Monday, February 22, 2010

What would you do?

Let me set this up the best I can. My monthly tournament was Saturday night. We have 36 players, the top 6 get paid. It is a points based league, so you are playing for short term winnings (top 6 payouts) and for long term winnings (points accumulated). These both affect how you might play a hand -folding a couple more spots could get you much needed points, but that could take you out of having fold equity.

I'm not doing well this year points wise, so I need to make some aggressive moves. Going into Saturday, I was ranked 26th. I have hit 2 final tables but have not cashed.

At the final table, blinds are 1200/2400 with a 300 ante. We are down to 8 players after 3 hands. I am in 3rd place with ~20,000 in chips, right at average ($180,000 chips are in play). So the stacks look about like this:

Seat 1(dealer) 5,000
Seat 2 (SB) 6,000
Seat 3 (BB) 55,000
Seat 4 (UTG) 3,000
Seat 5 19,000
Seat 6 Villian 48,000
Seat 7 20,000
Seat 8 ME 24,000

UTG folds as does Seat 5. Our villian raises to $6500 or about 2.7x the BB. Seat 7 folds. I look at Ace of spades, King of spades. Villian is not overly aggressive player, but not super tight either. So neutral read on the player. What would you do? Fold, Call or Shove?

I'll post results tomorrow.

9 comments:

SirFWALGMan said...

I don't like call. Raise is ok if your gonna jam the flop. Shove is what I would probably do since your kinda low. In home games you might get called by hands like KJ/KQ/KT/Ax that just have no idea.

Mike Heffner said...

Unless he's a supernit, jamming has to be best.

Given stack sizes, he probably doesn't mind the button or SB calling allin, but is likely protecting against you or the BB playing back at him with a stack that can actually hurt him. After all, he can fold to a threeball and still have over 40K.

Maybe he's good enough to second level you guys with this bet-sizing and induce a shove from you or the BB while holding a monster - but w/e you have the Ace and the King of the same suit, it's the nizzles in a tournament.

Flop the nuts and be done with it :-)

The Poker Meister said...

I don't like call, either. I think shove is the best option here. You have fold equity, and (assuming no AA, KK) at worst, you're 50/50. I'd imagine you're likely better than 50/50 though.

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

There's really only one option here. Shoving maximizes your EV in the tournament, gives you the best chance of winning the tournament, and it gives you the best chance of picking up the most points for your league.

It's AK, and it's suited. Obviously you don't have enough chips to just raise without shoving, so you just have to get 'em in there and hopefully get everyone else to fold, or get in dominating, or win a race if necessary.

Schaubs said...

I insta shove.

WillWonka said...

I don't even think about it. Being in the same tourney, I know the dynamics that you speak of. Not knowing exactly who it was as I was at the cash tables (see post today), I shove this and don't even think twice.

Seeing that you insta left, I assume things didn't turn out well?

Jeremy said...

Unless you're in the position where you need 5th or 6th place points to win a prize package, I definitely push. I think wonka gave the result away, lol.

lightning36 said...

I agree with everyone else -- shove. Ten big blinds with sooted big slick -- time to move!

Anonymous said...

Duh...shove it down his throat.