Questions on my live MTT

[chris_1069]

Couple questions about a live MTT I played in last night.

To start a little over view...

25 people, $20 buy, 2500 chips to start, 25-50 1st hr, 50-100 2nd hr, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 200/400, 250/500, 300/600, 400/800, 500/1000, 750/1500, 1000/2000, 1500/3000 blind structure. first 2 blinds last an hr then every 30min blinds go up.

We started around 6pm, by 7pm when blinds went up I was happy with my position. 20 people left and I had doubled up. Exactly what I wanted to do. At this point my best hand was still A/Jo and it was actually my most costly hand since I raised from the button, then laid out a solid 1,000 chip bet after a 2/6/9 rainbow flop. Turn was another 9, check check (was heads up by now) river some other junk card forget what, bet 500, called, hit a set of 9's. Took a quick smoke break after this to calm myself for making such a dumb move.

Come back from my smoke and get a 10/Ks. By then the button was about 2 spots away from me, so was in mid-late position on our 7 person table at this point. Was planning to raise, but then UTG+2 raises all in before it gets to me(he was a mid stack) then a big stack right after him caled the all-in. everyone else folds, gets to me, decided to through them away. They flip over 9/Qo and A/6o.... shit! lol

Next 5 cards hit noone. I woulda hit the 10, Ace high wins, another one out of the table. Couple hands later I was in the SB with JJ again 2 raises all in before me, folded, don't really know why when I think of it now since I had a big stack compared to the 2 all ins.

They flip over the over cards I put them on, A/Q and A/10. A/Q won on the over card Q with the pair of 10's that hit the board.

Question here is would you normally fold both these hands also?? Table was pretty tight. Both hands the all in raiser was a fairly tight player, my guess got no cards all night then finally made a move when they saw a marginal hand. Only other all in I saw this player make, other than these 2, was with pocket A's.

Just wondering if I made the right call on these 2 since this would have put me way ahead of all 20 left had I made both calls and got 2 triple ups(somewhat.. had both of them covered 5/1 and 3/1)

Anyways now a couple hrs later. Blinds have gone up to 500/1000 I have about 80,000 chips, puting me in about 4th out of the last 8ppl(final table)

I get delt 8h/10h on the button. By now as you can imagin blind stealing has started as some are starting to feel the hurt from the blinds. Goes around the table 1 caller, fold/fold/fold etc. Then the guy right before me calls also, has about 50,000 callnig 1/5th of his stack. I raise 10,000.

get the other caller to fold, then guy before me calls.

Flop comes out 6h/7s/3h he checks to me.

Now right here I looked at my stack, looked at his stack, I had around 60,000 he had around 30,000. I figure there is no way he hit a pair here and have already put him on 2 over cards. Played with him about 3 times now and have a decent read on him. So I through out a solid, but enticing 15,000 bet. He thinks for a second then pushes his chips to the middle. I didn't even hesitate and called all in before he moved his chips more than an inch.

He stops, says, *You call*, I say yes, he sighs and turns over Q/Ko.

His all in was another 19,000.

I turn over my 8/10 and he says crap straight and flush draw. I figured right here I had 9outs(flush) + 4outs(9 for the straight) well I knew this before I bet but based on these 13 outs would this be a safe time to get my money in the middle or is this where I screwed myself??

flop comes down Ace and a 2 no hearts, he wins with King high and I go from good stack to small stack... fuck.

After this it was just waiting for my time to loose really. Finally pushed with Ace 3 and was up against ace 8, his ace high with straonger kicker won that hand and I was out in 6th place with top 3 paying.

So I guess main questions are....

Early in a MTT were my 2 folds correct?

Worth calling off most/all of your stack on a 14 out straight and flush draw? Especially if you trust your read on the opponent?

My feelings after the event were that I should have called with my JJ and should have checked through the 6/10hearts to see if I hit my straight/flush first before applying presure.. although I felt very strongly that had I won that hand, and knocked him out the momentum would have easily taken me into the money not to mention I would go from avg stack to 1st or 2nd with only 7 left to play.

Mabey pushing him all in with my 6/10 would have been better? or folding of course since I had a good stack.... I am just frustrated that after 5hrs of solid play to get to the final table I busted out in 6th place when I should have made it itm at least.

Little side note. It was coming up on our 6th hr when I lost, it was 11:45pm and I had to work at 7am this morning, and to make things worse I had borowed my moms car to go there and she called me at 11pm asking when I was coming home...(6/10 hand happened about 10min later and I can't help but think me rushing was the cause of this stupid play)

P.S. if you can actually make it through all this and post a reply that would be great I am sure this was a big mess of thoughts thrown out on here in 5 min at the end of my lunch break....

[Humphrind]

You have KTs and 2 people are all in before you? Fold EVERY TIME!

You have JJ with 2 all-ins before you. Close fold, but fold. If you could really put both of them on an Ax, then you must realize they are canceling out each others outs. You have better odds against the 2 Aces in the deck than if there were 3 aces in the deck.

You have AJo and decide to outbet one of the blinds on a rag flop? Play cautiously. You may have missed, but depending on the player, they can read your miss better when you bet it out. That 2nd 9 on the board just confirmed that he wasn't folding.

You have an inside SF draw on the flop and call an all-in? I'd say you have the expected value to do this. Never do it in a ring game, but in a tournament, you could have had the ability.

[chardrian]

IMO TK suited good fold - you're upset that both your cards were live and that you would have won. But you had two all-ins ahead of you and TK suited is not the hand you want to get into there (even with the hands you ended up against you were at best a 39% favorite).

JJ trickier. If you really truly put them on AT and AQ then you are basically looking at a 60/30/10 percentage situation (you're more worried about the Q hitting then the A hitting at this point). Calling their all-ins is definitely the play here, but then again hindsight is always 20/20.

Your 8/T play. Didn't like the 15,000 bet - in essence you were putting him all-in since you left him with only 2 options (fold or raise all-in). Since you know you aren't folding this hand why not either put him all-in or just push yourself, make the choice hard for him not the other way around. Putting him all-in probably takes that pot - if he DOES call with just 2 overs and a K hi then he is the one who made a bad play, not you; and when he flips you can chuckle knowing that you actually have 18 outs (9 for flush + 3 (for str8 - can't count that 9h twice) + 6 (your two over cards)) and are outdrawing him big time.

[drmcboy]

On the 108 hand, if you put him on overs you are the favorite (you are not counting your 8 and 10 as outs), I would play it the same. Even if one of the two overs is tainted, I'm still OK getting my chips in, especially since you had fold equity. If you don't want to play this hand, I don't think you should be raising 10s8s... however I'm lost on what this guy was thinking calling a 10x raise with KQo out of position... yikes.

K10... don't call two AIs with a K10. Fishy play should not encourage you to make fishy plays.

JJ I think it's a good fold, if they have an A,K, Q between them you're running against 3 overs, which is tough.

High level, honestly, it sounds like the play is pretty bad at this tourney - as blah as it might seem camping seems like the way to go here, let these guys pay off your big hands. Plus the blinds seem like they would allow time to wait, I like the structure.

[chris_1069]

Ok so I was a little tired today and this post is pretty evident of that.

Anyways a couple mistakes and clarifications I should make.

Main one is on the 10/8s hand. As I mentioned there was 25 people and 2500 stacks to start so there is only 62,500 chips in the game total.

This being said the chip counts are off by alot from what I said in my original post. First there was 8 people left so the avg. stack would have been 7800. I was sitting ok at about 8-9k.

has about 50,000 callnig 1/5th of his stack. I raise 10,000

This should have said he has about 5,000 calling 1/5th of his stack and I raised another 1,000.

So basically this changes alot of things....

Better move now? Worse? no change?

[drmcboy]

So you min raised the 1000 to 2000? If so that's a terrible play, sorry. I hate min raises 1000 % of the time, but the only time I'm marginally OK with it is when you have a monster. No one is folding to that raise, and when you are raising with 108 you want people to fold. You're building the pot while you are a dog, not the way to go.

[chris_1069]

After thinking about it yesterday, after posting, and after reading the first replies I got I realise I should have been the one to push him all in no the flop. As for the min raise....

At the time I did this because I wanted to get down to 1 caller and heads up, and I wanted to push out either of them whoever had the lower cards since I was looking for a flop full of low cards.

So this in fact worked just fine.

The after I saw my flop, at the time, all I could think of was how I would get all his chips in the middle. I wasn't thinking about taking the pot right now, when really I should have been. I figured with the cards I had and all my outs that this was my make or break hand and he would never see it coming. So when I threw out the min bet, I did this expecting him to push, then I followed suit.

The fact that I didn't catch any of the 22 cards that could have saved me kinda sucks, but in the long run with 22 cards that could save you, and 2 cards to come I figured it was a good idea to get all my chips in there. (yes I know when I pushed I knew of only 16 outs)

Anyways next time I find myself in a similar situation I will be the one to push, or mabey even a check/raise but with this flop it was very unlikely he was going to bet on it, for him it was push/check/fold depending what I did especially since his stack was down to 3xbb.

Not much I could have done dif really... at this point all his chips were going in. He had already been lower, down to about 2,000 and just recently caught an all in double up with a couple blinds that took him to the 5-6k ish he was at when we started this hand.

Guess my answers are KTs good fold, JJ marginal fold, probably a good one, but with the skill lvl at this tourney still very tempting to call this... So situational I guess...then the last hand push on the flop. Or stay the fuck away from thoes stupid low suited gappers that kill me!

[drmcboy]

I wanted to get down to 1 caller and heads up

You're playing a hand that is not going to hit most of the time, you either want to raise solidly trying to win the pot now, or limp and hope others come in so you have a better chance of getting paid off if you hit.

[chardrian]

The fact that I didn't catch any of the 22 cards that could have saved me kinda sucks, but in the long run with 22 cards that could save you, and 2 cards to come I figured it was a good idea to get all my chips in there. (yes I know when I pushed I knew of only 16 outs)

22 cards - huh? Maybe I'm a total retard but I still count only 18 - 9 for flush, 3 for str8, 6 for your 8 or T. Not that 18 outs is bad, but definitely a difference.

And what were the 16 outs that you knew of when you pushed?

[chris_1069]

I wanted to get down to 1 caller and heads up

You're playing a hand that is not going to hit most of the time, you either want to raise solidly trying to win the pot now, or limp and hope others come in so you have a better chance of getting paid off if you hit.

I read this now and it seems so obvious!

Well at least my purpose for posting has been fulfilled now. I have a good understanding of how I would play all 3 of these hands in the situations I posted and ideas of how I would want to play them given dif circumstances.

Thanks for takin the time to reply.

As a side note I am happy overall with the way this tourney went. It was my first 3 table MTT, and first one with a main pot over 300(well actually first one over 150) I lasted a total of 5hrs 45min. (Didn't expect the tourney to last this long at all, let alone the aditional 1.5hrs it took them to finish after I was eliminated in 8th place)

I played tight early, limped a few marginal hands that paid out, used aggresion and post flop play to avoid a couple showdowns, did 4 showdowns total(in the early parts) and won 3 of these 4, last one a fish called me down to the river with nothing but a bottom pair that turned into a set on the river.

And even right down to the Final table I was playing smart. I guess by the time we hit our 5th hr, and 11pm, and the fact that I had work in the morning and that annoying phonecall from my mother... all contributed to me being an idiot and totally changing my play style that was working up until now. IE I basically put myself out of the game on the next 2-3 hands I actually played. (total of mabey 2-3 orbits) Where had I been playing smart I would have folded 2 of them once I met aggression, and pushed that one we have been talking about to steal the blinds. (or limp looking for that monster I wanted)

New rule I made for myself though.... no more poker on a sunday evening.... too easily becomes a night game!

Thanks again... I look forward to posting HH's for online games soon to try and identify more leaks in my game so I can keep improving.

[drmcboy]

GL, you'll be schooling those fish in no time.

[chris_1069]

The fact that I didn't catch any of the 22 cards that could have saved me kinda sucks, but in the long run with 22 cards that could save you, and 2 cards to come I figured it was a good idea to get all my chips in there. (yes I know when I pushed I knew of only 16 outs)

22 cards - huh? Maybe I'm a total retard but I still count only 18 - 9 for flush, 3 for str8, 6 for your 8 or T. Not that 18 outs is bad, but definitely a difference.

And what were the 16 outs that you knew of when you pushed?

Umm... no I am the retard here! lol

was couting 13 for the flush rather than 9, adding 4 to the numbers I posted... So you are right it is actually 12 when I pushed and 18 once I saw his cards.

I should really stop posting from work where it can take as long as 1hr+ to actually hit the post button and I come back to it so many times I can easily get mixed up like that...

[boost]

Im confuseds, serval times you refer to people having 60k chips and 80k chips and so on, but... 25x2500 = 62500

where are all these chips coming from?

also I dont know if anyone else said anything, but KTs is crap, why are you upset that they flipped over Q9o and A6o? A6o has you beat, sure you woulda drawn out, but KTo is crap. JJ I might have played there, but it all depends how loose these guys are, but it was probably a good fold.

[TLR]

KT - Clear fold
JJ - With two all ins before me I would not have called unless I was in desperation mode, and with all due respect for the reads the 2nd guy who called the AI may also have AA, KK,QQ, AK - all he did is call an AI, he would have done it with any of those hands. I would not want to risk getting knocked off the tourney on a questionable hand like this.
Regarding the T8h hand, you had a good read on the player - if I was not highly positive that I could fold him with a decent bet (higher then what u actually betted) I would have taken the free card when he checked to me

[chris_1069]

Im confuseds, serval times you refer to people having 60k chips and 80k chips and so on, but... 25x2500 = 62500

where are all these chips coming from?

also I dont know if anyone else said anything, but KTs is crap, why are you upset that they flipped over Q9o and A6o? A6o has you beat, sure you woulda drawn out, but KTo is crap. JJ I might have played there, but it all depends how loose these guys are, but it was probably a good fold.

as for the chips I already cleared this up. I was posting from work and was tired and made a mistake.. basically divide any number by 10.
60,000 = 6,000
80,000 = 8,000
etc

As for KT I knew I should have folded, I know I should fold it, and I will continue to fold them. Harder to make these choices when half the people your playing with are still pretty new, or play for fun only. (wouldn't have minded a limp here but no way was I calling 2 all-ins)

JJ still think the fold was a good call... again was just lucky cards that made me wish I had stayed in it.

[chris_1069]

KT - Clear fold
JJ - With two all ins before me I would not have called unless I was in desperation mode, and with all due respect for the reads the 2nd guy who called the AI may also have AA, KK,QQ, AK - all he did is call an AI, he would have done it with any of those hands. I would not want to risk getting knocked off the tourney on a questionable hand like this.
Regarding the T8h hand, you had a good read on the player - if I was not highly positive that I could fold him with a decent bet (higher then what u actually betted) I would have taken the free card when he checked to me

As for the 10/8 hand in a similar situation my move would be push or check. At the time I thought he would respect my bet, but realise now the bet should have been at a min of 2,000. if I wanted him to respect it and fold. I think He would have been more inclined to call on my all-in at this point in the game then he would have been on a strong bet that would pot commit me and basically tell him, my hand is good, and I will push if I have to. This guy reads alot, plays alot, etc thought if I could make this move on anyone it was him.... But then I messed it all up with the weak 1,000 bet anyways... /shrug shit hapens.... all I can do is learn from it and make a better play next time.