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How do we feel about this? (Situation in a live MTT)

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  1. XTMoney21X XTMoney21X is offline

    United States

    Posts: 196
    Joined: Sep 05

    Jul 23rd, 2007 (7/23/2007 1:05am)

    Alright so I was playing in a $125 charity tournament today...there were 7 qualifying tournaments for it (5 giving 14 seats, 2 giving 15) to come up with 100 people starting today..10 cashing and 5k to first.

    <span>If you don't want to read the whole tournament summary, just skip down to the bolded part, which is the hand in question. </span>

    Everybody starts with 10k chips today, 25/50 blinds. I start accumulating a little early on by picking up JJ twice and continue when I was card dead for a long time just by making position raises and never getting called...I hadn't shown down a single hand for the first 4 or 5 hours of play today while building my stack close to 20k.

    Finally, someone realizes I haven't shown a hand down and says something about it and people start wondering...shortly thereafter a couple guys finally play back at me, pushing all in after I made a raise just over 3x the BB. I hollywood on the first one, taking a bunch of time and saying "I can't believe I'm laying this down" before mucking it. I figure it's probably time to slow down but I make another raise to 2500 at 400/800 blinds in mid-position and get played back at and it's definitely time to slow down with the position raise because these guys all want blood now.

    I'm at about 17k when I push AJ after UTG+1 limps, looking to just take down the blinds/antes and get a little healthier. Obv the guy directly to my left (who had 5 too many at this point) beats me into the pot with 88...we're racing and I don't catch up and I'm pretty short...I play a very solid short stack although I struggled at first because pots kept being opened in front of me. I get dangerously short after only being able to pick up 1 pot and posting blinds/antes. It gets folded around to me on the button and I shove K2..get called by the BB who has 44. Two higher pair on the board counterfeit his 4s and I double up but am still very short. I still am pushing any ace, etc. and after picking up a few pots I'm around 12k when I pick up AKs on the button...a tight, passive player in EP makes it 4k to go but then folds when I shove over him. Shortly after this my table breaks.

    We go to 3 tables with 29 players left, I'm on the table with 9 players. First hand I'm there I pick up AT UTG+1 and mean to make a standard raise hoping to show strength so I say "I raise, make it 3k" because I was mistakenly thinking the blinds were at 500/1k 200 ante (the last level), when they were actually 1k/2k 300 ante..the table corrects me and says I have to make it at least 4k...I ask the dealer if I'm allowed to raise more than that or if all I can do is make it double the BB, I'm told that's my only option so I do, and everyone still folds.

    I play 1 orbit without getting involved further, and I find myself sitting on a stack of 17,700 with blinds at 1k/2k 300 ante. Still 29 players left, average stack is 34,482. Table appears to be tight and passive in my limited time.

    <span>Hand in question:</span>
    <span>UTG+1 limps, as does skinhead in seat 6 directly to my right. Skinhead is a solid player but from playing with him at my last table I'm confident he raises all his premium hands, and I put him on a weaker, speculative hand. No real solid reads on UTG+1, though I do not think he's limping a strong hand either. It gets to me in the cutoff, and I announce a raise and then shove. My thinking is I'm getting awfully short with about 9xBB (not factoring in antes) and half the average stack, and I want to accumulate and get back into it and off the short stack. There is 9,900 in the pot before I act, which is more than half my stack. I'm pretty sure I only have to worry about the button and the blinds, all of whom appear to be pretty tight and would likely need a premium hand because even though I'm short I still have a decent amount of fold equity with a shove. </span>

    <span>I was rocking out with 93o but I was making that move with any 2 after the limpers. I think at that point I'd basically been reduced to all in or fold poker as I wouldn't have much fold equity if I made a standard raise with a real hand and saw a flop. With the blinds coming around and antes every hand, I'm only going to keep getting shorter unless I pick up a big hand so I have to make some kind of move, and this looked like a perfect spot to me. I wanted to get off the short stack and get back around average so I could start playing my normal TAG game and continue accumulating, looking to go deep. </span>

    <span>Anyway, obv the SB wakes up with AA and it's gg me after the river couldn't bring me a 5th spade. I'm not being results oriented though, I wasn't too upset after busting because I'm still convinced it was a good play and one that would definitely be +EV in the long run. So yeah, that's my first real live poker experience outside of small .25/.50 cash games and $10 tournaments with friends, I'm really interested to hear some thoughts on that hand. </span>
  2. XTMoney21X XTMoney21X is offline

    United States

    Posts: 196
    Joined: Sep 05

    Jul 23rd, 2007 (7/23/2007 3:19pm) in reply to XTMoney21X

    bump

    Another thing...the prize pool was a joke. They guaranteed 15k and had covered that Friday night alone after 3 qualifiers with 4 still to come. I'm pretty sure over 18k (most likely over 20k) was withheld from the prize pool and went to the school hosting it (Moeller HS in Cincy, obv thieves..go X) and the guys running it..granted it's a charity tournament but I feel like they should've at least tossed a little back to the players to not make it seem like highway robbery.
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