Stay Away from Big Stacks - Tournament Play 101!

JuliusFranco

from 63 runners we're down to the last 18 or so. I'm roughly tournament chip leader with about 22K (avg 10,500). one guy, who I know (from previous encounters) to be a pretty solid player gets moved to directly on my left about 20 minutes ago. He's capable of many moves, some times suicidal, alot of times great. He has about 18K and the rest of the stacks at my table range from 1k to about 10k.
when he came to our table he had about 9k but managed to increase his stack to it's current level by a few well player and uncalled check raises/reraises all in. He's reads so far tended to be spot on and he has been punishing weakness.

do not get involved with this boy i thought, do not get involved!

my image has been pretty tight/solid. I have shown down only big hands. The villian here has seen me play 5 hands. 2 uncalled flop bets, 2 uncalled preflop raises (one from the BB) and one had where I showed down AK to win a medium pot.

anyway..the hand! blinds are 300-600 and the villian limps utg. everyone folds around to me in the BB. I have A9o (with A of hearts). I check.

Flop come down a raggy 8 high but with two hearts. I check. Now, he bets 600. I don't want to go to war with this guy but I'm not going to be a pussy either and let him bully we like he's bullied the rest of the table. My read say's he's got two overcards, and he's missed. I also think he's kinda wary of getting involved with me too.
I make it 2000, thinking he'll fold. The raise took him aback alright. He fumbled with his chips and meekly said "3k" whilst droping chips in! Now, he's long enough in the tooth to know how to raise and he didn't make much of a protest when the dealer correctly deemed his action a call.
4th Street brings a K of hearts
he checked his cards. now, 99.9% of the time, I know what I have but this was my first poker game in 6 weeks. I forgot which one of my cards was heart, so I had a look too and joked about both of us checking for hearts.

(Also, and maybe he didn't pick up on this and maybe it's nothing but when i raised him, i threw the chips in whilst saying nothing, usually i clearly say what i'm doing and put the chips in smoothly)

i know he's going to bet this!

what do you do?? check and then fold or call a small bet if pot odds allow it? bet? anybody?

what did i do? I got one of those brain farts. My carefull analysis up to that point went out of my head in an instant! I checked and he bet 3k, i went all in he called, he had KJ with a J of hearts, I didn't hit my ace or heart and i was crippled and in a daze!

Ollieboy

Either push on the flop or fold, your re-raise was not big enough to get him of the hand after the flop, so you could have flat called it and hope for another rag card, ( I think sometimes calling someone in this position shows more strenght than re-raising as it give's them no information about your hand) when the king hit, you had to respect him for having a king, so at this stage you should have given it up, you had one over card at best, which he could also have and you had the nut flush draw which at best was a 25% chance.

So you either bet the flop aggressive on the reason the he missed or check raise him big. Or check and hope he also checks and get a free card.

There's no harm in letting someone bully you for a while and than taken it all back at a later stage.

sunzz

FOLD when he bets the king, hes not calling a raise for no reason, you said you gave him respect for the overcard hence why you raised the flop trying to get him off what he handn't hit, he called your raise now the overcard came so fold to his bet.

Simple.

Gholimoli

there is a time to make a stand and there is a time to fold.
i understand you wanting to make a stand against this dude but your timing was very bad.
he has limped UTG so his range of hands could be anything at all.
the flop comes rags ,for all you know he could have anything from AA,to a set ,to nothing at all here the fact is you have missed and your hand is A high.
now his bet was not too big so you thought the 600 was a steal and you decided to see if you can move him off his hand with a CR.
the problem here is your out of position.
before you make the CR ask your self what are you going to do if he calls?
what are you going to do if he raises?
you made a CR hoping he will fold but you had no future plans for continuing with the hand.
you making that big a CR then you will almost have to come out betting on the turn.your check on the turn indicates weakness .
now he bets and you move all in ?your trying to say you have the flush but
if you have it why not value bet?
why are you going all in which screams you dont want a caller?
you said your self he is a good player so these are the questions he will ask his self.
then he will see that his got TP with an ok kicker + J high flush which is not that bad for this spot and correctly calls you.
i think your mistake was picking a wrong time to make a stand against this dude.in the future try to be in position especially if you dont have a hand.

jem

remember some one is only bulling you if you are folding decent cards.
i have no problem with someone over betting and regularly "bullying " the table.
I try to lie in the grass for them waiting for big hands and taking a big stack from them

RoundTower

I don't like the flop c/r, maybe you have to do this sometimes as a bluff but find a different spot. Turn is OK, you stick in a good big raise so he will fold a lot of hands, and you have outs if he calls.

JuliusFranco

thanks for the replys. my all in bet here on 4th street was attrocious, it was just one of those moments of madness.

there are two aspects of this hand that i thought about
1. on the flop, should i have just let it go, or should i have reraised bigger, or even flat called.
2. on 4th street, i knew he was going to bet. Initially i hoped it would be small enough for me to call so that i could chase the flush. I had a feeling he was gonna bet no matter what. Maybe I should have bet first but would I be right in thinking that there's not much I could have that he would be afraid of? He might have (correctly) thought I would have folded to one of his all in raises.

Ollieboy

JuliusFranco wrote:

thanks for the reply. my all in bet here on 4th street was attrocious, it was just one of those moments of madness. remember also that he has position on me (i was BB, he was UTG)

there are two aspects of this hand that i thought about
1. on the flop, should i have just let it go, or should i have reraised bigger, or even flat called.
2. on 4th street, i knew he was going to bet. Initially i hoped it would be small enough for me to call so that i could chase the flush. I had a feeling he was gonna bet no matter what. Maybe I should have bet first but would I be right in thinking that there's not much I could have that he would be afraid of? He might have (correctly) thought I would have folded to one of his all in raises.

1. Fold when he bet, even do the bet was weak.
2. Chasing a flush, you had one card of a flush draw and the flush draw was not on the flop, you need runner runner to win the hand, if this is the way your going to play flush draws, stop now.

I think Gholi anaylsis the hand perfect for you. Leave it at that and learn.

JuliusFranco

Ollieboy wrote:

I think Gholi anaylsis the hand perfect for you. Leave it at that and learn.

spot on!
thanks again!