$1 NLHE STT: Hand looks like a shove, but should I've waited?

[RVladimiro]

So here's what happened. 9 man SNG with BB at 150 and 6 players left. Everything was pretty tight. As you can see I was sitting in 2nd place, two other players with similar chip stacks. One of them was pretty tight (VPIP 8% IIRC) and the other one was a tad more loose.

The guy UTG was sitting out since game started and the guy that raised all-in was getting pretty near the 10BB. I was positive that he would call with any par.

So this happened.

Poker Stars - $1.00+0.18 Tournament (#393671430) - Blinds: 75/150 No Limit Hold'em (6 players)
Poker Stars Hand Converter Tool from CardsChat.com

SB: t3,030
BB Hero: t3,015
UTG: t330
MP: t1,859
CO: t2,900
BTN: t2,366

Pre-flop: (t225) Hero is BB and dealt
UTG folds, MP raises to t1,859 (All-in), 3 folds, Hero calls t1,709

Flop: (t3,793) (2 players)

Turn: (t3,793) (2 players)

River: (t3,793) (2 players)

This was what I thought: I have pocket 10's he has any any pair or two high cards, but problably any pair. If he hits the flop I'll still be on, so it's fine. He had pocket 4's and I lost the hand.

Later I understood that appart from the UTG guy I would be the shortest stack and with the blinds rising I had to act but ended up dooming myself. I'm still not sure that at this blind level, considering I had a nice position, it was a good call.

So I'm not really sure if I should have called. Any thoughts?

 

[WiZZiM]

Looks good to me, nice call.

 

[jbbb]

It's hard to know what he's shoving. Think my range for him is way too wide but as a guide I think its not too bad.
equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.972% { 22+, A8s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, ATo+, KJo+, QJo, JTo }
Hand 1: 59.028% { TT }
Anyway 60% is enough for me here, nice hand.

 

[OzExorcist]

I call this too.

Depending on the villain there's often a fair chunk of random garbage in their range too, stuff like K4s, medium connectors, etc. They'll see that there's a fair margin between them and third place, their stack is getting towards 10BB and they figure they need to take some risks to catch up. Don't know if this is that kind of villain.

Also, this is rarely a genuine monster (AA-QQ) because they almost certainly raise smaller looking for value.

 

[RVladimiro]

He was getting on a pretty tight spot. If we neglect the sitting out guy (330 chips) he was the short stack and he would be in the 10BB range pretty soon.

Blind stealing was not at all going through the roof, only a maniac was throwing all-ins back and forth, the rest of the table was shoving quite tight. I really felt that was my opportunity to take a chance.

Keep in mind that I'm not complaining, since I'd loose even with KK. What I'm questioning is my strategy since I was ITM and maybe (just maybe) I could've sit back and waited for a better opportunity.

 

[WiZZiM]

huh, you're ITM. WHat type of tournament is this? A normal 9 man SNG or a double or nothing?

 

[RVladimiro]

Normal 9 man SNG.

 

[OzExorcist]

So... how are you in the money if it's a normal STT?

 

[RVladimiro]

I'm guessing I'm confusing something. I was the second biggest stack, that's what I meant by being ITM. I'm guessing that I'm only ITM if there are only 3 left and I didn't explain myself correctly, right?

Bottomline question is: since I was in a better position, should I have taken a more conservative route with pocket Ts?

 

[jbbb]

Bottomline question is: since I was in a better position, should I have taken a more conservative route with pocket Ts?

With a bigger stack, every chip you loose is worth less than with a smaller stack due to ICM. With a 10,000 stack you would snap him off because it won't effect your chances of winning much if you go to 8,500 chips. With a 3,500 stack if you loose you'll still have a healthy 2,000 chips or about 12BB to work with. With 1,500 chips you loose and you have no equity. So if you think you're ahead of his range, i'd get it in.

 

[Pascal-lf]

ITM means you've cashed already - which you haven't.

Why do you say he probably had a pair?

 

[Gunner57]

Made the right call. Get it in and expect to win most of the time.
Look at it also that if you loose you still are in the game and not sitting bad (not great either). You have to figure that the call here is EV+ so do it and hope he misses.

 

[losched16]

This is a fold if the villain is only pushing 88+ and A10+. Given that his range is much wider than this, it's a +EV call.

 

[RVladimiro]

Sorry I didn't answer sooner. Still limited to 7 posts per day.

@Pascal: He was near 10BBs and starting to shove more hands. My assumption was that he would shove any pair and any ace hand and paint cards. Maybe my assumption was not correct (although he shoved pocket 4s). That was the first SNG where I tried to put ranges in people though.

@Gunner and losched: I wasn't thinking about EV (actually it's something I don't quite understand yet) but simply that my pair would probably do well against a shove from a player that was shoving wider and had a smaller stack than mine.

 

[Pascal-lf]

Your explanation and range is good - but as you say, he doesn't "probably" have a pair given there are more combos of Ax (ace and any other card) and paint cards then there are pairs

Have you got Pokerstove? If not, get it (it's free). For player one, type in your hand - TcTd (ten of clubs, ten of diamonds). Then click the Player 2 button, then the preflop tab, and click on all the hands you think are in his range. Then click evaluate and you'll see your equity vs his hand

 

[ClubArrow77]

This was a good shove. You got it all in with a larger pocket pair which gives you 80% of winning the hand to villains 44. He got lucky and hit a set on the flop and there is nothing we could do about that. TT is a good hand to call with especially since it would give us a good boost in chips.