[cero_z]

This hand was the one featured in the "Online Hand to Hand Combat" column or whatever. It's by Roothlus, a tourney expert (supposedly), and it details him attacking the big stack's bubble steal with his own stack, which is the 2nd biggest. In his estimation, Villain had been so active with the big stack that his credibility in Roothlus's eyes was sorely lacking. Here's a synopsis of the hand and his thoughts.

$100 Rebuy event, on the bubble, Villain has big stack of 111K, Roothlus has 87K, he doesn't say but I'm guessing the avg stack is 40K-ish, since blinds are 1500-3000. Sound right?

Villain raises from CO to 7,777. 2 folds, Roothlus reraises to 24,000 with K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. Villain quickly calls.

Thoughts: "I made it 24K and not less to make sure he couldn't get great odds to call, and I could take it down pre-flop without risking too much. When he insta-calls, I know I'm behind. However, I thought that if he had a decent pair (77, 99), he would've at least pondered a call. Also, it's highly possible that he would've just pushed on me. Any pair higher (TT+), I'm 90% sure he would've pushed.

Flop (50,550): 5 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]3 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. Roothlus bets 21,000. Villain shoves for ~41K more, Roothlus insta-calls. Villain shows A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Thoughts: "I was initially planning on shoving my stack and praying he would fold. But after I managed to hit the flop hard, I decided to extract some value. I'm not really sure if he (Villain) thought he had FE or just wanted to gamble, but clearly, once this flop came out, there was no possibility of me folding. Also, 90% of the flops, I would've open-shoved."

OK. My thinking is that though this is being held up as an expert restealing from a player who's likely to be stealing himself (a valuable concept), it contains lots of muddled thinking, and should be titled, "Resteal gone horribly wrong."

Nowhere in the hand does he mention that if his opponent had an Ace (likely) or a 6 in his hand, he most likely would either have Roothlus crushed, or he'd have 2 overcards and a gutshot. His reasoning behind ruling out pocket pairs is specious, IMO; with stacks so shallow, I think Villain calling with a number of pairs makes sense for a variety of reasons. Obviously, if his opponent had a pocket pair pre-flop, he is destroyed here.

I'm not saying that he can get away once he has 45K (half his stack) in, but doesn't open-shoving make more sense here, given that he really doesn't want A-high to get all-in vs. him here with a 50K pot and only 60K left to bet? If he could've made A9 fold, that would've been excellent for him, and that seems likely; his opponent will still have a big stack if he folds AT, etc. to an open-shove, and his alternative is having 7-10 outs twice, getting ~3:1, which is somewhat EV+, but not as much as having an 80K stack on the bubble, I'd think.

Overall, I realize that when he flops top pair here, he has to get it in, but he treats this hand like a monster, when really, he ends up playing for all his chips as a slight favorite vs. the only other big stack, on the bubble. This hand and his thinking seem gross to me. What do you think?