$12FTP Daily Double, Bubble (Toil? Trouble?)

[Harv72b]

Not much of a tournament nor a NL player, but I like to branch out from my usual (LHE) game. One of the things I've really been working on is upping my aggression level around the bubble--I'm getting sick of my usual pattern of making the third hour (if at all) with a short- or below-average stack. So anyway, it felt like I was raising a lot of hands in the last couple orbits, but I'm not sure if I really was or if it was just because I was stealing more aggressively. Nor if any of my opponents noticed.

No real read on BB. PAHUD decided not to work for this one, and I don't have much of a tournament database anyway. I haven't seen him do anything extraordinary in 3-4 orbits at this table, and for the most part he's just folded preflop or stolen the blinds himself. Not a lot of flops happening on the table in general.

My questions here are two:

1) Easy preflop steal, correct? I'm (once again) hovering right around an average chip stack, bubble bursts after about 5 more bustouts, and the first payout is only around $15. Is a standard raise correct here, or should I be raising more? Less?

2) What to do on the flop? I obviously can't call the bet, leaving only ~4k behind, and I'm really unsure about how many outs I have (assuming I'm holding the worst hand). If I push he's pot committed, if I fold I feel unclean.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t300/t600
(Ante: t75)
9 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t5797
UTG+1: t6937
MP1: t5838
MP2: t1425
MP3: t11910
Hero: t10705
Button: t4373
SB: t14220
BB: t14733

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is CO with A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 7[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]
5 folds, <font color="#cc0000">Hero raises to t1800</font>, 2 folds, BB calls t1200 <font color="aaaaaa">(pot was t3375)</font>.

Flop: (t4575) 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] (2 players)
<font color="#cc0000">BB bets t4575</font>, Hero...?

[TheFoxNL]

hmm his pot size bet indicates a low flush to me
but would he call with 56- PF ?? i dont think he would
if youre behind you will need a 6 or a J of clubs
wich is only 2 cards (if he doesnt have a J already)
means youre odds of hitting are very very low
i would just fold on the flop here
PF raise is just fine imo altho you might wanna change it up a bit between 2.5x BB and 4.5xBB

[Harv72b]

Okay, so folding is that obvious?

[registrar]

Well I dunno but he's telling you he's not about to fold so is pushing/calling +EV against his range?

[kurtkatt]

i don´t think this is a made flush very often. i´d say anything good that has no good club or the flushdraw. like a scared slowplayed overpair or set or flushdraw where villain realise he cannot let you bet cause you will be commited afterwards.

for folding or calling, damned if i knew...

[RichC.]

well, you cant call here, very bad. you either push or fold. i probably push this, OESFD, hard to lay down for me anyway. You will also be surprised at how often someone will fold here to a push, not saying this guy will, but a % of players fold this all the time. they put 50% of their stack in and then fold. back to the hand, his PSB, hell if know what it means, but in a $12 game, its not the flush, set maybe, top pair likely, AcX, meh.

As much as i dont want to, i fold here and pick a better spot.

[registrar]

I'm not convinced calling is worse than pushing at this level. Anything less than a made flush is going to be scared shitless by a flat call here and there is a non-zero % of times that hands we are behind call pushes on the flop but can find a fold on later streets in a $12 buyin. I don't know about FTP specifically.

He's surely never folding to a flop push now?

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
Well I dunno but he's telling you he's not about to fold so is pushing/calling +EV against his range?

[/ QUOTE ]

I gave this a bit of thought tonight, and keeping in mind that I don't know him nearly well enough to assign him a very solid range, what I would expect him to flat call with preflop would be some suited connectors, two broadway, maybe a small or mid pocket pair. Okay, maybe a small suited ace as well. Basically, stuff that would like to see a flop but don't really want to commit themselves preflop. Sound about right for an unknown?

So with that &amp; his flop bet in mind, I have come to the conclusion that this should be a pretty simple fold for me. An underpair is probably not going to make a move at this stage in the tourney &amp; most of his other hands either hit this flop or would check/fold it...and his flop bet clearly pot commits him since I don't even have a full raise left behind. I dunno...maybe if I flat call the flop &amp; a real scare card hits on the turn he finds a fold there, but if I call the flop bet then again, I pretty much pot commit myself.