Two Very Questionable Decisions from Deep in Sunday Million ($530)

[NoahSD]

You should know that hand 2 is really bad. It's not like he does this with AJ/AQ.

I don't like hand 1 either. Guys who call shoves when they shouldn't with small PPs aren't guys to fold QQ to here.

[betgo]

I push both hands preflop.

As played, raise allin on the flop in hand 2.

You are playing a typical weak/tight late tournament game.

I shove both hands here and don't really question myself much after doing so.

[Eagles]

[ QUOTE ]
I shove both hands here and don't really question myself much after doing so.

[/ QUOTE ]

[1st and 15]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like hand 1 either. Guys who call shoves when they shouldn't with small PPs aren't guys to fold QQ to here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is a good point re: hand 1. Hand 2 = easy shove.

[Valsuvious]

yeah, I think that you pretty much know that you should have shoved them both, after hearing what you said last night during and after it. I was watching the table for a few hours and I agree, I think it was an easy shove, especially when you got down to the point of being a very short stack for a long time.

That same guy also sucked out.. I think it was at the final table, when his KJ>KK.

[canada_dry]

Op,

You described the original raiser in Hand 1 (QQ) as a donk who recklessly endangers his stack. But what evidence do you have that makes you CONVINCED that raiser #2 has AA or KK? Could he not have seen what you saw, and so he his raising donk with a hand like 99, or AK, or AQ? Plus, if you did push, and donk called, then raiser #2 might be hard pressed to OVERCALL, and may lay down his AK (although I forget what his stack size is). In the end, your QQ may be headsup with 55 again, a sweet spot to be in.

Hand #2. I can understand just calling. You want to make sure you hit, or at least find a reasonable board. Plus you have position...Personally I hate seeing flops unless i have a GIANT stack. 500K is average, so investing 100K is speculative, given what you know about donk and his stack size. I don't fault you for it, though I personally shove and take my chances.

You gotta be willing to die, in order to live...

[DonT77]

Jam and Jam.

Hand 1- it sounds like you have a decent chance of getting called by a worse hand.

Hand 2- With <20BBs, I think you gotta jam AK over a single raiser.

[LearnedfromTV]

canada dry - you have the raisers reversed in hand 1.

All - re the QQ hand - it doesn't matter that he would call a shove with 77, the point is that he never has 77. His reraising range is a much different issue than his loose calling range. This isn't exactly "raise from loose passive guy who calls too much but never raises" but it's something like that. He had cold called enough instead of reraising and his overall game was such that my sixth sense went woah in a way it wouldn't have if WestMenlo or GB had reraised. Here's what went through my mind... "I have QQ, sweet!... tight guy with 500k raises, hmm, what to do...; woah, reraise!... woah woah woah, THAT guy reraised?" The fold might still be wrong, I'm just refocusing on the issue. Let's say it's {AA-JJ, AK}, and he's calling with all of them, with a non-zero chance the other guy has KK+. What then?

betgo - congratulations on saying what everyone else said and still getting two out of three things wrong:

[ QUOTE ]
I push both hands preflop. fine

As played, raise allin on the flop in hand 2.

You are playing a typical weak/tight late tournament game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shoving this flop with AK against a guy who most likely has a pocket pair, calls loose and will be getting better than 2-1, and covers me when I'm a medium stack, is really horrible, like kamikaze horrible. It's akin to restealing allin from the same guy with J9o. Having not shoved preflop, this is the easiest fold ever.

"Typical weak-tight etc" - seriously, think a little before you make your vague generalizations; it's one of the reasons your posts are (much) worse than pokerdb and that other ranking thing you kept making threads about says your game is. I've played a ton of lategame tournament hands, I'm not weak-tight, and there was nothing typical about these decisions. I would have shoved AK against like 97% of opponents (in fact, I couldn't believe that I even considered not shoving, then once I had, as I was calling I was thinking wow, this is really strange). QQ I shove against probably 75% of raisers in these positions. There is nothing typical about the fact that I didn't this time. That's why I posted the hands.

All - I still haven't run the math I wanted to on the AK, and I'll probably conclude I still should have shoved. That said, while "seeing all five cards/getting paid in full by hands that don't go broke on A-high flops" (i.e. the main reasons pushing AK is fairly standard) given the conditions outlined (he often has a pocket pair, he's willing to gamble, and worse hands will still often put money in postflop when I flop good), there has to be a stack size, probably north of 500k, maybe more like 600-700k, where flat calling > reraising. Sure, it's standard to want to "see all five cards", but AK's equity still changes a great deal on the flop. On the other hand, the one advantage doing this with the 500k stack vs 650k has is that, assuming he cbets the A/K high flop, even if he gets away (usually only from A-high flops I think), a much larger percentage of stack gets in when I hit.

[DonT77]

How many hands do you have against villain? Unless it is >200 I don't think you can necessarily assume that his RRing range and jam-calling range are as different as you seem to be implying. That's a pretty tough read to make over just a few orbits of observation IMO.

Also, in Hand 2 - I think you'll find that generally with <~24BBs it is better to jam AK over a 3x raise, and with >~24BBs it is better to call and evaluate. Seems I've done the EV calcs on this before, but obv it is situation / read dependent. (I think I read this in Barry G's book too, but I can't recall for sure.)