UB tourney last night Hero has about 3 times the average stack with 9700 chips. I've gotten most of my chips being pretty aggressive. When in late position, and several other limpers in front of me, I'll bet the pot 5 or 6 times the BB with any marginal holding and everyone who limped just folds or I get one caller, gets checked to me and I'll bet the pot and take it down right there. A couple of times a short stack who was pot committed would call with any pair, but I'd suck out and win. Never had more than a quarter of my stack at risk ever.

Blinds 50/100. One other player who was also pretty tight/aggressive was directly on my right with about 9700 in chips. I'm on the button w/QQ. Two limpers, Villian raises to 400, I re-raise to 1200, Villian calls. Flop:

2 , 3 , 9

Pot is about 2700, villian bets 1500, I re-raise to 4500, Villian re-raises all-in.

What do you do? I've got half my stack in this pot and he's barely got me covered.

What do you think of my pre-flop/post-flop play so far?

1st. Be good to post this hand in the Tournament section. The people there are much stronger at assessing what this hand means in connection to the entire tournament.

2nd. I like the reraise preflop, I like the reraise after the flop. and then DOH!!!. If you guys haven't butted heads yet, I'm reluctantly folding this. you actually have over 1/2 your stack in the pot here too. more like 2/3. But you still have an average stack here. I just don't see anything you're beating because I would assume the villain would not wanna butt heads with you as you are the only one that can really hurt him. But... if he is bluffing you can have a very formidable stack here. eh.. maybe you're beating JJ.???? God I hate tournaments now.

Disclaimer. I don't know how to play tournaments anymore it seems. :oops:

Well, I know he saw me as a VERY aggressive player. One hand earlier, I had QJ with a flop of 2, 8, 9. He led out for a bet about half the pot, I raise to about 4 times his bet. He called. Checked the turn of 6. I checked. River came Q. He checked and I bet half the pot, he called an and showed TT, I took the pot with Q's. I know he was pissed about getting rivered like that, but I figured I had 10 outs and wanted to see two more cards. I was able to out-play him with position several times and I know he was gunning for me. He didn't necessarily have to put me on a really big hand in this situation as he had seen me make aggressive plays throughout the tourney.

P.S.

I KNOW this player doesn't have AA. For SURE, he would have gone all in or re-raised me again Pre-Flop with that holding. I'm wondering if he simply called my re-raise PF with KK wanting to make sure no Ace flops before moving in.

In my mind, this narrows down his holdings to:

KK, QQ (although EXTREMELY unlikely), JJ, TT or (God Forbid) 99 that he could be playing so aggressively on this flop.

Really, the only two reasonable hands that I can't beat are KK and 99 out of this group. Anything else you guys would be worried about?

Blah. You've guys been butting heads. This makes his range so much bigger now. I'd say AA-77 may make this play now. I hate making decisions on the flop like this. I think i'd have to call here. If he outflopped u... sucks. if he outplayed you with AA... good for him.

Hands like this there are no concrete answers as is the norm is NLH. You have to go with your gut instincts. W/o knowing much I'd say KK JJ TT 99 33 22 maybe even AK, since u say he may be gunning for you. Again you ask what to do, there is no answer go with your gut. The only advice I have is a quote from Play Poker Like The Pros "If in a tourney, your not able to lay down the best hand sometimes, you will never be a champion." Folding to save your proverbial tournament life is NEVER the worst option.

Hmmm. I can see folding has its allure, like SLEEPYCHIEF said, you gotta be able to lay down a good hand once in a while.

BUT, if, based on playing with villain for a while, you think the only likely thing he has that can beat you is KK or 99, I call every time - there's far more realistic hands that you beat than those that beat you.

I reckon any pair above jacks he's reraising you preflop, so Id even take KK out of his holdings. Really don't think I could get away from this one, especially as you two have history, and he has you down as a LAG...

I feel like the options that he could have that you can beat are less than what beat you:

You reraised pf. Announcing, I have AA, KK, QQ, or AK. (in most people's minds I would think) He calls with this in mind.

He small bets at you on the flop. I would look at this like he's expecting to get reraised here. You reraise, and he moves in.

I think if you look at it from the standpoint of 'What hand does he think I have?' then you have to think you're beat here? What can he have that he could both call your pf raise with, and push over your reraise on the flop? TT or JJ? maybe, and thats all you can beat here.

I think the fact that you're viewed as very loose and aggressive makes this descision much harder for you, as I suppose Villian could not be giving you credit for as strong as a hand as you have. I would fold here, but maybe you have to pay him off?

I'd fold and regroup. you still have half your stack or so left right?

Mark

Disclaimer: I don't play tourneys

More and more i think about this hand, it's near impossible to come up with a right answer on a forum. The possible hands are pretty obvious. I think this has to just be a judgement call on your part in the moment.

I'm calling putting him on 77-JJ, likely that same TT he held when you raised with 10 outs and rivered the Q. He's got you on overs and wants you out.
As was said, he's a little steamed and would have re-raised PF w/ AA or KK. Thinking that it's not likely he'd PF raise 22 or 33 with you behind him. If he's got 99, well that sux.
So you've got him narrowed down pretty well - chances are 65% + that you're good. You've got over half your stack in there. It's time to live or die by the LAG style.

I disagree with the general concensus: I am calling here, no doubt. Remember that he thinks you are blindly aggressive, I think he puts in another raise pre-flop with KK as well as AA... in fact, based on your read of his read of your play, he's probably reraising with JJ through AA and AK (I would against a player like you in this situation). Let's look at the possibilities:

On the flop, with his all-in, you are faced with the decision of calling 4,000 to win 20,000. So you are getting 4 to 1 on your money.

What possible hands could he have here? I see him having:

a) AA or KK
JJ, TT
c) 99
d) A stone-cold bluff with AK or AQ.

One more thing: he knows you like to make a continuation bet on a flop where you put the last raise in pre-flop, yet he bets out into you on the flop anyway... Given the play, I actually think it is far more likely he has AK, AQ and just wants to bluff the pot, or JJ, TT and wants to protect his very vulnerable hand. I really can't see him betting top set into you when he knows that you will continuation bet the flop if he checks to you, but doesn't know how you would play on a flop if someone bets into you on a flop that you raised pre-flop (at least, you haven't included the information here).

Therefore, I put his probable holdings as something like:

a) AA or KK (30 %)
JJ or TT (40 %)
c) 99 (10 %)
d AK or AQ (20 %)

I'm not going to run the math right now (I am busy right now), but I would suspect that you would have to be at least 80 % sure that he has AA, KK, or 99 in order to have odds of winning this hand be less than 4 to 1. I'm just not that convinced (as I said, I think it is far too likely he has JJ, TT AK or AQ).

I am calling this all-in bet.

Cheers,

Merby

p.s. My tournement game needs work, and this response is as much to see what others think as it is to offer my suggestion.

I agree that the fact that he is characterizing his image at the table as very aggressive makes this a much harder laydown. I'm not against calling for that reason.

But I will say this: I don't discount KK or AA as quickly as everyone else. I smooth call in this instance often, as there are way to many players who are able to fold TT and JJ (and sometimes QQ) pf to a re re raise. But those same players will, given the chance, put all their money in with a mediocre overpair to the board. Especially an aggressive player.

I think my vote of the fold is based both on what I would do based on MY image at the table, and based on how I would have played it if I were the villian. So maybe you are stuck calling. QQ is that borderline hand.

Mark

Okay, there's been enough discussion and I really value everyones thought process and how they would look at the hand.

Now for the results....

I called the all-in (while praying to the poker gods "Don't show me KK... Don't show me KK... Don't show me KK...")

He didn't... he flipped over 99 for the set of 9's. Turn, River brought no improvement for me and I was out of the tourney in one hand to the only guy at the table who could even begin to hurt my stack.

I think the real lesson here is probably to be careful to protect your stack in a tourney and avoid butting head's with the other big stacks.

There were other plays, such as where I called a short stack's all-in (600 chips or so when I had over 7,000) w/33 thinking that he was probably pushing UTG with any high Ace and it was folded around to me on the button and I knew I could just go head's up and see what happened. Well, that short stack had AA, but I flopped a 3 to send him packing. I think that was an OK play because I didn't really have a significant amount of chips at risk and I could afford to gamble in order to knock someone out. I would never have made that call for 2,000 chips, of coarse.

Thanks everyone for your input. Just wanted to see what others might have done or if there was anything that I maybe should have factored into the decision that I had not.

Nah, you played it fine. I don't think there's any risk-averse lesson to be learned here at all.

When your opponent does turn over JJ in this situation, your relatively large chip stack turns into a monster, and it will be even easier to run over the short stacks the rest of the way. This is just the kind of hand that takes you from being in position to get a decent cash to putting you in position to win the tournament.

You can't always second-guess your bust out hand.