Reasonable play? (NLTRN)

mutiger91 · #1 03-07-2007, 02:41 PM

I was recently in a 70-person $300 MTT. The big stack crushed the final table killing everyone except one guy I took out. When we got HU, I had ~14 buy-ins in front of me and he had the other 56. Even before we got heads up, this dude was hammering the blinds and reraising all-in anyone who raised. (There was a $1100 difference between 2nd and 3rd, so this was a very sound strategy.)

Blinds were 2000/4000 w/ Ante of 400. My 14 buy-ins = ~70K chips. (I always find it easier to do the math in terms of number of initial chip stacks I have) I had to fold my first 2 heads-up hands, because they were worthless 63o, 82o, but on the 3rd hand I got 89s. I figured my only chance to slow this guy down was to double-up and I didn't want to pay too many more blinds, so I picked the 89s to make a stand. He ended up w/ J8 and we both hit 2-pair so I lost. 1st paid $1600 more than 2nd, so it wasn't a trivial thing to bust, but I thought I had to make a stand.

- Was I too impatient? Should I have waited for an A or K?
- How else can you deal with a guy who has a 4:1 lead and wants to force a race?

OneTwoThreeROBOT · #2 03-07-2007, 03:04 PM

You're right about the big stack doing a solid strategy. It's basically impossible to counter unless you pick up a good hand. With nearly 20x the BB, you're in no rush to get all in with a hand like 89s.

That being said, his strategy is reckless because your stack is so large. If you have SNG PT, I highly recommend you use the Unexploitable HU play section of the tutorial. It will teach you which hands you should take a stand with.

While suited connectors make good pushing hands, they're not good calling hands,

mutiger91 · #3 03-07-2007, 03:32 PM

To clarify, I pushed all-in w/the 89s. However, I was pretty sure he would call with 90% of possible hands, so I might as well have been calling.

Something villain said afterwards makes me think he miscounted my chipstack or did the math wrong. He thought I needed to double-up 3 times to take the lead. Actually 2 double-ups would do it and 3 would win the whole thing. I've only got a 12% chance of surviving 3 coin flips and by his thinking that just gave me the lead, so he probably didn't mind flipping. (Plus he was running perfect in races at the FT.)

I do need to work on HU. However, the FTs I've been at, I usually have a big stack or bust before HU. I've only won 2 MTTs and both times my opponents were left with only a couple BB by the time it got to 3-way action.

OneTwoThreeROBOT · #4 03-07-2007, 03:37 PM

If you're confident you can get him all in with 90% of his holdings, then wait for a pair, an ace, a king, or a good queen so you know you're a solid favorite.

ChicagoRy · #5 03-07-2007, 04:30 PM

It would probably also pay to play some Heads Up SNG turbos, I think that would most duplicate the end of an online MTT. Also, when one of your stacks is under 10bb... you can look at this to give yourself an advantage: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/15250

mutiger91 · #6 03-07-2007, 05:54 PM

Thanks. Never saw that before. I wasn't down to 10 BB, so I guess I had some time. I got a little wrapped up in stack ratio and figured I was going to have to get lucky to win no matter what and I might as well race sooner than later, but I wasn't getting the appropriate value out of that race.