INTERMISSION
Today I'd like to take a break from the apparent uber-post I'm composing regarding last week's O8B tourney and put up a quick post that's a little more strategy oriented....and I know what you're thinking; considering there is virtually no strategy discussion in my last post, that shouldn't be a very difficult task. Hey, it's my blog, and if I wanna ramble on aimlessly about my daughter, or my lack of enthusiasm leading up to what would be the biggest cash of my life, then that's my prerogative, right? Besides, I happen to believe that there's a helluva lot more to this game we love than just cards and probabilities.
Anyway, I was hoping to solicit some opinions regarding a hand that occurred very early-on at my table in the FTOPS Main Event. For those who don't know, the main event was a super stack tourney--a rarity as far as I have seen at Full Tilt--as everyone started with T5000 as opposed to the usual T1500 of nightly guarantees or T3000 of the weekly double stacks. Personally, I had never played in a tournament of this structure, and part of why I found this hand interesting the role that structure played in how the hand evolved. Also, I would like to initially present the hand in as generic a fashion as possible so as not to bias the responses. OK? Here goes...
As I said, this was very early on, inside the first level of the tournament in fact. The table to that point had been playing decidedly tight, and all players involved had roughly their starting stacks. Blinds were 15/30 and the action went as follows:
UTG player A min raises to 60
Player B, to UTG's immediate left, re-raises to 240
Pot is now 345, action is folded around to the small blind, player C
Player C re-raises to 810, making the pot now 1050
Big blind and player A both fold
Player B pushes ALL-IN
Assuming neither player has demonstrated any particular tendencies and this is the first time they are playing against each other, I would like you to consider the following:
(1) What range of hands do you put each player on given the action thus far?
(2) If you were involved in the hand how would u play:
AA? AK? KK? QQ-JJ? smaller pairs?
*for this one I'm interested in how you would play them from
either seat*
So if anyone happens to read this, I look forward to your thoughts. And I promise to get to the point about my FTOPS tourney soon.
NEXT STOP...OZ
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5 comments:
(1) Good question man. With UTG minraising, that can mean a lot of things. He clearly doesn't have a trash hand to be raising UTG like that, but he could have almost any decent suited Ace, any offsuit Ace probably 5 or higher (some people play that hand this way), just about any decent suited connector or any pocket pair. Hard to narrow him down much beyond that to me.
Now, with UTG+1 reraising that first raise 4x, you have to put him on a strong starting hand. Probably AQ or AK, or a good pocket pair (maybe 99-AA).
With the sb re-reraising another 3.5x or so, he has got to have a very strong hand. Not AQ, so either AK, or probably JJ-AA.
Player B re-re-reraising allin I think puts him on the same hand range as Player C who re-reraised the two preflop raisers -- either AK or JJ-AA. I bet hes pushing there with pocket Jacks or better (though that's a terrible call in this spot).
(2) For me, I am getting the hike out of dodge with anything other than AK or AA or KK in this spot. With QQ or JJ I would be all but assured I am either behind, or ahead as a 51% favorite to AK (neither situations I should be considering putting myself into this early in a big tournament). In fact, with all that action ahead of me, I would almost surely dump AK as well.
That said, with AA I'm obviously pushing in this spot from any position, as with all the action I am assured of being called. And, with KK I too am pushing from this spot, knowing I could be up against Aces but there's just no way I'm folding there with a chance to double like this. My biggest concern is player C having Aces, because I don't think player B played his hand quite like Aces, at least not as much as player C.
Good question. Looking forward to the follow-up.
UTG player A min raises to 60
Player B, to UTG's immediate left, re-raises to 240
Pot is now 345, action is folded around to the small blind, player C
Player C re-raises to 810, making the pot now 1050
Big blind and player A both fold
Player B pushes ALL-IN
Assuming neither player has demonstrated any particular tendencies and this is the first time they are playing against each other, I would like you to consider the following:
(1) What range of hands do you put each player on given the action thus far?
(2) If you were involved in the hand how would u play:
AA? AK? KK? QQ-JJ? smaller pairs?
*for this one I'm interested in how you would play them from
either seat*
The problem with Level 1 is that people do crazy things to double or bust. Smells like AJs to me.
Oh hand ranges and level 2 thinking!!!
Player B has to have AK, JJ+. Player C has to have AK-AQs, 10's+ at this early stage. Of course this is an event where a lot of guys won a satellite to enter so maybe they are both donks.
If I was involved in the hand as player B I would push with QQ+. Smaller pairs (too often dominated) or AK (never hits when I need it to) just suck too often.
As player C I would only call with KK+. Calling large amounts with AK after only putting out less than 20% of my stack to get info is just silly. The reraise was to find out how big of a hand player B and A have and you got the answer so fold and move on to the next hand.
My reads based only on the information given are:
Player A: 88 or 99
Player B: AA or KK (most likely AA)
Player C: AK offsuit or QQ
In a deep stack tourney early on I'm not looking for this kind of action with any hand pre-flop. I would most likely have folded anything beyond the second raise. There's just way too many pots to be picked up without so much pressure. Let the weaker players bust each other out a little in these situations, and sit back and see some cheaper flops where you can make a hand and know you are way ahead before committing your chips.
Jeciimd,
Enjoyed heads up battle with you. It took forever for either of us to get significantly away from other in chips. I still had plenty after your surrender that I could have won.
Your AJ nemesis Hoy has misrepresented two points of my play on pivotal hand of 1st match of tourney.
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