Our little tourney puzzler

[peterbirks]

The story so far: Our hero has limped with a pair of aces in a tourney where the blinds are now 400/800 and there are 18 players left, with 10 players getting paid. He has about 3800 in chips. Everyone folds around the Big Blind, who has just over 7000 chips and who is a conservative kind of player.

The board comes QJ3 two spades. Big blind checks and our hero bets 700, (so Mr Woodhouse, who suggested a bet of between 750 and 1250, is clearly a man of good judgement). Big blind calls the bet.

Turn brings a Jack. Board is now QJ3J two spades. Big blind checks. Hero has 2500 chips. Foe has 5900 chips. There are 2900 chips in the pot. What to do?

(Clue. It is at this point that I start to seriously screw the hand up.....)

Comments

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

We wanted action. We got action, he got another card. Risk increases as cards come. What did he call with? The flop hit him somewhere. Q? No problem. QJ? He could be slow-playing us. AJ/KJ? Trouble. Other pair? Devoutly to be hoped. 10-J suited? There's a thought. 33? Would he have raised pre-flop with any of those or could be be slowplaying to try to extract value from our possible mid-pair or draw?

We've got about 3BB left, just enough for a non-trivial pre-flop raise. So check/folding is an option. Not a very attractive one, but it's there: we're only about 87% committed to this one. We're going to see perhaps four or five more hands before the blinds remove half our remaining chips.

I'm torn between the check and all-in. But I go through phases of working out what would beat me and assuming the other player has it. Which is expensive.

I think I'd check. No, dammit, he's more likely to improve (if he neds to) than we are. Push. Place fingers over the "n" and the "h" keys in readiness.

Right now I'd be kicking myself for not raising and picking up the blinds. I hate slow-playing AA in tournaments (I accept the necessity in ring games with slow-changing personnel).

What to do?

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think that the all-in is wrong. We've decided to try to double-through, and the best way to do this is to bet part of the pot. This thing is, are we still in front (in which case he is drawing to two outs) or are we behind (in which case I am drawing to two outs)?

I think that there is an argument for checking and seeing what the opponent does on the river. He's conservative, which is one reason to do this. He may well check on the river with (say) a pair of 8s or QT. If he bets the river big, I fold, and if he puts in half my stack, I toss a coin (he might have the J, he might have the Q).

However, in a fit of madness, I decide to bet 1200 of my 2500. Well, not ocmplete madness, because if he raises me back the rest of my stack and, given that he is a conservative player, I can fold and go all-in on one of the next couple of hands with my remaining 1300.

So, I bet 1200. The weakness of this bet is that it only really works if my opponent puts me on AK or a complete skank with a small pair,and he has a medium pair. I think that he would have bet out at me on the flop with Qx. In other words, my hypothesis is pretty shitty compared to the bad news that he has a Jack.

However, my play is about to get worse. He reraises me all in, and I call.

Why did I do this? I don't know. One of those stupid moves that make no sense whatsoever in hindsight. I just won't make that stupid move again. Needless to say, he turns over a jack (with a two kicker, just to make things worse) and I get no help on the river.

I don't really dislike my bet of 1200. Perhaps it's 500 too much. Another bet of 700 will elicit the same reraise, and I will have 1800 going into the next two hands after I fold. The check and see-what-happens-on-the-river is probably slightly better. I think that all-in is definitely the worst of the three options. You win nothing larger than what is already in the pot if your opponent is effectively drawing dead, and are out if you are effectively drawing dead.

This is a good example of the "non-volatile hand", where milking bets are better than all-in lunacy.

But, bottom of all the choices is the bet part of the pot, and then call the reraise. In this case, pure idiocy.

Now, there are certain lunatic (or genius) players where this bet-and-call might be the right play (Marty Wilson for one example, Dan Harrington for another), but against a conservative ABC kind of player, and against MOST good players, it's madness.

I wasn't kicking myself that I didn't just raise and steal the blinds. I think that the limp is correct. The guy had five outs, and he hit one of them. If he hits the "kicker" out, then I am going to go out, no doubt about it. But if he hits his Jack, pairing the board, I should be able to get away from the hand.

Re: What to do?

[jellymillion.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's vaguely poetic that he turned trips and slow-played back at you... If I'd had a few days to think about it, I'd ave takent he free card. I might even have misread the whole thing to a sufficient degree and checked to give him another card to catch up, bet the river when the brick hit and called the raise anyway.

Perhaps I place too much emphasis on leverage: I really hate not having enough chips to get a make-you-think bet on to the table.

When I get short, I'm constantly (obsessively) looking at how long I've got before I'm going to be all-in blind, trying to figure out whether it's gambling time.

What, if anything, is to be learned from this exercise? For one, it's an object lesson, if one were needed, that slow-playing gives an opponent a chance to catch up and sometimes they do. When we seek out extra reward we are accepting additional risk. What else? Tournaments have high variance? Aces don't win all the time? ABC players bet what they have, will call half-pot bets with second pair and will raise when they have trips?

All things one (well, me for certain) can forget in the heat of the moment.

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

I'm coming into this a bit late, but my current thinking is that I would have gone all-in pre-flop.

I really hate limping with any hand here when there are antes in the game. AA is probably the only hand big enough to do it with, but I think even online it's not a good idea to make any play with *only* AA.

We have the option of going half way in and there are a lot of hands with which I would do just that. With the big pairs though, it's really hard to construct a situation where you want him to fold on the flop *and he will*. If he has nothing to call with, he's so far behind that we want the rest in.

With 12-16 SBs in my stack I would tend to go all in with the best and worst hands (especially Ax which plays badly on the flop), and go half way in with those in the middle (especially two face cards because I can also represent the Ace and because I *might* be able to fold if an Ace flops, he's first and bets into me).

Thus I avoid this particular dilemma. Now you're here, it is a nasty one. You have to be very sure that a raise means a hand that beats AA if you want to bet and fold.

Andy.

Go all-in

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think that you make a valid point about the antes. That makes the pot rather more worth winning there and then. However, the limp still seems to me to have a higher EV in this particular instance. But my calculations might still be off and, if in doubt, lump it in.

I dug my own grave here, but if I had the courage to bet and fold, things would not have been dead (I still have five BBs or thereabouts) and most of the time I would have won more than I did by going all-in preflop. He DID only have five outs....

Pete