[MARYLAND LIVE] PokerStars $300 QuadStacks Bounty: Did I play this right?
We got back from the second break only a few hands ago. We have around 35 players left and the top 20 get paid.
I have 123k in my stack, a shade above average, with blinds at $2k/4k/4k. The bounty is for $50.
My stack seems low for my table though; I think I cover only two players.
I think that I am perceived more TAG than LAG given how I have played, though I consider myself LAGgy, sometimes to a fault.
Two limpers and I wake up to Queens on the button. I raise to 30k.
The small blind thinks for a long time before calling, the big blind and one limper fold, the other limper who has a lot of chips thinks for a while before making the call.
With position and about 102k in the pot and 93k behind, I decide that if checked to me in flow I will ship any flops that look safe.
Flop comes 8d 7d 2c which seems safe enough... Both players check and I follow through, shoving my remaining stack.
Questions:
Does the bounty aspect change how I should play this hand?
Was my raise the right size given the blinds and my stack size?
I probably didn't want it to be less but should I have bet more?
Is a preflop shove overplaying my hand here?
As played, was my post-flop shove the right move?
My option to check behind seems terrible, but maybe a bet of 35k to set up a turn jam?
8 Replies
7.5x preflop is really unnecessarily huge. After two limpers, 4-4.5x is probably enough.
Do you have the Qd? That may affect how fast you'd play on this flop (particularly if you raised smaller preflop). However with less than pot on the flop I don't mind just shoving, hoping to get called by a one pair hand. There really isn't any plan you should have to get away from this as played.
Raise size is huge, but you got 2 callers, so maybe OK for how the table was playing. Making it 4xBB would probably have been bad in practice.
Could shove flop or bet like 30% pot / gii on flop or turn. Not folding ever. Shove might be best, as there are a lot of possible draws and bad turn cards. You could be shoving as a semibluff with a flush draw or AK. If you somehow busted, it happens. Did someone hit a set or make a flush or straight? Nothing you can do about that.
The bounty aspect affects play of the hand based on what the starting stack was. My guess is that it doesn't affect things much if at all here because the bounty itself is only 17% of the buy in. So in theory we are adding 17% of the starting stack to the pot size.
With 2 limpers in position I would raise here to 5x given our stack size. A pre-flop shove is way overplaying the hand. You will get called by hands like AK/AA/KK and much less by JJ/TT. But if somebody has AK/KK/AK they will be 3-betting and its a toughish spot anyway. But when you don't shove at least some of the time people with pairs like 66-JJ will call. Its just that given your stack size and the 7x raise size, hands like 66/77 and even 88 will not call much and 22-55 will fold.
The tank call by SB could be one of two things. It could be hands like AK/AQ/JJ/TT not knowing whether to raise or call. Or it could be PP's like 99/88/77 not sure if its worth calling. And PP's are not worth calling against just you (you would need about 225k to go set mining). But if one of the limpers with a big stack doesn't fold much then the call may very much be worth it if he hits a set.
The problem is that once SB calls, the limper with a huge stack now might think he is getting the right price on a PP.
Still I think your shove is the right move in this situation. You may get called by 99-JJ because the shove can be a semi-bluff or just AK that wants to take it down. You also make it tempting for a flush draw to call because they are getting the right price basically. So if you got called by a set then so be it. If you do check the flop back then you might have 99-JJ lead out where they may have folded to the jam. But there are a lot of bad cards (A/K/Diamonds) that can make it tough to call or get called. And you lose to the set either way.
Its just that given your stack size and the 7x raise size, hands like 66/77 and even 88 will not call much and 22-55 will fold.
Boy, do I have news for you... 😀
After I shoved the cold-caller small blind thought about it for some time before folding and the large stack limp-caller insta-called and flipped over deuces. When I didn't improve, I was done.
I didn't post this to cry about a bad beat. I did it to see who played it worse, me or the guy who actually won the pot.
My response as I walked away was an incredulous "I didn't raise enough to get you to fold ducks?"
He just shrugged while someone at the table said "Well, he has so many chips..."
Lol, he shouldn't call the 7x with 22. You can't set mine in tournaments sometimes the way you can in low stakes cash. That's why there are so many more professional poker players than professional chess players. You can play badly and win. Stupid BBV post.
Lol, he shouldn't call the 7x with 22. You can't set mine in tournaments sometimes the way you can in low stakes cash. That's why there are so many more professional poker players than professional chess players. You can play badly and win. Stupid BBV post.
As I said: I didn't post this to cry about a bad beat. I did it to see who played it worse, me or the guy who actually won the pot.
I am glad to see that at least you don't think I did.
A pyrrhic victory, to be sure! But we can only play a hand the best we can.
