Tourney Where did Hero go wrong? (1 Viewer)

Mojo1312

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Hello fellow PCF'ers

Played in a 32 player MTT today. (Live, not online.) Hero suffered through most of the tournament as one of the two short stacks at his table. All players had to move as others were eliminated, but Hero's seat did not change.

Hero started to chip up late, building his stack to 21BB's. Average chip-stack of the 11 remaining players in the tournament was somewhere between 25 to 30. Playing five handed at Hero's table. Hero is in the SB with A/J off-suit. Folds to Hero who makes it 3.5BB's to go because Villain, who has 27 or 28BB's, tends to call wide. Villain raises to 7.5BB's. Villain is capable of making this raise with mid pocket pair or better. A/10 is unlikely, which means Hero is behind if Villain is on an ace.

Hero is not folding to a 4BB raise. He decides to get it all in instead of flatting. Villain calls with little hesitation and turns over A/Q. Thoughts/criticisms?
 
I think that deep, a flat call and evaluation on a flop sounds good. Unless you absolutely nail the flop, you still have good fold equity if villain continues to bet.

Yes, you're out of position, but that's a pretty light shove for that many big blinds.
 
Calling the 4bb raise is basically giving it away unless you see a J or 4-flush on the flop. BB will c-bet, and you cannot call. And I don't think AJo is strong enough to re-raise shove in this spot, given your stack size.

I fold.

By your own analysis, Villain has either 88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AK, AQ, or AJ. Your AJ is losing to all of those hands (except an AJ chop).
 
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Calling the 4bb raise is basically giving it away unless you see a J or 4-flush on the flop. BB will c-bet, and you cannot call. And I don't think AJo is strong enough to re-raise shove in this spot, given your stack size.

I fold.

By you're own analysis, Villain has either 88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AK, AQ, or AJ. Your AJ is losing to all of those hands (except an AJ chop).
I agree with this. With 21 bbs. 7.5 bbs is bleeding money - its either shove or fold and AJ doesnt do well facing a 3bet from BB
 
Calling the 4bb raise is basically giving it away unless you see a J or 4-flush on the flop. BB will c-bet, and you cannot call. And I don't think AJo is strong enough to re-raise shove in this spot, given your stack size.

I fold.

By your own analysis, Villain has either 88, 99, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, AA, AK, AQ, or AJ. Your AJ is losing to all of those hands (except an AJ chop).
I agree with this. With 21 bbs. 7.5 bbs is bleeding money - its either shove or fold and AJ doesnt do well facing a 3bet from BB
I’m with these guys and it seems pretty clear, though not necessarily easy. Maybe you got impatient from being short all day?
 
GTO strategy says 20bb in the small blind RFI was AJo is almost always a shove anyway. Maybe with your raise and a BB raise, you fold. GTO also shows 100% all-in vs 3 bet.

45AC587C-0088-4E69-89A5-E47AC6A4CE5E.png


Again, coolers happen
 
This is SB into BB so I don't hate a larger raise size than 2-2.5x. Against any knowledgeable player the jam is fine. Though against any knowledgeable player, they would have jammed as their 3 bet.

Also perfectly reasonable to just jam 21bb with AJo into the BB from the SB. Especially if big blind ante is involved.
 
The main differences I find between Cash and Tourney is

In Cash you can go all in as long you have enough equity or +EV

While as in Tourney, just having enough equity and +EV is not enough in many spot.

The villain may not have called if you covered him in the same spot

Just like sometime you will fold KK in tourney but never do that in Cash
 
GTO also shows 100% all-in vs 3 bet.
I’m surprised to hear that. Personally I question GTO fiats in tournament situations. But to be fair, I question the value of GTO against anybody but other known GTO disciples anyway.
I still don’t like this 4-bet, but I guess I’d have fewer problems if hero just jammed initially. And given that villain called it off to the 4-bet with AQ, he probably would have called anyway, so yeah, coolers do happen.
 
I’m surprised to hear that. Personally I question GTO fiats in tournament situations. But to be fair, I question the value of GTO against anybody but other known GTO disciples anyway.
I still don’t like this 4-bet, but I guess I’d have fewer problems if hero just jammed initially. And given that villain called it off to the 4-bet with AQ, he probably would have called anyway, so yeah, coolers do happen.
Yeah it was surprising for me too but from a standard sb vs bb shove perspective–it makes sense, which then also activates the cooler effect.
 
I'm usually limp/shoving here. As played, at these stack level, any sized 3! is a committing bet, so no matter what sizing villian choose you're expecting him to call your 4! shove.
 
Played in a 32 player MTT today. (Live, not online.) Hero suffered through most of the tournament as one of the two short stacks at his table. All players had to move as others were eliminated, but Hero's seat did not change.

Hero started to chip up late, building his stack to 21BB's. Average chip-stack of the 11 remaining players in the tournament was somewhere between 25 to 30. Playing five handed at Hero's table. Hero is in the SB with A/J off-suit. Folds to Hero who makes it 3.5BB's to go because Villain, who has 27 or 28BB's, tends to call wide. Villain raises to 7.5BB's. Villain is capable of making this raise with mid pocket pair or better. A/10 is unlikely, which means Hero is behind if Villain is on an ace.

Hero is not folding to a 4BB raise. He decides to get it all in instead of flatting. Villain calls with little hesitation and turns over A/Q. Thoughts/criticisms?

Posting the above was cathartic. A/J off-suit is a fold, because unlike unknowns, Hero had experience against the Villain. Villain is only going to commit 25+ % of his stack against Hero pre-flop if he felt confident that he possessed the superior hand. Hero at best is flipping and at worst is a dog.

Showing up tired, playing at the same table for two hours between 10 minute breaks as one of the short-stacks for the majority of the tournament set the stage for what happened.

Hero simply had run out of patience, and instead of making a disciplined fold as the situation dictated, shoved.

Hero played $1/$2 after busting, recouping his buy-in, and cashing out up $130 as the two final players in the tournament were battling it out heads up. The player who eliminated Hero placed third.
 
Hero had a losing session??????!

My favorite poker related quote is "If it wasn't for luck, I would win every time." ~ Phil Helmuth.

Back in the day, a player from the home game I played in said that I had the luck of Jamie Gold. That cracked me up. It is good when they think you are the lucky one.
 
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Showing up tired, playing at the same table for two hours between 10 minute breaks as one of the short-stacks for the majority of the tournament set the stage for what happened.
FWIW, if playing short for 2 hours tests your patience, then maybe tournaments aren't for you.
 
Hello fellow PCF'ers

Played in a 32 player MTT today. (Live, not online.) Hero suffered through most of the tournament as one of the two short stacks at his table. All players had to move as others were eliminated, but Hero's seat did not change.

Hero started to chip up late, building his stack to 21BB's. Average chip-stack of the 11 remaining players in the tournament was somewhere between 25 to 30. Playing five handed at Hero's table. Hero is in the SB with A/J off-suit. Folds to Hero who makes it 3.5BB's to go because Villain, who has 27 or 28BB's, tends to call wide. Villain raises to 7.5BB's. Villain is capable of making this raise with mid pocket pair or better. A/10 is unlikely, which means Hero is behind if Villain is on an ace.

Hero is not folding to a 4BB raise. He decides to get it all in instead of flatting. Villain calls with little hesitation and turns over A/Q. Thoughts/criticisms?
-first off, raising 3.5X from a short stack is WAY too big. This ain't cash games, where this would be fine. Raise should be 2-2.5X here as it accomplishes the same thing and costs less.

-a raise from a player that "likes to call wide" should set off some alarm bells. As Boski would say, "what's he reppin?" I think against this player, you could actually exploitatively fold AJ here. Of course, it would help if we had less invested. See first point above.

-Ripping AJ to a player that likes to call but raised is an absolute and definite punt. What is he going to 3 bet/fold? If he calls, you are praying for at best a coin flip.

This hand should have played as follows:
Hero raises to standard 2.5X
Villain re-raises
Hero FOLDS
next hand.

Hero has a 19 BB stack. Still plenty to work with.
 
Hero lasted much longer than two hours. (40 minute blind levels)
I didn't say you or mean to imply that you didn't last for more than 2 hours. Just that if you don't like playing short stacked for multiple hours, then tournaments might not be your thing. I'd say that the vast majority of tournament play at less than hour blind levels is going to be played at the sub 30bb mark.
 
GTO strategy says 20bb in the small blind RFI was AJo is almost always a shove anyway. Maybe with your raise and a BB raise, you fold. GTO also shows 100% all-in vs 3 bet.

View attachment 993470

Again, coolers happen


We are totally not GTO here, as we have a read on our opponent. He likes to call, yet he raises. Why?

I mean, I am a fan of GTO solutions, but in this instance, GTO is not the best strategy. We are not afraid of getting exploited, as we should feel we can outplay our opponent (assuming you feel you can out play a calling station, which I am sure OP is very good at).

You can argue this is an open shove, but against this opponent, there are better ways to play. He should be shoving against us, not vice versa.
 
We are totally not GTO here, as we have a read on our opponent. He likes to call, yet he raises. Why?

I mean, I am a fan of GTO solutions, but in this instance, GTO is not the best strategy. We are not afraid of getting exploited, as we should feel we can outplay our opponent (assuming you feel you can out play a calling station, which I am sure OP is very good at).

You can argue this is an open shove, but against this opponent, there are better ways to play. He should be shoving against us, not vice versa.
I just jam pre here to keep my decisions easy. But if there is no ante, then I might just raise 2.75-3x and go from there. If the guy basically never 3 bets, then yeah, we can fold and find a better spot.
 
Hero played $1/$2 after busting, recouping his buy-in, and cashing out up $130 as the two final players in the tournament were battling it out heads up.
In that case, where Hero went wrong was playing in the tournament.
 

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