Re: busted out on first hand

On Jul 20 2007 1:58 AM, alan wrote:

I busted out of a large local tourney tonight, more than 300 entrants.

very first hand at the table, and I am in the BB. We started with
stacks of 2500, BB was 50.

I have AK unsuited.

All fold to the button who raises my BB to 375.

What are your thoughts of what he wants to accomplish with this raise?
How would you bext disappoint him?

I reraise to 600.

First, a little nit. He raised the 50 BB to 375, a raise of 325. The
minimum you should be able to reraise is 325 more, to 700 total.

What are your thoughts with this raise? What are you trying to accomplish?

the button goes all in.

At this point I am juggling three thoughts in my head:

1. he is on the button and making a "button play"
2. he has an ace, in which case Im in very good position
3. he has a made hand but I am willing to "race" a lower pair

You should have a pretty good idea by now of what he has, or what range of
hands he has.

So I called his all in.

he turns over 99. I have AK.

He wins.

My thought: I would do it all over again if the same situation arose.

tell me please why I'm wrong to think this way.

thanks.

My analysis below:











As for how I play the hand in your spot:

When he makes such a big raise on the button (and not just throwing in 400
or anything, 375 seem very designed to discourage any action), I feel that
he has a hand that does not want a lot of action. The usual range for
this type of thought is 99-JJ or AQ-AK, with an occasional player who
overbets big hands, i.e. QQ-AA.

Now I consider stack sizes. We begin the hand with 2500 in chips. That
is plenty. What options do we have, and what are the pros and cons of
each? Let's consider:

Folding:

Pros: We do not have to play a hand out of poisiton for a relatively big
bet.

Cons: Very weak. We are ahead of his perceived range, and will also be
able to know better than he where we are throughout the hand.

Calling:

Pros: We do not have to commit our stack to the hand. We can see a flop
and go from there. We might even be able to bluff out our opponent on a
flop like QJx, especially if he has 99 or TT.

Cons: We have to play the rest of the hand from out of position. We might
have to fold on the flop when we would have won had we seen all 5 cards.
We might be giving a free chance to a hand like AQ of outflopping us.

Re-raising:

Small amount:

Pros: We get more money into the pot with what is likely the best hand.
We are not pot-committing ourselves.

Cons: We invite an all-in re-raise. We cannot force a fold with a small
reraise. We still have to play the hand out of position, and should we be
simply called preflop, any reasonably sized continuation bet on the flop
will commit us to the pot.

Large amount:

Pros: We put our opponent to the test... make him make a decision for all
his chips. We commit ourselves to the pot so that our positional
disadvantage postflop is nullified. We will get to see all 5 cards should
we get called.

Cons: We tighten the range of hands our opponent will call us with, and
should we be called, we will likely be a dog to his range. We are risking
everything on the first hand of a tournament, possibly eschewing other,
more profitable avenues (huge donkeys at the table who will give away
their chips in far worse situations).




Based on all these choices, my personal preferance would be first for
calling, second for reraising a large amount, third for reraising a small
amount, and fourth for folding.

Fell

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