Situation from last night's stars 45K NLHE tourney:

180 players left in tourney, chip leader 200K chips, average 45k, my stack is 35k, blinds 1500/3000 with 100 ante (starting pot 5400).

I've open-raised from button/CO with average+ hands about half the time. BB has played tight, hasn't showed down any hands since I moved to this table. BB has about 45K stack.

Folded to me on the button with Ah10c. I raise to 9000. Sb folds, BB min-reraises to 15k.

At this point, your play is:

A. Push, since you'll then have fold equity if he's making a weak resteal attempt and since you are shortstacked and may even have the best hand.

B. Fold, since his min-reraise probably means he picked up a big hand and is looking for action.

C. Call and evaluate the flop since you'll have position on the BB, though if he bets out on a ragged flop you'll be in a tough spot and essentially pot-committed.

Any feedback is appreciated.

First of all, why commit 25% of your stack unless you are willing to push?

You have just over 11bb, my feeling here is that you don't have enuff chips to be tricky. I would have pushed there to start off.

Given that you didn't do this, we now have a decision.

Folding leaves you short stacked, any play from here on out is all in or fold at that point.

Question is, what is BB raising with. You say he hasn't shown down any hands since you've been at the table, so it's hard to put him on a hand. My gut feeling is he is testing you, trying to see if you have a hand or are just stealing.

I would push here and take my chances. As you said, min re-raise is a bit suspect, but I feel like you may not see a better hand before the blinds come around and you have to push.

Thanks for the response.

You certainly may be right about the intial bet. I definitely thought of open-pushing, but when I considered pushing 35k into the pot w/blinds of 1500/3000, I assumed, like with all overbets, I'm only getting called by hands that beat me.

With the 9k bet, I figured even if the SB or BB called I'd have position and a good chance to take down the pot, or if I missed and they bet out I could get away from the hand. It was the unexpected min-reraise that was hard to interpret.

Push pre-flop.

Absent that I think I have to fold here, at least against a BB who I think is a good player.

Sitting in BB he has to wonder why you are standard raising with such a short stack, and, unless youve already shown tricky tendencies, has to put you on a very solid had..in fact probably a range better than what you actually had.

Now he min-raises, which screams monster to me...he's inviting you to sink a chunk more of your stack and trying not to push you out...he has to know you'll be pot committed.

I would be almost certain my hand is no good, and while playing from the stack you have after a fold is no great shakes, its better than being out.

What do you guys think about a limp in his position? I've been in a lot of tricky situations on the button, where my hand is good enough to warrant a raise, but if I get reraised I'm faced with an extremely tough decision. The negative side to the limp is that the sb will most likely tag along. The positive side is that you'll see a flop with position and what is likely to be the best hand, though unlikely to be a large favorite. Not saying that I advocate this play, I'm just interested in what you guys think about it.

AT is one of the borderline hands where the right play isnt totally clear.

Even in position it isnt an easy hand to play with most flops. You are inviting SB to complete and giving BB a free card.

The biggest benefit is that you can probably force out some 60:40 hands that youd rather not have to play against, such as two broadways and lower suited connectors.

The biggest draw back to pushing is hands that you dominate such as Ax (x less than T) may fold, although when you limp and Ax flops you are on a guess as to whether it hit them or not and you might not be able to capitalize anyway.

What other pro-limpig arguments are there?

Thanks for the feedback. I suppose open pushing is the right move here, though as I stated previously, it makes me uncomfortable in this particular instance only because a large percentage of the hands that would call you have you dominated.

I dislike limping here as well. By not putting any pressure on, you're inviting one of the blinds to stick in a raise preflop and take the pot, or to check raise you when a ragged flop hits. In short, you're likely to face even more tough decisions later in the hand after limping.

One reason my M is in the push/fold zone in this hand is b/c of the effect of the antes. Obviously, once the antes kick in a tourney, the increased initial pot gives the blinds better odds to call small raises and see the flop. I'd be interested to know if you guys increase your standard raise amount once the antes kick in order to compensate for this effect?

I was actually thinking about this last night before heading to sleep. The short answer is no. While you are giving the blinds better odds to call, you will presumably benefit from their calling, since you probably have a better hand and position on them anyway, which is sufficient to overcome the slightly more favorable odds that they are getting.

More important than that for me is the better odds you are getting on steals...before antes you are investing 3bb to gain 1.5bb, where as now you are investing 3bb to gain approx 2.5bb, making stealing much more profitable.

As to why I kind of like the limp, there's quite a few reasons, including some meta-hand motivations.

1) If I raise, I might have to call a reraise all in because I have a decent hand and there's a good probability that someone is just trying to snipe off a steal attempt. If I fold, there goes a large portion of my stack.

2) If I limp, the chances I get reraised are quite small. People are very wary of button limps, as they are often very big hands. Much more likely than getting reraised, I'll get to see a cheap flop with a good drawing hand in position.

3) If I do get reraised, great. I'll fold and try to trap with a similar play in the future - this has worked wonders for me, especially if I develop this pattern cheaply at the early-mid stages and exploit it in the later stages.

With your relatively short stack, I don't think you have enough chips to warrant a raise (since your going to have to fold to a re-raise with your hand IMO or be taking a big gamble) that isn't for all of your chips, so I wouldn't do it. Also, it has been my experience that at least 80% of the min-raises I encounter are monster hands (as opposed ot the other 20% of the min-raises which are made by people who don't really understand no-limit poker). Ace-ten looks purty (as does ace-jack), but what hands can it beat that would re-raise there? 8)

therrin wrote:

"As to why I kind of like the limp, there's quite a few reasons, including some meta-hand motivations.

1) If I raise, I might have to call a reraise all in because I have a decent hand and there's a good probability that someone is just trying to snipe off a steal attempt. If I fold, there goes a large portion of my stack.

2) If I limp, the chances I get reraised are quite small. People are very wary of button limps, as they are often very big hands. Much more likely than getting reraised, I'll get to see a cheap flop with a good drawing hand in position.

3) If I do get reraised, great. I'll fold and try to trap with a similar play in the future - this has worked wonders for me, especially if I develop this pattern cheaply at the early-mid stages and exploit it in the later stages."

Your limping from the button strat:

A possibly workable strategy, but depends on a couple conditions:

1. You have to have the situation arise often enough to establish a pattern and get a read on how the blinds will react - meaning you'd have to have it folded to you on the button and limp several times before you get moved to a different table and/or the two people on your left bust out. In most online tourneys, with the amount of EP/MP limping/raising that goes on, this is not likely.

2. The two players on your left have to be observant enough to pick up on the pattern you're trying to establish.

If these two things don't happen, then you're just giving away the fold equity you have when you raise from the button.

I wonder if it is a wash, because the blinds possibly will fold less often to a 3XBB raise once the antes start b/c they're getting better odds to call, or even to push allin since many stacks are getting desparate by this stage. If this is the case, then your steals will work less often, so your EV on your 3bb investment to win 2.5 bb will drop as well.

Good one. Its something I often do at the table, but reading a hand history it doesnt jump out. To respond to the later issue of it recurring enough, I think the answer is yes, assuming you survive your push the next time you get the chance. Its also an effective blind v blind startegy to limp/fold to a reraise or limp check/fold to a bet on the flop. It sets up an image of weakness in the BBs mind that can have major future dividends.

Re whether I increase my standard raise to reflect antes, I vary my standard raise enough that the larger ones take into account the ante effect on pot odds anyway. Also when you get to the point of large blinds and antes, they are often such a large % of even the larger stacks, a lower raise is just as effective because it represents a substantial stack commitmet to call despite the better odds.

I dont believe that pushing is right, since it will be a big overraise, and you will risk too much for too little. However, pushing might be good, against players who like to call/defend their blinds.

In the specific situation, the min raise reaaaally screams strenght, unless the player has shown to be extremely tricky in the past, so the fold is quite straitforward, even though frustrating.

And after the hand, it s all in mode with ur 26k stack

In my experience, I agree with your 80/20 assessment as above.

Conclusion: I pushed all in after the reraise, BB called w/QQ, no Ace came to save me. In this particular instance, I suppose it really didn't matter whether I had limped, raised as I did, or pushed preflop given the hand the BB had.