two hands from today's $1500 NLH at WSOP

[betgo]

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True...but in a sense folding is the perfect play...and that will work every time.

[/ QUOTE ] Yeah, I won the 1999 WSOP by folding for three straight days. It's harder to do that now, however, with the fields as big as they are. But if you just jam with AA and KK, and fold everything else, you'll usually make the final table.

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I don't think he meant fold every hand, but don't play every hand either. If someone recommended going allin on a hand, would you make a sarcastic replay about going allin every hand.

In this case, the prefect play and the only play is folding. Any other play is ridiculous.

[SmileyEH]

I think I would just stick it in with hand 1. Those saying opponents will never call with a worse hand are insane, I highly doubt any T would fold here, and if someone does have a draw then shutting them out is a huge coup. If you check and end up folding you are left with 1200 chips which is a horribly awkward stack. But if you just take it down suddenly you have over 20BB which will allow you to exploit a lot more +EV stealing situations later on.

edit: Just looking at the hand combinations if the other players are in anyway solid they will rarely have a K here because given nath's stack size AK is ALWAYS reraising. Maybe KQ came along but 2 Q's are already dead. I'd just feel sick if I checked the flop only to see it check around.

-SmileyEH

[dmk]

SmileyEH,

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I think I would just stick it in with hand 1. Those saying opponents will never call with a worse hand are insane, I highly doubt any T would fold here, and if someone does have a draw then shutting them out is a huge coup. If you check and end up folding you are left with 1200 chips which is a horribly awkward stack. But if you just take it down suddenly you have over 20BB which will allow you to exploit a lot more +EV stealing situations later on.

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Surely, if you believe you have the best hand, check/pushing is far superior to open-pushing. Also, you are overestimating what type of hands will be calling an open-push. IMO, a typical player is definitely folding a T here.

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edit: Just looking at the hand combinations if the other players are in anyway solid they will rarely have a K here because given nath's stack size AK is ALWAYS reraising. Maybe KQ came along but 2 Q's are already dead. I'd just feel sick if I checked the flop only to see it check around.

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Why would you feel sick if the flop checked through? You act like it would be so incredibly difficult to play the turn. I personally would prefer the flop checking through to anything else.

Check/re-evaluate based on the flop action and/or turn card is definitely the best play here.

Also, hand 2 I'd fold.

[deankeaton7]

hand 2: I dont think a push is profitable here, pushing into that many people, offering 2-1.

[j_allstar]

allenciox-
you forgot to note that, while the range of the two callers may not include AA-JJ and AK, the original raisers range can easily have those. Also, i call with many of those hands (if i am the first caller obv.) depending on how the original raiser is playing. Under this line of thought, i think the second caller HAS to raise AK, AA-JJ here, but could also have suited connectors and any pp in thier range.

[Werty83]

On the first hand, what hands involving a K are we afraid he would have? KQ is the only hand that I can imagine cold calling in position there, and you have two of the Qs. KJ maybe, but that'd be an awful call. and then pocket pairs. AK has to reraise that all in with stack-sizes as they are and the MP caller sititng there? I check push and hope that the button raiser didn't have a set.

[MEJG2]

1st hand... Blinds are 50/100, Nath has 1500 b4 betting 275 and the other 2 in the hand have him covered. So both players have an M better than 10...

Why do we think no one could have AK here? If M/LP or the button has AK, and they RR they are pot committed for sure with a UTG+1 whose range most likely has them flipping a coin. I don't see why flat calling with AK would be a bad move for them here. If they did, they just hit a very good flop.

I think dismissing AK here is a bad move. Am I missing something here?

[SmileyEH]

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Surely, if you believe you have the best hand, check/pushing is far superior to open-pushing. Also, you are overestimating what type of hands will be calling an open-push. IMO, a typical player is definitely folding a T here.

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Check-pushing assumes someone is likely to bet. You say a typical player will fold a T, but will also bet it. I think that is completely contradictory. I can't imagine a situation where I would fold this hand on the flop, and extracting value isn't really a concern - hand protection is.

-SmileyEH

[dmk]

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Surely, if you believe you have the best hand, check/pushing is far superior to open-pushing. Also, you are overestimating what type of hands will be calling an open-push. IMO, a typical player is definitely folding a T here.

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Check-pushing assumes someone is likely to bet. You say a typical player will fold a T, but will also bet it. I think that is completely contradictory. I can't imagine a situation where I would fold this hand on the flop, and extracting value isn't really a concern - hand protection is.

-SmileyEH

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How can you say that someone betting a T contradicts the fact that the same person would fold a T if bet into? It makes perfect sense.

Also, if you're open-pushing here, you only get called against a super-draw at best. There is not a single hand that is better than you that will fold and no hands that are worse than yours that will call. Induce a bluff if you're that tied to the hand.

I'm not saying that you should just blindly check/push. I'm saying its way preferable to open-pushing. I'm all for checking/evaluating.

edit: Also, you're so sure you're ahead, but you say hand-protection is essential. What exactly are you afraid of on the turn?

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Check-pushing assumes someone is likely to bet. You say a typical player will fold a T, but will also bet it. I think that is completely contradictory.

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Actually, you just defined the Gap Concept.