Yes Folks - It's You make the Call

[chardrian]

Hand 1

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (10 handed) converter

UTG (t970)
UTG+1 (t1660)
UTG+2 (t425)
MP1 (t1620)
MP2 (t1975)
MP3 (t2245)
CO (t1495)
Hero (t985)
SB (t1940)
BB (t1685)

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, J.
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t50, 4 folds, CO raises to t200,

You make the call - what's your play here.

Hand 2

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (10 handed) converter

MP2 (t695)
MP3 (t1510)
CO (t350)
Button (t1495)
SB (t1415)
BB (t2345)
UTG (t1220)
Hero (t2095)
UTG+2 (t1915)
MP1 (t1960)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with J, T.
1 fold, Hero calls t50, 2 folds, MP2 calls t50, MP3 raises to t200, 4 folds

You make the call - fold, raise, call - or should I have raised or folded to start?

Hand 3 - The Chip leader had just moved to our table. He had been limping in to basically every hand. This was the first hand he raised, but it was a min raise.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (10 handed) converter

UTG+1 (t9045)
UTG+2 (t3135)
MP1 (t1251)
MP2 (t1420)
MP3 (t2590)
CO (t3420)
Button (t2720)
Hero (t1495)
BB (t3940)
UTG (t5030)

Preflop: Hero is SB with T, T.
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t200, 1 fold, MP1 calls t200, 4 folds,

You make the call.

[CoxhEd]

JTc is an easy fold for me, I hardly play that hand anyways.

The others depends on the players.

[mgobluefb]

I'm no expert in MTTs by any means, but I have started playing more and more of them...

Hand 1: It might be just me, but this early in the tourney, I'd re-raise.

Hand 2: Fold. Probably should have folded to start. (Except, usually I'm playing loose at this point and might call a raise with this hand.)

Hand 3: Call.

[chardrian]

Ok a little more info...

First time playing a tourney on Empire, so I was watching the table purty carefully. Compared to Paradise, this table was super super tight. People were only rebuying when they got busted, most hands had 2 players, few had 3, almost none had more than 3. No one seemed super reckless. I was by far the most aggressive player at the table - and I was not being very aggressive.

I'll post what I did and the results after some more comments.

[Staple Gun]

Hand 1 - Probably call, even though you'll have to fold to any aggression with an A, K, or Q on flop. Otherwise use your best judgement.

Hand 2 - From early position I would fold if the table was raising somewhat often preflop. After you're reraised I would only call if the player who raised you was very tight, then call and maybe take a stab at the pot afterwards if conditions look right. I wouldn't bet if you hit top pair on the flop, you might get reraised and have to fold fearing an overpair or higher kicker. Any draws that come up you can semi-bluff but it is still risky.

Hand 3 - Call, hit your set and you could double up, rag flop and you gotta use your best judgement on whether to raise, or fold to a big raise.

[journey075]

1.) call, you have position on the guy.

2.) what are you doing calling that garbage out of position. raise or fold, but since you already called you get an excellent opportunity to fold this time around.

3.)fold cause he has position on you OR raise. playing this passively is asking for him to simply take your chips.

[gabe]

1 push, then rebuy. a read helps alot on this. do you think he would fold if you pushed?
2 fold after the raise.
3 call the raise and hope for a ten. you might consider getting all your chips in with an overpair.

[journey075]

1 push, then rebuy. a read helps alot on this. do you think he would fold if you pushed?
2 fold after the raise.
3 call the raise and hope for a ten. you might consider getting all your chips in with an overpair.

usually i think you and i see eye to eye, im kinda surprised by what you said.

1.) you dont think its worth just calling here? its most likely a coinflip (unless youre dominated) and you certainly have position. if he misses the flop and bets out then you take a good portion of his stack if you push the flop. if theres an overcard and he seems confident in his bets you can let go for fairly cheap. im not sure i agree with push right here.

2.) clearly.

3.) limp without position against a bigstack? cmon, thats just silly. either raise or push preflop or its going to be a leak 87% of the time.

[gabe]

1 push, then rebuy. a read helps alot on this. do you think he would fold if you pushed?
2 fold after the raise.
3 call the raise and hope for a ten. you might consider getting all your chips in with an overpair.

usually i think you and i see eye to eye, im kinda surprised by what you said.

1.) you dont think its worth just calling here? its most likely a coinflip (unless youre dominated) and you certainly have position. if he misses the flop and bets out then you take a good portion of his stack if you push the flop. if theres an overcard and he seems confident in his bets you can let go for fairly cheap. im not sure i agree with push right here.

2.) clearly.

3.) limp without position against a bigstack? cmon, thats just silly. either raise or push preflop or its going to be a leak 87% of the time.

1. no way am i calling 20% stack off just so i can feel him out on the flop. it could very well be a coinflip, that's what he might as well push and take it. if the other guy is scared of a flip, he will fold and the hero picks up chips. otherwise, he will lose half the time and just rebuy. this is a great place to push because if he does lose the chips, he will have position on the guy that took them, making it easier for him to win them back later on.
2.
3. he has to call 150, which is almost exactly 10% of his stack. this alone means he can call and play for set value, but he might be able to win unimproved. if this is rebuy hour still, i would push. i wasn't sure because the blind is now 100 if it was the first hour or not. he said the big stack has been passive, so he could really have a hand here.

[journey075]

1. no way am i calling 20% stack off just so i can feel him out on the flop. it could very well be a coinflip, that's what he might as well push and take it. if the other guy is scared of a flip, he will fold and the hero picks up chips. otherwise, he will lose half the time and just rebuy. this is a great place to push because if he does lose the chips, he will have position on the guy that took them, making it easier for him to win them back later on.
2.
3. he has to call 150, which is almost exactly 10% of his stack. this alone means he can call and play for set value, but he might be able to win unimproved. if this is rebuy hour still, i would push. i wasn't sure because the blind is now 100 if it was the first hour or not. he said the big stack has been passive, so he could really have a hand here.

1.) your reasoning is flawed. its only a coinflip situation if he has 5 cards to work with. you have a pair...a very good one. he has speculative cards. its not a 'race', youre ahead. exploit it.

situation 1: you simply call his 200 chip raise. flop is low cards, he acts before you so hes forced to make a bet of at least equal (most likely bigger) than his initial raise. he bets 300 and you come over the top for 500 more. his AK now looks quite weak and he either calls (incorrectly) or folds. assuming he folds, you just risked 200 in order to win 500. great odds!

situation 2: you call his preflop raise. flop includes a high card A/K/Q and he bets fairly confidently. you get away from the hand and lose 200 chips. its not a conflip and thats the end of that.

situation 3: you push on his raise preflop. hes holding AK and thinks about it but finally calls. youve just ruined your odds into being a large favorite to be ahead on the flop into a coinflip. if you win, great...you had a good run of cards. if you lose, whatever. thats poker. you risked 1000 (AI) to win 1000. doesnt seem that great to me.

situation 4: you push on his preflop raise and he folds. great. however, you risked 1000 to win 200. you pushed him off a hand. good job. however, i think the chance of this happening early in a tourney (ESPECIALLY a rebuy) is almost 0. pushing is a bad idea simply because it usually doesnt get enough people to fold at this point to be a worthwhile move.


CO has you outchipped 3:2, not a large margin but enough that he can get away from his hand if you push on the flop with low cards. the postflop push doesnt pot commit him. who knows, if you push him off his big cards he might even tilt a little bit.


3.) since bigstack has been passive, i put him on a good hand that either dominates you or puts you at a coinflip. considering he has you outchipped by a large margin and has position on you, i might just fold this. if hes competent at all, hes going to bet at any flop you check to him, which means you are drawing. you need a hand to take it from him. hes been playing passive and this is a minraise so i say he has AK or JJ. a good hand worthy of a raise but nothing he wants a large confrontation with. i say conserve your chips for a better spot, youre not desperate yet.

if you play for set value, i have to really question that move. its a tourney, consider your chips your bankroll. you cant really afford to draw in many situations. you want to be the man with the made hand that others are drawing against. this is an almost textbook example of just that. let it go, TT is a tricky hand to play from EP with a bigstack aggressor behind.

[DimitriT]

#1 - reraise to t400
#2 - don't even call the blinds
#3 - call, raise t200 on a ragged flop, fold on a strong flop
raise into weakness at the turn

[ihategnomes]

1) allin
2) fold preflop
3) call and see a flop, fold if you suck postflop

[storm75m]

1) re-raise to 400 (to isolate and get rid of the limper) or just push

2) Call the raise. (probably would've folded this out of position, but since you already limped and everyone else folded I wouldn't mind seeing a flop with this hand, especially at a tight table.) Either you hit or miss with this hand, should be easy to get a way from.

3.)Call. Post-flop play here would be very tricky, and depends on a lot of different things.

[chardrian]

Ok here's what I did.

1) Pushed and doubled up against TT

2) Called - I agree I shoulda folded to the raise since it was now heads up, but I happen to really like TJ suited - its the best drawing hand you can have. I'm very, very surprised that so many of you would fold this hand UTG+1. It's a fantastic limping hand. Flop was horrible (like 257) so I folded.

3) This was my eek hand. We had just gotten into the second hour, so no more rebuys (like that matters for me ). His min raise shoulda sent off huge warning bells since the only other thing he had done so far was limp, limp, limp. Instead I said, hmm he has a big, but not huge stack, maybe he will fold an AJ type hand to an all-in, or maybe just maybe he has 88 or 99 and I have him dominated. I shoulda called - I pushed. His QQ crunched me.

[ihategnomes]

Your on crack, JTs is only a limping hand UTG in limit ring games. Also note while being up against a bigger pocket pair or over cards, 89s has more equity.

PS AKs is the best drawing hand, which it is in NL, but in limit its less of a drawing hand.

[chardrian]

Difference of opinion on what a drawing hand means I guess - TJ suited gives you great draws for both str8s and flushes. I never said it's a golden hand - I said it's a great limping hand, and that's what I tried to do with it. When I got raised and it was heads up I went for a flop and let it go - probably shoulda just folded to the raise but I'm ok with that play. The push TT was not a great move.

[ihategnomes]

But you limped it in the in the 2nd worse place you possibly could. Limping and praying is not a good strategy. Its ok to see a flop with JTs, just not from EP and maybe not even MP.

[chardrian]

Gonna agree to disagree with you here. Yes position is great, but with a drawing hand you are hoping for lots of people and for your draw. Great way to start a limp fest is by limping early - if other people follow suit (which often happens), people in position can't resist to call as well just cuz they're in position and can take a pot after the flop (this also is a good play). So now you are in first position and you wait for your flop. If it hits you are set, you are in check raise heaven. If it doesn't oh well, you limped, so easy to toss. Just cuz you are EP or MP doesn't mean eek I surrender in my book. Take a look at Darkwings win this weekend - he bluffed quite a bit late in the tourney in UTG and everyone folded (cuz eek he's UTG so if he's raising he MUST have a hand). Playing scared doesn't win.

P.s. this doesn't mean I think I played this hand great. With the super tight table I was at, the limp fest probably wasn't going to happen. So in this case the hand was foldable, but I still like my limp, just shoulda dumped it when it was raised to me for a heads up battle.

[ihategnomes]

Gonna agree to disagree with you here.

We tend to do that a lot

[chardrian]

Yeah but cool to see that two different styles can and do work.

[gabe]

JTs is a great drawing hand, but should be folded UTG on all but the most passive of tables.

journey:
it was rebuy hour, the JJ hand is a push.

the TT hand could be played for set value alone because it cost 10% of his stack to call. search for a thread Fnord wrote a long time ago, it explains the math behind this play.