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MiniFTOPs #10 decision question

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  1. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 1:04pm)

    This happened at the 100-200 level of the MiniFTOPS #10 this past Sunday. I do not have a HH here so I will explain the situation in pieces. I'll give the beginning of the hand now and if people respond I'll follow up with the conclusion of the hand so that we don't skew results too much. This hand involves 4 players, 7th seat, 8th seat (Cutoff), the SB, and the BB (me). 7th seat is the table donator. His stack is about ~3200 before the hand. He is very loose-weak, calls and sees a lot of flops and folds to flop bets. I've taken several big pots off him some with a hand and some without. He is definitely the player that the good players are feeding from and luckily for us he sucked out a few times giving him a decent stack. 8th seat is a decent player who I have seen take a bad beat recently from 7th seat. His stack is about ~14000 before the hand. I know that he may be on semi-tilt right now due to that bad beat and is definitely one to look to take advantage of 7th seat. SB is a good player who has shown down decent hands and also I have seen plays situationally. His stack is about ~7200. BB is me. I think I have a decent table image and have only shown down 1 hand all tournament so far which was a flopped straight that the 7th seat player paid me off for. I have about ~7500. The hand - Folds around to the 7th seat who makes it 600 to go. 8th seat calls the 600. Button folds. SB calls the 600. You are in the BB with A8s, 400 more to call, what's your move?
  2. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 1:05pm) in reply to drglen

    sigh do I have to re-post this in IE or something? How can I space this out better?
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  3. 13Jayhawk13 13Jayhawk13 is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 2:01pm) in reply to drglen

    You have enough chips and you are getting great pot odds. With that said, you should never be too happy about your hand post-flop unless you catch the flush and if you catch 2 pair, you must proceed with extreme caution, especially, if there is another card T+ on board. I'm calling the vast majority of the time here, simply because of the pot odds.
  4. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 2:10pm) in reply to 13Jayhawk13

    Since I didn't really give too much information yet I will give more of the hand here. I chose to flat call so we now have a pot of 2400 with 4 players in the hand. The flop comes QQ8 so I have flopped 2 pair with top kicker. The SB checks and I decide to lead out, bet sizing here is a big question mark as I am going to be played back at here probably with a pocket pair. AQ/KQ is a possible holding from the SB as well due to his image and quick flop check. I decide to bet 1250 which is just over half the size of the pot giving me a 1850 chip investment into a 3650 sized pot. The 7th seat player snap moves all in and I have never really been terribly worried about him in this hand. It looks to me like he is taking his last chance at fold equity and praying. The 8th seat player instantly min-raises his all in making it about 6500 to go, basically my entire stack. The SB folds. The action is now on me. Given what I know it looks highly likely that the 8th seat player was making a move at the pot because of 7th seat player's image. If I call I need to win the pot to stay in the tournament, if I fold I'm still sitting above 30 bb's with lots of poker to play. What's your move now?
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  5. 13Jayhawk13 13Jayhawk13 is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 4:03pm) in reply to drglen

    Easy fold. Like I said in my first post, I'm calling preflop with the intention of check/folding unless I hit two pair or better.

    Why did you bet? If you don't have a plan for the hand, then don't play it. You are never being called here by a hand that doesn't beat you. I'll admit that AK and possibly AJ will call here, but you are virtually always against a pocketpair above 88, a queen or an ace. If you are against an ace, you are going to get beat roughly 28% of the time (assuming he calls you w/A9+).

    I think you can find a much better spot to get your chips in. Also, that lead bet is arguably a pretty huge spew/leak.
  6. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 4:14pm) in reply to 13Jayhawk13

     
    Originally Posted by 13Jayhawk13 View Post


    Easy fold. Like I said in my first post, I'm calling preflop with the intention of check/folding unless I hit two pair or better.

    Why did you bet? If you don't have a plan for the hand, then don't play it. You are never being called here by a hand that doesn't beat you. I'll admit that AK and possibly AJ will call here, but you are virtually always against a pocketpair above 88, a queen or an ace. If you are against an ace, you are going to get beat roughly 28% of the time (assuming he calls you w/A9+).

    I think you can find a much better spot to get your chips in. Also, that lead bet is arguably a pretty huge spew/leak.

    I bet because I wanted to get all in with seat #7 and thought my bet would give seat #8 enough information to put his hand down. In hind-sight it was probably better to check-call #7's bet depending on what #8 did but again I thought I could get #8 to fold with a bet. Of course, this is an easy fold and I did fold almost instantly. Seat #7 turned up K8 for a weaker 2-pair and seat #8 turned up A6 for ace-high. I am not a results oriented guy so seeing this didn't bother me too much as I had a great stack left over and cashed in this event with only seeing QQ or better one time in 6 hours of play. I am just curious how other people would have played the hand given the information. Would you bet more, less, check-fold, check-raise, or check-call this flop? This is the advice forum so if you would have done something different here please say so.
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  7. 13Jayhawk13 13Jayhawk13 is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 4:22pm) in reply to drglen

    Like I said, I'd check/fold. Frankly, I'm amazed that you weren't beat here.

    What range did you put these opponents on preflop? Didn't you put them on quite a few queens? Like you said, you have a decent stack (even after your raise) and you also mentioned that the preflop raiser was very weak and likely to give his money away easily. I just don't see why this would be a good spot to stack off with bottom pair, top kicker on a paired board.

    I'm not being a jerk, but I just don't think your lead bet is likely to get called by worse hands on a regular basis (apparently I'm wrong, but I think that if you take this line on a regular basis, it will be a huge loser).

    Jayhawk
  8. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 4:34pm) in reply to 13Jayhawk13

     
    Originally Posted by 13Jayhawk13 View Post

    Like I said, I'd check/fold. Frankly, I'm amazed that you weren't beat here.

    What range did you put these opponents on preflop? Didn't you put them on quite a few queens? Like you said, you have a decent stack (even after your raise) and you also mentioned that the preflop raiser was very weak and likely to give his money away easily. I just don't see why this would be a good spot to stack off with bottom pair, top kicker on a paired board.

    I'm not being a jerk, but I just don't think your lead bet is likely to get called by worse hands on a regular basis (apparently I'm wrong, but I think that if you take this line on a regular basis, it will be a huge loser).

    Jayhawk

    Here's my preflop reads: #7: any two cards, I don't have specific stats but I'm not exaggerating when I say this guy played most pots, usually for a limp-call. The fact that he was the opener was something to give thought about but really he could have had anything from J6 of diamonds through AA. #8: a weak ace or worse going to make a play at the pot with position on a weak player. SB: low pocket pair at best. possibly a connector. The whole hand played out to me as if #8 was making a move at #7 with SB coming along for the ride in case he hit a sneaky hand. I was not surprised at all that I was ahead of seat #7. However for seat #8 to raise on that board made it seem like he had hit a good hand and was trying to get paid for it because as said, #7 was a noted calling station and there was a 100% chance he would call no matter what. Am I too passive in thinking that someone who raises on that kind of board is testing a pocket pair, probably 99-JJ? Or am I only thinking that way because of the results? By the way the final results of the hand were an Ace coming on the turn to pair #8's hand and it held to bust seat #7. Seat #8 player spewed off his close to 20k chips within half an hour and was busted.
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  9. drglen drglen is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 4:37pm) in reply to drglen

    This hand overall wasn't that exciting it was just 100% reads dependent and I had a good feeling I was very very ahead pre-flop but at this point in the tournament I wasn't willing to at-best race when I know I was better then most of the players at my table. Anyway thanks for the opinions. Edit- my flop->beyond bet sizing is probably the biggest leak in my game and is what I'm working on.
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  10. 13Jayhawk13 13Jayhawk13 is offline

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    May 11th, 2009 (5/11/2009 5:06pm) in reply to drglen

    Re:bet sizing. Obviously, I don't like the bet here, but if you have to bet, I think 1/2 pot is fine. However, if you think you can represent a queen here, which I don't really believe you can except maybe KQ or QJ (and I don't think betting the QJ is very good), I might suggest a very small raise of maybe 1/3 of the pot. A smallish raise might look like you are hoping for a reshove or a speculative call. In that case, you are gonna have to check/raise most turns for consistency (I think an open bet on turn would look way too strong and would almost never get money in the pot).

    Jayhawk
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