10 replies to this topic

[Scott3705]

I was wondering what you guys thought of this hand. And I'll have another question after I get your thoughts.$50 Tournament on Full Tilt. 29 players left, 27 get paid. blinds are about around $1000. (not sure exactly). Average chip stack was almost irrelevenat, chip leader had close to 75% of all the chips in play. I'm in the middle of the pack in chips $13,500 or so. I get dealt 77 in the big blind. Folded to the button who raises 2500 to go. (The button had about 10,000 in chips. He had been regularly stealing the blinds. He was reraised by the blinds twice in the last few rounds from me once and the player to my left once and folded both times.) So I feel like he's trying to steal and I reraise to 6000. Feeling fairly confident he'll fold. Immediately he goes all- in. What do you think he has and do you fold not wanting to play with finishing out of the money?

[Phate]

well at this point you've committed about half of your chips with a middle of the road pocket pair. Now you say he's been trying to steal the blinds a lot so thats why you raised him thinking he would fold. With him coming back over the top of you all in it has to make you think a couple different things. One, he may have a high pocket pair and got exactly what he wanted when you raised him. Two, maybe a hand like AK, AQ, AJ, AJ or the like and is willing to take the coin flip. Now you need to figure out what your read on him is. If you say high pocket pair, get out of the way. If you say just high cards then what is your strategy for this tourny? Cruise into the money, in which case folding is the choice. Or accumulate chips and try to make a run at the whole thing, in which case take the coin flip and be ok with just having 3,500 chips left if you lose.

[Vade]

I think you can still fold, you made a legitamate attempt to take the pot down right there and it failedThat said, I'm calling here. With a guy who steals a lot of pots, I'm probably putting him on two overcards.Next time, I'm probably just calling his raise and seeing a flopAlso, I'm assuming that your bankroll can survive not finishing in the money here, if It was me and I'd won a satellite for example, i'm doing whatever I can to make the money.

[zimmer4141]

I think he has 2 overcards in this spot and you call with 3 to 1 pot odds for a coinflip. If you lose, you still have 3,500 which will be enough to limp into the money, then just try to get lucky. With 3,500 left, you can survive about 2 more rounds which it is likely someone will get knocked out.

[Scott3705]

Generally, my tournament strategy is to try to avoid running races until it is really necessary. (Too much heart ache on the river I guess) I also like to try to "cruise" into the money healthy enough to not be forced to play all in poker, but I am not trying to accumulate to be the chip leader going into the final table unless I am catching card. Once I get into the money, I open my game up a little bit more. It's probably not the best strategy. Maybe too scared. But it seems to work for me consistently.

[Swift_Psycho]

I really dislike this raise. I hate being in a situation where I invest around half my chips, and then become tempted to fold. I prefer moving in over the top of the raise or just calling to his initial bet, maybe folding if you really want to just get into the money. I think the re-raise you made was probably the worst of the 4 possible options.

[Scott3705]

In retrospect I see how the raise could have been a mistake. However, I could not see folding 77 to some one I really felt could be trying to steal the blinds with a marginal hand. I disagree that raising was the worst of the four options though. Folding just seemed way too tight for me. At the time i cosidered calling and thought that if I call here, and any sort of overcard comes, I can't really call since the raise from the button could be with any two cards above me ( A 9 and up, KQ, KJ) and i expected him to possibly push all in whether he had anything or not after the flop. Also, the game was getting fairly tight (people were getting very protective of their chips). And as I said in my original post, the raiser tended to fold to aggression back at him. Investing that much of my stack was probably a poor decision though.

[Swift_Psycho]

Scott3705 said:

In retrospect I see how the raise could have been a mistake.  However, I could not see folding 77 to some one I really felt could be trying to steal the blinds with a marginal hand.  I disagree that raising was the worst of the four options though. Folding just seemed way too tight for me.  At the time i cosidered calling and thought that if I call here, and any sort of overcard comes, I can't really call since the raise from the button could be with any two cards above me ( A 9 and up, KQ, KJ) and i expected him to possibly push all in whether he had anything or not after the flop.   Also, the game was getting fairly tight (people were getting very protective of their chips).  And as I said in my original post, the raiser tended to fold to aggression back at him.   Investing that much of my stack was probably a poor decision though.

Your opinion is fine, I probably wouldn't fold sevens to him either. But I really just dislike the re-raise you made. If you wanted to re-raise, you really should have moved in and made him make a real decision.

[Scott3705]

I really should have moved all-in. Conclusion of the story is that I folded. I stuck to my plan of staying out of coin flips if I could and i just had a bad feeling about the hand after the all in. I had been mult-tabling and had a similiar situation happen to me in a ring game before. folded to button, he raises. I have kings in the big blind. I re raise. He pushes back all in and I call (he was not sitting with much money at the table so it wasn't much more to call) sure enough he had aces. Raiser from the tournament shows 27o to me, and I just say to myself.... well you really deserved that one then. I was still healthy and made it to the final table ironically losing to the same guy with 77 against his 44 which caught a 4 on the river. 2 Questions I really have that come from this whole sceario. 1. Online when you cannot physically observe any sort of uneasiness in a player, how can you put people on stone cold bluffs? Can you?2. I tend to make more hard lay downs than hard calls in tournaments. I guess I kind of find comfort in the Phil Helmuth way of playing touranments. Only play big pots with big hands. Do I need to open my game up more to really make a run at these tournaments. I come in the money frequently enough, but I just can't seem to finish one off. How do you guys play toward the end of a tournament? Do you guys try to protect your blinds? Can you really accumulate chips and stil avoid running preflop races?

[Swift_Psycho]

1. Online when you cannot physically observe any sort of uneasiness in a player, how can you put people on stone cold bluffs? Can you? Tough question. Betting patterns are really the only "tells" you can get, so it ain't easy. I don't think it is possible to put people on "stone cold" bluffs because even the most aggressive players get hands occasionally.2. I tend to make more hard lay downs than hard calls in tournaments. I guess I kind of find comfort in the Phil Helmuth way of playing touranments. Only play big pots with big hands. Do I need to open my game up more to really make a run at these tournaments. I come in the money frequently enough, but I just can't seem to finish one off. The "only play big pots with big hands" is a good strategy to use, Juanda follows that advice in tourneys as well. Seeing flops is important if you have your opponents outclassed, you'll make better decisions along the line. With that said, online tourney structures usually move up so fast that all in fests are quite common late and therefore your advantage of post-flop play is taken away. Not only that, but you can't always sit around and wait for big hands either. Try and be the aggressor more often. You want to put your opponent to a tough decision, not get faced with tough decisions yourself. Just look at the hand in question. If you move in with the sevens, you are making him make the tough decision (though he had an unusually poor hand so this is slightly different). Instead, you allowed him to re-raise you and put the tough decision on you.How do you guys play toward the end of a tournament? Do you guys try to protect your blinds? Can you really accumulate chips and stil avoid running preflop races?At the end of a tourney, you need to look at how much you have left. If you are barely hanging onto life, there is nothing wrong with biding your time and hoping to move up in the money. Protecting blinds is not so important late, because oftentimes protecting them will cost you a large portion of your chips. Attack other people's blinds to make up for the times you get yours attacked. Accumulating chips while avoiding races pre-flop late in a tourney is only possible if you get a sick rush of high pocket pairs. Otherwise, no. You will have to win coinflips, it's just the way it is. The blinds move up too fast in online tourneys to allow you to build a stack relatively risk-free. Good luck.

[Swift_Psycho]

Yikes, I just re-read the post. I dunno how I missed this before. Your opponent had only 10,000 in chips? So you raised to 6000 and he moved in for 4000 more? 16,500 in the pot then and 4000 for you to call. That means that even if he has an overpair, you pretty much have to call. If there is any chance of him having overcards (or worse as he did), it is a really bad laydown. He cannot even break you. This is a must call situation, unless there is info I am missing. Sorry for the delayed reaction.Despite everything though, I still prefer just moving in over the top of the initial raise.