How to stop talking oneself into calling ...

[moritzey]

Live Tournament, down to the final two tables (final table gets paid). Blinds 500-1,000. I'm in the BB with 4,900 + 1,000 chips. .

It's folded round to the button who pushes with 5,400 total (so calling would leave me 500). SB immediately folds.

A bit of background on the table: Quite loose since the blinds went up, average chips are around 6BB. The button pushed on the previous hand, too, when it was folded round to him. BB passed, he didn't show.

Basically I sat there for a good five minutes, not really giving him credit for much of a hand, especially at he had (1) only about 5 BB left (2) was the button (3) had pushed the previous hand, too .... and ended up calling. He had AQo and I failed to suck-out.

In retrospective, I think it was a pretty horrendous call from my part, looking at a coin-flip at best and being down to the felt it I lost. Folding this and the SB would have left me with 4,400 and a full round of opportunities to get my money in first / catch a hand and double up, &c. &c.

So two things: Please confirm that it was a horribly fishy call (1) and any advice on how I can stop talking myself into calling in situations like that (2). Any advice would be appreciated, just quite annoyed with myself, as I felt I had played very good poker until that point, being CL for a long time, had lost a good amount of chips a couple of rounds earlier on, but that was one of those situations where you can't do much (QQ v AK - all in preflop, A on the turn ..), and with about average chips I think I would have had a fair shot at making it at least into the money, with some cards maybe even quite deep into it ..

[moritzey]

OK, let me rephrase this to make it less of a 'I played badly, commiserations, please'-story and maybe slightly more valuable. Given the situation described above, what are your minimum hand-requirements to make the call? I keep hearing that voice in my head 'No, No, No, no coin-flips, coin-flips are bad, baaaaaad, no, no, no' (Imagine a spanish accent here, think that Umberto guy from the WSOP). Well, coin-flips at that point of the tournament are bad, right?

I mean, my reasoning for the call (besides thinking about it for too long and talking myself into it), was mainly that, would I win, I'd have some 13k, enough to start pushing around the rest of the table, surf into the money and aim at the top-spot. That said, though, coin-flipping in that situation is still stupid, as with those blinds a couple of well-timed pushes would have got me a decent enough stack, too ...

Anyway: Minimum-requirements to call in that situation? Anyone?

[Moskvich]

AJ+ 88+? Guess that would give you a decent enough chance of being significantly ahead. If you really thought he was at it, or you decided you really needed to gamble now, then maybe drop them to A9+ 66+ and KQ? Problem with K9 is that it's ahead of pretty much nothing, and significantly ahead of even less, so unless it was now or never i think I'd chuck it. But I'm no expert, and obviously don't know what you know from having played the tournament (other people's stacks, number of places from the bubble etc), hence the question marks.

[tantrum]

I fold, and try to push it within the  next round.


K9 - with your stack is not the hand to call IMO.  with stacks so small calling here is not an option unless you have a pair/big hand.  Push with any two, call with something decent is my motto.

[boldie]

I fold, and try to push it within the  next round.


K9 - with your stack is not the hand to call IMO.  with stacks so small calling here is not an option unless you have a pair/big hand.  Push with any two, call with something decent is my motto.

yeah I'd agree with this. I rteckon everyone made a mistake like this once upon a time (and probably an awfull lot when they just started.) Your calling hand requirements are quite a lot higher then your pushing hand requirements.. K9 is an awfull hand to call with. However if you find yourself on the button/SB you can definetly push with it if folded round to you.. you don't want callers when you have K9, therefore you definetly don't want to be the one doing the calling for all your chips.