$125 NL Tourney Hand??? (1 Viewer)

[Steve Birrer]

Was traveling and saw a local casino had a $125 NL tournament so decided to play since my business wasn't till the next day. Blind structure was 20 minute blinds with starting stacks 12K and 100/100 blinds. So not quite a turbo but likely to get to a shove fest fairly quickly.

So we are nearing the end of the second level with blinds 100/200.

UTG folds
UTG +1 limps (about starting stack). Has played a fair number of hands. Some raising. Some calling. No apparent bluffs yet.
MP folds
MP folds
MP raises to 700. This player just moved to the table and has been there for five hands. Three folds and one raise to 700. So this is his second had raising to 700. About a starting stack.
Cutoff folds
Button calls This player has played at least half the hands so far. If he limps he has called any prefolp raise. Has bluffed at least once where he got caught so far. Stack about 16K.
SB (hero) has Stack about 9K.
BB has just under starting stack and no intel yet.

Action on hero?

 

[Trihonda]

Fold?

 

[shorticus]

I'd call here. I considered re-raising to 2100, but I'm not committed to being all-in with this hand pre-flop and there is one player left to act who hasn't done anything.

 

[Jonesey07]

Jam it. Either take the pot down now, double/triple up, or go do something else.

 

[Pesto628]

I think a call is fine here. I don’t love a 3bet because it seems like you have little fold equity with the button and if MP comes along as well I wouldn’t want to be playing this hand in an inflated pot out of position.

 

[Legend5555]

Not sure I like any of our options here.

Our hand is too strong to fold I think.

There is already 1900 in the pot, so shoving to just pick that up has some merit simce that is 20% of our stack. It seems a little crazy given we are 45bb deep, but a realistic 3 bet would put 25-35% of our stack at risk and we would basically be forced to call a shove getting 2 to 1. We block AA, QQ, AK, so against a 4 bet shoving range we can't fold as there are a lot of flips in there and even against AK and KK we have decent equity. So just put all the pressure on them and shove yourself. If you can get them to lay down a pair, that's huge.

I don't normally like calling here, but will occasionally do it in a live game where I don't think taking the high variance line is always optimal. But since the pot would assuredly be 4 way of not 5 way with the bb, it seems bad to call.

 

[Rhodeman77]

Hero is out of position with a decent but not great hand. We have 3 people that have committed chips to the pot already, the BB yet to act. UTG +1 to still act, with who knows what? Button is sticky so we will most likely have to improve to get a fold from him and a raise from the CO that we don’t know if is being aggressive and using his position or actually catching cards.

All of this makes me want to fold. The biggest reason being in the SB. Worst position throughout the hand cripples our playability. Our best hope is to flop top pair and check raise to take down the pot? Or just lead out and have the rest of the table fold? Everything else we are pretty much check folding?

Fold>>>>>raise>>>>>>>>>call.

 

[Trihonda]

Fold>>>>>raise>>>>>>>>>call.

My thoughts exactly

 

[DarPodo]

Shove>>>Raise (2400)>>>>>>>>>>>being tased in the face>fold

 

[Forty4]

Shove>>>Raise (2400)>>>>>>>>>>>being tased in the face>fold

So call is not at all an option? Just more curious if it is better or worse than being tased in the face? And is the face better or worse than the nuts?

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

Jam it in here, you keep folding and in two levels you'll be down to like 15 BBs

 

[DarPodo]

So call is not at all an option? Just more curious if it is better or worse than being tased in the face? And is the face better or worse than the nuts?

Calling... meh. I hate being out of position here with this hand. Folding is not an option. Idk why AQ’s value is so low to folks here facing 1 bet and a button call.

 

[Saoliver]

Calling... meh. I hate being out of position here with this hand. Folding is not an option. Idk why AQ’s value is so low to folks here facing 1 bet and a button call.

I am not a fan of playing AQoff out of position multiway. However, you may not see a better hand for a while, and the 20 minute levels will decimate your stack.

It is a tough decision for me here. If I knew more about the new player, it may be different.

Fold>---Jam>---Raise>---Call

 

[navels]

I would squeeze to 2600 hoping to isolate the button, planning to jam the flop and go find something better to do.

 

[DrStrange]

I like folding. Hero is not under pressure [ yet ] with an “M” of 30.

There is a massive RIO risk with a shove. Get folds? Hero gets 1,900 chips. Getting called means an even money race AT BEST. Mostly hero is 25/75 vs AK, 30/70 vs KK or QQ or 10/90 vs AA let’s just make it 25/75 for Hero’s tournament life. < special note, if Hero wishes to be playing the tables instead of poker, then yes JAM, win big or go play craps. >. The 1,900 chip reward is not worth the risk.

I would consider calling more favorably with position. Not so much out of position multi way.

Fold >> jam/call > raise -=- DrStrange

 

[Legend5555]

I like folding. Hero is not under pressure [ yet ] with an “M” of 30.

There is a massive RIO risk with a shove. Get folds? Hero gets 1,900 chips. Getting called means an even money race AT BEST. Mostly hero is 25/75 vs AK, 30/70 vs KK or QQ or 10/90 vs AA let’s just make it 25/75 for Hero’s tournament life. < special note, if Hero wishes to be playing the tables instead of poker, then yes JAM, win big or go play craps. >. The 1,900 chip reward is not worth the risk.

I would consider calling more favorably with position. Not so much out of position multi way.

Fold >> jam/call > raise -=- DrStrange

The chance of QQ or AA has been cut in half by our blockers. Are we really just going to give the PFRer a range so heavily weighted toward hands that call that a shove isn't +EV. Are they calling us more than 20% overall and ONLY with a hand that has us crushed? I get there are others in the hand, but a limper generally has a limping hand, and a caller has a calling hand. So I'm not really concerned with their ranges.

I'm just not that conservative in daily tournaments where the majority of the competition is pretty weak and the structure is fast.

 

[kmccormick100]

Calling is by far the worst option. I'm making it 3k to go and folding to a shove. IMO raise>fold>call In a small tourney like this I'm trying to run up a big stack early, playing tight and patient isn't gonna get you far in a fast structure.

 

[Pesto628]

The chance of QQ or AA has been cut in half by our blockers. Are we really just going to give the PFRer a range so heavily weighted toward hands that call that a shove isn't +EV. Are they calling us more than 20% overall and ONLY with a hand that has us crushed? I get there are others in the hand, but a limper generally has a limping hand, and a caller has a calling hand. So I'm not really concerned with their ranges.

I'm just not that conservative in daily tournaments where the majority of the competition is pretty weak and the structure is fast.

I believe he said a call to our jam is going to be a flip at best, which I agree with. In a cash game I'd be raising this all day, but I'm still not understanding why we wouldn't be just flatting in the sb here knowing that we are well ahead of both V's ranges as opposed to a raise where we know we get called by the button 90% of the time and CO is a relative unknown. Yes, playing out of position isn't ideal, but if we flop a terrible hand and need to x/f we are still left with 41.5 BB which is plenty of room to play with.

To me folding here is absolutely not an option

 

[Legend5555]

Calling is by far the worst option. I'm making it 3k to go and folding to a shove. IMO raise>fold>call In a small tourney like this I'm trying to run up a big stack early, playing tight and patient isn't gonna get you far in a fast structure.

Raise to 3k and fold to a shove? The pot would be 7100 and we would have 6k behind. We'd be getting better than 2 - 1. It gets really hard to fold AQ at that point. His some range would need to be JJ+ and AK for us to be able to fold with confidence. If you give them AQs and TT then you probably have to call.

Though I guess if you assume they will fold to 3k at the same frequency as a jam, then sure, make it 3k.

 

[ando5k]

Not a fan of a 2100 raise here. You are committing 15% of your stack on smallish raise out of position, you are giving everybody else at least 2 to 1 odds to call with all the dead money from the limps, and you still have the big blind to go. You more than likely aren't getting the initial raiser off his hand with this size raise, so at best we have decided to coinflip the flop for a larger amount which leads me to believe.....

A flat pre-shove any hit flop isn't out of line here. A. your hand strength is way hidden on the limp out of position B. People may give you credit for hitting 2 pair on a flop with an oop shove when all you have is 1 pair. C. If you miss, you havent committed a ton of chips and there is a tiny chance there is a check through and you get a second chance at hitting a card.

The other play is a shove pre, but, realize applying the gap theory that if you get called by 9s, 10s, Js, that with the limps and calls that you probably are down to 4 or 5 outs tops. I love the aggression though and it really puts other players to the test for all there chips instead of a smaller raise that is likely to be called.

In my opinion, flat>shove>fold>raise

 

[Legend5555]

I don't absolutely hate calling. But I have a hard time passing up on spots where I can shove pre and win 20+% of my stack. Especially when my hand is almost assuredly ahead of everyone's range.

 

[BGinGA]

I'm either jamming or folding, and lean more towards a fold. Never calling, or non-jam raising. Last thing I want to do here is play AQo out of position with an inflated pot......

Non-jam raising is like torching Benjamins, while just calling is torching Jacksons.

 

[DrStrange]

The pre-flop aggressor has 5 - FIVE hands with Hero. Any range we assign this villain outside of ABC TAG-FISH is a “pull it out of your ass” wild guess.

AQo is roughly a 95th percentile hand. More often than not it is the best non-pair hand at the table. However it is not assuredly ahead of everyone’s range.

The big problems come post-flop. so what is hero’s plan for the two times in three he misses the flop and has to act first? This is why small raises lead to big problems. And we have not begun discussing the sticky button who makes a stop’n go or any other buffing plan a lot less enjoyable.

I do not have a huge hate for playing this for a limp- - - -> fit/fold flop. It is a sure way to bleed out fast if done too often though. There are lots of fancy plays available as well as some highly aggressive lines but they don’t seem quite right for the moment.

 

[nitzilla]

2nd level, you shove and when you're looked up by 95o and pocket 4s and lose on a 4678A board, you rebuy immediately and try again..............

 

[Steve Birrer]

Sorry for not updating sooner but been flying all day.

So it looks like for most of you my play was a mistake. I called.

BB called and the limper folded. So the pot has 2900 chips.

Flop is

Action on hero: So what say you.

 

[1A25R]

So what say you.

I say that in that 4 way pot someone hit trips with

 

[sir bluffs alot]

FUDGE!

 

[Rhodeman77]

Check call seems like the smartest line. Hero is either way ahead or way behind. Give the weaker hands a chance to bet at it.

 

[DarPodo]

Check >>> almost anything else > open mucking

 

[Legend5555]

Limper folded getting 6 to 1, huh? This is why I like shoving. In my experience, most people in these small daily tournaments call much to wide, or far too narrow. Either is a good result. It's not unheard of to get looked up by AJ when you shove, or see someone lay down 99.

But I digress. As played, check and evaluate.

From a strategy perspective, we should be checking pretty much our entire range here. Now I'm not some game theory robot, so if I flopped big in this spot with my range (set or straight), I might lead out if one of the players was a passive station, or if the raiser was very tight and likely had a lot of overpairs in his range. Though with a 3k pot and only 8300 behind, building the pot isn't exactly a priority as we likely could get it in with our strong hands fairly easily.

This spot really sucks though because if we face a bet of say 1500 and a call, now the pot is 6k and by calling we only have 5.8k left and the pot is 7.5k. Even a bet of 1k with a call and our call would give us a pot sized bet left on the turn. And this ignores the BB's hand. If the PFRer bets here into 3 others, I would generally think he must have a A at minimum as betting a draw or underpair here into the field seems like torching money.

Long story short, I'm not going to be happy to call if there is a bet and call before it gets back to us. And I'll hate it even more if we are the first to call a bet and the BB calls behind us after initially checking. Though I think we are basically hoping when we check then it goes, check, bet, fold, we call, BB fold.

This is why I dislike calling pre flop. We are in real no man's land with top pair given our stack size.