This is a hand that I played at the tournament at Boomtown on Wednesday.
It’s the final table. 9 players remain… 6 places pay. With your tight/aggressive style, you’ve managed to come back from a chip and a chair, literally, to $6200 in chips. The blinds are at $400/$800 and will be going up very shortly to $500/$1000. You’re in the BB with A
2.
The SB is a fairly tight player who, like you, has not been in a lot of pots. He has $3000 in chips, after the SB.
Everyone folds to the SB, who completes. He has $2600 left.
Loading …You actually check.
The flop comes out Q A
4
After thinking for a bit, the SB bets half his remaining chips, $1300.
Loading …You actually fold. The SB takes the pot of $1600.
Bookmark to:
2 responses so far ↓
David // Nov 10, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Well… I think a check here out of the BB is perfectly reasonable… I really don’t have a very good hand even with an Ace. Let’s see a flop.
After flop, calling wasn’t an option, in my opinion… he’d just get the rest of chips in the middle on the turn. So it was either raise him all-in or fold.
I knew that if he didn’t bet, which I considered likely as he probably missed his hand, I was certainly going to bet.
So, his bet on the flop surprised me. Two things are going through my head. 1. Why didn’t he raise if he had an Ace out of the small blind? 2. Is he trapping?
For the first question, I concluded that he probably has a 40% chance of having an Ace with a shitty kicker. A 10% chance he’s trapping. A 40% chance he hit a Queen or had a low pair in the hole. And a 10% chance he’s gotten really lucky and hit two pair or has trip 4s.
This kind of percentages aren’t exact, of course, I just wanted to have a base line and they are simply based on my observations.
In the final conclusion, I decided that even though there is probably only a 50% chance he’s in the lead, I really don’t want to get involved in a big pot for what amounts to at this point as defending my BB. I decided to wait for a better spot, I still had plenty of chips… so I folded.
Eventually, I was able to win my chips back in more, when he checked to me and I got aggressive when I missed the flop with my AJs.
Themofro // Mar 26, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Part 1: I think this is a great spot to make a BB bluff. You’re hand is okay, but not great, however even though the SB if tight, his call doesn’t mean he has anything as he’s getting 3-1 odds against a random hand and it’s worth a call with all but the weak hands. Also against a random hand, A2s is a favorite, so you should definitely stick in a sizable raise here. Also, you’re nearing the end of the tournament, and you can threaten him with elimination and nothing because of your big stack in comparison to him, this will cause him to play even tighter and you’re a good percent to just take down the pot here.
Part 2: Raising all in here is best I think. Even a tight player will almost always raise on the SB when he has pretty much any A-x, so it’s highly unlikely that he has a A with a better kicker. It’s much more likely that he has a pair of queens now as you didn’t raise preflop so for all he knows you have a random hand and he thinks he’s ahead with middle pair. He would of raised with pocket fours (they’re a little baby pair and vulnearable post flop to some high cards and a probe bet, and they’re very likely the best hand, so even a tight player would lead out with them). Because he very likely doesn’t have an A-higher x or trip 4’s the only hand to worry about is trip queens, but that’s so minute a possibility that you should just play the percentages. He’s going to go all in on the turn anyhow, put him all in now and give him a chance to fold, if not then you’re probably a solid favorite, and still have a good amount of chips left.
So I would definitely have put him all in there, although I can understood folding as the money’s so close and you still have a healthy (I’m assuming) chip stack.
Leave a Comment