Busted in Tourney - Advice Welcome! (1 Viewer)

[ImCrossland]

Played in a tourney tonight at a card house in San Antonio and I’d like to hear thoughts of whether I made the right decision or not.

51 left in tourney (14 pay)
Blinds are 4k/8k with an 8k ante
I have about 113k

I am in middle position, folds to me and I have AQs

I raise it up to 24k and next to act immediately goes all-in.

Everybody folds and it’s back to me. 2 of the previous 5 hands this person has gone all-in with zero callers and showed 27s and 46u pre-flop.

He has me pretty well covered.

I ultimately decide to call all-in and he flips AKu

Board runs completely dry and I’m bounced from the tourney.

Summary:
AKu vs AQs (me)
I raise it up to 24k from 8k and get re-raised all-in from a player in middle to late position who has bluffed multiple times for easy pots recently.

Should I have just forfeited ~20% of my stack at those levels (15-min levels + BB ante) or did I make the right move? All criticism welcome.

I probably weighed their recent actions too heavily in the grand scheme of the 2hrs + we’ve been playing, but would love to hear from you guys whether you lay it down or make the call.

 

[megarises]

You had like 7 bigs effective. Without getting too analytical, I would’ve ripped it myself!

Edit: I’m not very good though

 

[pokrgeek21]

I would have shipped it too. Tourney strategy is longevity but with 15 minute levels you can’t just wait for aces. Definitely would have played it the same.

 

[Lil Tuna]

Considering situation described, sounds like the inevitable. Just a bad time for you to get a strong hand and run it into a bigger hand.
Shit is going to happen, don’t be too hard on yourself cause it won’t be the last time.

 

[Mojo1312]

Without getting too heavy in the details that might effect the decision and the limited information on the villain's play, this is a fairly standard call.

Bet sizing appears a little big

 

[ImCrossland]

I had just switched to that table after break so my sample size with villain’s play was very small.

 

[HaRDHouSeiNC]

With barely 10 bigs I’m snap shoving and that’s just a cooler and yup typical tournament poker

 

[ImCrossland]

Appreciate it, guys. All in all, I ultimately told myself “if you fold this, you don’t deserve to win anyways.” Tourney #2 tomorrow!

 

[Colquhoun]

The fact that he was re-raising your already large bet, means he probably wasn’t trying to bluff like in previous hands.
But the range of hands he could be re-raising all-in with could be quite wide, so the call here looks right to me.

 

[CraigT78]

With ~14 big blinds and a larger stack behind me, I shove preflop rather than bet 8k. It wouldn't change this out outcome, but that is what I'd do differently.

Disclaimer - I loathe HoldEm tournaments and usually shove as soon as a cash seat is open anyway.

 

[CDC]

I am old school...sticking to the M number of Dan Harrington ....

 

[grebe]

Shove is your play....same result.

I am sitting here looking at push/shove charts for my bust out hand of A4s with 11 bigs in the SB....I shoved and lost to A5o. It was the correct play.

 

[xdan]

Played perfectly fine.
Just a cooler situation.

 

[ImCrossland]

With ~14 big blinds and a larger stack behind me, I shove preflop rather than bet 8k. It wouldn't change this out outcome, but that is what I'd do differently.

Disclaimer - I loathe HoldEm tournaments and usually shove as soon as a cash seat is open anyway.

BB was 8k, I raised to 24k but point taken!

 

[Legend5555]

I just open jam with this stack size. I would jam over any raise ahead of me too. The only way I fold is if there is a jam and rejam in front of me. The blinds and antes represent 20% of you stack. Once you get to that point, jamming is usually the correct choice.

Now there is some data from solvers and ICM (though you are too far off the money for ICM to be a thing yet) that you can just open minimum worth under 15bb. But unless you know those spots really well or want to study, it's usual not worth the extra mental energy. Jamming is just easier.

 

[Moxie Mike]

What HERO is discussing is turbo strategy. It sounds like HERO is reaching the stage of the tournament where it becomes a jam-fest.

It takes a lot of good runouts and favorable confrontations to do well in these. Once HERO understand the dynamics of the tournament structure, HERO just need to run good repeatedly.

As to whether HERO can find a fold here... a pretty specific read on the villain to know HERO is crushed in this spot would be required. There may be a case to be made to fold, then steal the blinds a couple times to build the stack back up. But with a aggro-idiot to the left, that probably isn't possible.

So as-is, I think this spot represents HERO's best chance to advance in the tournament. In turbos, you're often at risk several times throughout the night - so even if HERO survived or doubled up in this hand, that only provides a little breathing room before the next inevitable confrontation.

So a fun 'away from the table' thought experiment would be to examine the situation and ask yourself what would you fold in this spot. AQs is pretty much always a call... but how light would you call here?

 

[CdnBeerLover]

I've had enough bad experiences with AQ that I consider it my personal hand of death.

As others have stated, an open jam is likely the right play, but based on my personal history, I'm not calling an all in for my tournament life with it. That may be a leak in my game, but so be it. Tournaments are about survival, and AQ is almost always behind if you are calling with it.

 

[glynn]

I'm not calling an all in for my tournament life with it. That may be a leak in my game, but so be it. Tournaments are about survival, and AQ is almost always behind if you are calling with it.

There is at least 68k in the pot and we have like nothing behind with 37 players until the money. We hold AQs. Calling is the survival play.

 

[doublehelix]

Agreed, M value of Dan Harrington is a good guide here. Were the antes really 8K? If so the cost per orbit is 92K, and your stack is 114K. That's an M of 1.2....open shove with anything remotely decent. If you mean antes were 8k/orbit, M is 5.7, still perfectly reasonable to open shove with AQs. He's calling anyway with AKo, so just a bad situation for you that couldn't be helped.
Separately, I'll say that in my experience, if a dude shows shit cards twice and then soon thereafter goes all-in, and that's all the info I have, I am thinking he is likely to actually have something on that 3rd move.

 

[Poker Zombie]

If you mean antes were 8k/orbit, M is 5.7, still perfectly reasonable to open shove with AQs. He's calling anyway with AKo, so just a bad situation for you that couldn't be helped.

I took the 8k ante to be a BBA. I'm not even sure there are any tournaments still using traditional antes anymore.

Any time you are short-stacked you have to ask, "Can I lay down my preflop raise if I'm reraised". If the answer is "No, it costs too much of my stack", then you should open shove or fold. Don't give them room to reraise, unless you are hoping to trap.

 

[ImCrossland]

I took the 8k ante to be a BBA. I'm not even sure there are any tournaments still using traditional antes anymore.

Any time you are short-stacked you have to ask, "Can I lay down my preflop raise if I'm reraised". If the answer is "No, it costs too much of my stack", then you should open shove or fold. Don't give them room to reraise, unless you are hoping to trap.

I think this is the main takeaway from the move. I didn’t want to shove all-in after 2 players had folded the BB before getting to me because I thought my hand was good enough to get more than just the BB and SB but in hindsight, it sounds like an all-in is the right move.

8k was the BB with an additional 8k for a BB ante at the time.

 

[timinater]

That 3x raise pre was too large for your stack short in a tournament. As others have said though it’s a clear jam, ran into a better hand. Way she goes.

 

[feltschmerz]

Once you raised to 24, calling the 3-bet was basically mandatory.

You were just shy of 13 bigs before the hand, though, so raising to 24 was the mistake. Click raise would (in theory) have allowed you to get away. But that shallow, it's hard to see that happening in practice. But with AQ, 13 BB deep or thereabouts, I would say shoving was probably better, even though you would have lost anyway.

You just weren't deep enough to get away from that cooler. Folding AQ to a 3-bet with stack to pot ratios like that is terribad unless you have a good reason to believe that villain's range is quite nitty, and you had the opposite.

 

[Frogzilla]

min-raise is fine with this hand, 3x way too big though. The easier strat for 14 bb is to just have an open shove range and this hand is in it.

Call the jam against everyone under 75. With the pot odds from your larger open it’s a snap call

 

[ImCrossland]

Really appreciate all the insight from the community here. Not sure how pertinent it is here but the previous hand I folded KJ diamonds after the same guy went all-in and showed his weak hand.

15min levels with a BB ante makes it hard to lay down hands like that but if I had the opportunity to do it over again, it sounds like I should either shove all-in pre or just limp call.

I would probably limp call the BB since there were 4 players still to act and then make a decision after it went around completely. Way of the road!

 

[feltschmerz]

Really appreciate all the insight from the community here. Not sure how pertinent it is here but the previous hand I folded KJ diamonds after the same guy went all-in and showed his weak hand.

15min levels with a BB ante makes it hard to lay down hands like that but if I had the opportunity to do it over again, it sounds like I should either shove all-in pre or just limp call.

I would probably limp call the BB since there were 4 players still to act and then make a decision after it went around completely. Way of the road!

I get sick thinking of all the times I've decided I had no choice but to exploit an obviously loose villain--always right after I mucked something good but not great--and finally screwed up my courage to do it with AQ, which is very good but still not great, only to run into AK. F***ing hold 'em.

 

[JMC9389]

Nah, bad luck. Good shove, wrong time. It happens.

 

[nezara]

Only way I get to fold is if the table is real tight and I think I can steal back blinds easily. That might have been the case based on villains recent play. But 9/10 or more I'm calling that raise

 

[setzy]

There's very few hands you should really raise/fold at 113k on 8kbb, which comes out to about 13-14bb. Certain villains who rarely or ever bluff you can fold a few hands (and probably even then, not AQs), but as described you are raising this hand to induce action from the villain you described, they just happened to have it this time. There's no ICM consideration being so far from the money and you have to chip up significantly just to make the money. There's no other options, you just have to go with it and lose here.

 

[Colquhoun]

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