New to the site. 1st post. Love it. Please be gentle. I've played semi-serious for 1.5 years, read most of the books. Play a Harrington style game. New-ish to live action.

Hard Rock Casino, Tampa
10 Player S-n-G
$225 Buy-In
$950 1st
$600 2nd
$400 3rd

Blinds up every 10 hands, starting stack $1,500, 2nd level, I'm BB=$100, no ante.

UTG raises to $200.
UTG+1 calls fast.
Mucks to me.
I call a min-raise with Q7o to see my first flop of the night (best hand I've seen yet). Pot = $650

Flop: Q 9 7

I bet $400 (Draw heavy) My stack now = $825. I didn't want to commit to the pot just yet, too early. UTG raises to $800. UTG+1 pushes for $1,800.00. UTG has has hand behind his chips to call waiting for me and has UTG+1 covered by $200-300. They both have me covered.

?????????

Have fun.

I get my checks in, close my eyes, and pray for bricks.

How many left? All 10?

Fold preflop.

I like the flop bet. Call allin.

Don't call Q7o even from the BB with just 1425 in chips.

As played to the flop checkraise all in. You're ahead of AQ, AA, and KK. You don't have enough chips to get away from this hand.

Why lead when we can c/r all in? We don't need to 3-bet to get all of our chips in the middle.

I'm BB, last to act, Seat 1 opened for the min raise. I ended the action with the call. I'd have mucked from any other position.

With blinds going up every 10 hands you don't have much time. People get knocked out quickly early on so it's a race to catch a pot and buy some time to sit back. Down to 5 or 6 headed by level 3 usually so your effective M is much lower.

Q,7o is my breaking point for this call with min raise from 1st position. I sensed strength from his min-raise at a tight table (case in point, 1 caller and it mucked to me in the BB). For 1 more chip to see the flop and no chance of another pre-flop re-raise, I'll see the flop and c/f from there if i don't hit at least 2pr on a friendly board. The $400 post flop bet was as much a tester as it was a draw killer and a value bet. Seat 2 beat Seat 1 into the pot with the all-in........

You're right, you don't have much time, but Q7o still isn't a hand to call raises with. It's total garbage, likely dominated eighteen different ways by UTG's holding. And if you don't hit at least 2 pair on a friendly board you'll just give up? The chances of you flopping two pair or three of a kind or a fullhouse are like 3% or something similarly miniscule. You're willing to invest almost 10% of your stack on such a slim chance? Just fold preflop and save yourself the hassle. You can definitely find a better spot than this.

You don't want to lead on the flop because it can kill your action. Suppose that UTG had AK and UTG+1 had TT. Well, leading will get both to fold as you're telegraphing a queen. Now suppose instead that you went for a checkraise. UTG may continuation bet hoping to take the pot down, UTG+1 may push or fold depending on his read of UTG, and now you move all-in with likely the best hand.

With such shallow stacks you don't need to worry about feeler bets. You've got a strong hand here and should be glad to get it all in. It sucks if UTG+1 has QQ or 99, but coolers happen.

You're absolutely correct and I'll definitely muck these rags in the future in the same situation. This was my 3rd S-n-G of the night and I had been card dead all along. I got lucky and chopped 1st & 2nd at my 1st table but that was mostly from a good suck-out on my part, but still.... I was ready to gamble a bit. Dumb on my part to get involved at all but I would have puked seeing that flop if I weren't in the hand.

You won't believe how all of this turned out. Not sure if it makes me a donk or a Hellmuth but I laid down the 2nd best hand face up. I knew they wouldn't believe what I'm laying down if I didn't show it. I called both of their hands: A Qo for UTG and wired 9's for UTG+1. They couldn't believe I mucked it. The trips held up and UTG+1 held the chip lead for about 1/2 hour. UTG was gone 2 hands later. I chopped 1st & 2nd place for $775 about an hour later.... The tight table image I bought with that laydown paid big dividends from that point on. I could steel the blinds any time I needed them.....

I should have been gone but Seat 2 shoved so quick I thought he was going to hit me with his chips (SET!!!!! QQ would have re-raised PF and I had a 7). Seat 1 was obviously calling so I was pretty sure I was drawing dead to the case Queen. By betting only $400 on the flop I avoided committing to the pot (by my standards for this structure) and it translated into $775 in real money...

Not saying I played it right. I donked the original call and used my own brand of pot odds on the all-in to justify the fold (Plus I knew I was going to see both hands). But I sure as hell felt good about it when I knocked out UTG+1 on the bubble.

I dont like it.
I would always call PF in that spot. With the attitude you're taking about calling another $100 you obviously mean to wait for a playable hand, if that doesn't happen in the next 2 rotations, which is likely, you're down to $975 (25-50, 50-100, 100-200) with the blinds at 150-300 or maybe 200-400. I call and close the action there with Q7.
Secondly, I hate to say it but, results dont matter. You're laying down the best of it 75% of the time in my experience. You couldn't have had that much of a read and the most likely hands are AA or KK and AQ.

In the early rounds of those SnG's there is zero room to get cute, after all you said yourself that you had to get very lucky to win it after that. You must have caught a hand very soon after with your stack being so short. But thats why I dont like those formats. I think down in FL though thats all there is right?

QFT.

EDIT: The muck wasn't awful, and I agree with you that it did wonders for your table image doing it face up. Still, these SnG's seem like gambling fests (at least you get 10 hands in...not always the case when the level is 20 mins instead of hand-counted) and I think getting our not-so-big-stack in with 2 pair is +EV in the long run.

A Q is an easy guess for one of the hands.
The other one isn't as easy.
Looks like you made the right decision.

Yep. Other than the 1/2 rings full of fish. That's like a penny grab in kindergarten. No one mucks a hand and I get very impatient with the poor play. I've been to the SnG's 6x now and my original bank roll is 5x what I started with including tipping the dealers, etc. I'm a rock until the 3rd level usually and play from position only unless premium cards show up. I let the fish eat each other and then come in behind them when they're feeling confident and take 'em down. I cash in +/- 50% of the tables I see. Chopping at least 1st & 2nd is the norm.

I was down in Dania last year for like 3 weeks and was playing at the Hard Rock and the Dania Jai Lai, and JEESH! I know what you mean. At first I was off my game but once I approached it like they did, a slot machine, I was able to win a little since I was more "informed".

Well nice work on the cashes. Keep it up. Sounds like some nice pickings.