Tough Tournament Spot (1 Viewer)

[power13]

I played this last night in the deep stack tournament at Borgata and thought it was a tricky spot so figured I would share.

I hadn't played in this tournament before but it was a pretty good structure. Everyone starts 500BB deep and no gigantic blind increases (though 15 min levels for the first 4 hours). We were about 4 hours in when this hand went down, and it was that point in the tournament where everyone was starting to feel the pressure from the blinds and some people were starting to adjust their play. The play has been generally pretty awful, though there are a few OK players at the table. Not sure which camp I was in!

Field started at 64 and is down to 27. 9 spots pay.

We are 3000/6000 blinds w/ 500 antes, 8 handed. UTG+1 (60K stack) limps. Folds around to me on the button (78K stack) and I'm holding . Both blinds have me covered (150K+ each), SB was sort of a calling station early on but has tightened up a lot lately, the BB is a tight aggressive player and one of the better players at the table.

I raise to 21K. Both blinds fold, UTG+1 goes all in for another 39K. Villain got to the table about 45 minutes ago and has been pretty quiet. He hasn't raised pre-flop before and has limped a few times, either folding to a raise or folding post-flop.

My image: I haven't been getting out of line. Not a ton of stealing situations for me given the game flow. All my showdowns have been made hands with good starting hands. Haven't been super active mainly due to being pretty card dead.

Hero??

 

[FDLmold]

Fold. What cards are in villain's range that we want to see? I think he called hoping for a bigger pot with his huge hand. I expect a lot of QQ+ and AK here.

57K left after we fold here. Not dead, but M ≈ 4 is all-in-or-fold type territory now.

 

[Kain8]

You have 13bb and you're choosing to put a quarter of your stack in preflop with middle suited connectors? If you're going to steal, you should be shoving. And if you get re-raised, you're essentially committed with any decent hand of 55 - AA, ATss+. You have to fold now because at best you're flipping against a small pair, but more likely in a 65/35 spot or even worse.

Be more cognizant of how you'll react to a re-raise before you come in for a raise when you're already short stacked as you go forward.

 

[Chippy McChiperson]

I agree about the raising to 21k being awful here. You can make a case for limping or shoving (or even folding), but raising in this spot with just 13 bbs is not optimal. As is, you have to call 39k to win 94k, so are getting about 2 1/2 to 1 odds here. Your equity needs to be almost exactly 30% to make this a profitable call. Normally a utg limp/shove means a really big hand like aces or kings, but I assume there are some AKs in the mix too. You're like 22% against overpairs, and 39 to 42% against AK, depending or not if it's suited (36% against AKdd). I would think more often than not it's an overpair in this exact scenario though, so probably a fold.

 

[power13]

Thanks @FDLmold that was my first instinct but I took about a minute to make the decision and it wasn't as cut and dry to me after considering it. This was my thought process at the time. Admittedly the adrenaline was pumping and I find it hard to do any super-deep thinking in the moment since I'm not in these situations regularly.

1) Feels like aces
2) But I don't have anywhere near enough playing history to be putting him precisely on that hand, that feels way to narrow and conservative
3) I am almost certainly behind his range, but T9s is among the "least bad" hands to be in that spot against. I'm almost never dominated here, I'm about 20% against overpairs and 40% vs AK. I am guessing that I have about 30% equity against monster pairs & AK since there's about the same number of combos of each. Does he do this with JJ too? Feels like he would have just shoved JJ vs getting trappy. TT and 99 aren't super likely - same reason as JJ + my blockers.
4) There is a low but not zero chance he is spazzing out with a medium pocket pair where he just decided to go with it because of the pot size hoping that I'm folding or we're flipping. This is the probably the best situation I can hope for but still I'm never ahead of him here in any logical scenario. Similar with AQ - none of these I'm ahead of but if they're in his range at all then I have more equity on a call.
5) There's 94K in the pot and it's 39K to call, which would mean I need 30% equity for a call. So now I'm thinking this is a breakeven call. If he ever has AQ or smaller pairs ever then maybe this is +EV.
6) If I fold, I have about 57K left, less than 10BB and there will only be a couple more hands at this level then going to 4000/8000/1000. So with antes I have an effective M of like 2-3. Is it worth folding 20-40% equity and hope for a better spot that short to hopefully double up and still be short of the 150K I have if I make this hand? Or is going with it the least bad choice given the situation? If I win I will have an above average stack and be in a better position to maybe win this thing.
7) But would he really limp shove AK?
8) Am I way overthinking this? I have seen some ridiculous stuff at this table and this guy looks like a tourist (to be fair so do I probably!)

Will post results later and some additional things that occurred to me afterwards. Would love to hear more thoughts on where this thinking might be flawed. I don't have much experience in live tournaments so don't know if I'm adjusting accordingly. I knew I was behind but it felt like a really close spot based on the pot odds. My initial instinct was to fold but the more I thought about it the more unsure I got.

 

[power13]

Kain/Chippy I agree my raise sizing pre-flop was not great. I felt like my stack was still a little big to be shoving on a steal and I felt like the blinds would lay down to a smaller sizing. My plan was to fold to a re-raise from the blinds or I'd have a pot-sized shove on the flop if called/checked to unless the board was really bad for me. I hadn't seen the blinds 3 bet at all the entire night so I didn't expect them to play back pre-flop, and definitely wasn't considering the villain who had limp-folded a number of times already.

 

[power13]

And the results:

He had aces.

The run-out was close to maximum entertainment:

Flop:
Turn:
River: brick

NH GG

In hindsight, I'm not sure whether or not I thought about his potential range correctly. My instinct was right, but maybe it's too results oriented to say I should have gone with my read.

I do feel like I didn't properly value protecting my tournament life in deciding to call in a very marginal situation even if I had ranged him correctly. If I folded, my remaining stack wouldn't have been great but I would certainly not have been totally dead. I probably should have realized I wasn't as pot committed as I felt I was at the time.

I also blew the pre-flop raise sizing as you guys noted. If I was in a push or fold spot, I probably should have just folded and looked for a better spot. However I don't agree that a push was necessarily the right play. I do feel like the blinds were pretty snug at this point and definitely not aggressive, so I didn't expect I'd face a 3 bet from them unless they were very strong. I think I could have sized more like 12-14K and been comfortable seeing a flop in position or still likely taking it down. It also would have had the added benefit in this situation that it would have been much easier to lay it down to a shove from villain. So my feeling today is smaller raise > fold > push > what I did. Live and learn!

 

[BGinGA]

So my feeling today is smaller raise > fold > push > what I did. Live and learn!

Hopefully tomorrow, it will be fold > push > smaller raise > what you did.

Limp/shove from UTG with AA or KK is the oldest trick in the book.

 

[Anthony Martino]

Hopefully tomorrow, it will be fold > push > smaller raise > what you did.

Limp/shove from UTG with AA or KK is the oldest trick in the book.

 

[Anthony Martino]

We are 3000/6000 blinds w/ 500 antes, 8 handed. UTG+1 (60K stack) limps. Folds around to me on the button (78K stack) and I'm holding . Both blinds have me covered (150K+ each), SB was sort of a calling station early on but has tightened up a lot lately, the BB is a tight aggressive player and one of the better players at the table.

UTG with his stack compared to the blinds/antes should be shoving, not limping. So he's either inexperienced or he's trapping.

Your hand is a fun one to have on the button, and the SB being a station helps, but the BB being a tight-aggressive player means if you limp he might pounce, sensing weakness and an opportunity to chip up. Plus the possibility that the limper could be trapping with a big hand.

I have to agree with BGinGA that fold is the best option here, given stack sizes compared with the current blinds.

 

[BGinGA]

Don't remember where i picked up this tidbit, but it has served me well over the years when faced with a tough tournament decision:

"Never call off for your entire stack with only a pair."

Calling with just 10-high has to be worse.

 

[onerand]

Agree with Chippy's post. I call as played, too much money in there and while you will see aces and kings, you will also see AQ and 55.

I shove first time around and would be happy to take down 20k. You got a great sweat.