Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1646
I think i give my opponents way too much credit. So this is the situation. brm freeroll, 156 left. It's the second hand on a table I've just been moved to. utg goes all in with just over 9.4BBs. utg+2 re-raises all in with just over 29BBs. I'm sat in the SB with just over 30BBs with QQ.
Would you be calling, leaving yourself 1BB, or would you be folding and waiting for a better spot? remember i have no information on any of these players.
Joined: Nov '12
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 4675
G'day Amigo In that situation depending on how close you are to the money I think i'm calling. I preferr to play to win it all and not just min cash. so i;m most likely calling with them lady's.
Joined: May '08
Location: Germany
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 6786
QQ is the 3rd best starting hand. If you are searching for an excuse to fold this hand preflop, when you are just 30BB deep, you are playing far to tight. It is a no brainer call. One would need a very good read on the opponent to fold here.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Croatia
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 1738
I would say the guy re-raised to isolate, probably holding Ace high. Anything from A2 suited up( probably even less since the first one only has 9 BB). At the very least you are 50/50 with him so if you want to race call. Like said above, in a freeroll definitively call. In any other tourney i would like more info on my opponents first but not sure if i wouldn't risk it.
Joined: Oct '09
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 57 (M)
Posts: 667
I would say fold. My reason for this is this. I think the UTG player only has 9 bb's and therefore his range could be anything from 87 suited to AA, but probably 2 picture cards. The re-raiser probably also realises this and has more knowledge at the table of him than you do. He has re-raised in the knowledge of this with the same wide range?? I would fold and wait for a better spot. Ay t the most you would be 8 bb behind him and this is not much.
Know doubt some would say I am playing too tight but to have a all-in push and a re-raise would mean that I am only calling with AA's
Please let us know what happened...............GL and happy new year to you all.
Joined: Jan '11
Location: United States
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 3361
How bad do you want to win this freeroll? That's what you have to ask yourself. Most are right, it is the 3rd best hand preflop, but if your out to stay in the game it's a fold here. You have plenty of opportunity with hands that are guarantees if you play correctly.
If you don't really care about winning, call and take the chance that you'll survive and doubleup+.
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
Most of the time I'd call a reraise all-in with QQ but it depends on how important is the tournament and how close to the bubble. As said above it's the middle of a freeroll so it's a no brainer. First player shoves with any ace, second player shoves to isolate. If you run into anything higher it's just unlucky but obviously if they have AK it's practically a flip so if this tournameant means a lot I would fold and play safe. You can always wait with 30 bb.
You only have to beat one player (the re-raiser), for this to be profitable, because the side pot is bigger than the main pot (unless the big blind or UTG+1 decide to join, which is not too far fetched in a freeroll situation, but not likely so deep into the tournament).
The re-raiser probably does not want anyone else involved in the pot, given his all-in move. More reason to call/shove I'd say.
Joined: Sep '12
Location: India
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 335
Good day everyone A very Happy new year to everyone
In this situation i would fold , keeping into consideration very nearer to the bubble , fear of the overcards !!As this is a freeroll they can be sick shoves too ... so the decision would also depend on the players who shove ...it also depends on how desperate he is to win the freeroll if so fold ... if not all these reasons i would call ..
Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
i would definately call, even if i didnt like it because i find whenever i have a big pair, an ace usually comes up, but the first raiser probably has Ax or small pair and the reraiser most likely has jacks 10s or Ax(picture card), which means odds are they are probably holding some of eachothers outs, in this spot i would definately make the call. I also would play it because all the money is in the final table, just min cashing is basically a waste of time. you should call.
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Depends on the freeroll, on the places getting paid and how much you are getting from it. But since it is the specific freeroll and the payouts in the last places are low, it is a good chance of increasing your bankroll, so my opinion would be to call. I hope you made the right decision
Joined: Jan '12
Location: Slovenia
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 1406
What decision you made at the end? and what cards have other two players. For me qq specialy on freeroll it's always easy call if two before me go all in.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1646
Sorry for the delay people. Didn't get chance to get back on yesterday. thanks for all your comments. i decided (regrettably) to fold. i knew as soon as i'd done it i'd made a mistake. i thought "what you doing? its a freeroll full of donkeys. you idiot" anyway, i should of thought about it a bit more. the 9bb person had 78os and the re-raiser had 77.i would of won i always play for the win and i hardly ever look at how many is left before making my decision. i don't know why i done it this time. The guy who won that hand ended up on the final table makes my fold even worse. i will never do it again that's for sure.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by Greenmohave: but if your out to stay in the game it's a fold here. You have plenty of opportunity with hands that are guarantees if you play correctly.
If you don't really care about winning, call and take the chance that you'll survive and doubleup+.
This logic seems backwards - if you're keen on WINNING - then taking the more marginal spots/chances is MORE important. Your advice only stands true if you mean keen on 'cashing' not 'winning'. And if that is the case, that is NOT how you get to be profitable playing MTTs..
MTTs are basically a break even format for 98% of your games with the occasionally deep run / top-3 where that accounts for your profit.. So 99 games out of a 100 you just break even +/- a couple buyins and then that 1 in 100 that you actually bink (or top 3 at least) spikes up your winnings. If you just play in such a way that 100 out of 100 games are played in a break-even / playing to get ITM style, you'll never show real profits.
------------
Posted by Macubaas: On a tournament with a larger buy in that this one probably i would fold without any info about those players.
Yeah - it is really player dependant for larger buyin games.. Because it's obviously a call if it's just the shorty, it's only the person who re-raises that makes it interesting.. The thing about isolation bets like that, is they're often a fairly wide range that wants to take it to heads up with the shorty..
A lot of 'thinking' players are also equally like to flat hands like AA/KK to trap somebody into 'squeezing' them out of the hand - which is a pretty good move, if you give the illusion of fold equity, then it's really tempted for somebody in late position to 4bet it in an attempt to turn the 3bettor into dead-money.
Edited by jessthehuman (02 January 2013 @ 13:00 GMT)
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Portugal
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 4827
I understand what you mean when you say you're giving too much credit on them, but in this situation I would be folding. You have someone short going all-in trying to increase his stack and another player covering him with a reasonable stack, similar to yours, who's already going. Your hand his very nice, but probably the bigger stack must have a nice hand too, after all he's puting a third of the stack in the ashes and i'm sure he also doesn't want to get burned at this point of the tourney.
Joined: Feb '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1886
Posted by jessthehuman:
Posted by Greenmohave: but if your out to stay in the game it's a fold here. You have plenty of opportunity with hands that are guarantees if you play correctly.
If you don't really care about winning, call and take the chance that you'll survive and doubleup+.
This logic seems backwards - if you're keen on WINNING - then taking the more marginal spots/chances is MORE important. Your advice only stands true if you mean keen on 'cashing' not 'winning'. And if that is the case, that is NOT how you get to be profitable playing MTTs..
MTTs are basically a break even format for 98% of your games with the occasionally deep run / top-3 where that accounts for your profit.. So 99 games out of a 100 you just break even +/- a couple buyins and then that 1 in 100 that you actually bink (or top 3 at least) spikes up your winnings. If you just play in such a way that 100 out of 100 games are played in a break-even / playing to get ITM style, you'll never show real profits.
I have to disagree with you about your mtt logic. Your analysis of the hand situation is spot on, isolation bets are often quite weak but there's a reason why pros make them and that's cos their effective. The fact that a player raises is typically an indication that he doesn't have AA or KK and also that he doesn't put too much value on the initial raiser so the correct move is usually call.
However, let's assume we are not talking about this freeroll and the situation is a $10 buyin close to the bubble. According to your logic we always have to aim for first place to be in long term profit so whenever an opportunity is +ev we should take it. But mtts are a long game and it doesn't matter how quickly you get the chips or even how many hands you win. Mtts are more swingy than anything else and the more you go all-in the more you risk your tourney life. But if you have 30 bb and the structure is slow you don't have to risk your life, there will most likely be better hands where you have 80%+ chance of winning instead of 55%. Cos once you double up you usually don't get another chance to double up for a while as everyone is smaller stacked than you. Essentially what I'm getting it is it doesn't pay that much to have a big stack early on but you lose everything you lose one all-in.
I'm not saying that you should run scared in any tournament where the buy-in means something to you but that a long term strategy and patience is crucial in mtts. And sometimes you should fold really good hands in difficult mtt spots cos "playing to win" is not the same as "taking every risk". Also I'm sure you can be profitable by cashing most tournaments and never winning one since coming first usually requires as much luck as skill.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by awood88: But if you have 30 bb and the structure is slow you don't have to risk your life, there will most likely be better hands where you have 80%+ chance of winning instead of 55%. Cos once you double up you usually don't get another chance to double up for a while as everyone is smaller stacked than you. Essentially what I'm getting it is it doesn't pay that much to have a big stack early on but you lose everything you lose one all-in.
Yeah, it's tricky and complicated, I know what you're saying. I think you can't go too wrong taking every EV spot - so long as it's actually cEV - meaning you've accounted for the so called 'bubble factor'. Which does mean if there's a spot where you have 55% equity in a straight equity equation, given that the chips you win aren't worth as much as the chips you lose, due to ICM / bubble factor - you do need to be careful that you actually take 'marginal EV' spots that are actually cEV+ not just EV+.
In saying that - it does raise interesting questions in deep stack play and I don't mean like in your example where you're sitting with just 30bb..
But take for example, a year ago or so I was playing a 20,000 starting stack game, with around 1,000 runners, 20min blinds and 10/20 starting blinds..
Anyway, I busted on level 2 blinds with KK. I was sitting on BB, there was a small raise from MP, then the button 3bet quite large, I 4-bet with KK, MP flatted this oddly enough and then the button re-raised again making the call worth about half of my stack - it just screamed of AA, but at the same time, I wasn't prepared to lay down KK - I also wasn't going to flat call KK for half my stack - so my choice was: Either fold KK pre flop (Awful) losing about 1/4 of my stack in the process, or shoving over the raise and mostly likely running into AA -which is exactly what I did and what happened.
I did have to think afterwards - as much as I never want to fold KK pre in a standard MTT- at the same time, the villain in question was a competent player and was definitely not likely to risk his tourney life on level 2 blinds of a super-deep stacked event with AK or QQ - so it really only left KK or AA that he might have (or a leveling war bluff) considering he probably wouldn't be bluffing here very often and there was only 1 combo of KK left, AA weighted very heavily into his likely holdings..
So in this case, I've often wondered whether the correct decision would actually to have been laying down my KK - simply because I was so deep that there was bound to be plenty of much easier spots to gain chips - rather than shoving and just hoping I wasn't shoving into AA - which seemed very likely.. So even though I had the 2nd best starting hand, I really didn't have very much equity against his likely range in this spot :/
