Would you call here ~ STT hand

Iago

I'm down to the last 5 in an STT and I'm just behind the chip leader with 4.3K in chips, the others have between 5.2K and 2K blinds are 100/200 and I'm UTG.

I'm dealt 87d and limp in, the button and SB call and the BB raises 400 more. It's 400 to me to win 1200 and a potential 2400 so I call again, and both button and SB fold. So there's 1,600 in the pot.

flop comes down Tc 9d 2c and after a pause the BB pushes for 1,400. I have notes that say he's a loose aggresive player preflop, raising with almost any suited connectors or better. I put him on TPTK or a medium pair, so if I hit my straight I think I'm good here. From that point of view I have pot odds to call, but if I lose I'm down to 2,300 and back in amongst them.

In the end I felt that if I called and lost I had enough chips to outplay the table and either win or finish in the money so I called. He turned over Ac6c for the flush draw and the turn duly obliged him with Kc...

As it turns out I did manage to come back and win the table thanks to a couple of lucky outdraws when heads up, but would you have made this call?

How would you have played the hand differently?

azzeretti

Iago wrote:

How would you have played the hand differently?

Mightn't have called 87d from an ealry position and if even might not of called a raise from a late positioned player.
Other than that you know your outs on the flop and the percentages of hitting and as it turns out your read on the guy was failry close.

What can you do?

Krusty_Clown

From my perspective, I guess the call was inconsequential, as you lost the hand but went on to win the game anyway, so the other players at the table were potentially not as good a player as you are (or didn't get as good hands).

If the standard was poor, he was either drawing to a hand, or trying to nail the pot there (top pair top kicker). In either case, you're only getting 1/3.

At a weak(er) table do you really want to be risking 1/3rd of your chips for a 1/3 chance of winning the hand?

Hectorjelly

I dont always follow my own advice, but preflop you should be folding that. You only have 20 blinds left, so playing long shot hands isnt going to be profitable. Id raise with it from time to time. Once you get to the flop Id fold. You have an open ended straight draw and probably no other outs. If you had JQ you would be in a much stronger position having a lot more potential outs.

With 4k Id be using my stack to take down pots preflop. You have a stack that you can use to gain chips and not get blinded away; thats worth protecting. Draws are death in stts except in the early stages, and 78s is very good at flopping draws.

mewso

Like HJ said I would not be in this hand. Being 2nd chip leader on these tables is reason enough to tighten up until you get to the money. In position steal the blinds etc. but you don't have to make risky plays like limping UTG with this hand.

NickyOD

HJ is right as usual. Shorthanded you should never open limp unless the stacks are deep. I would occasion try a blinds steal with a hand like that but it really depends on how loose or tight the table is playing. Postflop I would always take a very pesimistic calculation of my outs with looking at a straight draw, especially the ignorant end of an open ender. It's definitely a fold.

Iago

I agree with all of the above, and normally 87s is an autofold for me in STT's. I was only playing one table at the time, and I was getting ready to finish up for the night. It was like one of those dreams where you can see what you're doing but you're not sure why you're doing it and you can't stop yourself!

I've been thinking about my game lately and I feel I'm playing a little too tight and that was on my mind so I decided to take a chance and see what happened. Exactly what I expected would happen did, I hit just enough to get myself in trouble when I shouldn't have been involved at all from there.

It was one of those cases where I could justify the math behind it but I knew it was the wrong thing to do. On the plus side, this is a move that I would have made without question when I started playing and felt that it was completely right, I'm glad I've developed to the stage where I know when I'm doing the wrong thing, even if I still occasionally do it

Thanks for the comments so far.

Tourneque

If you're going to play suited connectors at that stage of a game you should be the aggressor.

In fairness I think the only really suspect move was the limp PF. You had odds for the rest but you were behind.

It's much better to try to limp with this kind of hand earlier when the blinds are lower. You can easily get into trouble here by creating a large pot. Not sure what everyone else thinks, but in these circumstance I always try to keep the pot small and pick it up uncontested unless I have a very good hand.

I'd proably only limp with AA/KK and then only if I thought people had been paying attention and had noticed I'd tried limping and had to fold a few times.
Although depending on the table, I might limp with this kind of hand myself but only on LP. Limping and then calling from EP is a leak.

If you're worried that you're playing too tight then raise more often instead of limping. If you'd raised this PF, you probably would've either taken it down or at worst gotten to the same result that occurred. Try playing a few games and raising in later position with junk. It's easier to throw away and then when you do it with a real hand you'll get the action.