Should I stay or should I go now?

Krusty_Clown

Hi there, was playing in the SE double-chance last night, and managed to get down to the last three (72 runners) when this hand happened:
Stacks: Chip leader on my right: ~160k, me:~110K, 3rd:~8K
Prize money: 1st: 1.3K, 2nd, 750, 3rd: 470.

Big stack is a far better player than I, and has been robbing both me and 3rd stack constantly and his experience really shows, in other words, he's a big favourite. So anyways:

3rd stack has around 8K, which is less than 2 big blinds (BB=6K), so I can easily wait him out, and guarantee myself second place. I'm in the BB. Big stack does his usual raise into me, this time to 30K (normally 20K). I look down at my hand to see pockets 9s. So I decide to push, to try and take the pot down there and then. Big stack goes into the tank for a long time, anf eventually calls with KQo. He hits a K, and I collect the 3rd place money.

So, my questions are:
1) Did I play the hand badly? Was the push OTT, Would a lower re-raise have been a better option?
2) Should i have been there in the first place? Should I have waited one/two hands to guarantee 2nd place and an extra 300 quid?
3) Do you think he should have called in this position? He probably had me figured correctly for a pocket pair (giving him two over-cards), but losing this coin-flip would have left him way behind.

I figure that he has was a much better player than I, so it was a poor call. He could've surrendered the hand (30k) and been pretty confident of picking me off over the next half hour.. Any thoughts?

imalegend

good push...terrible call...he was losing to so many hands although every time i seem to push with 99 i get called by idiots with kq and k j...why cant they just lay them down...i think the puush was good for 2 reasons..1 to give him the chance to fold and 2 you are showing you want to win this tournamnet and not just come 2nd..your thinking in playing for 2nd was poor as i dont care if he is a better player when i dont see how he can be risking 80 per cent of his stack on kq.You should have been thinking i can beat this guy.He turned it into a crapshoot and all you can do is put your chips in when your ahead.Thats poker.if i had 160k it would havent even blinked folding kq to a re riase but thats just me.well done on coming 3rd but dont beat yourself up about the winners bad play.I hate seeing bad players win tournaments.And i see it so often it is sad.

Hectorjelly

I think its marginally bad call. Theres 69k in there already, and he has to call 80k more, (nearly 2:1 at which point)(so if he has reason to think he has two live cards its a clear call. If AA or KK are out of your range, (ie if youd play them differently) then its not that bad a call. However he played the hand pretty badly though, PFR is far too much, he should be keeping it smallish to utilise his skill advantage. He basically engineered a situation in which he played a massive pot as a slight underdog for most of the chips.

Im not surprised at all though, any time Ive played tournaments in the fitz ive been distinctly underwhelmed by the standard of play by regulars. They look at hands like KQ and AT the way good players consider, KK; not quite the nuts but nearly there!

Hectorjelly

Also I like the push

Killme00

I would have pushed in this position too...that doesnt mean its the right thing to do. You got your chips in when you were ahead. The BB made a bad call and got lucky but if you keep playing like that you will win more often than not

luckylucky

I agree with hectorjelly that his pfr is too big, your push I think is fine - unless you have a good read on him that he raises big preflop with big hands at this stage though with just 3 players 2 9s is a pretty tasty hand and more often than not the push is the right play especially against a player who is trying to bully the table and by the sounds of things has been raising and getting away with it with far poorer hands than KQ, I think with your 9s you can expect to take down the pot here right there at least 50% of time with that re-raise, the other times you get called you will probably be against overcards like these for the most part and you have your typical toin coss so overall your play is the right one.

However looking at it from his point of view I don't think his call is that bad though - in fact viewed from a purely pot odds one - his odds are approx 15:8 i.e. if he thinks his chances are greater than 35% he has the correct odds to play. The only hands that he doesn't have the right odds against are pocket queens, kings, aces, AK and AQ.

If you had been playing loose I would think his call would have been justified however by the sound of things you haven't been so there is a reasonable chance that you could indeed have one of those hands no doubt he would also figure that you could be re-raising with just about any pair (certainly medium pair or above) or maybe AT or AJ all of which he does have the odds.

In fact If he could have actually seen your pocket nines a call would have been the correct play as you are only a 55% favourite unless he figures you are so terrible and he can totally outplay you after... somehow I doubt he could be that confident or that you are that bad since you are clever enough to post on boards

The other factor here if he does call he still has $50K chips left so though he would be severely wounded he wouldn't be dead in the water and still would be in good shape for 2nd.

I reckon in the normal situation against your average opponent if he averaged it out he would expect to be in the region of 60:40 underdog - it's close but he has the odds to call normally.

But it's not all about pot odds either...
If he is a clearly better player than you maybe he shouldn't have taken such a big risk on a marginal advantage like you suggested and just waited for a better opportuntiy.

Overall I side with the fold being the right decision for him but I don't blame him too much for the call and if you were an aggressive player it would sway me to think it was the right decision.

Either way I think you played the hand fine, his biggest mistake was the size of his pre-flop raise other than that whether he calls or folds to that re-raise is marginal really if your all-in was 10 15K less it would be an automatic call for him let's put it that way... at the end of the day these things happen in poker unfortunately for you it just didn't go your way this time.