Just Finished a Live tourney.

[Wyte22]

Finished 8th (9 cashed) in a Deep Stack NL tourney. $130 Buyin, Cashed for $220. I was curious if ya'll would have played this differently (this is the hand I got knocked out on). Mind you, I have NOT moved tables the entire tourney. When the final table formed, they moved everyone to the table I was at lol. Also mind you, my cards have been running cold the whole tourney, mostly getting weak hands like 82o and 74o, So I had to be very creative to get where I was (and suckout some to lol).

At this point, we are at 3K/6K blinds with 1K ante.

UTG: 45K
UTG+1: 92K
MP1: 50K
MP2: 9K
CO: 31K
Button: 15K
SB: 52K
Hero (BB): 25K


MP2 Pushes all in. CO calls MP2's push. Hero is dealt AJo. I thought about it for several minutes. Running numbers thru my hand. I've just posted 6K BB and 1K ante, I have 18K in chips left. If I fold this, my M will be 1.06 with the blinds going up in 7 minutes. If I push, I am probably behind but completely unsure because MP2 would push with anything and CO probably has a small pkt pair. Soo I pushed all my chips in, hoping that the 15K re-raise, would scare CO out of the pot. CO thinks for a few minutes, she reaches for chips to count it all down and see the stack diffence and calls. Shows QQ.........MP2 has K4o

Board: K J T 4 8

MP2 wins Main pot, CO takes side pot with QQ .v. pair of Jacks with A kicker.


Now my question is, would you have flat called MP2 Shove, folded your hand, or shoved? I am curious what others think

[liladypokerpro]

If it were suited I may have been more inclined to play it the way you did. Otherwise, I may have been able to get away from it here. Hard to say since I was not in the hot seat, but pretty sure in general this is what I would have done: suited - yes, off suit - no.

[iceveins0901]

Granted I am not very good at tournaments, but I could definitely see me getting away from this here, I would rather not get my money in against 2 other opponents here especially with AJ.

I figured you would be in a 3 way flip for your tourney life, something I would probably pass on and hope there was a lot of action and I could move up the money ladder or catch a hand...

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

3,121,671 games 64.812 secs 48,165 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 33.992% 31.32% 02.68% 977584 83768.33 { AdJh }
Hand 1: 30.686% 28.98% 01.71% 904756 53375.67 { 22+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 97s+, 86s+, 76s, 65s, 54s, A7o+, K9o+, QTo+, JTo }
Hand 2: 35.323% 33.39% 01.94% 1042315 60606.17 { 22+, ATs+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, ATo+, KTo+, QTo+, JTo }

This is putting the MP2 on a fairly wide range, pair, any broadway, most Ax, and a lot of suited connectors and gappers.

Putting the CO on a small PP is not very good thinking, why would he call if he has a small PP? I would think he would shove, I would if my pocket pair was small, but I added in the small ones just to widen the range a bit, I would just call with a larger hand. If the table was excessively tight though, maybe just a call would work to get the action heads up.

[XDRAGON]

I'll say one thing, i think the CO played their QQ bad by flat calling and not pushing all in. QQ does not play well multiway.

[XDRAGON]

The thing is if you fold, the next hand you gotta post the 3K SB and the 1K ante leaving you with 14K, just over 2 BB's. You would be critically short stacked, have no chance of making the BB fold by pushing all in and you'd be very lucky not to have somebody from an earlier position get their money in before you. Also, even if you do manage to double or triple up you'd still be very short stacked and have to push again very soon. With the AJ in this situation i see it as a clear push. I'd know it would be a 3 way pot and that i probably don't have the best hand but when your this short stacked you just have to stick it in and hope for the best. Personally as soon as i get to about 8 BB's or less i become very loose aggressive pre flop and it has served me well in the past, you gotta give yourself a chance to win. If your just gonna let your stack get anted and blinded away while waiting for a premium hand i think you have no business playing tournament poker.

[powrdragn]

XDragon, up until recently, I used to agree with mindset that you just posted.

I've had more luck recently, playing the logic and not the numbers. In reality, this was the best bet for himt o make a move and not have to play from a super small stack the rest of the way.

In reality though, there was almost nothing he could beat. And even if he hit a J, with three way action, it's probably no good. And with one of the players all in, he gets to move up in the money if that player gets eliminated. And shoving later with a short stack has a little more value with fewer players left in the game.

I understand the play to win mentality, but even kn these boards, you've read about several players going broke when they were just pushing "because it was the best spot they could find."

If nothing else, you may have to be a realist and accept that its not your day and just hope to carry it as deep into the money as you can. You will have ot get lucky from a low stack either way, so why not hope to get lucky with more guaranteed money?

I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, but there may be something to playing it differently. Don't automatically assume that opposing mentality doesn't have a spot in tournament poker.

[Wyte22]

the small pkt pair thinking was because I've watched CO the flat call two previous all ins with small pkt pairs, and re-raise with big pairs against all ins. That's why I thought this was 33-88.

It was a tell I picked up earlier in the tourney, someone must have tipped her off about it before the final table.

[XDRAGON]

Yeah i can totally understand reason's for folding in terms of moving up in the money. Though by doing this your effectively giving up on trying to win the tourney, it all depends what your goal is and how important the money is to you i guess. Another reason why i would push though is i think the original short stack would push with any 2 cards and the player calling in the cut off would know this too. It's for this reason that wouldn't assume automatically that either of them has a very strong hand, also only a few hands has AJ in really bad shape: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK and AQ, and only AA has it totally crushed.

[liladypokerpro]

I dunno I mean the other day I won a $500 gtd on Carbon, and when it got down to 5 people before payout, I simply sat and let the desperate maniacs take each other out. I only played when the three raging players at our table folded out of a hand, then I was able to take those blinds/antes, or outright win those hands, which kept my stack from suffering from the lost blinds/antes when folding to the desperate players' all ins. Once the bubble passed, everyone calmed down, and I resumed as normal and took down the tournament without a hitch.

So I don't think in all cases that "folding....is effectively giving up on trying to win the tourney..." One thing I'd never do is give up. And I know Wyte is pretty damn stubborn, so I don't think he would either LOL

I think sometimes ya just have to push the book rules to the side and use your brain and gut instincts and all the information on the players you've collected up to this point. If you know there are certain people you can benefit from at the table, and some you want to avoid, then there you go. Pick your times when you are up against the beneficial players and stay away from the ones you want to avoid. It all boils down to choices.

[123bird]

Finished 8th (9 cashed) in a Deep Stack NL tourney. $130 Buyin, Cashed for $220. I was curious if ya'll would have played this differently (this is the hand I got knocked out on). Mind you, I have NOT moved tables the entire tourney. When the final table formed, they moved everyone to the table I was at lol. Also mind you, my cards have been running cold the whole tourney, mostly getting weak hands like 82o and 74o, So I had to be very creative to get where I was (and suckout some to lol).

At this point, we are at 3K/6K blinds with 1K ante.

UTG: 45K
UTG+1: 92K
MP1: 50K
MP2: 9K
CO: 31K
Button: 15K
SB: 52K
Hero (BB): 25K


MP2 Pushes all in. CO calls MP2's push. Hero is dealt AJo. I thought about it for several minutes. Running numbers thru my hand. I've just posted 6K BB and 1K ante, I have 18K in chips left. If I fold this, my M will be 1.06 with the blinds going up in 7 minutes. If I push, I am probably behind but completely unsure because MP2 would push with anything and CO probably has a small pkt pair. Soo I pushed all my chips in, hoping that the 15K re-raise, would scare CO out of the pot. CO thinks for a few minutes, she reaches for chips to count it all down and see the stack diffence and calls. Shows QQ.........MP2 has K4o

Board: K J T 4 8

MP2 wins Main pot, CO takes side pot with QQ .v. pair of Jacks with A kicker.


Now my question is, would you have flat called MP2 Shove, folded your hand, or shoved? I am curious what others think

I had almost the same call to make, in a similar situation($40,000 grand final live cash game,final table, 4 left)but did the opposite & folded AJ
the flop was AAJ

Almost certainly Cost me the win or at the worst 2nd(ended up 4th)as i would have wiped two out.

So which of us was right/wrong in my opinion neither, just the luck of the cards.

All you can do is laugh(cry)lol
and get back on that horse

[XDRAGON]

There is certainly value in folding marginal hands to let other players knock each other out when you have some kind of stack but the main point im trying to make is when you have a stack of 25k and each round is costing you 17k folding AJ is saying im just gonna ante out and hope i ladder up a little. I mean what are you waiting to happen? Pick up AA when you have 2k left? Like they say, "In order to live, you must be willing to die", if you want to win a tourney you cant be affraid to lose. Personally in the situation described i'd have been all in blind pre flop on the previous hand, with such a small stack and having to post the BB on the next hand.