JJ hand from the Bahammas

[Steve Giufre]

Hey guys. I'm mostly a limit player and I want to improve my tournament game. Here is a hand from the Stars Bahammas event I would like some feedback on. Day 2, the blinds are 400-800. I have about 32k in chips which is above average, and a pretty tight image. Decent player, (Mortinson's wife), makes it 2400 to go three off the button. European pro, who is defintely in the top 5 in chips, makes it 8k on the button, his stack is roughly 55k. I am in the BB with JJ. Whats my play?

[MLG]

this is a complete table dynamic decision. Also, I think a rough estimate of the big stack is important here, does he have 75k or 120k? Also, had Cecilia been opening light, and has the big stack been playing aggresive. If so, this is a great spot to push. You quite possibly have the best hand, and will almost never get called by AQ. Also there's a small chance cecilia lays down QQ here. My guess is that the big stacks range is something like AA-88, AK-AJ, KQ here.

[Steve Giufre]

[ QUOTE ]
this is a complete table dynamic decision. Also, I think a rough estimate of the big stack is important here, does he have 75k or 120k? Also, had Cecilia been opening light, and has the big stack been playing aggresive. If so, this is a great spot to push. You quite possibly have the best hand, and will almost never get called by AQ. Also there's a small chance cecilia lays down QQ here. My guess is that the big stacks range is something like AA-88, AK-AJ, KQ here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really appreciate the response. I wanted to leave my read out because I didnt want lead anybody in one direction or another. Cecilia wasnt raising light a lot, but I was pretty sure she was here. She had been pretty shakey and visably nervous with big hands in big spots, and that wasnt the case here. I was also fairly sure that the pro on the button knew this also, so it might open up his range of hands a little bit, even though he hadnt been leaning on the blinds or pushing marginal hands like I was expecting him to. He had 55-65k if I had to gues FWIW.

[MLG]

I think this makes it a push. Even if we tighten the range to AA-99, AK/AQ. A quick analysis

AK-16
AQ-16
AA-6
KK-6
QQ-6
1010-6
99-6

I'm ignoring the other JJ since you split with it anyway.

If he folds 99/1010/AQ and lets say QQ 1/6 times that means that 29/62 you pick up a free 11k.

the times you are called, you are a coin flip to more than double up 16/62 and the other 17 you win only 20%.

(29/62)(43k)+(16/62)(66k)(.5)+(17/62)(66k)(.2)
20.11k+8.5k+3.6k=32.2k


Wow, that's a lot closer than i thought. So, if that's his range then call or fold doesn't make a difference, if hands like KQ, or AJ can be in his range, even occasionally then a push is right.

Also, just a nitpick I don't think 55-65k would have put him in the top 5 in chips at that point, since there were at lest 3 people who had 75k or so at that level. Anyway, given that you dent his stack a lot I maybe should have assumed he folds AK occasionally.

Also, I didn't analyze calling here, but maybe I should. Playing JJ out of position though against a stack that covers you is really hard. Overall I'd push because I can't really see his range being tighter than this, but I can see it being wider.

[SossMan]

I think that this is pretty close between folding and going tarzan on them. I would probably lean towards folding, but I think that pushing is probably pretty good here too. It's hard to say how good your physical reads are on Cecilia, and how good the big stacks reads were on her too, but he could certainly be isolating w/ position in an attempt to outplay her postflop with a wide range of hands, so that would lean me towards pushing, but not overly so.

MLG is right about the table dynamic being of utmost importance here. On paper it's a fold, but in the heat of the battle, I could probably see pushing here with your reads.

[MLG]

lazy ass, I actually did the math.

[Ogre]

fold

[MLG]

my numbers say different (although not by much) so I'm pretty curious as to why you think its so clear.

[SossMan]

what about cecilia? her being in doesn't make a difference?

[MLG]

I put faith in his read that she didn't have a big hand. What non-big hand is possibly calling?