I'm playing a live bar tournament against a good-for-this-class group of players and we are down to two tables, about four places from the bubble. I have been nursing a short stack back to health most of the tournament after paying off a well-played flush with top pair. At my new table, I am decidedly short stack, but the play is still pretty volatile, and I don't have a lot of great reads yet. There are eight players at the table, and I am on the BB. Blinds are 100/200.

Key players:
SB: ~4000
BB(me): 2200 K 9
UTG+2: ~5000
UTG+3: ~8000
Cutoff: 2100

The five of us limp into the flop, that I see for free.

Flop (Pot is 1000):

7 3 Q

It checks around to the cutoff, the one player I am familar with. He bets 500. I know him well enough to know that he has a good but not invincible hand. I figure him for a big queen or two pair, with the big queen being more likely, which is important. Against a big queen, it's pretty much a coinflip. Against a two pair, it's 2-1 against. Against a set, it's 3-1. SB folds.

Now here's my dilemma. Looking at the next two players, they are both holding their cards like they intend to fold, and at this level, that's a good tell. If I flat call, and miss the turn, he goes all-in to the $2000 pot with his last $1400, and I more or less need to give it up there. If I do hit the turn after a call, he almost certainly clams up, and I don't get paid. So a flat call is pretty much a disaster.

I could reasonably fold here, but if I am really in a near-coinflip, I think I am making a mistake here. If I push all-in, there is a very reasonable likelihood that he will take the all-in checkraise seriously, especially since I showed some consternation on the flop (because it put me in an ugly position) that he could take as an act, and he is likely to get away from the hand I put him on to that action. And if he does call, I can happily take the coinflip on the flush draw and a live king.

So, I elect to push. He counts it down. He thinks it over, and pushes his chips in, saying, "I hope you just have that flush draw." I answer with "I hope you just have a big queen." Sure enough, he flips over Q J .

I miss the next two cards and he doubles up. I got fairly lucky, though, and doubled up with I was forced in on the SB with QQ, and then tripled a few hands later with AA. After running my toothpick into a lumber yard, the same player crippled me when I called his desperation all in from the BB with Q T and he hit a flush with T 7 . I went out on the bubble.

Later on, as I thought about the bet, I thought how perfect his 500 move was. Any less, and I happily call and he wins a small pot after attacking the turn. Any more, and I have to give it up because I think he's pot committed, and don't have the fold equity. In the end, he made a good read and outplayed me.

Just something to have in your head the next time you're in a tourney.

So you're saying he knew what you had before you acted, bet the perfect amount so that he would get c/r with a flush draw and an over, and take down the pot when the turn and riv bricked?

I would have raised to 1k pre-flop. But that's just me.

No, I'm saying that he made a bet that forced me to define my hand very clearly for him, and then from that information made the correct read.



In retrospect, that would have been a pretty good move most of the time, although fields like these tend to be pretty sloppy preflop, so I don't know that that would have saved me.

Our M here is a little more than 7. 4 limpers x 200 = 800, which = more than 1/3 our stack. I say we shove, nobody is interested in this pot, we could criple everyone except UTG+3, and we can grow our stack by more than 33%. Even if we get called we're not going likely to be worse than 60/40. Is my thinking way off here???

You are not way off, although, knowing the group as I do, I would add that they are slightly more tempted to call a bet because it is an "all-in" than simply a good raise.

Regardless the commentary here reminds me of my law of strat forums answers I should have remembered. A smart raise on an early street can avoid a tough decision on a later street.