Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Tournament Strategy Question

Note: the following is not a TACTICS question, but a STRATEGY question.

Let me set the stage...

There are around 24 people left in the Hoy. I have had a below average stack size ALL NIGHT. I keep seeing flops with 78 or 9T and missing by a mile, but this time I flop 59K rainbow and have a gutshot. The ahead player badly underbets the pot, I am guessing because he had a big flop like a set and did not want to chase everyone out. But the 6 comes on the turn and I have the nuts. This time I met a bet to insure a healthy pot and he calls. The pot is now huge, and he is screwed. He somehow escapes the value bet on the river, marking the turn call as a BAD mistake.

I am now at 12k in chips and the average is $7500. I am third in chips, the leader has $20k. There are now 20 left. When this happens...

Blinds are 100/200 with 50 ante

I am in the BB with JJ. Folded around to button (stack size $4500 and the loser of the above hand) who makes is $1000 to go. SB. raises all-in to $5500.

Now, I have a 20% overlay in the button, because if I call here, I dont see how he calls. So, I feel he is going to fold. I also am assuming based on play that the range of hands for the SB here is as low as AJ. (I put him on AQ/AK).

If I THINK its a race, and I THINK the button will fold, do I call this?





Well, I did. The Button DOES fold and the SB turns over AQs. KNOWING THAT, do you like the result?



I LOST the race, and eventually lost back-to-back races to Iggy to put me out 12th.

Did I screw up royally, or was I looking to get where I wanted to be, which was in the money (pays 6 places) and just run into some bad luck?

4 comments:

ShaunBusted said...

Your playing good poker up to this point. Your probably a better player now than most of your table. Why race off your chips at this point in the game? I'm not looking at results but past performance. There are much easier ways to double up.

Unknown said...

Hey im gonna chime in here too. Thanks for your advice on the London poker scene! Actually just what i wanted to hear!

With a fairly long way to the money, I believe you should be willing to gamble in certain spots (especially if youre focused on the win). This seems like a good such spot, since i dont see why the SB couldnt have TT, 99, 88 or even smaller pairs too. Maybe ATs, KQs Especially since it was a button raise that he pushed in on!

JJ is definetely strong enough to call here in my opinion. You were just unlucky that it in fact was just a race situation (which is still ok though) and then, that you lost it. Also the fact that you would have a decent amount of 'wriggleroom' left after losing this pot makes it a fairly clear call, i think.

Anyway, thanks for the Vic vs Gutshot pointer. Looking forward to trying it out.

Jonas

Anonymous said...

It's not a 20% overlay but a less than 10% overlay (5500 + your 5500 + the dead 1000).

If you believe that Pros like yourself should be getting better than 60-40 when they put it all in, then it's a bad call. Also remember he could have AA or KK or QQ. If you're not Phil Hellmuth, then it's a good call with the dead money in there.

I don't see any BB strategy going on though; if you fold, no one knows you're folding a big hand (and so they're not more likely to push you around), and calling doesn't make you less likely to be pushed either since they'll see it's a big hand.

Jordan said...

I wasn't so hot about the play until I read jonas' comment. He's right, when you consider the player's range as including dominated hands, the play become +EV instead of a coin toss.