A hand I witnessed - opinions please

[Wad]

Here’s a hand that I recently witnessed in a multi-table tourney. I’m looking for opinions of how well or poorly it was played by each person involved in the hand. I’m especially curious about the decisions made relative to average stack size and position in the tournament. So here we go:

10+1 multi on Party with approximately 475 entrants. I believe top 50 spots or so pay. Slightly more than half the field is left and blinds are 50-100. Average stack is around 1900 or so.

A few observations about the players in the 30 minutes preceeding this hand:

Player A seems a little loose and somewhat aggressive, entering quite a few pots and pushing marginal hands too far. PF raises could be as weak as J9s. Has managed to double up and win a few other decent sized pots as the slight underdog. Willing to call PF raises with hands such as AJo, medium suited connectors or even 1 gappers.

Player B seems pretty ABC. Fairly tight player that has pretty much only shown down good hands. Doesn’t seem to bluff much. PF raises likely mean mid to high pocket pair, AK or AQ. Had a stack over T5000 for a little while after tripling up with KK. Gave some back with a flopped straight that was beat by a full house on the turn.

On to the hand:
Stack sizes at the table range from T4100 down to T800.

Three players limp in and the CO (Player A) with about T3600 raises to 400. Button (Player B) with T3000 reraises to 900. Folded around to Player A who pushes in, Player B calls.

Player A has 99. Player B has AKo. Player B wins the hand when a K comes on the flop.

Player A immediately starts berating Player B for a “horrible call”. Goes on and on about being a favorite before the flop and he would take his 5:4 advantage all the time in that spot. Other players at the table then start berating Player A, saying the pocket nines were “badly overplayed”. Player B doesn’t say a word through all of this. Such chat goes on for the next 3 or 4 hands and Player A busts out shortly after and tells Player B to “enjoy my chips, you’ll need them”.

Based on the descriptions of the players and taking into account this is a Party 10+1 tourney:

Who played the hand worse?

If you were in either spot having a stack well above average, how much risk would you take in a tournament with either hand?

[SossMan]

This is an easy one. Player A overplayed his 9s. Funny thing is, if you switch the players hands, I would like player B's play. I wouldn't mind the tight player coming over the top of the LAG's raise w/ a medium pair because of A's loose raising standards and B's tight image. I think B played it perfectly, and A made a bad read on B. (given your descriptions of the players)
No way B can give credit for AA/KK to A in this spot, so he has an easy call with all the money already in the pot.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

First off, after several preflop limpers for the T100 BB, player A's raise to just 400 stinks of rotting fish carcases. It's very likely at least one limper will call, and it's even more likely he's going to get a flop that will make 99 hard to play. Raise a LOT or just limp. He'd do great to take what's in the pot, but horrible to take a flop with a couple callers, because he won't flop a set often enough to make up for the preflop investment.

Player A clearly played the hand badly. It's not worth trying to push a reraiser of such a large magnitude off his hand with 99 in a situation where you are very, very clearly either a small favorite or a big dog. He should have just called the reraise and seen the flop at that point.

Player B, if he knew what you knew about player A, played fine. Against certain players I might lay down the AK, and you might too, but let's face it, few of us would lay down AK in that situation very often, particularly not against the onslaught of complete and utter idiots online.

al

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Against certain players I might lay down the AK, and you might too, but let's face it, few of us would lay down AK in that situation very often, particularly not against the onslaught of complete and utter idiots online.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure I could ever lay that down online. It's pretty rare that I would lay it down live either. He's getting a little better than 2:1 on his call early in the tourney. You pretty much have to put him on AA to make a fold +EV. If he has KK, it's pretty much a coin flip in terms of EV, so I'd probably fold if somehow I "knew" he had KK.
I think it's fairly rare that you can narrow someone down to AA/KK in this spot. Maybe a total rock of all rocks, but otherwise, I'm calling here every time.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I'm not disagreeing with your post at all. But it reminded me of something I'd like to say...

The small favorite / big dog situation is probably the most overplayed situation online that I can think of. People just don't friggin get this concept.

When you have 99 and limp and it's raised and reraised all-in behind you, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<

When you raise to 300 with AJ, then get cold called, then someone else reraises all in for 1500, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<

When an EP player raises 8x the BB, and you see 22, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<

Happens all the time. Morons. Pathetic morons.

al

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
When you have 99 and limp and it's raised and reraised all-in behind you, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<


[/ QUOTE ]

"But I have a PAIR!?!"

[ QUOTE ]
When you raise to 300 with AJ, then get cold called, then someone else reraises all in for 1500, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<


[/ QUOTE ]

"Don't you know the 1/5th in rule?"

[ QUOTE ]
When an EP player raises 8x the BB, and you see 22, should you call? >>Cough<< >>Sputter<< >>GAG<<

[/ QUOTE ]

"Well, he obviously has AK, and I am a 51%/49% favorite..."


[/end-fishspeak]
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[Wad]

Thanks for the input on this hand. On the surface, this may seem like a pretty basic hand with obvious answers. I posted it hoping to use the responses as a teaching tool.

Player B in this hand was my wife. She is relatively new to online NL tourneys and usually plays SnG's. This was her first multi-table tourney.

I thought the hand had a good combination of things for a newer player to learn from, including how important it is to observe the habits and betting patterns of opponents, importance of position, stack sizes, extra chips in the pot from the limpers, etc. It really is amazing how unobservant players can be online. Anyone who was even remotely paying attention would have known she was showing down good hands and would not have pushed in with 99 here. Yet the common mindset (and mistake) that these players get stuck in is that "I was the favorite before the flop". If the favorite before the flop always won, poker wouldn't exist.

When Player A pushed in on this hand, my wife hesitated long enough to look at me and say "He's played a lot of junk today, there's a lot of chips in the middle, I'm calling" (simplified version). She knew she had obvious odds to call this even if he had a pocket pair. After the tournament we discussed this particular hand and her judgement was spot on with the responses here.

I was pretty proud of the way she played, making good decisions all the way. She ended up taking 13th place, pretty good for her first multi.

Thanks again for the responses!