Bad Fold? Then I punt?!
Hey everyone, quick back story before I tell you these two hands in question. I have played cards since I was a kid, but only started recently playing in live tournaments this past year, as my personal/business life never allowed it. I have been LOVING playing these tournaments recently and I really want to improve my game and run deeper. Here are the two hands in question. Please feel free to give me as much guidance, info and perspective as you can!
First hand takes place , we are down to final 2 tables (17 players left out of 966 or so). I have 6 million in chips (BB was 100k, with 100k ANTE). We had just absorbed 3 players from the third table that broke and so the hand in question involves a player who I had zero experience with. I am in the BB, middle position player raises to 400k, folds around to cutoff who was the brand new player and raises to 1.5 million (he has everyone covered at the table) and I am in second in chips to him by a few million. Button + small blind fold. I look down at pocket Jacks. I generally act fairly quickly, but this put me in a weird spot (at least from my perspective). If I call and I am forced to fold after a bad flop, I am left with 4.5 million (45 BB) and the remaining stacks at table would have been close to this number (give or take 1/2 players). The player in MP who opened had around 2-3 million in chips, so I still had him to consider as well. Ultimately, I ended up folding, which I am thinking was a mistake. I thought about it after and think the cutoff could have been opening much wider there. What do you guys think? Is this a fold? Raise? Call and evaluate flop? Jam? Middle position player would show pocket 10s and fold his hand to Cutoff. These are the positions that I have been struggling with when I run deeper in these tournaments. Any info on this hand would be greatly appreciated
Now onto the questionable punt! With same SB/BB as previous hand, I noticed after 2 orbits, the player who 3bet in previous hand, was involved in a quite a few hands (never super out of line, but definitely splashing it around). I am in the BB, a mp player limps, he is in cutoff again and raises to 400k, button & SB both fold. I look down at king 9 off with king of clubs, 9 of hearts. For some reason and maybe I was just tired or not thinking sharply, I decided I wanted to play back at him. I already know my next move was a MAJOR misstep, but I min clicked him back to 800k, I think and after speaking with a few others, if I make this play, I need to go much bigger. MP folds and gets back to cutoff who thinks and ultimately calls. Flop comes out KING hearts, Jack hearts, 2 spades. At this point I was feeling okay, but certainly not sure if I had best hand. I check and cutoff checks back. Turn is another 2 of hearts. So I have kings/2's with a jack kicker effective. I lead out for $1million. He flat calls. The river is a blank. I check, he jams. At this point I would have had around high 3 millions in chips so still 30+ BB, with a pretty weak table (other than player involved in this hand). I thought about it for quite some time, thinking what made sense, thinking could he have ace/queen with ace of hearts and turned into bluff ? Ultimately I definitely feel I should have folded this hand and tried to find a better spot (especially since the final 5 chopped for $25k) and I was 4th-5th in chips at this point. I ended up calling and he showed 10/8 of hearts for a turned flush.
I think I did just about absolutely everything wrong on the second hand, but still interested to hear your perspectives on that one as well, but the jacks hand was the one I was thinking about for a few days after.
Thanks for reading! look forward to your responses
4 Replies
A little hard to read with the formatting.
It is read dependent and you don't have history, but I would shove JJ over a 3! from the table chip leader late in the tournament. He could be 3-betting very light.
Second hand, you can just defend with K9o in the BB. I would rather shove over an aggressive big stack in the other hand than 3! and play OOP. Standard 3! would be at least 1400K OOP. Click it back is bad. Not crazy about committing 1/4 of your stack, but he would probably fold a lot to a standard sized 3! and you have an easy fold to a 4! Don't understand checking the flop and then leading the turn when the 3rd heart hit. River seems to be about a pot sized shove. The call is not as bad as preflop and turn.
Sorry for late response - I'm getting caught up on these posts.
Folding hand 1. We have 60 BBs which has to be one of the largest stacks and getting involved with someone who has us covered in a marginal situation this late in a tournament doesn't seem right to me.
As the above poster says I just defend hand 2. Very aggressive players tend to bluff a lot so I usually like to keep the pot small BEFORE I get a hand. Once I have a hand, I will often call down, but bloating the pot before that just encourages them to exploit you when you miss (which will be often).
I'm guessing this is a live tournament but if it is online it could make a difference.
In hand 1 the original raise is 4x which indicates hands like JJ (unless this is online where I have no idea if 4x is a normal opening size). Because you have JJ it is more likely TT/QQ. Standard raise preflop would be 2x to 2.5x here.
Then the 3 bet is again > 3x. It is not quite 4x but close. So again it is typically a monster. Could be AK. But it could also be QQ+. In general JJ is a borderline hand for me when there is a raise and then a 3-bet. Given these sizings I fold here.
Hand 2: It is a limp and then a 4x raise. That is fairly standard after a limp but there is no way I am going to call OOP here with K9o. Especially because the limper can 3-bet after limping with say AA which we don't block. Even if he folds I wouldn't care. Against this Villain I would much rather play a hand that dominates or has a lot of ways of winning (like PP/SC/2 broadways/AXs/K9s+/etc.)
The min raise 3-bet OOP is a bad idea because CO will never fold and while we are pretending to have a monster we don't. With KJ on the Flop I would bet about 60% pot and we would get into trouble anyway on the turn.
As played I fold the river and sometimes cringe when Villain shows KT. But in general we lose to a lot of hands. It is true that by checking the flop we acted like we missed with AQ or have a hand like QQ/TT so since we under repped our hand we are facing draws sometimes (like QT/AQ/AT with a single heart) that will jam. But here having gone so far I would just fold and let it go.
I think folding in hand 1 is fine. Earlier in the tournament, I might just jam and rebuy if I'm wrong. This late, the combination of these raise sizes and what a disaster it would be if you bust to QQ-AA this late in the tournament with as many chips as you have incline me to take the safe option absent any other reads.
A 4x raise is already large and suggests a strong range, so a 3-bet that's nearly 4x on top of that should be even tighter. Unless you know CO is just blasting away here way more often and larger than they should, I think it's a fold.
Hand 2 I just fold the first time around because we don't close the action. If we do 3-bet bluff here, it needs to be significantly larger, but I also don't think this is a particularly good candidate for it. I also think, while the occasional 3-bet bluff here is fine if you're confident in your reads, that in general, when you're this deep-stacked and this deep in a tournament, getting tangled with a covering stack in a murky situation is one of the worst things you can do to yourself.
As played, I'd bet the flop like 15-20% and go from there. (With his actual hand, this would probably help clarify the situation as well, depending on how he decides to react with his flush draw.)
How deep are you exactly in hand 2?
