Opinions wanted on a hand from last night.

NickyOD

Final table of the poker.ie game with 8 players left. I'm about 4th in chips. 2 stacks are almost goosed. The payouts are the same for 8th to 6th and then increase slightly with a nice jump from 2nd to 1st.

UTG has 1BB left and duly puts it in. Blinds are 1000/2000 and its folded to me in the CO with KQo. I have 23K. John is on the button, Ken Cleary is in the SB and Nick from VegasNights is in the BB. Nick and John are the chip leader and have me well covered. Ken has 11K.

What's my play?

RasTa

small raise 3 timest the bb, to see where u stand

Lafortezza

If you raise 3xBB to 6000 and Ken finds a hand then he's going to stick his 11k in, and then you have to call that. So you either raise big to get everyone out or you flat call and see a flop.
I'd go with seeing a flop for cheap since you've got decent position for the hand and people are less likely to bluff without a good hand when there's a player all-in.

NickyOD

My first thought after this hand was that I played it very badly but that may or not be the case and it was possibly just unfortunate that Ken woke up with a hand at the time.

I don't like limping at all in this spot because Ken is going to push with a lot of hands he would fold if I raise. KQ is well ahead of any random hand he may have and if I get put all in by either tall stack I have enough left to be able to fold so its Ken I don't want in the hand. There would be 7K out there to be won and if I show weakness he'll want to get me off the hand knowing he'll get incredible value by pushing with a big range if he gets me to fold. If I raise he'll most likely fold Ace rag and small pairs. If Kens range is anywhere near mine in that spot when the CO limps he could push with about 50% of random hands. He may well believe I am smooth calling with a small pair and just push with 2 high cards.

If he pushes after I raise I will be only be in trouble against QQ-AA, AK/AQ. With the money already in the pot I am getting good odds against an ace with a kicker lower than a Queen because he will only be 6-4 favourite and its a race against any of the other pairs.

I made it 6000 to go and to my dismay Ken went all in behind me with AQ which was horrible. I had to call obviously. He took the side pot and UTG took the main pot with JJ.

Like I said I thought my play was poor at the time but now I'm not sure it was the wrong pllay at all.

Hectorjelly

No, I dont like the play at all. The whole point of raising with hands like KQ is that you are hoping not to get called, either on the flop or preflop. In this case you knew you were going to get called, so a lot of the EV is lost from the move. The disadvantage of raising with KQ is that you often find yourself pot committed with the worst hand, as happened here. Either flat call or fold.

Daithio

I agree with Hector here Nicky. Also IMO people don't try to push others out of the pot when there is a player all in, more than likely it's going to be checked down unless somebody finds a monster in which case they're going to raise and you can get the hell out of there for relatively cheap. I think I probably would have flat called hoping to see a cheap flop. It's quite likely you'll get to see the turn and river too.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

No, I dont like the play at all. The whole point of raising with hands like KQ is that you are hoping not to get called, either on the flop or preflop. In this case you knew you were going to get called, so a lot of the EV is lost from the move. .

The table is playing very tight and I had been getting too much respect. There's a good chane I will not be called. I think calling is a terrible play here because a push from Ken is very probable.

Hectorjelly wrote:

The disadvantage of raising with KQ is that you often find yourself pot committed with the worst hand, as happened here. Either flat call or fold.

But there are only 5 hands I can be afraid of here. and I'm only worried about one player. I can fold to a raise from te tall stacks.

Hectorjelly

NickyOD wrote:

The table is playing very tight and I had been getting too much respect. There's a good chane I will not be called. I think calling is a terrible play here because a push from Ken is very probable.

You were called before you put a chip into the pot, utg is all in remember. If you are so afraid of a push from ken then fold. KQ is not a great hand run hot and cold, as this hand is destined to be.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

You were called before you put a chip into the pot, utg is all in remember. If you are so afraid of a push from ken then fold. KQ is not a great hand run hot and cold, as this hand is destined to be.

I'm only afraid of a push from Ken if I limp. KQ is way ahead of any random hand he might push with if I am forced to limp fold but by raising I can get him to fold a lot of those hands.

I'm also not a lover of making plays that are aimed to getting a shortstack out. I want to give myself the best chance of winning the hand and limping into pots when your shortstacked at a final table is poor strategy.

Hectorjelly

NickyOD wrote:

I'm only afraid of a push from Ken if I limp. KQ is way ahead of any random hand he might push with if I am forced to limp fold but by raising I can get him to fold a lot of those hands.

I'm also not a lover of making plays that are aimed to getting a shortstack out. I want to give myself the best chance of winning the hand and limping into pots when your shortstacked at a final table is poor strategy.

You seem to have completely missed my point, the main reason you raise rather than limp at the final table (or at any table) is to force players out. UTG is all in so raising will not accomplish that.

The fact is that your KQ is going to have to beat the all in players hand to win most of the pot, and KQ wont do this enough to make up for the risk involved in raising and possibly being forced to call a reraise with KQ.

If there is ever a situation in which someone is all in, or is so pot committed that they will certainly call then you need to be much less liberal with your raising requirements than normall if there are still active players in the hand. The reward of raising is much less than normal (because your sub par hand is going to have to win a showdown) so its often not worth the risk. The posted hand is a clear cut example, note that this has nothing to do with helping a player get knocked out, which is clearly in your interests anyway.

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

You seem to have completely missed my point, the main reason you raise rather than limp at the final table (or at any table) is to force players out. UTG is all in so raising will not accomplish that.

The fact is that your KQ is going to have to beat the all in players hand to win most of the pot, and KQ wont do this enough to make up for the risk involved in raising and possibly being forced to call a reraise with KQ. .

UTG only had 1BB. With 5K alerady in the pot its ulikely he's woken up with AA/KK so I'm almost certainly better than a 5-2 underdog against what he has.

Hectorjelly wrote:

If there is ever a situation in which someone is all in, or is so pot committed that they will certainly call then you need to be much less liberal with your raising requirements than normall if there are still active players in the hand. The reward of raising is much less than normal (because your sub par hand is going to have to win a showdown) so its often not worth the risk. The posted hand is a clear cut example, note that this has nothing to do with helping a player get knocked out, which is clearly in your interests anyway.

Good point. I wasn't wasn't really concerned with getting players out as I was with aiming to get the chiplead. 8th-6th paid the same and if I sat back and let the shortstacks drop out and pass their chips elsewhere I would be in big trouble. Perhaps I was forcing things too much but even with Ken pushing behind me I was only concerned that he might have one of 5 hands and unfortuantely he woke up with one of them.

BTW. I thought you said you were going to play?

Hectorjelly

I was going to but got there too late, it sounds like it went well; are they planning on having another one?

NickyOD

Hectorjelly wrote:

I was going to but got there too late, it sounds like it went well; are they planning on having another one?

Yes, there'll be a nother one. Don't know when but I'm sure it wont be too far away.

Peronsally I would have A. Folded or B. gone all in -
Its most likely that I would have folded because there are 8 players at the table and its a big risk with two bigger stacks outside you having decent hands. There is a lot of hands to be afraid of ie. any pair is ahead of you and you certainly dont want to be drawing at that stage.
If there wasnt bigger stacks outside you then I think all in is the best move.
I used to constantly make the mistake of running into bigger hands at the final table, giving too much credibility to my own hand like say AJ o.suit or KQ