99 in the SB: how bad did I screw up? (2 Viewers)

[Beakertwang]

This was in a online Club WPT tournament; winner gets entry to a tourney in LV, plus lodging and travel expenses.

Down to last 50 out of 1900+. I have about 350k.

Blinds are 6k/12k/500. UTG+1 (~300k) min raises, hijack (slightly bigger stack than mine) flat calls. Folded to me in then SB with 99.

I think the raiser and caller have mediocre hands, nothing premium, otherwise opening raise would have been bigger, or hijack would have reraised. I shove, thinking I'll steal about 70k. Original raiser folds, hijack calls and shows QQ. I didn't improve.

One thing to consider is this is a freeroll, so play is definitely looser, sometimes ridiculous. People will regularly call a play like this with A4s, or J10, or even 44.

Based on results, I wish I would have flat called, and saw the flop. I may have busted anyway, since he disguised his QQ. But I try not to judge my play based on a singular result.

How bad did I screw that up?

 

[Steve Birrer]

Well as always its tough to say not having been at the table but here are my thoughts.

1. I am always leery when UTG or UTG+1 min raise, especially at a time when the blinds are so big. Just lots of guys will do that with a premium hand.
2. Following a min raise I am also cautious when a player flats. Typical slow play spot with a big hand.
3. You are OOP in the small blind. Shoving is too risky because the only hands that call you are either a flip or you are dominated. And with two guys left (not even counting the BB who has yet to act) I suspect that one of them has you crushed. But you are getting great odds to call. You only have to put 6K more into a pot of 66K. Perfect spot to set mine.

So yeah I think a shove is a big mistake.

 

[FDLmold]

You are far enough in the freeroll that all the donkey shovers have either busted or quit playing that way. I would characterize the situation as normal tournament poker now. Call to set mine, the pot odds are wonderful.

 

[DoubleEagle]

Yea, a mistake I think also. You had 29 big blinds left. You had lots of options other than a shove.

 

[ilovegravy]

+1 for advocating a call here. Blinds and antes put 22,500 in the middle each hand (assuming you're 9 handed), the min raise UTG and the call from the hijack means you would need to call 18,000 into 70,500 to see a flop here. Implied odds for you to set mine are fantastic. If you call, miss the flop, and face aggression, you should be able to let it go.

Hijack's range seems to be pretty wide with just a flat here, and I think QQ is definitely at the top of his range. Even still, TT is a very reasonable flat in that spot, as are a lot of hands where you're basically a coin flip. I think your best case scenario involves one of the other two players holding a smaller pocket pair, most of which are not calling your shove. Even if we say 66-88 will call a shove, that's only 18 combinations of hands we beat. We lose to TT+ (30 combinations) and we flip with so many combos of overs I don't even want to count them.

 

[DrStrange]

Hero should be set mining here. < ***maybe***> This is a classic RIO situation - Hero wins 70K or loses his whole 350K stack. To be sure, more often winning 70K. But as others noted above, the min-raise and flat both have red flags flying.

Unspoken, but critical in my mind, is this seems to be a winner-takes-all payout. It seems likely that Hero is going to need to be really lucky to win it all vs a field of 50 with an average stack. So maybe this is a time to try and get lucky. That might be set mining and hoping to flop the set / stack the big over pair. That might be pushing and finding AK as your hand to beat. I an not quite sure how to think about the play except to say ABC poker might not be the winning approach in a winner-takes -all event.

I'm looking forward to hearing from the more experienced tournament players about this -=- DrStrange

 

[upNdown]

It was really bad for all the reasons everybody's said. You have an M of something like 15 - you're not flush, but you're not panicking either. Plenty of time. I think a healthy 3-bet would have been fine if you felt like it was the right time to get agressive. Then you could either fold to a 4-bet or proceed with caution if called. But you shouldn't have lost all your chips on that hand under any circumstances.
There might be some merit to what dr. strange said above - that you need to get lucky with big moves to win a winner take all free tournament. But jamming it all in with 9's against somebody out of position who's interested, doesn't seem like the right risk.

 

[Beakertwang]

You are far enough in the freeroll that all the donkey shovers have either busted or quit playing that way. I would characterize the situation as normal tournament poker now. Call to set mine, the pot odds are wonderful.

You would think so, wouldn't you? But there were still some donkey shovers who would go all-in preflop with 99 in the SB.

 

[FDLmold]

You would think so, wouldn't you? But there are still some donkey shovers who will go all-in preflop with 99 in the SB.

I think the winner-takes-all format gives MORE justification to shoving with the 99 than with a normal payout structure. I don't think it is enough, however, to make it the better play. I don't think it was a huge mistake, just a small one. With the results, obviously it was a fold preflop, but we did not know that at the time.

 

[Beakertwang]

I think the winner-takes-all format gives MORE justification to shoving with the 99 than with a normal payout structure. I don't think it is enough, however, to make it the better play. I don't think it was a huge mistake, just a small one. With the results, obviously it was a fold preflop, but we did not know that at the time.

True. And to be honest, my aggressive mistakes never bother me nearly as much as my bad calls.

 

[Beakertwang]

It was really bad for all the reasons everybody's said. You have an M of something like 15 - you're not flush, but you're not panicking either. Plenty of time. I think a healthy 3-bet would have been fine if you felt like it was the right time to get agressive. Then you could either fold to a 4-bet or proceed with caution if called. But you shouldn't have lost all your chips on that hand under any circumstances.
There might be some merit to what dr. strange said above - that you need to get lucky with big moves to win a winner take all free tournament. But jamming it all in with 9's against somebody out of position who's interested, doesn't seem like the right risk.

What's "an M of 15" mean?

 

[DrStrange]

15 orbits until the blinds + antes send you to the rail.

It is a measure of how dire your situation is or isn't

M=15 is not urgent but will be an issue in a few orbits or after a lost hand or two.

M is the number of chips put in the pot blind by the table. Once your M drops below five you can expect to get called down when all-in with increasing frequency.

M=15 means you aren't likely to want to push because the reward is small and the risk is high. You can properly plan on a two maybe three step all-in plan vs an outright shove.

Let's say M= 7 instead. Then a preflop jam or fold plan is likely best. If M=4 or less, the only move ever appropriate for Hero is all-in.

 

[JustinInMN]

Without more information I like the 3 bet shove just fine unless you somehow had the data-point that the hijack can flat with hands as strong as QQ.

99 is tough out of position unless you want to play purely as a set-mine. I would prefer flatting this from the button over the SB. (And if you know UTG to be tight or hijack to be trappy, that may be the better approach.) But it's hard to imagine the hijack having anything he can call a shove with that he wouldn't three-bet himself (except apparently QQ is a hand he wouldn't 3-bet himself.) So really it's just getting past UTG who can still have some crushing hands that represent most of his calling range, but you might get called down by like 88, 77, AK, AQ as well. The decision can be player-dependent for sure, but absent specifics, I don't think you screwed up.

 

[Beakertwang]

Thanks, @DrStrange! I've got a lot of terminology to learn.

 

[upNdown]

15 orbits until the blinds + antes send you to the rail.

It is a measure of how dire your situation is or isn't

M=15 is not urgent but will be an issue in a few orbits or after a lost hand or two.

M is the number of chips put in the pot blind by the table. Once your M drops below five you can expect to get called down when all-in with increasing frequency.

M=15 means you aren't likely to want to push because the reward is small and the risk is high. You can properly plan on a two maybe three step all-in plan vs an outright shove.

Let's say M= 7 instead. Then a preflop jam or fold plan is likely best. If M=4 or less, the only move ever appropriate for Hero is all-in.

Right. For tournaments with antes, it’s just a better way of calculating how close you are to being blinded off - better than just saying “I have x big blinds left”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-ratio

 

[Beakertwang]

You know, I've been thinking about this hand a ton. As much as I didn't like my play, at least I didn't flat a min raise with QQ. If I had done what I should, he'd likely be against three players to the flop. Even if no one has AK, he's less than 50% to win.

 

[moose]

Without more information I like the 3 bet shove just fine unless you somehow had the data-point that the hijack can flat with hands as strong as QQ.

99 is tough out of position unless you want to play purely as a set-mine. I would prefer flatting this from the button over the SB. (And if you know UTG to be tight or hijack to be trappy, that may be the better approach.) But it's hard to imagine the hijack having anything he can call a shove with that he wouldn't three-bet himself (except apparently QQ is a hand he wouldn't 3-bet himself.) So really it's just getting past UTG who can still have some crushing hands that represent most of his calling range, but you might get called down by like 88, 77, AK, AQ as well. The decision can be player-dependent for sure, but absent specifics, I don't think you screwed up.

Pretty much this.

If my M is <20 I start looking for any opportunity to get my chips in, -mostly to steal pots- but 99 is more than strong enough should you be called. At this stage of the tournament you don't have the chips to set mine your pocket pairs. If you follow this strategy - more often than not (ie. you have just a 11.8% chance of flopping a set or better) you are just pissing your chips away and quickly will find you in a critical situation of M<10 which is essentially end of game unless you can get a double up -and- that only gets you back to M<20 and you are still fighting to build your stack.

Any discussion of position is irrelevant if you are shoving. In truth, the fact that you have only the BB left to act is better for a shove because you only have to worry about one other person reshoving behind you. What does factor into the decision is how you have seen your opponents play. Does UTG+1 raise frequently? Is the min raise common? What range of hands has UTG+1 shown down? How often has the hijack flatted raises before? What range of hands has hijack shown down? Is the hijack normally aggressive? Is a flat call in this situation unusual for hijack? Have you seen them frequently fold to a preflop shove before, or have they been frequently calling shoves? If the play for these two seems normal, if UTG+1 is normally aggressive and if hijack is normally loose passive then you should be shoving.

What is also relevant is that you cover UTG+1, not sure how big a stack hijack was (not mentioned) and are putting them to a tournament decision (hijack covers you but the decision is the same if your chip stacks are similar and losing would cripple the hijack). As you intimated in OP, it appeared that neither player had a strong top 10 holding, in many cases you can force folds from hands stronger than yours and take down a good pot with little risk. As your M falls lower, then more players at the table cover you and it is less risk to them to call you with weaker holdings, knowing also that you are getting more desperate and likely shoving a wider range. This is also known as fold equity. In the late stages of a tournament players generally become too concerned with preserving their chips and make incorrect decisions when facing aggression, which also has the effect of increasing your fold equity. As your M drops, your fold equity also drops making it harder to pick up pots without holding the best hand. Therefore it is critically important to maintain/increase your stack at this stage of the tournament by picking up winnable pots like these.

 

[JustinInMN]

The problem with calling here is that you will be out of position on the rest of the hand and you will often check-fold the best hand.

After reading it again moving 350K in to win 70K is an overshove and makes it hard for anyone to continue without TT+. The upside to raising is that you may knock out hands that are still 50-50 against you and less able to bluff when they miss.

So I think you could have gone to 90k and fold to a 4 bet shove. Or if called you'll have a good stack to open shove a lot of flops. (And save money on the bad flops.)

What's weird is the guy that had QQ is not who you would expect.

 

[Beakertwang]

What's weird is the guy that had QQ is not who you would expect.

What do you mean?

 

[JustinInMN]

You would expect open raiser guy to have QQ some of the time, but hijack guy you would expect to be re-raising JJ and better (and maybe even 10-10,99,88) instead of just calling.

 

[Beakertwang]

You would expect open raiser guy to have QQ some of the time, but hijack guy you would expect to be re-raising JJ and better (and maybe even 10-10,99,88) instead of just calling.

Gotcha. I thought you knew something about the player's actual identity.

 

[Steve Birrer]

You would expect open raiser guy to have QQ some of the time, but hijack guy you would expect to be re-raising JJ and better (and maybe even 10-10,99,88) instead of just calling.

Which is exactly why I said flat in the first place. Everybody puts this guy on a weaker hand and its easy to fall into that trap. I really see no downside to just calling. If you hit a set you are probably golden. If not then you can still lead out with a rag board of lower cards. If not then check and fold if need be.

 

[JustinInMN]

Which is exactly why I said flat in the first place. Everybody puts this guy on a weaker hand and its easy to fall into that trap. I really see no downside to just calling. If you hit a set you are probably golden. If not then you can still lead out with a rag board of lower cards. If not then check and fold if need be.

The downside to calling is it is so hard to get value when you have the best hand from out of position on a favorable flop that you could get from a call of a reraise before they miss. (Or a fold from a hand that has good equity like kj or kt.)

The other upside to raising is we'll almost certainly get reraised by the bigger pairs (maybe not TT) so we'll be able to fold preflop instead of going broke on an 8 hi board where it's a much tougher laydown.

But it really illustrates it comes down to the read on the raiser. The wider he is raising the more I would lean toward a 3-bet. It also comes down to knowing with what the hijack can be calling. If we had seen him do something like this with QQ or JJ earlier then we should lean toward a call. If the raiser is just a nit (Like AK is the worst hand he'll open) then we can even consider folding without too much regret.

It depends on the player.

 

[Steve Birrer]

The downside to calling is it is so hard to get value when you have the best hand from out of position on a favorable flop that you could get from a call of a reraise before they miss. (Or a fold from a hand that has good equity like kj or kt.)

The other upside to raising is we'll almost certainly get reraised by the bigger pairs (maybe not TT) so we'll be able to fold preflop instead of going broke on an 8 hi board where it's a much tougher laydown.

But it really illustrates it comes down to the read on the raiser. The wider he is raising the more I would lean toward a 3-bet. It also comes down to knowing with what the hijack can be calling. If we had seen him do something like this with QQ or JJ earlier then we should lean toward a call. If the raiser is just a nit (Like AK is the worst hand he'll open) then we can even consider folding without too much regret.

It depends on the player.

True, but it goes back to my original point. What are you going to do if you reraise and either the BB, the original raiser, or the flat caller shove over the top? How much do you think you can raise and keep marginal hands in play and yet not put so many chips into the pot that you hurt yourself when one of the players left to act shoves over top? To use our examples, lets say the original raiser has KT. And they call AND the flat caller folds. You are a 56% favorite to win the hand. I just don't see that as a place to try and build value for a flop that misses everybody when the BEST you can be is a 56% favorite.but there are a lot of ways the betting could go like this and you are a big dog (which is what actually was the case).

 

[JustinInMN]

True, but it goes back to my original point. What are you going to do if you reraise and either the BB, the original raiser, or the flat caller shove over the top?

I think you fold pretty comfortably if you go to 90K leaving yourself 230-240k, still pretty good. And you avoid going broke on the 8 hi flop.

How much do you think you can raise and keep marginal hands in play and yet not put so many chips into the pot that you hurt yourself when one of the players left to act shoves over top?

I think a size of 80-90k is good, 3x the min open. Can still fold to a shove and have a good stack.

I just don't see that as a place to try and build value for a flop that misses everybody when the BEST you can be is a 56% favorite.but there are a lot of ways the betting could go like this and you are a big dog (which is what actually was the case).

It's just so hard acting first the rest of the hand, just flatting keeps the ranges wide. If we call how do we get value on an 8 hi board?

Do we donk? Villian may just give up the dry overs. Do we check? Then villian can get a free pull at 6 outs. (Maybe as many as 12 with two villians.) If we face a bet what do we do, should we fold 99 seeing only the one min raise or decide we're calling the whole stack here?

What about a k hi flop? We probably check fold that a lot. But that can miss villians too.

I think my line is this, 3 bet pre to 80-90k, plan to fold to a 4 bet shove. If called I can lead boards that don't contain an a,k,or q or if I improve. Consider leading at some boards with a j or t as well.

Just seems to me villian will have tougher calls when we're ahead on most boards we find favorable whether or not we 3bet pre unless we're beat. But we still have to play this defensively because it's vulnerable to overcard draws. Easier to be the pf agressor and we'll win bigger pots on favorable boards and have less risk of overfolding.

 

[JustinInMN]

And again, the above only applies if we think the raiser and caller are wide. If we think they're tight, I think we just fold or take the set-mine line. The set mine only makes sense to me only because the raise is small and we're deep enough to win enough if we double up.

To a normal size raise (like 50k+) and call I think we're in a shove or fold spot clearly.

 

[Steve Birrer]

Not sure why you think set mining here is only ok because the raise is small. That seems wrong to me. You set mine here because you have great pot odds.

Now my next question - how are you playing the flop if an A, K, or Q comes and you don't hit a set? Curious because my limited play tells me this is why I don't raise preflop because the odds are over 50% that the flop will come with an A, K, or Q and way over 50% that it comes with at least one over card to my 99. So while I understand trying to build the pot it seems like weak play when the odds are against us?

So I decided to give my son a call.....he actually knows something as opposed to me....lol

So his thoughts were this (and much based upon this being an all or nothing tourney):

1. Shove. Pocket 9s is good hand here so unless there is some read from the original raiser or the flat caller that makes you cautious get your chips in the middle.
2. If you have some read that they may play this way with a big hand then you should call.
3. Reraise is not a good play because you are forced to make a decision if you get four bet. Granted you have enough chips to move forward if you raise then have to fold but this is not a good place to try and build a pot.
4. Folding is a terrible terrible play. Even if you had intel that one or both of these hands are capable of slow playing a monster in this situation you have to great of pot odds to not setmine.

 

[JustinInMN]

Not sure why you think set mining here is only ok because the raise is small. That seems wrong to me. You set mine here because you have great pot odds

Against a bigger raise the direct pot odds are less favorable lokking at 3-1 instead of 5-1, assuming a raise to 50-60k and an overcall, our alling represents 12% of our stack instead of 7ish%, the implied odds of hitting go down too. (Though maybe still just enough to justify the set mine if we think we double up frequenly when we improve.) You don't want to set mine expensive if we're fold most flops where we don't improve.

Now my next question - how are you playing the flop if an A, K, or Q comes and you don't hit a set? Curious because my limited play tells me this is why I don't raise preflop because the odds are over 50% that the flop will come with an A, K, or Q and way over 50% that it comes with at least one over card to my 99. So while I understand trying to build the pot it seems like weak play when the odds are against us?

This is the part that sucks about my line for sure. We're going to check these boards and probably fold to a bet. (which will probably be a shove.) Though by 3 betting pre flop, we are making it pretty tough for villian to bet without a hand so the fold will be pretty comfortable unless villian is bluffy. (If villian is bluffy we should be checking a hunk of the favorable boards as well to induce).

Villian may check misses and we may get a free card and reevaluate the turn. Sucks to be out of position in this spot. But we might be able to still win the pot on safe turns.

 

[JustinInMN]

Nice good to get some other thoughts.

My instinct was point 1 until realizing the size of the open raise was so small, by shoving we will only be called when screwed and maybe on occasion by AK.

I'm coming around on 2 a bit, if they raise to 50K it's 40 to call to win about 140 and potentally 440, impied odds are still pretty good. If the raise was large to 65K or 70K the set mining proposition doesn't look as good and I would favor a fold/shove since it's hard to win without improving.

I don't share the perception that point 3 is a problem, it's a pretty comfortable fold to me. When we have JJ+ in this spot we're going to 3 bet call, okay to pick 99 as a hand to fold here.

On point 4, I would only be folding against tight raisers, but at this price, there's a good set-mine argument as well. But I think flatting loose raisers is just too weak, and better to try for value before they miss.

 

[JustinInMN]

So @Beakertwang, don't be too hard on yourself, see how convoluted these spots can be, and how many views there are?

The addage is it's tough to be too wrong when the decision is close.