Tournament analysis. Did I make a bad move here? |
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Posted Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:31 am GMT by Avatar
Its mid-way in the tourney. 20 players left out of 40. $100/200 blinds. I'm sitting with A-Ko on the button, on a table with 7 players. Person under the gun raises to $300. Everyone folds and it comes to me.
Now I thought back about how this guy has played and bet all night - he was on my table earlier at the start of the night and was raising through the roof. Very aggresive. Was taking advantage of the 1 hour re-buys I believe.
His chip count is at $4000 and I decided I would go all in for $1800.
He thought about it a while and called. As it turns out he had 9-9 and I was unable to hit an A or K on the 5 community cards, despite being a slight underdog by 3%.
Now to the analysis of my bold (maybe too bold) move - Was it too earlier to go all-in with the A-Ko? Even when suspecting I had a better hand? What would have been a more wise bet in that situation with still 18-20 players on 3 tables left playing?
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Posted Sun Apr 11, 2004 5:59 am GMT by wEbMaStEr
as always, going all in with anything is risky, even with AK even tho you are expecting to have 2 overs to any pair or best high card & kicker.
In this situation it really is a coin toss tho, as to how to play it.
The things people do early in a re-buy tourney dont really bear any relation to how they play later, however, you had some information and you used it correctly i believe.
As to the actual bet analysis.... (and with the benifit of knowing what his cards were)
1stly, obviously you are gonna play your AK so its down to how...
he raises 300, if you flat call, then you are basically giving him a cheap look at the flop, the possibility that he will pair the board (or in this case make a set) and also if you pair A or K on the board and then at some point raise it, he is going to be guessing you have higher pair.
So that leaves raising preflop....
The all in raise, has the benifit of making him think that you have a very strong hand and if he decides to call then he is going to be behind, being well ahead in chips tho allows him to take this risk, as he himself has a good hand (in fact a made hand) I'm pretty sure that most people in this situation, with 4000TC and 99 in hand facing a 1600 all in raise, would call the all in. again its pretty much a coin toss as to who will win (i believe 99 is 59% leader tho)
I believe the correct play in this situation would be to re-raise him, doubling his raise, this would let him know that you have a very strong hand, and would also lessen the idea in his head that you are trying to steal by going all in. A good player would seriously reconsider his hand at this point.
If he calls your re-raise then you are going into the flop with still half your chips in your hand, and a lot of his in the pot. this lets you see the flop and then make a decision from there on in whether to put more in or get the hell outta there.
If he re-raises you of course, then you have a dilemma, but hey! you got a very strong hand and are gonna put all your chips in anyways 
I think this is the correct play especially towards the end of a tourney where you may want to play a little more conservatively to see if you can improve your position.
I'm not surprised he called your all in with 99, your all in wasn't really THAT bad a move. you just didn't hit the board.
like i said before it was a coin toss.
and if you had hit A or K it woulda been a great move.
Posted Sun Apr 11, 2004 4:21 pm GMT by Avatar
Thanks for the great reply webmaster.
With some more thinking, I think the re-raise of 600TC would have been more appropriate. If he only called the 600, I would have had position on him the whole hand, so if he lead in heavy on the flop, and I didn't hit an A or K, I'd have to put him on a better hand than mine, seeing that he is pretty confident because I was the re-raiser pre-flop. It would have kept me in the tourney longer.
Does that make sense?
Posted Sun Apr 11, 2004 8:05 pm GMT by wEbMaStEr
to me it does make sense yes
thing to remember is that AK, while being a great starting hand, is only worth it because of its potential to improve and become the nuts.
it is hard to lay it down, but as you say, if he had called you, seen the flop and raised again, you would then be in a position to get away from the hand.
nothing is ever cut and dried tho this is just my opinion
sometimes the pre-flop re-raise will get raised again anyway and you may find yourself all in and taking your chances regardless
Posted Sun Apr 11, 2004 11:22 pm GMT by alphakenny1
i dunno i think it was actually a very strong play. i mean if you think he has nothing than u probably got him dominated but at worst ur a 50/50 chance to win. quite personally i would have either called or went all in. i would have raised it to 600 cuz i dunno if u miss the flop then you only have 1200 left, which isn't too bad but ur trying to win this tourney. remember in order to win any tournament, you have to win the 50/50's. in this case you took a chance and lost. i dont care how great you are, you have to win those times when u have A,Q and someone has 77.
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