$777 NLHE MTT: table berates me for iso-jam. Was I the donkey?

[Jacki Burkhart]

This is late in day 2 of the wsop Lucky 777 event. We are about 70 minutes from bag n tag and my image is relatively tight.

Blinds are 1k/4k/8k Average is about 250,000, or 30BBs.

Relevant stack sizes:
Me (Button) 360,000 for 44 bbs.
SB has about 350,000 give or take 10%
BB is quite short with about 52,000 or 6.5bbs

It folds to my button I have I raise 2.5x to 20k SB has almost the same stack size as me and flats. BB is a short stack and goes all in for 6.5bb.

I had already decided preflop when I raised that I would be priced in to call his jam, but I didn’t factor in the SB flatting. I decide the pot odds are too good to fold. I’m getting better than 3:1 on a call....and yet calling is super weak and leaves the SB open to out play me.

Also, the SB can almost never have a strong hand here since he flatted a button raise from the SB. We have almost the same stack, so I can really put some pressure on him by iso-jamming and I've been playing pretty tight in their minds, so they’ll think I’m strong.

So, I go all-in. SB folds and BB has JJ. Yuck. Worst possible hand I could be facing. I lose 50k of my 360k stack. I’m perfectly OK with that outcome; it was a survivable hit and I'm totally live against AK/AQ type hands (his most likely holding, IMO)

But the table gives me a lot of shit about that hand, and keeps bringing it up for the rest of the night. The SB whines that he had a K and could have taken out a player. I don’t care about eliminating a player, I care about making chips for MYSELF. I can also tell half of them aren’t sure if I knew what I was doing or not…like half of them think that I THINK my hand was best. No dummies….it’s a pot odds and stack size decision. That’s all. I knew I was behind. The pot odds were too good to fold, but I needed to be heads up to maximize my equity, and getting heads up seemed really easy.

What do we think of this play? Too Reckless? Am I the donkey my whole table thought I was?

 

[teepack]

I don't see anything wrong with your play there. You had a strategy going in and accomplished exactly what you wanted - you got into a 1-on-1 with a small stack AIPF. You could afford to risk what was 16% of your stack there. That the SB went along with your initial raise made it a little more complicated for you and forced you into another decision. The worst decision you could have made was a simple call after the BB shoved. The SB likely goes in as well, leaving you to play against another opponent where your 10-9 is likely well behind. I don't think folding would after the jam would have been a terrible play either. Obviously you don't fold if the SB is already out, but given that he was still in and you were almost certainly behind him as well, a fold would have been okay. You did take a little bit of a risk there (what if the SB was slow playing a monster trying to induce the BB to jam and then come over the top of you?) but you made a good read on the SB and knew you were taking a chance against the BB. Well played.

 

[xxMorpheusxx]

I don't think I'd jam there.I'd probably flat, I don't know if that's a leak though.

We have position post and can evaluate his flop play. We can raise a dry board, take it away if he shows weakness.

 

[WiZZiM]

sb never has a hand, so you are securing the dead money in the pot already, seems fine. I probably would just let this spot go in general since the BB will be involved so often, but it's not bad or anything.

if you don't get berated from time to time you are likely not playing that great, just note the players berating you are likely being not very good, and keep in mind people will call you down lighter in the future so you can use that image wisely later on and set up some nice value while still playing pretty tight( i actually think them berating and talking about your hand helps alot)

 

[Jillychemung]

IMHO your preflop bet-sizing could have been better. You see your cards and decide that you'll draw against BB if he 3-bet jams. I'm assuming that you really don't want SB in the hand but your sizing makes it very attractive for SB to play a wider range, take control from you and even stop-n-go ya. So preflop make it T$28K-T$32K. SB will have to have a much tighter range to flat with and if SB shoves you actually save some chips as you now don't have to call BB's T$52K shove.

As played, I know I'm drawing against BB shove (probabilities are not that T9 is ahead here) so if I hit I have the possibility to win an even larger pot with SB in the hand so I'd flat. If I miss the flop then I'm still out my T$52K. Since the SB flat'd your raise it's hugely unlikely that SB will 5-bet here. You now have a chance to draw out on a much larger pot. Plus you have position on SB.

 

[duggs]

Hand is fine, assuming reads that sb has weak hand, id be flatting lots of hands that are reasonably strong due to the shorty behind