Hooked - but very much a learner!

Lplate

Hi everyone. Came across your forum and had great fun reading through the various threads. I figure there's a lot to be learned here and hope I'll be accepted into your community. I've been playing for about a year now starting with just play money and getting involved for cash about 3-4 months ago. I play mostly tourneys on VC, but do dabble in a couple of other sites as well and am slightly in profit (admittedly thanks to coming 2nd once in the 7.5k, which was mostly due to extraordinary cards). I'm going to carry on playing and improving and hopefully you guys can give me the benefit of your combined wisdom on some decisions I've made. I'm posting the first one now and would be grateful for any opinions. I'm a big boy and not afraid to be told I did something stupid if that's what you think. Here goes:

Final table of qualifying tourney - 6 left - 1st place only gets seat - 2nd place gets about $180.

I'm CL with about 95k, in sb - all fold to me - bb on about 40k - I have A6 hearts. Blinds 6-12k, I raise another 12, bb calls.

Flop 345, 1 heart. I check, he checks.
Turn J hearts.

I check - he goes all in

What's the play?

Davey Devil

I wouldn't have raised 12,000 pre-flop at all, I'd have had all my chips in. That said I'm an aggressive bastard, it's not a play for everyone.

By raising 12,000 and him calling it means he is left with so little chips you have to feel his chips are going in no matter what the flop comes. He simply can't afford to lose the pot. The fact that he checked the flop means he is eiither a **** player or has hit a monter on the flop.

By raising all-in pre-flop he could still get away from the hand. I'd have raised to 12,000 if I had a really good hand AK or AQ and wanted to get some action. With A,6 all-in pre-flop is my only move. A big stack should always use their chips to bully the table.

Hectorjelly

Davey is right, with blinds that big just push all in preflop. It might get some hands to fold that dominate you, hands like A5/6. On the turn you will win more than 1/3 of the time against any pair less than AA, so with more than 70k in the pot its an easy call for 20k. Since you were in a position where you have to call the all in, and you dont have a made hand, you would of been far better off pushing rather than checking.

http://twodimes.net/h/?z=583878
pokenum -h ah 6h - 9h 9c -- 3h 4c 5s jh
Holdem Hi: 44 enumerated boards containing 5s 4c Jh 3h
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Ah 6h 17 38.64 27 61.36 0 0.00 0.386
9c 9h 27 61.36 17 38.64 0 0.00 0.614

Lplate

Thanks guys, your'e right of course - the play was all in pre flop. As it was I called, drew nothing and he won with 34s. As I said I'm learning and a big part of that I think is to learn to be aggressive in the right situations. Having said that, the way this guy was playing he probably would have called an all in, so the only way I was getting out of this was to fold preflop. This hand signalled a downturn in fortunes for me in the tournament as I went out a few hands later to the new chip leader, his 99 vs my JJ - me all in after flop of 883 his call and 9 on turn.

Was interested to read a post about the standard of play on Betfair. I've been trying out the tourneys this week and have made quite a bit. The opposition generally isn't as tough as Lads or VC and it has a lot more chancers (I've included a hand below which was from a small tourney, down to last 19 players to illustrate this, I'm valleyman) and this beat meant I failed to make the final table for the first time in 6 tourneys, including their Gtd ones. I've also made the money in most SNG tables I've played. I hope the run continues!

My raise below reflected the fact that the BB was the best player on view imo and I wanted him out. I was quite happy initially when the other muppet called as he'd been calling everything!!! BTW I'm not whinging, his all in was fair enough given the flush draw but the preflop call shows the type of play on here.

Game #184345693: Texas Hold'em No Limit (100/200) - 2004/11/09 - 13:14:41 (GMT)
Table "150_BONUS 184966 - 2" Seat 5 is the button.
Seat 1: Thud (3665 in chips)
Seat 2: karma (2515 in chips)
Seat 3: paperboy1 (3370 in chips)
Seat 4: Rogers (250 in chips)
Seat 5: pokermax (3345 in chips)
Seat 6: valleyman (2355 in chips)
Seat 7: al10pin (5980 in chips)
Seat 8: P0KERB0SS (3475 in chips)
Seat 9: DevonAces (4640 in chips)
Seat 10: BullDoza (1910 in chips)
valleyman: posts small blind 100
al10pin: posts big blind 200

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HOLE CARDS

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dealt to valleyman [Qh Ac]
P0KERB0SS: folds
P0KERB0SS sits out
P0KERB0SS sits back
DevonAces: folds
BullDoza: calls 200
Thud: folds
karma: calls 200
paperboy1: folds
Rogers: folds
pokermax: folds
valleyman: raises to 1000
al10pin: folds
BullDoza: calls 800
karma: folds

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FLOP

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[Ad Kc 4d]
valleyman: bets 1000
BullDoza: is all-in 910
Returned uncalled bets 90 to valleyman

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TURN

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[Ad Kc 4d][Js]

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RIVER

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[Ad Kc 4d Js][3c]

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SHOW DOWN

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valleyman: shows [Qh Ac] (A Pair of Aces, King high)
BullDoza: shows [Kd 3d] (Two Pairs, Kings and Threes, Ace high)
BullDoza collected 4220 from Main pot

Marq

This one time, I had aces, and another guy had 2-7 offsuit.

I won that one...