Thoughts on failed bluff - live MTT

[mutiger91]

I don't think I played this terribly, but for $300 investment, I'd like to learn something from it if there is something to be learned. Thoughts?

Situation:
$300 buy-in live tournament 5K starting stacks, 40 min blinds. Blinds just went up to 200/400 50 ante in time for my BB.

My stack: ~4400 chips
Villain: Couldn't see well enough to get a good count and didn't want to get caught staring, but I think about 3K more than me.

Reads:
I was just moved to this table about 15 min earlier. Villain has seen me play 2 hands. In one I raised preflop and pushed all-in on a ragged flop heads-up. On the other I raised to 700 and a short stack pushed all-in for 2100. I showed AQ in a losing race that put left me a little low on chips.

Villain only played one hand in which he limped preflop in a multi-way pot and folded to a flop bet. Villain seems to be watching the action closely, so I give him credit for being a decent player.


Preflop:
Villain in late MP calls. Folds to me and I check my J [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]9 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

Flop
Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Q [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

I check. Villain bets 500 into a pot of ~700
I sometimes get these feelings where I can't explain why I think someone is weak, but I'm pretty sure they are. I missed the flop completely, but that blind is 10% of my stack and I'm not going to give it away. A raise here probably takes it down, but I want to risk a little less money and get a better read, so I call.

Now I KNOW he missed. His reaction didn't last long before the poker face came back up, but it was a classic "oh sh*t" look.

Turn:
A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

I decided to represent the Q after watching the other player on my call. I really didn't want to see the A, but he really didn't like my call and is still likely to believe the Q. If I had the Q here, I would bet out simply because I wouldn't want him to check behind me with two spades on the board so I lead into him for 1500.

He goes into the tank and calls after about 2 min. I was watching him carefully to make sure the pause wasn't drama from a made hand. He wasn't wearing shades, so I could see his eyes when he replayed the action in his head. He was having a genuinely difficult decision.

He calls. At this point I have him on a medium / weak A (AJ - maybe A9). He didn't raise preflop, didn't have a Q and didn't fold to a bet with an A on the board.

River:
2 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

I was thinking I might have to give up after his last call, but this card is just too tempting. If he called because he put me on a semi-bluff, he has one more thing to scare him. He clearly wasn't drawing with the pot-sized bet. He also wasn't playing 22, so the possibility of me having a Q was still scary. Also, I'm down to about 2000 chips, so a double-barrel is my best shot at tournament survival.

Again he went into the tank and started talking out all the hands that beat him. (I was liking the way he was thinking.) In the end he made a crying call that ended up with him laughing all the way to the bank.

Post mortem:

1) I guess the first question would be whether I should have gotten involved at all. My read was good and if he doesn't catch the A on the turn, the pot is mine, so getting involved probably wasn't a bad idea.

2) Should I have raised the flop? Maybe. If I do I'm probably representing a PP or a 5 more so than the Q, because I wouldn't want to kill the action with a raise here. I held back on the raise to get another chance for a read to confirm before letting chips fly with only air. A flop bet or raise takes this down, but both seem more dangerous in the long run if not this instance.

3) Donkbet on the turn? I guess I could have C-R all-in here instead. If I check, he likely checks behind here and a river bluff seems a bit more dangerous, because I haven't shown much strength.

4) Turn bet size: I know I screwed this up. 1000 would have been almost 2/3 of the pot and it would have left me 2500 for a river bet if I needed it. I don't know if an extra 500 on the end would have made a difference, but I would think he was enough on the edge that it could.

5) River bluff: To me the two-barrel here seems like a no-brainer. His call on the turn says he has an A. If I fire again, he has a lot to worry about. If I fold I can double-up and still be short-stacked. If he folds, he's short-stacked, but not really much worse than he already was.

Did I miss anything? Usually when I'm short-stacked, I'm looking for value and a chance to push. This time I saw value in a bluffing situation and it didn't work out. Is there any reason I shouldn't be bluffing in this situation when I have a good read?