All-In Call in Question

I decided to take a break from ring games last night and play a MTT. I was in 24 place of 27 when this situation occurred. I had long ago made the money and had 80k in chips. Chip leader had over 300k.

Blinds are 3k/6k with about a 600 ante. I've got J8s in middle position. Guy in EP limps. Now, before I go on, I should mention this guy had been limping and playing just about ANYTHING. In fact, had stats of 52/12 for the last 50-100 hands of the tournament and was making several questionable all in moves and calls. Anyway, action is on me and I raise to 30k with the only goal to steal the blinds and the limper. Everyone folds back to the limper who waits for a good long while and then shoves all in. He has me covered. So here's my thought process...

- i've got 50k left and the pot is 150k, so I'm getting 3:1 on a call
- I rule out TT+, AJ+, because based on his play he would have insta-shoved
- I'm putting him on Ax or maybe a low pocket pair, in which case I'm a coin flip or a little better than a 3:2 dog. Getting 3:1, calling should have +ev
- I'm shortstacked, and have been for awhile, and money doesn't payout doesn't increase again until 18th.
- if I call and win, I'll have 200k and have a good chance at the final table and big money.
- so I make the call

Now, did I just completely spaz out and make a horrible decision or is my logic to make the call ok? I should note that against ANY other opponent I lay down my hand to a limp re-raise, but I wa fairly confident I knew where I stood with this guy. I think my bigger issue with what I did would have been my 30k raise knowing the limper could call or do what he did, forcing me into this situation. I just don't play a ton of MTTs so I'd like to know if my thought process is flawed so I don't make future mistakes.

Thanks for any advice

p.s. Apologize if this should have been posted in hand analysis section, I meant for this to be a more general post than what it ended up being.

I'm not understanding the total pot. He was the only limper in the hand right? 9k in blinds, 600 in antes, and since he had you covered his all in can be no more than 80k. So 80k + your 30k + blinds/antes= total pot of 119,600 not 150,000.

The call is fine, you've pot-committed yourself at this point. But that's not the problem-- the problem is your raise, for a couple of reasons:

1) if you're obligated to call a 3-bet for all your chips, why not go all-in yourself? Give yourself some more fold equity by going all-in. Calculate your M to give yourself an idea of whether you should be pushing pre-flop or not.
2) your villain is a calling station. That means you're virtually guaranteed to be showing down a hand with little value against his range.
3) we're in middle position, and have several players left to act behind us. If we were BB, SB, or BTN, I would feel better about this play, since it is less likely someone will wake up with a hand. Trying to steal here is too risky for my taste.

There's probably a few more, but I feel like this is enough to discourage ourselves from getting cute in a bad spot.

If you think he has got nothing and will fold an all in bet then push him all in!
Otherwise you know that he will call you with nearly any two cards....
So push or fold BUT:

Do never bluff calling stations or beginners!!!

bhood1776 said:

I'm not understanding the total pot. He was the only limper in the hand right? 9k in blinds, 600 in antes, and since he had you covered his all in can be no more than 80k. So 80k + your 30k + blinds/antes= total pot of 119,600 not 150,000.

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Awww, craaaap. I bet you're right. My guess is all the chips he shoved over what covered me were showing in the pot. Wow, that makes me feel dumb. In my defense, the tourney was going WAY longer than I anticipated and it was well past my planned bedtime. Still embarrassing though. Lesson learned.

Even with the lower pot, I'm still getting just short of 2.5:1 so my odds are still there on the call. Appreciate you calling me out on this though as I don't think I'll be making that mistake again.

cjatud2012 said:

The call is fine, you've pot-committed yourself at this point. But that's not the problem-- the problem is your raise, for a couple of reasons:

1) if you're obligated to call a 3-bet for all your chips, why not go all-in yourself? Give yourself some more fold equity by going all-in. Calculate your M to give yourself an idea of whether you should be pushing pre-flop or not.
2) your villain is a calling station. That means you're virtually guaranteed to be showing down a hand with little value against his range.
3) we're in middle position, and have several players left to act behind us. If we were BB, SB, or BTN, I would feel better about this play, since it is less likely someone will wake up with a hand. Trying to steal here is too risky for my taste.

There's probably a few more, but I feel like this is enough to discourage ourselves from getting cute in a bad spot.

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I agree. After thinking about the hand, I realized the raise was my mistake. From there the hand really just played itself. I think I was trying to get too cute with the hand, especially with the limper in there. Folding and moving on was probably the better play.

Just for giggles.... He turned over K3o, spiked a K on the flop and a 3 on the river, and I finished in 26. The table errupted in criticism, and I went to bed analyzing where I made the mistake.

I don't like your bet.
You have a marginal hand, with at least 4 guys to talk. I would not play this hand.

I think you should fold and wait for a good hand. Regardless you what he has your probably no better off than 2/1 and against a loose player like that you want to wait till you have a hand, because a lot of your value comes from a potential fold and if he isn't gonna fold your value drops significantly. IMO bad play. The most important thing I think you need to take from this is not to raise MP shortstacked after you get a loose EP limper and not be ready to ship your chips.

Numbuh 0ne said:

I think you should fold and wait for a better spot to shove.

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FYP.

personally I wouldn't have played it like you.
1. J8 - no matter what position you are really - i wouldn't try anything fancy with this hand, because you always run the risk that someone will call your bet or re-raise you all-in. So better have some good starting hands for the all-in possible.
2. you should have raised all in from the start. 30k raise with a calling station and so many players left to act ? sorry, but this is a mistake
3. so what if you're short-stacked ? J8 is not a hand to play. patience, good cards will come. There have been several times when i was short-stacked and ended playing at the final table eventually. you possibly did this because as you said it was past your planned bed time

I don't have any great problems with this hand as you feel you have to make a move to get up a paygrade or two - that means taking a few risks. When it comes to the decision to call or not you can assume you are a coinflip with the villain, or 60/40 if they have a genuine hand.

One thing I'd question is comparing the odds of winning the hand to the pot odds. In tourney play the chips you win don't have the same value as the ones you lose - for example, if you are currently worth a prize of $10 a double up might make you worth only $18. If you usually play ring games and are fairly new to tournaments it's worth reading up (here and elsewhere) on independent chip model (ICM).

As a general rule I avoid the kind of player you describe unless I have a quality hand. That said, I have been ignoring this rule of late and have lost to some awful players.

I agree with everyone. Just a bad play on my part where I tried forcing the issue when I shouldn't have, and didn't really need to. I can't remember precisy where my M was at the time, but I believe it was between 7-9 so I certainly wasn't in a position to panic. I had stayed patient really well up to that point and had picked my spots well so perhaps the sleep thing played a roll. I try to never enter a tourney where that can happen,but late registration cause the entry size to balloon way above what I thought and extended the tourney length beyond my expectation. Anyway, likeI said, poor play on my
part that I can chalk up to experience. Thanks to all for input

The_Pup said:

One thing I'd question is comparing the odds of winning the hand to the pot odds. In tourney play the chips you win don't have the same value as the ones you lose - for example, if you are currently worth a prize of $10 a double up might make you worth only $18. If you usually play ring games and are fairly new to tournaments it's worth reading up (here and elsewhere) on independent chip model (ICM).

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Good point. Yes, I've begun familiarizing myself with this topic but have a ways to go. I do plan studying this further.

I also agree with the rest of the guys here why play that hand in that position with players to act after you the only position i would consider playing this is on the SB with a all in with nobody else in the pot.Well if you new to MTT it's all about learning just don't make the same mistakes twice.

J8s In this position weak enough hand and your opponent could limp even without the purpose trap you with a hand at least not more poorly.... Therefore it was necessary to play a pass, especially after you some players still sit, whether which could play all-in (especially short stak)