Whats the right play here?

[JamieCarra]

Well I doubt he"s making it 550 with AA / KK / QQ.  I"d say his range is mostly small - mid pairs with lots of Ax hands.  ie we crush his range.

I"m guessing this isn"t going to be a well structured tourney so we can"t go passing up spots like this which are obviously +EV

Intuitively, I would agree, but really, you can"t confidently nor totally rule them out either.

We can apply a miniscule weighting to it though.

[LongshanksED]

Couldn"t put villain on a range at all being the first hand

but as the game progressed it came like this

2nd hand. Same villian again makes it 550. Everyone folds.
3rd hand. Villian again makes same 550 and this time gets 3 callers, one if them is Big blind. Q rag rag flop. BB checks. Villian overbets pot of 2.5k (approx 1.6k in pre). One caller folds. BB raises to 5k (leaving himself 1k). Villian puts him all in. BB had Q8 for top pair, villian had AA and doubles up!

About 2 hours in I"m down to 3000 (8bb approx at 200/400) and shove utg+1 with AJs

fold to same villan who"s in BB with approx 15k and he calls "because i had the chips to"

he called with 82o. Luckily my hand held. But it did make me regret folding the 1st hand  

[Mikeyboy9361]

Yep ! Pub poker.

[shozboy1]

I dont mind flatting here too much. Folding is too nitty here. Raising means we have to probably fold to a reshove by the villain which sucks. So I flat in position, and happily get my money in on flops not containing an ace or king.

I find alot of live donkeys will make these silly raises with hands they "dont want to see a flop with"
More often than not they flip over pairs 1010 downwards to about 66/77, and hands like AK/AQ. AA and KK is pretty unlikely here. Raising 11x in late position with a monster at the 25/50 level is pretty retarded.

[AMRN]

Raising 11x in late position with a monster at the 25/50 level is pretty retarded.

I dont mind flatting here too much. Folding is too nitty here. Raising means we have to probably fold to a reshove by the villain which sucks. So I flat in position, and happily get my money in on flops not containing an ace or king.

Sorry but flat calling an 11xBB raise is more retarded than the original raise move imo.

[Marty719]

^^^^^^^^^^^^this^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[shozboy1]

I know what your saying. Calling an 11x raise is generally bad in most situations, but I"m looking atthe raise size as a % of my current stack. I think the stack size of the hero was 7000, so the raise still represents less than 10% of total stack size. Its only something I would potentially do at the 25/50 level. If its 50-100, and he raises 11x, I"m probably shoving all in over the top with a 7000 stack

[AMRN]

I know what your saying. Calling an 11x raise is generally bad in most situations, but I"m looking atthe raise size as a % of my current stack. I think the stack size of the hero was 7000, so the raise still represents less than 10% of total stack size. Its only something I would potentially do at the 25/50 level. If its 50-100, and he raises 11x, I"m probably shoving all in over the top with a 7000 stack

stack size is irrelevant here - it"s the raise size in relation to the Big Blind that matters. You say you would call 11xBB at 25/50, but not at 50/100..... that doesn"t really make sense as the raise is exactly the same size in comparison the BB.

We should never ever ever ever be flatting such a big raise - with a monster we should be looking to raise more and bloat the pot with a view to getting all in, or with a marginal or rag hand, we either fold or raise to bluff. There is no good reason for flat calling - it doesn"t fit with a monster, a marginal hand, or rags.

[deanp27]

I know what your saying. Calling an 11x raise is generally bad in most situations, but I"m looking atthe raise size as a % of my current stack. I think the stack size of the hero was 7000, so the raise still represents less than 10% of total stack size. Its only something I would potentially do at the 25/50 level. If its 50-100, and he raises 11x, I"m probably shoving all in over the top with a 7000 stack

so you are set mining then?

[shozboy1]

No I wouldnt be calling to set mine. I"d be calling with a view to raising any flop cbet on a decentish flop.

I understand the point of not flatting, however consider this example. If you"re playing in the WSOP/WSOPE main event where starting stacks are 30000 with blinds starting at 25/50. If an early pos raiser makes it - say 400-500. Another big 8-10x raise, and you look down at a pocket pair - say 55. Are you saying it would be incorrect to call? I understand its another overthetop raise here, but surely it isn"t a terrible mistake to set mine for rougly 1% of your stack?

I guess I"m thinking that your own stack size has to play a part in deciding whether to set mine or not, and not only the number of BBs the villain raises.

In this particular case I"m not calling to set mine, but I"m calling to raise any cbet on the right sort of flop and be happy to get my money in. So I"d be calling with a plan. what are the stats of an A or K flopping? 30% (noble correct me if I"m wrong). So 70% of flops I"ll be going with this plan and in the unlikely event he has AA/KK so be it

[zzBlizzardzz]

JJ, two ways to play these mate and there both wrong. Best case your in a race if you move all in over the top. You call and there"s bound to be an over card then you have another decision when the continuation bet comes. Dump the jacks. Brunson said once that folding is only a small mistake, pushing or calling could be a big one.

[Marty719]

JJ, two ways to play these mate and there both wrong. Best case your in a race if you move all in over the top. You call and there"s bound to be an over card then you have another decision when the continuation bet comes. Dump the jacks. Brunson said once that folding is only a small mistake, pushing or calling could be a big one.

He was wrong.......

[deanp27]

JJ, two ways to play these mate and there both wrong. Best case your in a race if you move all in over the top. You call and there"s bound to be an over card then you have another decision when the continuation bet comes. Dump the jacks. Brunson said once that folding is only a small mistake, pushing or calling could be a big one.

He was wrong.......

well he was right in the 1980s but things have moved on since then. Brunson probably hasn"t played in a pub league either.......

i prefer not to fold big hands to donks and i am usually right

[coprey]

JJ, two ways to play these mate and there both wrong. Best case your in a race if you move all in over the top. You call and there"s bound to be an over card then you have another decision when the continuation bet comes. Dump the jacks. Brunson said once that folding is only a small mistake, pushing or calling could be a big one.

He was wrong.......

Marty, you come across as very sure of yourself. Dont get me wrong this is a good attitude to have in poker, recently i could do with a pinch of "sure of myself".

With regard to Doyle Brunson, I agree that folding the best hand in situations is a small mistake relative to pushing or calling when behind. Also Doyle hasnt been too far wrong for me at any stage of his career. Doyle isnt the sort of player that wasnt able to adapt his game over the 50 odd years hes been winning. 10 bracelets, millions in career earnings is a testiment to how "right" he has been.

Your comment seemed quite dismissive of this great player.

[coprey]

Getting back to the original question.

It really depends on your perspective, feel and gut instinct. If you feel the game is gonna be tough to win and therefore fancy an early gamble a push is fine, to pick up dead money or race with overcards. Alternatively, a fold is ok if you feel you have an edge in the game and can outplay your opponents. There is no absolute correct way to play this situation, and i wouldnt always play it the same way. There is a danger when thinking about situations in absolute terms ie. "I will always do this in this situation", that you become predictable and exploitable.