Played the 1K WSOP satellite on Stars tonight. There were 21 runners, meaning 2 seats and a lot of cash paid out. I came into the final table in second place, and had the lead by the time we got down to 5. I was running roughshod over everyone, and with four left I had as many chips as the other three combined. I definitely felt I was the strongest of the remaining players, but there were two other guys (none of whom I recognized) who seemed to get satellite strategy pretty well and one guy who was awful. One of the good players busted the other, so we got down to 3-handed with me and the other good player in a substantial lead.
At some point the fish doubled through him, which wasn’t ideal (I’d prefer the fish to bust and lock up my seat) but certainly an improvement. I took a shot at busting the now-short good player, but it didn’t end well:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $1000+$50 Tournament, 400/800 Blinds 100 Ante (3 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
Hero (Button) (t36843)
SB (t39582)
BB (t16575)
Hero’s M: 24.56
Preflop: Hero is Button with 10
, 10
Hero bets t1600, SB calls t1200, BB raises to t16475 (All-In), Hero raises to t31350, 1 fold
Flop: (t34850) 9
, K, J (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t34850) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t34850) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t34850
Results:
Hero had 10, 10 (one pair, tens).
BB had J, K (two pair, Kings and Jacks).
Outcome: BB won t3485
I’m not 100% sure about this call. My range for raising the button here is like top 85%, and the fish is calling way wider than he should. I doubt he ever has a hand that calls a shove. If I am BB I am shoving any two here, and while he may not be quite that wide, he’d certainly shown a willingness to take advantage of good resteal spots before.
Then again, it sucks to gamble with the chiplead when three seats pay. But fishy as SB was, he was smart enough not to play a lot of big pots. It wasn’t as though I was going to sit back and watch the two of them automatically butt heads. I wouldn’t have called for all my chips, but since the worst case scenario is just that I have to hack it out, I went for it.
I did indeed manage to steal and then eventually double my way back into the chiplead, thanks to some godawful play from fishy:
Hero (BB) (t26068)
Button (t33182)
SB (t33750)
Hero’s M: 17.38
Preflop: Hero is BB with 10, A
Button bets t1600, 1 fold, Hero calls t800
Flop: (t3900) 10, 10
, 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t1600, Hero raises to t3200, Button calls t1600
Turn: (t10300) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets t5555, Button calls t5555
River: (t21410) 5 (2 players)
Hero bets t11111, Button raises to t22222, Hero calls t4502 (All-In)
Total pot: t52636
Results:
Button had 7, 5 (full house, fives over tens).
Hero had 10, A (full house, tens over fives).
Outcome: Hero won t52636
Obviously I played this in a pretty non-standard way. Basically he had zero hand-reading skill and didn’t like to fold. So I didn’t worry about what I was representing but just tried to lay him the price that I felt would make me the most overall. On the river, I was still putting him on something less than a monster and figured he would be far more inclined to call less than all in than to call all in. Shockingly, he did the work for me with a low full house. I was also assuming that he’d be crippled whether I got the maximum or not, but that proved not to be true:
Hero (Button) (t53636)
SB (t6214)
BB (t33150)
Hero’s M: 35.76
Preflop: Hero is Button with Q, A
Hero bets t1600, SB raises to t6114 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero calls t4514
Flop: (t13328) J, Q, K (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t13328) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t13328) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t13328
Results:
Hero had Q, A (one pair, Queens).
SB had K, 10 (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: SB won t13328
Hero (SB) (t48022)
BB (t13228)
Button (t31750)
Hero’s M: 32.01
Preflop: Hero is SB with A, J
Button bets t2200, Hero calls t1800, BB calls t1400
Flop: (t6900) A, 4, 2 (3 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, Button bets t3200, Hero calls t3200, BB calls t3200
Turn: (t16500) 8 (3 players)
Hero bets t2222, BB calls t2222, 1 fold
River: (t20944) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets t40300 (All-In), BB calls t5506 (All-In)
Total pot: t31956
Results:
Hero had A, J (two pair, Aces and eights).
BB had 10, 9 (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: BB won t31956
On the turn I’m hoping to get it in with the fishy short stack and get the big stack out from behind me. On the river, I’m pretty sure he hit the flush, but at this point I don’t think check-folding is an option, so value betting is best. Sucks, but what are you gonna do?
Finally, I had to take yet another coin flip against the good player:
Hero (SB) (t25662)
BB (t30274)
Button (t37064)
Hero’s M: 11.41
Preflop: Hero is SB with 9, 9
Button bets t3000, Hero raises to t25512 (All-In), 1 fold, Button calls t22512
Flop: (t52674) 10, 10, K (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: (t52674) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: (t52674) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Total pot: t52674
Results:
Button had K, A (two pair, Kings and tens).
Hero had 9, 9 (two pair, tens and nines).
Outcome: Button won t52674
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand I snatched a bubble from the jaws of victory. 🙁
"Hero (SB) (t48022)
BB (t13228)
Button (t31750)
Hero's M: 32.01
Preflop: Hero is SB with AdJd"
I think this is the hand where you messed up (your chance to lock down the win). BTN opens <3xBB 2200. You have a premium hand in SB with huge CL and BB only has 16.5xBB stack. Your satellite SnG objective at this point is to continue to squeeze/apply pressure to the mid-stack, force the SS BB out of hands to blind down, keep taking down relatively risk free pots uncontested and accumulating chips to your CL since you only need to place top two.
Think of the above hand and situation this way. No way BTN gambles with you covering him and the BB as a SS unless he picks up a premium hand AK AA KK QQ. So if you 3-bet to 6200 you force out BB and BTN might fold or call/fold to a cbet on flop. End result is either 51K 29.5K 12.5K stacks if no flop or 55K 25.5K 12.5K if you win on flop.
Instead you were gambling with too many big pot flips where your edge with mid-PP was either just a slight fav or crushed, when you had a big CL and only need to place top two. The other thing I dislike was your min-raise opening bet 3-handed; better to make it 3x since at least it prevents others making a play back at you and you don't question where the reshove is really a big hand or reacting to your min-raise.
Just my thoughts, whether correct or incorrect … Great Blog!
Get better at flipping! It will help your tourney game a LOT.
-bruechips
Steve,
Against a lot of players, I'd agree that's a good strategy. Believe it or not, though, I think BTN almost always calls my 3-bet and sometimes shoves. He wasn't opening that wide a range, in fact he often limped his button, and he was not about to fold any kind of hand to me given the extent to which he viewed me as a bully. He was just that kind of fish.
As for the min-raising, I'm very comfortable with that strategy. For one thing, regardless of my raise size, my raise frequency is going to give away the weakness of my range. Better to risk less when doing so, particularly since neither of these guys was adapting well to it. It's not intrinsically a problem to have people 3-betting you light, as long as you know what to do about it.
Thanks, I do appreciate your very thorough and well-thought-out comment!
As usual, though, sprit really hit the nail on the head in terms of what I need to do to improve. As it happens I busted yesterday's 650 on a coin flip JJ < KQ (guy made a pretty awful call in my opinion), though it wasn't all that near the bubble.