Nicky's Tourney Question of the Day....

NickyOD

Another Final table on VC This time the final table of the 5K guranteed. It's $2.3K for first and only $189 for 9th but the payouts are nicely staggered.

I got there in 2nd in great shape but the LAG chip leader got half my chips when he showed my UTG raise no respect on the button with 2-3 suited and flopped a flush. Unfortuantely I had top pair and the nut flush draw on the turn and knew he was a very loose player and the fecker put me in bad shape.

With 9 still left I'm back to 8th in chips with 56K. Blinds are now 4000/8000 no antes.

It's folded around to the player on my right who I can't say I have much info on. I don't think he's much of a player, just seems OK. He limps in and had a stack of about 70K I think. I am in the CO with A-9 offsuit. The players in the blinds are the overly tight shortstack with only slightly less than me and another player with only slightly more than me.

Do I push with my A-9o there or wait for a better oportunity?

Doc Farrell

definitely all-in!

only....

i know this movie is gonna have a sad ending....

he called with king jack and hit a pair.

oh the humanity!

well done on reaching the final table!

d.

Lafortezza

NickyOD wrote:

Do I push with my A-9o there or wait for a better oportunity?

It depends really, if you push and you get called you're more than likely to be well behind, unless someone has a pair of 8's or whatever.
It all balances on your folding equity, the short(er) stacks in the blinds might be willing to gamble, and the bigger stack who called in front of you might be playing AQ and just deciding to see a flop without raising.

I'm guessing you pushed with the A9o otherwise this post wouldn't be here!

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

I suppose in raw simplistic terms it boils down to the following:

ADVANTAGE OF STAYING OUT:
You can afford another maybe ten-fifteen hands without having to go all in, you can use that time to
- see if you get something better
- learn more about which players to go all-in against
- have other players knock each other out

ADVANTAGE OF MOVING IN
- he might just fold and give you his blind
- gets you back in contention for winning if you win the call

Overall, prob a 50:50 decision depending on your risk-style of play - would it have been best to throw in a 3*bb and hope that gets rid of him?

If he calls then he prob has you beaten pre-flop - unless this is a bad beat post...

Hectorjelly

NickyOD wrote:

It's folded around to the player on my right who I can't say I have much info on. I don't think he's much of a player, just seems OK. He limps in and had a stack of about 70K I think. I am in the CO with A-9 offsuit. The players in the blinds are the overly tight shortstack with only slightly less than me and another player with only slightly more than me.

Do I push with my A-9o there or wait for a better oportunity?

It really depends on his limping standards (or more specifically is he limping with a big pair), but with no info I would lean towards folding until I had seen that he limped often. Many players on VC will never limp in that spot unless they have AA, AK - QQ and so on.

califano

NickyOD wrote:

$189 for 9th

I thought it was $168 for 9th.
Well played anyway. Unlucky it wasnt higher finish reflecting something like your placing throughout. Do you not look at the chat section?. I gave you the old 'GL' encouragement with no answer. I was viewing from ppp but maybe VC users dont see ppp chat?.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

It really depends on his limping standards (or more specifically is he limping with a big pair), but with no info I would lean towards folding until I had seen that he limped often. Many players on VC will never limp in that spot unless they have AA, AK - QQ and so on.

This is exactly where the answer lies. I didn't really know his limping range and he hadn't really been very active outside of the blinds up to this point. As you probably know from my posts I never have much interest in sitting on my chips late in tourneys unless I am top 3. All too often I have played too tight at final tables and regretted waiting for better oportunities to push that never came. I figured the blinds woulnd not call without a big hand and I had the chance to increas my stack by 20% because the limper probably had something marginal he wanted to see a cheap flop with. I pushed and it was folded around to the limper who called with A-Jo and he busted me. Can't understand why he didn't raise there. Oh Well!

Another interesting hand that came up for me with 21 players left. UTG raised 3.5BBBs and it was folded around to me in the SB with A-Ko. I had UTG covered with 41K, blinds 800/1600. I pushed. Shortstack 14K in the BB called. UTG called. BB had T-T UTG had Q-Q. Flop came A-5-A-5-A for Quad Aces! Whoah!

Jaden

You were right to push against short stacks with A9os, chances are that they will drop anything marignal or maybe even half-decent. These are the players who wait for their spots, but often just get blinded out, or wait too late when an all-in push scares nobody.

However, I would have limped with AJos, but would not consider a raise with it. Mind you, I wouldn't have called an all-in from a solid player with it either, unless I thought you were stealing. An all-in can sometimes look desperate, whereas a 3-4BB raise is enough to push off the tight shortstacks, and make hands like AJos worry that you have a decent PP or AK. You want to steal the blinds, by representing a big-ish hand. All-ins can often (inadvertantly) say to larger stacks "pick on me, I have to push to nick blinds with marginal hands".

I reckon that the AJos called your all-in when his evil hand click on call, while is brain was saying "don't". He was prepared to gamble, you can't stop that.

Sometimes you're the baby, sometimes you're the nappy.