A few hands from the mid tournie stages of a small MTT in the SE

ollyk1

Following on from that rambling post by Rian (sp?) I thought I'd post up a few hands from last night in the SE and see what people think. They are kind of similar situations to what peope are talking about in that post.

17 runners in the €75 DC game in the SE (chips in play 68k). We are down to 12 players (4 being paid but I only have eyes for top 2 spots) and I'm in the top two chips wise (possibly CL) with ~15k at a weak bad table (good table for me all bar one are very bad players).

Hand 1

I have a tightish female on my immediate right. She is a bit of calling station of decent 1/2 to 2/3rds pot bets on the flop and turn in the event that she does get involved in a hand and catches a "piece" of it. If its not going to knock her out that is. She has occasionally minraised preflop.

I have already milked her for half her stack with AT on an ace high board when she had what I thought was a flush draw and possbily hit the queen on the river instead of her flush. She has not shown many hands. I have punished her limps onto my BB occasionally and other times bet the flop and taken the hand away from her at that stage.

She has 3300 and limps on my BB (300/600 level). No one else is in the hand and I have TT.

I raise to 1.6k total and tell her to stop limping on my BB in a jovial way .

She thinks and reluctantly calls.

The flop comes AcJs5s and she bets 700 with 1k left behind. WTF? She has bet out on maybe three flops in 3.5 hours. Push all-in or fold? I don't have a spade.

Edit: I've already stacked someone an hour earlier who checked two pair to me on an ace high board after I'd raised preflop. I checked behind and hit a set on the turn and took most of his chips.

Hand 2

I have gone very card dead and even the bad players know to push and I haven't had anything to call with . I've been occasionally stealing but not often enough and I've drifted down to 12k. The average stack is now ~6.5k but the blinds are 400/800! :eek: (It's a Crapshoot I know)

The only decent player at the table pushes for 4.5 k in utg +1 (we are 6 handed) folded to my BB and I look down at 99. He has only pushed on my BB once before.

I can fold to leave me with 11.2k or instacall. If I lose I'll be down with the average stacks. There are still 10 players left.

I have my own opinions on these hands but judging from what people said in the other thread people may have strongly varying views and I'd like to hear them before I give my view and the results.

5starpool

Hand 1 - fold
Hand 2 - call

ntlbell

5starpool wrote:

Hand 1 - fold
Hand 2 - call

box of turkish delights for you sir

ianmc38

Hand 1 I fold.

Hand 2 I call - If it's who i'm thinking of hsi range here is close to any two, as he understands the importance of pushing when low stacked.

Hectorjelly

Hand 1 All in
Hand 2 All in

Id fold the 1st hand against some players but not as standard. I think theres a chance she has a hand that beats yours but doesnt like the A. Anway the pot is pretty big and were definitely ahead here some of the time.

Just put her in preflop, you pot committed yourself anyway.

Gholimoli

hand one :raise more pre flop.why not put here all in.
TT is not a hand you wanna play post flop with.with your raise and her stack your effectivly playing the hand for her stack anyway .expect this happens and then you will be wondering whether ot call or fold.i would just put her all in pre flop and be happy whether she calls or folds.

H2:
instant call.
it does not really matter how many times he has tried this before or who the player is.
he has just above 5BB left.
that makes his range huge and 99 is a solid fav against his range.

ocallagh

Hand 1 I fold. If she rarely bets out on flops you can take it she probably has a piece of this one. I think she has A4 or something like that...

Hand 2 I definitely call. It doesn't damage you too badly. (You'll still have 8k). With the blinds that high you can't wait for a hand.. 99 is as good as it gets! You should also be pushing on the button and SB too every round with your stack, picking up the blinds and arming yourself for such 50-50/60-40's!

ollyk1

Hectorjelly wrote:

Hand 1 All in
Hand 2 All in

Id fold the 1st hand against some players but not as standard. I think theres a chance she has a hand that beats yours but doesnt like the A. Anway the pot is pretty big and were definitely ahead here some of the time.

Just put her in preflop, you pot committed yourself anyway.

Hand 1 is the more interesting one. I don't know any other way to play hand 2 but maybe the survivalists might put up an arguement for folding. I just posted it because of the other discussion.


I didn't push preflop because she wouldn't call a push here as her hand wasn't that strong so I was trying to pot commit her by getting it in there 1k at a time. I've got her to commit 50% of her tank preflop but the problem is she bet out. I don't think its a bluff I'm 75-80% certain its something like QJ or KJ not liking the ace. But my chances of winning are very slim if thats the case....Do I still stick it in??

Edit: Am I wrong in my thinking that TT is too good a hand to waste headsup? If she had not bet out I stick it in here 100% of the time, its that bet out which really got me thinking....

Hectorjelly

ollyk1 wrote:

I didn't push preflop because she wouldn't call a push here as her hand wasn't that strong so I was trying to pot commit her by getting it in there 1k at a time. I've got her to commit 50% of her tank preflop but the problem is she bet out. I don't think its a bluff I'm 75-80% certain its something like QJ or KJ not liking the ace. But my chances of winning are very slim if thats the case....Do I still stick it in??

Do you think theres any chance she fill fold? Or will she call anyway? (assuming she has QJ). If my read is that she has a J and will call an all in (she should call but thats neither here no there) then im folding!

5starpool

from the brief description she sounds like the type of player that will not fold here. There are too many of these around, especially in the emporium to try pushing her off a hand that is better than yours at this point at least 90% of the time.

ollyk1

Hectorjelly wrote:

Do you think theres any chance she fill fold? Or will she call anyway? (assuming she has QJ). If my read is that she has a J and will call an all in (she should call but thats neither here no there) then im folding!

She was hiding the 1k chip left behind. I felt she would call 99% of the time.
I think the fact that I'd checked behind on an ace high board having been aggressive preflop in a memorable hand earlier may have been the reason she bet.

I very very reluctantly folded even a ten of spades in my hand would have justified a call in my mind. :rolleyes:



Obviously hand 2 I called the all-in. He had AJ and I lost the race. The issue here was I was 80-90% certain I was racing but that makes it an even easier call imho.

ollyk1

ocallagh wrote:

With the blinds that high you can't wait for a hand.. 99 is as good as it gets! You should also be pushing on the button and SB too every round with your stack, picking up the blinds and arming yourself for such 50-50/60-40's!

Are you saying I'm too passive Niall??:o I'll have to up my aggression even more so......:eek:

What happened was I folded the hand against the SB and now I was on 13.5k and I only got to rob one set of blinds in the next two orbits due to every hand being pushed before it got to me other than one (so I took my cue obviously) and when I was utg I had 23o and 52o.

I possibly should have pushed those too but I just wasn't feeling the love from the pokah gods last night.

I then lost the coinflip (although one moron tried to tell the AJ guy he was ahead of 99 :rolleyes:) and then almost immediately hit the FT and was very card dead for another round so I finally pushed with 56 SOOTED and ran into QQ and KK (WP Ian good call! ).

I'm getting very pissed of with the SE game because any good play in the earlier levels has a limited impact with the structure I feel. I'll be giving the jackpot club a good tryout soon and the new Fitz game on a Thursday as I think a better than average players edge (if I may be so bold) is very much reduced with the SE structure.

Some of the guys leaving the tournie to play the cash games are absolutely brutal though so I'm really giving thought to slumming it in the cash game with Ian and the lads.....

ocallagh

ollyk1 wrote:

Are you saying I'm too passive Niall??:o I'll have to up my aggression even more so......:eek:

actually - good point..! if there is one thing you're not it's passive! I just think there is only one way to play those SE FTs..so i just posted it, but it's actually not very relevant to your game! lol

I still call the 99 though..:)

Iago

haven't read the replies

Hand 1, I put her all in preflop, she's going to call anyway. As it played out I probably fold on the flop, which is why I put her to a decision preflop. The less decisions I have to make the better.

Hand 2, have to call. no deep reasoning, seems pretty obvious to me