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Pushing vs. leaving a little

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  1. epiLog epiLog is offline

    Umeå
    Sweden

    Posts: 107
    Joined: Sep 05

    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 9:12pm)

    Hi!

    This is my first post here but been lurking around for months and I love the site and all the advices I've picked up so far. Now i got a question of my own.

    Recently, in the later stages of tournaments, I've had a difficult time getting people to fold their marginal hands preflop when I would really prefer them to. Here's an example from a couple of days ago: 10$ rebuy & addons tournament with about 1000 entrants. We are down to 35 players and top 100 got paid. With blinds at 5k/10k a decent player opens the pot with a min-raise from UTG+1. His stack was about 110k before the raise. It's folded to me in CO where I have a 90k stack and I look down at 99. Since I've seen him do this raise with marginal hands like KJ, QJ and AT, I figure there's a good chance he will fold if I push, especially considering that if he called and lost he would only be left with about 20k and the blinds about to get to him.

    Well, I push and he goes into the tank. With about 2 secs left of his timer he calls and turns over KTs!? To keep a short story short I lost the coinflip and was out of the tournament. So to the question: Have anyone experienced better sucess in getting people to fold marginal hands by raising big instead of pushing? Like in my example could there be a bigger chance that he folds if I raise, lets say, 55-65k more and leave maybe 15k for him to re-raise me if he wants to play?
  2. jonnym84 jonnym84 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

    Posts: 1,071
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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 9:20pm) in reply to epiLog

    Instead of pushing all-in, I might bump it up a little then take a stab on the flop. If he misses it (which he will do about 1/3 of the time) then he'll fold and you'll take down a nice pot. If he calls or plays back at you, prob lay down or use your better judgement as to how to proceed. Also, if he bumped it up from early position, you MIGHT want to consider reading him for a big hand and not getting involved in the first place. I know you have past actions to go by, but a one up bump from early position can often be read as a monster. Just because this wasn't the case this time doesn't really matter all that much. In the past I've min raised it from early position late in MTT's just begging to be reraised all-in. Other than that, I don't really have a problem with your play, you just lost a coin-flip. You need to put yourself in that situation sometimes in order to make the FT, as you know.

    -Jonny
  3. epiLog epiLog is offline

    Umeå
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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 9:29pm) in reply to jonnym84

    Bumping it a little never really crossed my mind in that position. I only had 90k with blinds of 5k/10k and a bump would mean what? Double his min-raise? That's 40k and almost half my stack at that point and a further stab at the pot after the flop pretty much pot-commits me. After thinking about it I think with my read of him having just a couple overcards I could have just called preflop and pushed a safe-looking flop, or folded to a bet and saved my last 70k.
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  4. jonnym84 jonnym84 is offline

    Roslindale, MA
    United States

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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 9:42pm) in reply to epiLog

    I agree with you. Although both bumping/stabbing and going all-in basically have the same outcome (you getting all your chips in the middle), I think bumping/stabbing gives your opponent a much better chance of folding since he gets to see the flop before committing all of his chips. If he caught the flop then so be it, it's the same reace situation but I think he'll fold much more often.

    -Jonny
  5. TomHimself TomHimself is offline

    Riverhead, NY
    United States

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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 9:50pm) in reply to jonnym84

    reraising w/o going allin is horrible. you are pot commiting urself with less FE. just push
  6. epiLog epiLog is offline

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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 10:07pm) in reply to TomHimself

    Hmm, how could it be so horrible? It's obvious that i'm pot-commiting myself and if my opponent is ready to call another 50 or 60k he is probably ready to call my whole stack. And I can't see him just calling after such a raise and then folding to another 15k after the flop? What i'm trying to say is that a raise might get him to think twice about the strenght of his hand since he have to re-raise me to play rather than just press the call-button. A push might also look more like a small pair or a total bluff that doens't want a call. But what do I know...
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  7. epiLog epiLog is offline

    Umeå
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    Sep 17th, 2005 (9/17/2005 10:21pm) in reply to epiLog

    Correct me if i'm wrong but i'm a member of RPT.com and I believe i've seen Todd do this play on several occasions while being in a position where it's either fold/play for his whole stack. I think he was first to enter the pot those times but i don't know if that makes any difference.
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  8. PuertoKid PuertoKid is offline

    El Puerto De Santa María
    Spain

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    Sep 18th, 2005 (9/18/2005 12:33am) in reply to epiLog

    the ratio of your stack to the intial pot is 6. Harington calls this M and you are almost in the red zone. You are looking for a good spot to get all your chips in. You don't want to try to be tricky with an M of 6. In the case of 99 vs KT, this is a great time to get your money in.
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