A hypothetical hand

[chardrian]

You are already ITM in a 1300 person tourney. There are 45 left. Average stack is around 40k.

Blinds are 1000/2000 with a 100 ante. You are BB with 70k. It gets folded to a somewhat loose and tricky SB with 90k in chips who makes a 3x raise preflop.

You have and decide to smooth call preflop and then re-evaluate. So the pot after your call is about 13k.

Flop comes :As:

SB bets 8k. This is a standard continuation bet from the SB. You don't have a good enough read on him to know whether he would check behind with an A there or whether he would make this bet with an A as well. You have not seen him fold TP ever, so if he does have the A you are not getting him off of his hand with a raise.

What do you do and why?

[Sprayed]

If you reraise that would be ~40% of your stack. So you could do this to try and take it down now and have the knowledge that if he pushes you are calling. Or you could just simply push all in over his raise and save the trouble of any decisions and give yourself two cards to hit your hand. Either way you're not getting away from this hand and your chips are going in on the flop. I go with a push.

[Fimanoid]

reraise all-in. too good of a draw to fold.

[Big-EZ]

Well you have 17 outs.

Definitley a push. Hopefully he folds. If he calls cross your fingers and you get two chances.

[Genitruc]

aw in cuz i wanna get a big stack by getting it in 60/40 or win a decent-sized pot without going to showdown.

also, if he "puts me on a draw" then that's fine. He's almost always behind in this spot.

Finally, if I make a raise then shut down when I don't hit, or if I flat call "expecting to get paid off" then it sucks to lose the showdown to K high.

[chardrian]

Clearly pushing all-in is fine. You have a decent chance of taking down a pot without showing your hand down, and if you do get called you have a good shot at doubling up.

However, I am surprised no one advocates a smooth call here. You call here and you are still left with 55k. If SB really has an A he will keep firing on the turn and you can either see if he is giving you odds to call or you can fold and keep a good stack if you missed and you can try and stack him if you hit. If he doesn't have the A he could very well check the turn and you can check behind a miss (which also can induce a bluff on the river if you do hit).

With the stack sizes we have, I really don't mind a smooth call there at all.

[Genitruc]

maybe I'm just too conditioned (as a cash game player) to all of a sudden fight hard for every pot in MTT's since building your stack is so important (as opposed to making optimal plays long-term in ring play).

Is there a default play you ascribe to in this situation chard? Or would you do both a certain% of the time?

[chardrian]

All postflop plays depend on the situation so I can't say that I would push here x percent and call y percent. What I am trying to say is that sometimes we fall into the trap of saying there is a "correct" answer to a poker play, when in reality what is correct for my style of play may be totally inappropriate for your style.

In this case you can't go wrong pushing since you presumably have 15 outs. But too often we get into saying that just because one play is not wrong that it has to be the best play. In certain circumstances, a call here could very well be the best play. If calling decreases your chances of getting knocked out but you retain the same chance to double up if you hit on the turn then a call is a better play than the push even though the end result would be the exact same.

[Fimanoid]

I don't like smooth calling here for a couple of reasons - if you smooth call, and hit (especially with the flush), you might not get payed off because the opp. will slow/shut down. If you don't hit on turn, and he bets small or even standard again, you will have to call because of the odds that you'll get. If you miss the river too, you're just forced to fold, and while letting him pick up a decent portion of your stack with whatever he has. You won't be able to bluff him out on the river, because most likely he's not going to fold.

If you push with your great draw now, you're making him decide whether he wants to play it out or not. I believe that you have a lot of fold equity there. Even if he's not folding, you're most likely in a good position for a double-up.

Please don't take it personally - my question is - what kind of a flop did you want to see with 89 suited? If this flop doesn't warrant going down to the felt, I don't really see a point of calling pre-flop, since you won't be able to outplay the loose and tricky player that will call you down with minimum goods....

[bigslikk]

Hmm.. Yeah either play could be argued to work. I think calling is the bigger gamble though. On the flop, you are likely ahead. If you call, there's roughly a 7/10 chance that on the turn you'll be staring at a blank or worse (a paired board) with a sizeable top pair bet in front of you.

Then you only have 32% or so to make a river straight or flush... with good implied odds for the straight, but you have to pay a potentially crippling price to chase it.

I agree with the general opinion that betting / raising with your oesd + flush draw is much safer and better. You're basically protecting your hand, which is likely the favorite at this point. Also, if he had an Ace w/ good kicker, like AT-AQ, he'd mistakenly believe that he was ahead.

There is no better situation in poker than betting aggressively when strong and having your opponent believe you're weak.

IMO, calling with this monster draw is equivalent to checking top pair; the gamble is the same anyway. When you check this draw / TPGK you're hoping to seem weak so you can destack someone later. The trouble is that you can get sucked out on (if your draw didn't come, might equate to a suckout, you were ahead). I'd bet for the +EV, you might destack him anyway.

[chardrian]

I don't like smooth calling here

Remember - I am on board as saying that a push in this situation is absolutely, totally, fine. I really don't think anyone can argue that pushing here is wrong. And I am also totally fine with saying that smooth calling is not the play for you.

Now to attack your argument...

if you smooth call, and hit (especially with the flush), you might not get payed off because the opp. will slow/shut down.

maybe - or maybe he'll keep firing. Remember I said that I haven't seen him fold top pair yet, and at this stage of a tourney and with this much already invested, lots of players will not be wanting to slow down here.

If you don't hit on turn, and he bets small or even standard again, you will have to call because of the odds that you'll get. If you miss the river too, you're just forced to fold, and while letting him pick up a decent portion of your stack with whatever he has. You won't be able to bluff him out on the river, because most likely he's not going to fold.

true, but at least here you keep somewhat of a stack if you miss both streets, whereas pushing and him calling means you are out like trout.

If you push with your great draw now, you're making him decide whether he wants to play it out or not. I believe that you have a lot of fold equity there. Even if he's not folding, you're most likely in a good position for a double-up.

No dispute to the fold equity and putting the decision on him. Dispute that you are in a "good position" to double up. It's not a good position - if he calls you are beat and it's a race. The purpose of the push here though is for him to fold, it's not with the hopes that he will call (if you wanted him to call you would try and extract all his chips from him not make him make this decision), it's just that if he does call you aren't in horrible shape.

Please don't take it personally - my question is - what kind of a flop did you want to see with 89 suited? If this flop doesn't warrant going down to the felt, I don't really see a point of calling pre-flop, since you won't be able to outplay the loose and tricky player that will call you down with minimum goods....

I don't take anything personally. I post here to better my game (and because I am often bored at work). Other than 5s6s7s, this is exactly the type of flop you want with this hand. But the fact that I will go to the felt on this flop doesn't mean that I should go to the felt.

[chardrian]

I agree with the general opinion that betting / raising with your oesd + flush draw is much safer and better. You're basically protecting your hand, which is likely the favorite at this point. Also, if he had an Ace w/ good kicker, like AT-AQ, he'd mistakenly believe that he was ahead.

There is no better situation in poker than betting aggressively when strong and having your opponent believe you're weak.

IMO, calling with this monster draw is equivalent to checking top pair; the gamble is the same anyway. When you check this draw / TPGK you're hoping to seem weak so you can destack someone later. The trouble is that you can get sucked out on (if your draw didn't come, might equate to a suckout, you were ahead). I'd bet for the +EV, you might destack him anyway.

You might be stastically the favorite on the flop, but I don't think you can really protect an unmade hand. Once again, the fact that we should always (or at least almost always) be willing to put all of our chips in the middle when we are getting the right odds to do so, doesn't mean that we actually want to do this. I would be much happier if I called this flop and he went all-in when the turn is a Td than I would be if he called my push on the flop with an AdTc.

Again, pushing the flop here is fine. But we are not pushing and praying he will call. We basically know that if he does call we need to catch, and if he folds than he was bluffing. The beauty of the push here is that we are "ok" if he does call - but that doesn't mean that this is always the most +EV move to make.

[Genitruc]

chard don't we have 17 potential outs here? Which gives us close to 60% equity vs Ax with no spade higher than 9? If our equity was only around 45-50% I'd be much less happy pushing...

Also I really think it's important not to underestimate we'll be losing the showdown in a decent-sized pot vs a better high-card hand, which really really blows.

edit : was tempted to edit my donkish out-counting abilities... but I'll leave it up there so everyone can see what a true shark I really am.

lol@17 outs

[Numbr2intheWorld]

I was thinking smooth calling too. If he checks the turn, you can probably take it down with a bet even if you miss, and also you have 8 outs that are disguised pretty well that you can stack an A with. Even with the flush cards coming out you could still stack an A.