ITH Poker Forum

[philhux]

Here's a hand from the WSOP 1k event - let me know what you think of this one

9 handed
Blinds 100/200 with a 25 ante
You are in the BB with a stack of 2800

You have been short at the table for quite a while and so have played tight and tried to pick your spots. There is about half hour to go until dinner. After that blinds will go up to 150/300

A guy opens up from middle position, he has a stack of about 10,000. He's quite new to the table, young, a Londoner, no patches. This is the second time he's opened and he favours opening small.

He opens to 450.

It folds around to Keith 'The Camel' Hawkins on the button who flat calls. Keith is playing about 7,500. This is the second tournament in a row you've played with Keith. He is basically a good player but with a few live player tendancies like occasional random limping and perhaps raise folding too much. He's not scared to gamble and call shoves and squeezes with small pairs. Keith has only ever been at your table when you are short stacked so he probably thinks you are competent but too tight.

You have QJo in the BB. There is 1450 in the pot here and you have 2600 left in your stack after posting 200BB. It's 250 to call.

Do you fold, call, shove?

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Updated action:

You call 250 and see a flop.

Flop comes AQT two clubs - you do not have a club. There is now 1700 in the pot and you have 2350 in your stack. You are first to act, do you lead out or check? What do you do if one or both of the other players at the table get involved?

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Updated action:

You check and both opponents check behind quite quickly.

Turn is the 4 of diamonds so the board now reads AQT4, with two diamonds and two clubs.

Hero?

[nsidestrate]

I don't love it, but I think its a shove.

[wolf44]

I like calling the least, guess I am shoving this as well

[philhux]

why do you like calling the least? can you expand on your thought process?

[wolf44]

sure, sorry.

well I am pretty nitty from the blinds and at first I thought, despite getting 6:1 odds, i don´t like to put in 10% of my stack with small broadway being oop.

but thinking more about it, calling with the intention of c/r or betting/pushing any flop with a Q, J or draw is an interesting option as well, and we are getting a pretty good price.

I don t really have this play in my arnenal, so it wasn t obvious to me.

[redman7027]

I call and hope I hit. I know some will think this is a bad play. I dont think folding or pushing is that bad eather.

[cowboyinexile]

Pot odds dictate you don't fold here-you are fairly short stacked,so even if you call and whiff, it doesn't hurt you that much here.

I think I shove here-don't like my hand when I do it, but I think that is your best move.

[redman7027]

I think this hand is interesting because it is right at the break point between 3 options. Pot odds are so good you could fold if you just hate playing hands like this in this situation but it is not realy right to do it and your hand is too weak to push. I think I like pushing the least. If your QJ was suted, or with AQ, or 99+ I push with KQ or J10 I just call with lower pair I set mine.

Phil is that about how you play it?

[philhux]

I wanna leave it a little longer before I write some of my thoughts. Then there are a couple of streets of action to go through, which gives you a hint as to what I did pre - I'm really not too sure about this hand at all and I am also not sure if it should be played differently live like that than it would be online...

[janeg]

Think shoving is best; if you hit either card you're not going away, if you push the flop you're not going to scare off anyone else with a Q or J and if you get called you're probably behind. Would rather put them to the decision now; although I'm a wimp so probably would have just called PF

[the_hawk]

I don't like folding pre; I'm pretty much ok with anything else.

[leofric]

Is it ok to hate all 3 plays??

Folding looks way too wimpy - if we fold here I think we could end up folding our way out of the tournament.

Calling - as someone said OOP with weak broadway cards isnt my idea of fun.
If we whiff its check/fold and if we hit we about the only action we would get is off hands dominating us. If it was one opponent I could see a Stop and Go coming but against 2 it looks too risky.

Shoving - We're right on the edge of FE here. The opponents have to call 2350 into a pot of 4050. Again the only hands calling us are likely ahead although we could get some Ax and small PPs to pass (although given the note on the button maybe not).

I least hate the shove - and given my MTT performances lately thats undoubtedly what I'd do

[joep]

I call for sure.
I'd rather go all in with less on another hand being first in ,than go to war with JQ
At first wsop circuit event this year I had 10 BB and pushed with 10,9
88 and 64 being first in pot, won blinds each time
4th push ak and doubled up.

[philhux]

So we seem split between shoving and calling. Nobody thinks a fold is correct?

I thought about it for a little while and I called. I didn't like it one bit but I didn't think I had any fold equity pretty much at all so that made a call much more attractive than a shove.

My thought process was this:

It's hard to put the first guy on a range as we don't know too much about him, but obviously the squeeze puts him in quite a tough spot so he will fold all of his speculative openings with another player to act behind.

That leaves the problem of Hawkins - my read is that he plays quite straightforward preflop, so I would guess his range for flatting might be any pair TT and below, AT+ but not AK, broadways like KJ, KQ, QJ, QT, KT, JT, maybe some suited wheel aces and some suited connectors thrown in there also. I think he would almost always three bet AA-QQ and probably JJ and AK.

Of these hands there are very few I am ahead of. I also have the benefit of some dead money in the pot if the first guy folds and I could be flipping or a small dog.

I think with the price he is getting and how I've seen him call three bet shoves and squeezes quickly with small pairs mean there are very few if any hands he is folding to my shove after his flat call, therefore my shove loses value.

I really hate playing QJo out of position three ways - but as several people have said - how can we fold here?

So perhaps I'm being a bit trigger shy here, but I don't think it is. Saying that, I am really short and this isn't some super slow structured tourney, so perhaps I should just be sticking it in and gambling?

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SO!

You call 250 and see a flop.

Flop comes AQT two clubs - you do not have a club. There is now 1700 in the pot and you have 2350 in your stack. You are first to act, do you lead out or check? What do you do if one or both of the other players at the table get involved?

[blah730235]

Squeeze/fold pre imo, if your ahead enough to call oop with a PSB left your ahead enough to shovel it in there.