense here, but isn't that the other way around?

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps. Here's my reasoning. I think that the reraise business is more likely to be JJ-AA than AK. People generally want to see a lot of cards when they are playing AK, so I think a push over the top would be more likely. (EDIT: I went back and looked at the stack sizes, MP was much deeper than I remembered and there are people yet to act. So pushing wouldn't happen, clearly. That said, I'd still expect a little bit of a larger raise from AK, but he is passive. In this case, hitting the A is slightly less exciting, but I think that because at that point there will be at most 8 AK combinations and probably 18 JJ-KK, you're still better off pushing.) Hitting an A means that AA becomes extremely unlikely and you beat all of the others, so you're good. If you hit a Q, KK-AA are still very real possibilities that beat you, and so it's a somewhat tougher decision.