Was I stoooopid here?

[mrsnake3695]

Second hour of a $11 buy-in MTT on PS.

Blinds are 150/300 and I'm in the BB with 3800 after posting. I haven't had many playable hands recently and I've picked up a couple of small pots but generally been going down from a high of about 5600.

The cut-off had about 6400 and the SB has 5000 or so. Cut off is new to the table and I haven't seen any hands from him. The small blind calls everytime he's in the SB with no raises in front.

Everyone folds to the cut off who limps in. The SB calls and I have A-10 off suit.

I think that cut off is prob weak with maybe a small PP, suited connectors or a weak ace. SB could have any 2 cards. I figure I would shove and pick up the pot (900) or if I get called it will be a race which is OK for me at this point.

Villan calls with AK suited, SB folds and I of course lose the hand.

My question is, was my thinking way off here? Could you put villan on AK? Was this a stupid play on my part or a brilliant play from villan or both?

I will say I was surprised to see AK from villan especially with more than half the field gone.

 

[ChuckTs]

I think that cut off is prob weak with maybe a small PP, suited connectors or a weak ace. SB could have any 2 cards. I figure I would shove and pick up the pot (900) or if I get called it will be a race which is OK for me at this point.

Your thinking is fine here IMO. Limping the button is usually a very weak hand, though occasionally it's a trap. Coming from a player who's new to the table and doesn't have the reads to start making risky plays like this, it's most probably weak.

The thing is that you're sitting on a kind of awkward stack - it's small enough that a standard raise is consuming too much of your stack, and just big enough that a push is too high of a risk:reward play. I have no problem with pushing, though.

My question is, was my thinking way off here? Could you put villan on AK? Was this a stupid play on my part or a brilliant play from villan or both?

Like I said, for the trap to work he'd have to have some good reads on the blinds, which of course he didn't. AK isn't even strong enough to slowplay like that - he could easily have been coinflipping for his whole stack with the 'trap'.

 

[eaglelite]

You played it well and so did he, just the better hand won. I say he was thinking in the same way you were thinking. He was playing safe cause he had just moved there. I will bet if he was on his other table he would have been the aggressive one.
I say good play well you have a nice and lucky day

 

[cthomasz]

he obviously had a good read on you before this hand. knowing the sb would flat call with anything he was probably looking for more action. i can't imagine he was playing it safe in this situation. AK suited is a big hand when you're in position. although shoving is a kind of an erratic play right here you didn't have much of a choice. i would say you were justified, you just got outplayed. no worries.

 

[stormswa]

i would say you were justified, you just got outplayed. no worries.

how did he get outplayed? usually you cant really get outplayed preflop just postflop.

villian limped in with AK and our hero sitting on a 11bb stack or so knows that most of the time the limpers will fold and is looking at trying to accumulate chips so he pushes. Which is very very standard for a stack that size, unlucky for our hero that dude had AK but it was like I said very very standard. I dont think our villian was trying to outplay us he just wanted to see a flop for cheap with AK. Limping the AK and calling a shove I doubt was his intention, honestly its a pretty weak play to limp AK there.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

Pretty standard shove. Probably 75% of the time you're going to get folds and increase your stack by 25% or so, and most of the remaining 25% of the time you'll be flipping, which you don't necessarily mind doing with 11BBs and a bit of dead money in the pot.

The LP AK limp is horrible because (a) most of the time the blinds will have weaker hands, the pot will be unraised, and AK will miss a flop and have no clue what to do and end up losing value, and (b) it encourages the blinds with hands like low pairs to shove over us, whereas the same hands would likely have folded had AK raised (11BBs really doesn't give us much reraise fold equity). Basically villain played it horribly, you played it fine, villain is lucky the cards got dealt as they did, nh gg.

 

[dj11]

From Villains POV.

"New to the table, no reads. Cut off with smaller stacks still to act.

Hand worth raising, but if I raise this and they fold,,,,,eh? If I call, and they raise, I get the action this hand wants to see.

Neither can bust me here, mame me, yeah, but not bust me. I'll gamble. "

This is a gambling hand, and from Villains POV, I don't think it's nearly as bad as others suggest here.

I wouldn't do it these days, but shit like this gets done to me, and I often suffer the consequences.

In ring games I would think differently, but as this is a tourney, I think this play is not so bad.

Remember, this is my thinking from villains POV.

 

[stormswa]

From Villains POV.

"New to the table, no reads. Cut off with smaller stacks still to act.

Hand worth raising, but if I raise this and they fold,,,,,eh? If I call, and they raise, I get the action this hand wants to see.

Neither can bust me here, mame me, yeah, but not bust me. I'll gamble. "

This is a gambling hand, and from Villains POV, I don't think it's nearly as bad as others suggest here.

I wouldn't do it these days, but shit like this gets done to me, and I often suffer the consequences.

In ring games I would think differently, but as this is a tourney, I think this play is not so bad.

Remember, this is my thinking from villains POV.

and what happens if you call, small blind calls and big blind checks and flop comes out A-9-4? you going broke here? maybe not you because you are a cardschat member but others I think they would and I will table 44. and small blind will table 9-4.

I would never ever limp at this stage of tourney with AK.

 

[mrsnake3695]

Thanks,

I get the impression most think my play was fine even "standard" here.

I was questioning my play in this hand afterwards especially considering that it seems to me that more and more people like to slow play almost everything.

 

[joeeagles]

The LP AK limp is horrible because (a) most of the time the blinds will have weaker hands, the pot will be unraised, and AK will miss a flop and have no clue what to do and end up losing value, and (b) it encourages the blinds with hands like low pairs to shove over us, whereas the same hands would likely have folded had AK raised (11BBs really doesn't give us much reraise fold equity). Basically villain played it horribly, you played it fine, villain is lucky the cards got dealt as they did, nh gg.

What he says. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Blinds at 150/300 on PS is level 7, where the also antes kick in (25). Being this an MTT I'm assuming it was a full table, so pot was 675 when action was folded to button. Slowplaying the AKs instead of securing the 675 when your stack is 6400 is terrible, IMO. AKs is a great hand, but not a trapping hand, it's power is PF. By limping, you're risking to lose not only the 675, but another 300 you paid to get in. The only time a play like this could make sense is when stacks are big and we're in levels 3 or 4 (blinds at 25/50 or 50/100 and no antes, stacks ~5k).

His rationale in this play is obviously that he hopes to get shoved by weaker hands, or hands he dominates. I wouldn't know what the probability is to find someone in the blinds with a weaker A, but it can't be that great considering he's holding one of them and its down to 2 players left to act. Sure, one can argue his strategy paid off in this case but how many times is he letting 4 lives cards draw against him? I would think too many times for this to be a +EV play in an MTT setting. Perhaps in a cash game this move might be +EV in the long run (and I'm not even sure of that), but it certainly can't be so in MTT's. I'm not trying to sound like "Joe the MTT expert", because I'm not, but this looks pretty easy to me.

I know I'm not risking to give up the 675 + another 300 just to slowplay AKs when I have ~20BB's. Now that, to me, really is stooooooooopid.

All this I guess answers the question about your play, I'm sure I would have done the same.