Overaggression on the bubble (HH)

NickyOD

Your thoughts on this hand please.

10 player $50 SnG on Party. Payouts 250/150/100

***** Hand History for Game 3176290786 *****
200/400 TOURNEY TEXAS HOLD'EM GAME TABLE (NL) (TOURNAMENT 18153574) - SAT DEC 10 09:37:46 EST 2005
Table Table 67289 (Real Money) -- Seat 8 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: murphy855 (3970)
Seat 3: wewantfalmer (2130)
Seat 8: Rollinx420 (1185)
Seat 10: NickyOD (2715)
NickyOD posts small blind (100)
murphy855 posts big blind (200)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to NickyOD [ Kd, Td ]
wewantfalmer folds.
Rollinx420 folds.
NickyOD calls (100)
murphy855 checks.
** Dealing Flop ** : [ 5s, 7d, 9d ]
NickyOD bets (300)
murphy855 raises (600) to 600
NickyOD raises (2215) to 2515
NickyOD is all-In.
murphy855 calls (1915)

Amaru

You're all in against the chip leader, on the bubble, out of position, after being minraised, with only a big draw. You're asking for trouble here.

EDIT: After looking at this play, i think you're not the hero here.

Also, why do the blinds say 200/400, but you're in for 100 as the SB, and him 200? Which is it?

NickyOD

Amaru wrote:

Also, why do the blinds say 200/400, but you're in for 100 as the SB, and him 200? Which is it?

Blinds must be up after this hand

Bozzer

I’d probably try to c-raise all-in on the flop.
Leading,with the intention of 3 betting all in isn’t great because usually your opponent will raise to more than 600 and be closer to pot commitment (board is draw heavy so he may be more willing to look you up here, as well as the fact that he'll have 1200 left if he loses).

What I’d do in the situation your faced with depends on whether I’d seen him min-raise flop before.
If you think he’s weak I’d push,If you think he’s strong I’d just call.
A small raise on a board like this is probably more likely to be weak so your push isn’t terrible but I’d rather check-raise push in the first place.

NickyOD

Bozzer wrote:

I’d probably try to c-raise all-in on the flop.
Leading,with the intention of 3 betting all in isn’t great because usually your opponent will raise to more than 600 and be closer to pot commitment (board is draw heavy so he may be more willing to look you up here, as well as the fact that he'll have 1200 left if he loses).

What I’d do in the situation your faced with depends on whether I’d seen him min-raise flop before.
If you think he’s weak I’d push,If you think he’s strong I’d just call.
A small raise on a board like this is probably more likely to be weak so your push isn’t terrible but I’d rather check-raise push in the first place.

I often think check raising all in looks a lot more like a draw, but betting then reraising all-in shows a lot more strangth.

Amaru

I'm still confused as to why you're making this play. Why lead out on the flop, and why push all your stack in to possibly only win 600 chips? At best you'll be chip leader, but there's a much greater risk of you either being knocked out(while you had a very favourable amount of chips) or you'll win an amount that won't even make you CL. If the blinds go up next hand there's even less reason to make this play.

Bozzer

NickyOD wrote:

I often think check raising all in looks a lot more like a draw, but betting then reraising all-in shows a lot more strangth.

This is true,but your opponent has to be right a lot more often if he calls a c-raise push because of his pot odds.
Your also a favourite if A9 calls so you don’t really care.

Curious what you would have done if villain raised to say 1k?

NickyOD

Bozzer wrote:

Curious what you would have done if villain raised to say 1k?

Considering the way the stacks are I think I would have to drop it.

Vamos

The only hand you're in trouble against is a set, any pair the villian made on that flop you are favourite over.
Even if he has the straight you will be only 40/60 dog, the straight is the most worrying hand though since he probably won't check 55,77,99 preflop and will 68.
Anyway you're most likely up against a pair and are favourite, and should take 1st from there the times you win the hand. I'd play it the same.

Bozzer

NickyOD wrote:

Considering the way the stacks are I think I would have to drop it.

This is the problem with your line. If villain does raise, it will generally be closer to 1k than 600 and put you in a very awkward spot.You could be making a bad fold if villain has 56/78/89. But if you push these hands will call with the pot odds and it will be a coinflip.
Yet if you had c-raised pushed these hands would probably have folded (given your range) and they would be making a mistake against your actual hand.

NickyOD

Bozzer wrote:

This is the problem with your line. If villain does raise, it will generally be closer to 1k than 600 and put you in a very awkward spot.You could be making a bad fold if villain has 56/78/89. But if you push these hands will call with the pot odds and it will be a coinflip.
Yet if you had c-raised pushed these hands would probably have folded (given your range) and they would be making a mistake against your actual hand.

Good point. Villain called with A9 so I was actually a favourite but I lost the hand. I hate his call because I will basically never be pushing in this spot with a hand that is an underdog to TPTK. I'd play AA/KK and trips the same way and if he loses he is the shortstack. He can fold and still be chip leader.

Looking at my stats I feel I have far too many 4th places, but then I have a lot more firsts and seconds than 3rds, but I am still in two minds about my bubble strategy in Sngs.

Bozzer

I think a finish distribution with a lot of 1st's and 4th's and a smaller number of 2nd's and 3rd's is pretty ideal.

I only played sng's briefly about 6 months ago but I'll post a link to my previous bubble strategy reply. I'm not sure if it's any use.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=3485313#post3485313

Hitman Actual

Bozzer wrote:

I only played sng's briefly about 6 months ago but I'll post a link to my previous bubble strategy reply. I'm not sure if it's any use.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=3485313#post3485313

Thats a good post. I was actually just about to trawl through boards looking for bubble play tips, so thanks for saving me the trouble!

Amaru

NickyOD wrote:

Good point. Villain called with A9 so I was actually a favourite but I lost the hand. I hate his call because I will basically never be pushing in this spot with a hand that is an underdog to TPTK. I'd play AA/KK and trips the same way and if he loses he is the shortstack. He can fold and still be chip leader.

Looking at my stats I feel I have far too many 4th places, but then I have a lot more firsts and seconds than 3rds, but I am still in two minds about my bubble strategy in Sngs.

You're looking at this hand as something that the CL did wrong, when in fact i think you played this the wrong way. It doesn't matter that you're the favourite in the hand, because of the concept of gamblers ruin(cannot recover from zero). Trying to force coinflips(or close to it) with the chip leader on the bubble is a sure way to end with a lot of 4th place finishes. There's absolutely no need to make this play, and instead you should be concentrating on taking money from the shorter stacks. If this was cash game, then yes, i'd say you made the right play here, but as it's a tournament, i think this is the wrong play.

breadmonkey

Excellent post. Learnt a lot there.

Hectorjelly

The stacks arent deep enough to make a weaklead then three bet all in viable here, I think the villain will nearly always look you up with top pair. People fear going broke a lot more than fearing becoming a shortstack. I think check calling or check raising this flop would be better. Check calling is fine because the pot is small and its not in your interests to play a big pot.