UTG and I have been together for a few orbits now. This is the third time he’s raised from this position, and he once showed down A8s (for the nut flush vs. my second nut flush, which amazingly didn’t cost me my stack), so I’m assuming his range is relatively wide for UTG. The other two Villains in the hand are both new to the table and so have not had the chance to make this same observation:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 320 Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 150 Ante (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
SB (t61814)
Hero (BB) (t113459)
UTG (t86336)
UTG+1 (t34997)
MP1 (t16550)
MP2 (t13948)
MP3 (t108224)
CO (t52089)
Button (t10069)
Hero’s M: 36.02
Preflop: Hero is BB with J
, 4
UTG bets t2788, 3 folds, MP3 calls t2788, CO calls t2788, 2 folds, Hero raises to t11111, 2 folds, CO calls t8323
Flop: (t29748) 7
, 2, A
(2 players)
Hero bets t12345, 1 fold
Total pot: t29748
Results:
Hero didn’t show J, 4.
Outcome: Hero won t29748
MP3 in particular is a very smart guy and good tournament player (Siola from Poker Savvy Plus, in fact), and I believe he will have to give me credit for 3-betting an UTG raiser, not realizing that this guy’s range is wider than the average UTG range of an unknown in a WCOOP event. As for CO, he may not have been thinking quite so deeply, but that’s OK. He probably shoves any Ax he wants to play pre-flop. 🙂
Very nice.
Probably also to your advantage is that better players won’t be as suspicious of a squeeze when there’s a cold overcaller in the pot.
I actually think that makes a squeeze much more likely. He’s by far the least likely of the three to have a big hand, so his entrance into the pot just offers me much better odds on a parlay that neither of the first two has a premium.
I’m all for situational plays but this just seems spewy to me.
Why pick one of the worst hands in your range to do this with, especially vs MTTers who kinda suck at hand reading anyways (siola aside).
I do agree that stacksizes make it sort-of awkward for players to continue (making this good), but this seems like a maybe +cEV spot that can go so horribly -EV so fast.
by suck at handreading i mean don’t fold to 3-bets w/ hands they maybe ‘should’ and you end up getting called and taking flops more often than not.
God knows I’m susceptible to the spazz out. That said, I think this is one of those tournament situations where you can’t necessarily wait for the best hand. I believe it’s going to be profitable with any two, and it’s not going to come up often enough for anyone to realize my range is that wide and adapt. I felt like I needed to get while the getting was good enough, even if not ideal. I probably should have sized my raise a bit larger to discourage the odd call, but otherwise I’m happy with this.
Cool fair enough – makes sense.