blonde poker forum

I witnessed a hand in an MTT and was wondering what people's view of the play is.  It's a fast structured six-handed tournament (sky open).  Average chipstacks have about 15bb.  UTG has 6-7bbs and pushes with  8s 9h.  He gets called by mid position player with  Qc Qd, but  8s 9h lucks out and hits a straight.   He acknowledges the bad luck of Mr Qc Qd in the chat box, cue a fair bit of stick from QQ and one or two other players for pushing with 89.

What do you think of the push in the circumstances?

Perfect play

Insta-push with any two decent cards in these crapshoots. Anyone who criticises the push is wrong imo.

Before this hand can be properly analysed, you need to take into consideration how far we are away from a paying position - and whether the first paying position is of any relevance, or whether we are solely playing for a top three finish. The UTG raisers image must be considered, and we could do with having an idea of the type of ranges that the table has been willing to call pushes with so far. Does the BB have a mountain of chips? How has he been playing? Is there antes at this stage of the tournament? Is it a turbo? Will we get four hands before the blinds increase (i.e. if we fold and have to let the blinds pass through us will we be pushing 5BBs in or will our FE have practically dissapeared due to an imminent blind increase)?

You are first into the pot; your raise is essentially 40% of an average stack. Unless you have been caught out a couple of times with trash hands you should automatically have decent FE when you push. The real problem is that your hand can never be ahead of any realistic calling range. So when you get called, you have to hope it is with 22 - 77 so that you are ont he bad side of a flip - and a lot of players calling ranges in such situations start from 88+ // AJ+

I think this is unprofitable the vast majority of the time. I would be happier to go through the blinds and open push ATC with my 5BB stack when it is next folded to me. Although further context as per the first paragraph may make it closer. But it looks like a fold.

Oops.

You put the range at 88+ AJ+, we are 28% against this range, that range is the top 6% of hands, we are playing 6 handed! Surely given your own reasoning this is an easy push.

Nice post btw.

I think it was the correct play in the circumstances.  It was me that made the push, but the ribbing afterwards (which went on for some time), made me question it a bit, especially since QQ guy seemed like a solid player, and I'll always take on board any criticism of my play and try to learn from it.

Lloyd, as I recall there were 150+ runners left, and only top 50 or so paid.  The game runs 7 minute blinds, but I think there probably was just enough time to pass through the SB and BB before the blinds went up.   The argument from the players criticising the play was that they did not think I was not under threat from the blinds, which I guess I wasn't imminently.

My own view (which may not be shared) with tournaments of this type (which very quickly turn into crapshoots if you're average stacked) is that you've got to get busy pretty much from the start, and can only sit back and relax a bit when you've worked up a hefty stack, before getting busy again in the later stages.

Hmmm looks close to me but i think in an mtt like this it is probably a push, as the payout structure in mtt's skews the value of having lots of chips and using that stack as a weapon over the rest of the field.

Btw this is a -ev push in a sng in the same situation, against any normal calling ranges of our opponents.

its a + EV push, you include getting lucky in that EV.

Yeah it's pretty much always a shove. Agree that you should take the stack of the BB into account though, it's nice to pick on people who can't afford to call rather than someone who will call with Q2 for a laugh.

:D

Oh well - we are miles from getting paid and with 7 min blinds then yeah, it becomes a clear push. Ah well. Play better structures!!

push for me every time.

Or just learn when pushing 98 is hugely profitable!

There are many ways to skin a cat.

Yep - I quite like these structures, which is why I play them.  I am at a huge disadvantage when 'proper' poker play is required :D

good push..would also have been a good push with 27 off

yeah but not from players you have just sucked out on  ;D

The guy you've just knocked out is not likely to be the most impartial person on the subject

Always ignore what people at the table are saying about your "bad" play.

If it was a genuine mistake then why are they trying to educate you into playing better? Surely they want you to keep making mistakes whilst you are at their table.

Far better to come onto a forum like this and get a few opinions from people who have no vested interest in the outcome of the hand in question.

My two cents is that you made the right move. No doubt about it