blonde poker forum

Two tournaments
Two exits on A10s


First, my standard £10 Rileys. 21 runners, 5,000 chips each. - I'm SB - blinds are 400/800 and have just over 6,000 chips. 11 players left, 6 on my table

Folds round to me BB has about 14,000. He came to the table as an unknown in the second level with about 3.5xAvge stack and proceeded to donk them off calling with gutshot draws and weak flushes. He was down to 3,000ish when the blinds went up and shoved blind from UTG - he got a lot of action and found a 9 to match two others on the board.

I have A10s - shove?



Second £10 FO, 1st prize is a seat at the Irish Open Qualifier. 15 runners, 2,000 chips.
Again about 11 players and I am back to my starting stack havng played virtually no poker. I did have AJs once, but otherwise my hands have been in the 72/73/85 area
Blinds 150/300

I pick up A10s UTG and call for 300 chips.
Fold/fold
Button raises to 675 (he's done a lot of this - at 75/150 he raised to 475 and then folded to the SBs shove for 750 and showed 67s. (Bad fold imo, he was being asked to put in an extra 275 for a pot of c 2,000)
However

It's folded to me

action?

Open shove both. Your M is too small for you to consider any other action here.

shove the first.

dont limp the 2nd for 300 of a 2k stack.  just open shove tht too.

always makes me laugh when someone says Rileys

june, u were poised to become TD @ a rileys once.

ul you didnt get the part m8.

needed a bar licence WTF. Thats why it makes me laugh ldo. For hand 1 pass and play a few frames, and have a cheap burger and chips.

Hand 1 is an unexploitable shove.

If you were to push and then turn your cards face up so BB knows exactly what you have, the shove would still make you money.


Hand 2, not sure I like the limp? Why not open shove?

If it's coz of the payout structure and you want to gamble on a double up, so are limping to get action then fair enough.
Because you're questioning what to do when said action arrives tho... I'm guessing that wasn't the plan. As played, shove.


Both these hands are super obvious, that you question them makes me think you're probably missing a lot of spots and not even noticing.

I guess I'm questioning them to be told this.

I shoved the first and got called by 22 - didn't hit - results orientated query

The second, I was expecting the raise and had decided to rrai if it came. He insta-called and his KK was good enough. Again, results orientated query.

I need to review two things I think

1 - my choice of tournaments

2 - when to make raises and what with. I'm not accumulating chips during the early levels in the way that I know I should. My tournament play has suffered as my online (micro) cash game has improved.

you're overanalyising. I've simplified your op by removing all the irrelevant bits


open shove both

Thanks

I ran into a call from BB with 22 in the first one - and didn't hit

and KK on the second - again, didn't hit

sigh...

just to elaborate on my earlier reply which I did quickly before going out; there are times when you have ATs when you want to be thinking about history with oppos, reads etc. however when you have an unopened pot with <10BB and are in LP or EP short handed any history or reads are irrelevant, just jam

I've simplified your simplification


Yes

but you've made it look like I'm asking the question, I feel like you've simplified me

you started it!

[ ] I am unappreciative of sound advice

• I learn slow
• I am determined to learn

sigh, let's start at the beginning then

internetz 101, checkboxes

capital X FTW
small x=fail

[X] I stand corrected

so what does no x mean?

the opposite of x

You strike me as a tight player cos you are short and struggling in both examples and say you're not playing much poker either. The overall problem is that your range is getting so tight you are even wondering about A-10. when you should be wondering about how desperate your tournament situation is becoming. Hesitation does not produce good poker imo. First example is it a shove?? You're damn skippy it's a shove. Shove because the guy is donking his chips off and might call with a worse hand e.g. A-9. That's the sort of gamble you really want & really need to take on right now to get you back up to a much nicer 12k. If he's a bully you can flat his blind and snap his hand off when he raises with his worse hand if you like. Again, you must really want to get these chips in vs a spewy opponent so you can make a run for the tape in this tournament. If he folds then ok, we've just increased our stack by 20% risk free. If he calls with 2-2 then let's go, a flip is a decent result considering you made the guy call half his stack to get it.

Second example. Agree with most that calling is just plain wrong. Pushing is ok. However consider this. Rather than letting someone else raise to 675, raise to 675 yourself. Very tight player, who hasn't played much at all, raises a small 675 from 2k UTG. Do you know how strong you will look? Very very strong my friend. Now you are no longer the limper getting picked on you are the aggressor making yourself look bigger than you are. Hands that call a push like A-J may fold now. If you do get called already be planning how you're going to hollywood push as the flop comes down...cos it's too late in the day to worry about the cards. And anyway you have A-A right? Then just push those chips in. If your oppo misses he folds. Using your chips in this seemingly crazy way will freshen up your tightness and show you how unimportant cards are sometimes. Especially when you're this short anyhow. While A-10 isn't the nuts unfortunately you don't have time to wait for the nuts to arrive.

arrrghhh just when I was getting used to the idea that with this stack the only moves were shove/fold ......

btw - it's now the last FOUR tourneys that have seen me exit with A10

The answer is to play super loose aggressive, A10 will then be so far ahead of your opponents range for playing back at you that this type of problem will become much more manageable. When the situation does come up you'll be playing for a fraction of your stack they'll be playing for all of theirs, it's what good tournament poker is all about.   

anything bar an open shove on both is criminal

Yep, this is pretty much correct and everyone knows it. And that is why raising to 625 looks so amazingly strong. If all-in is the ONLY move available with this stack then what sort of range wouldn't move all-in from UTG? People know you ain't folding and people know you want them to play back at you. So you represent a monster, and they act accordingly. But if you push people can't come to those conclusions anymore and your range suddenly widens to atc, and they act accordingly.

This of course works the other way around.

I'll often shove with AA etc when i'm short stacked because it looks weaker. Always great fun when you get called by someone and you see the look of suprise "i can't believe you went all in with that rather than raise!"

We have AT so surely the idea is to get a wide range calling?

sigh..you want people with marginal hands in...you are looking at someone with AJ folding in a tenner tourney in Rileys..never gonna happen. They shove when you raise to 675 and they call when you move in. You want to focus on getting people that are behind in to the pot with you..not scare off the 1 marginal hand that someone might have. Showing "strength" here by raising to 675 and scaring of marginal hands is soo bad it's unreal.

Boys, the blinds are 75/150 and the guy who hasn't played a hand in time shoves for 2k. What exactly about that scenario gets you thinking A-9 or worse is going to be fist-pump jamming here?? That just isn't going to happen. We know atc is a reasonable shove but that worse hand still has to call 2k with other players to act behind. So imo worse hands won't give you business if you shove.

What you may find though is a worse hand calls the 675 just to see a flop (cos they're bad Riley's players) then muck when you shove and they miss. You may also find better hands like small/medium pairs or A-J just call cos they're wary of your strength, when they would have called your 2k jam,...and then release those better hands when you hollywood shove. So doing things this way could get you a double up without even having to show a hand. This is just a classic stop n go type move no? Alternatively you can just shove and hope worse calls 13bbs, but that isn't a strat that's a ridic good alternative in comparison. Raising to 675 isn't about everyone folding pre, it's about setting up the fold if they do give you action. That's something that isn't possible if you shove. First Grrrrs now sighs, it's hard being a poker strat phenom imo.