Questioning a final hand after bubble burst
Hey Folks,
Returned to the casino after a 3-4 month break and played in a low buy-in tourney to cut my teeth again. I had a great game, made it into the money, and post-bubble had gone from being short-stacked to average stack with a hot streak. Now, my final hand (lost it, of course) arrives, and I am questioning to what degree there was a probability where I should have folded and kept playing in the tourney given my spot. (Full disclosure: as of now, going back on it I would make the same choice, maybe even have played this hand more aggressively, so I am looking for some devil's advocates!)
- My Hand: K-Qs
- villain: Q-Jo
- flop: Q-9-x (don't remember and not relevant to outs)
- Positions: I am on the button, villain is in SB
What do I think I know about this player: assumed TAG, been playing with them for 2-3 hours now. Folds to aggression without a hand, but not afraid to take a stab at the pot.
The action: Pre-flop it folds to me on the button. I min-raise (this opponent has a habit of raising single limpers 3BB and I wasn't looking to play an expensive hand). Villain calls, Big Blind (NIT), folds as expected. Flop arrives (see above), I put down a 2BB bet, or roughly 30-40% of the pot (math is hard, am tired.), villain jams.
I am now sitting here ranging my opponent, he doesn't have a premium hand (AA, AK, KK) because he would have raised my min-raise preflop (or maybe he's disguising it, but he doesn't usually play that way and he already shared he despises slow playing after I slow played him on an earlier hand, but MAYBE he is taking a lesson from me. I throw that caution out the window as he is in the blinds and that doesn't make sense, concluding he's got broadway cards, possibly A-X). With no Ace on the board I feel he probably connected with the high card for a pair like me, and I currently have him beat with my overcard K.
I call. Turn shows a J for him to connect with a two pair and I lose the hand.
Chip context: he was the largest stack at our table (3 tables left), I was average, so winning the hand put me in a position to limp towards the final table and cut down the big stack, If had folded, it meant I had about 3 orbits left (so esentially I was playing special). I am wondering if and how I should play this hand differently, and to what distribution of probability I should have taken those actions...
Thoughts? Should I have folded to the all-in to get a few more bucks? Should I have jammed on the flop (this seems like a silly high variance move tho, but it's not out of the question!)
2 Replies
While it is good to question your play, don’t be results oriented. I’m assuming that “3 orbits left” means you have about 7.5 bb in your stack if you fold (assuming 1.5bb per orbit plus a bb ante). You are very nearly, if not completely pot committed after your PF raise and cbet, so you aren’t folding top pair second kicker here.
The only place I might question your line is preflop. If you have, as I’m assuming about 11.5bb in your stack to start with, it might not be such a bad play to just open jam pre. Usually 10BB is about the threshold for “shove/fold” play, but if bb antes are being used, it might make sense to extend that to just a bit larger stacks, especially since steals are more valuable.
If bb antes arenÂ’t used in your tourney, then I would assume that 3 orbits left implies you have 4.5 bb and hence started at 8.5bb, so the open shove is even more clear. AP, you certainly should not be folding to that jam with 4.5bb left in your stack.
Good insights - your math is about right, I was probably a little shorter than I realized and should be assessing my M/CSI more as the levels were changing (writing this down!). Going into the hand I had somewhere between 125-175K in chips, with 10(BB)-10(ante)-5(SB), and seven minutes before the ante increased (i'd be lucky to still have this level on my next big blind as our hand play time had slowed down quite a bit as well).
Your line of thinking is exactly what I wanted consideration on- either jamming preflop or jamming for fold equity on the flop (I think the latter is my preferred 'resulting solution' 😃), but the former preflop jam could have generated enough fold equity to steal the blinds. With an A, easy jam preflop for me on that, but the K kicker was a yellow flag for jamming. I think I was also biased emotionally by some previous online play over the holidays (way too much all-in preflop online), and so I was trying to avoid the variance that introduces.
Thanks for the comment!
