$Freeroll NLHE MTT: Hand #3 CC League: Big Blind Special, or not??

[nabmom]

Here's an example of my league play that differs from how I'd play in a different tournament. This is often a shove after hitting top pair (lousy kicker) and against a player who is 45/16 (over 2,000 hands) and who c-bets over 80% of the time. But in league, I get more cautious about putting my tournament life on the line. Moving up when someone else goes out is so valuable that I think I lose all sense of the shove/fold considerations. I think that's wrong and yet I do it often during league games.

Question: What do you think is the correct move here?


PokerStars - 100/200 Ante 25 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

CO: 2,119
BTN: 3,003
SB: 2,220
Hero (BB): 2,439
UTG: 3,503
UTG+1: 5,089
MP: 9,144
MP+1: 3,036
MP+2: 8,162

9 players post ante of 25, SB posts SB 100, Hero posts BB 200

Pre Flop: (pot: 525) Hero has 6♥ Q♦

fold, fold, fold, fold, MP+2 calls 200, fold, fold, fold, Hero checks

Flop: (725, 2 players) 4♣ 5♣ Q♣
Hero checks, MP+2 bets 725, fold

 

[fundiver199]

Preflop
Certainly happy to take a free look at the flop with a hand as bad as Q6o.

Flop
You flopped top pair on a monotone board, and now the limper bet full pot. If you continue here, it will basically commit you to the pot. So right off the bat its time to decide, if you can profitably get your stack in here or not. And I think, the answer is probably no, so I would also have folded.

First off all the guy did not C-bet, because he limped preflop, so forget about those HUD-stats, since they dont apply to this situation. And by betting full pot he is going from a very passive line to a pretty darn aggressive one. I dont think, he is nessesarely doing this with the nut flush, but he is not doing it with nothing either.

He connected with this board in some way, and I dont think, you have enough equity against the entire range of hands, that takes this line. I would probably stack off here, if I had a decent kicker like KQ, but the issue is, you dont. So even if he is kind of overplaying a hand like Q9 or Q8, you are still behind.

Whenever I get one of those free plays from the blind and find myself in a situation like this on the flop, I always remind myself, that I did not pay anything to get this far. If he had raised preflop, as he should with his entire range, I would have folded this hand. So just because he allowed me to take a look on the flop, and I flopped a crappy pair, does not mean, I have to invest any chips now.

 

[Badday94]

Good fold. A call here for 725 would have had a big impact on your 2.5k stack against a big stack. Considering this bet size from a big stack, most likely he had a queen also and wanted to make it expensive for you in case you chased a flush. He could have had a flush draw also. Furthermore, this is a very bluffable board for a big stack. If you call and he has nothing, he can just give up and losing 900 chips does almost no damage to him. All in all even if he didn't have it, he could have got there so this is a disciplined flod in a hand you got to see for free. No need to get too risky with a stack like you had at that moment.

 

[nabmom]

Whenever I get one of those free plays from the blind and find myself in a situation like this on the flop, I always remind myself, that I did not pay anything to get this far. If he had raised preflop, as he should with his entire range, I would have folded this hand. So just because he allowed me to take a look on the flop, and I flopped a crappy pair, does not mean, I have to invest any chips now.

Fundiver, I really appreciate your commentary and your time in responding to what I'm posting! I find myself agreeing with your advice often. I'm quoting the above paragraph because I think it is so important to remember!

 

[fundiver199]

Fundiver, I really appreciate your commentary and your time in responding to what I'm posting! I find myself agreeing with your advice often. I'm quoting the above paragraph because I think it is so important to remember!

Thanks and I agree, that it is an important point about limped pots and free plays. Its great to get a free play, but it means, we often see flops with some very junky hands, that are not normally in our range. And its important not to get sucked into overplaying these junky hands, just because we caught a small piece of the board. In this particular hand I would of course normally continue at least one street with top pair against a single opponent, but when he bet full pot, the board is monotone, you dont have a flushcard, and you dont have a kicker, its fine to just get rid of the spot, as you correctly did.