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Two Situations in NL Tournament that Require Careful Consideration

These are a couple of hands that cost me a stack in two tournaments because they are, in fact, very good holdings in most situations. The purpose of this article is to recognize when they aren’t and where things went wrong.

1. We’re on the button early in a big online MTT with 6c4c. The blinds are 15/30 and there are two limpers — one is in early position and one is in mid-to-late. We decide to give this hand a go. The LB folds and BB checks. The pot is 135. The flop comes 8c 5c 2d. What a flop! It doesn’t get much better for 6c4c than that. We have a double-gut and a flush draw.

The BB leads out with a strong bet for 120 chips. The limper in early position folds, but the player in mid-late raises it another 150 (a bet of 270). The pot is now 525. What’s our move? Let’s stop for a moment to think about what our opponents’ bets mean. The BB got in for free so he could be sporting any two. 8 5 2 may well have given him top pair or even two pair. He could have a middle pair and decided it was a good idea to take a stab at the pot. That’s a pretty big bet; it looks like he’s trying to protect something. We’ll say there is at least a 60% chance he is holding at least pair here, a 10% chance he’s on a draw, and 30% he’s bluffing. That being the case, what could the raiser be holding? An overpair is a weak possibility because no sane person allows possibly 5 (cut-off, button, LB), other players get in the pot with them holding AA, KK, QQ or JJ. Though, we’ve all seen it happen, we’ll discount those hands. TT and 99 are reasonable, but that was a pretty weak raise and gives all kinds of hands odds to play. Top pair? The same logic can be employed for that holding too: A weak raise like that begs for a call. So what’s left? 67, a set, and the flush draw (a reraise is probably not a stone bluff). Those hands spell bad news for us. Even though we have 13 outs here how many of them are good? A limp with 67 is a hand that even loose players fold, and we have a 6! That deceases the number of ways 67 can be dealt. 67 seems like an unlikely holding, but probably deserves at least 15%. That means we’re probably up against a set or a flush draw with two overcards. It makes perfect sense for a flush draw with two overs to make a small reraise in hopes of buying a free card on the turn. If he was holding a set then a weak raise is still pretty risky because of the flush draw. It’s reasonable to say that the flush draw is a much more likely holding. So, 15% to 67, 50% he’s on the flush draw, 20% it’s a set, and 15% it’s some other bizarre hand.

What an awful situation with such a beautiful board. It looks like there are only two plays we can make: Reraise all-in or fold‘em up. A call is clearly wrong because we don’t have odds for our straight draw to see one card, which at this point appears to be the only hand we can make to win it, and the BB is still left to act behind us! He might just have a monster and decide to push it in after we call. At least with an all-in it looks like we have a strong holding that might scare away top pair and another flush draw. The clear play here is fold. It’s a tough lay down but it’s early in the tournament and we only have 30 chips invested in this pot. Time to cut and run.

What actually happened: I elected to go all-in with this one. My opponent called me with QcTc and neither of us improved. I lose to high card queen.

2. We have KdJd on the button early in an online turbo MTT. Usually, turbo tournaments attract stupid, but sometimes creative players that like to gamble. The blinds are 50/100 and there are 2 limpers — both in early position. We decide to call, too. The LB calls and the BB checks. The flop comes Ad Kh 5d. This is a hand that players can be over zealous with because of the pair of kings. The nut flush draw with a pair; what could go wrong? Not much if we make our flush, but that pair is almost worthless on this board.

Amazingly, it gets checked around to us! No betting with 4 players and an ace? Something is up here but we have a reasonably strong holding. Is it wise to bet? First we can start by counting our outs. 9 diamonds, 2 kings, and 3 jacks improve our hand. That’s 14 outs, but how many are good? Our diamond outs are definitely good at this point in the hand and we get to count all of those. The 2 kings and the 3 jacks are more than likely good about half the time, but something is going on here that’s a little suspicious. Two early position limpers with the blinds being 50/100 doesn’t warrant calls from weak hands like small suited connectors and small pairs. The blinds increase every 5 minutes and it’s just not worth 1/15 of your starting chips to possibly see a flop, especially when players are more aggressive and every pot is often raised. That means one of them probably has an ace and was looking to check-raise or raise someone on a later street. It seems idiotic with 2 suited cards on the board, but players don’t have much time to accumulate chips so anyone with AK right here might want to take the risk of letting everyone see a free card in hopes that someone with a weak holding attempts to bluff at the pot.

The question here is do we bet or not? We have a pretty strong holding with 11.5 outs on average. Our hand is not made yet, though. Just because we have pair of kings and it was checked to us doesn’t mean we should be so gun-ho. The consequences could be a stiff check-raise. Check for a free card is the play.

What actually happened: I elected to fire half pot here and I was promptly check-raised by the first limper and then the second limper reraised him! I was getting 2 to 1 on my money with 11.5 outs, but only due to my own mistake. I call and so does the player who initially check-raised (so 3 to 1 now). My opponents show AK and AJ (ouch). I don’t improve.

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