Hand of the day III?

Question

time for a shorthanded situation this time

you are at the final table of a major tournament, and it's down to three handed play...you have about 1 million of the 2 million chips in play, and have been relatively aggressive as you should be considering the short-handed play and the chip situation...blinds are 8k-16k with a 2k ante, and you open from the button for 40k with 7-7...the small blind, who is the second chip leader with about 700k in chips, has been re-raising you pretty consistently since play got six-handed, in gradually bigger amounts as he desperately attempts to end hands before the flop, since both he and you know that you are the superior post-flop player; however, you know he won't re-raise unless he has a hand...he re-pops you 200k more, and you make the marginal call as you have been defending fairly often against his re-raises...the flop comes down Q-3-2 rainbow, and he makes a smallish bet of 200k...do you raise or fold(calling is pretty much not an option)?

Answer 1

1. He hasnt been 3-betting often so you are flipping or drawing very slim (88+).

2. Why arent you raising or folding preflop? Even though you have superior postflop skill, it doesnt matter, stacks are too shallow. Raising and folding both are ok, because if you raise you tell him to stop being a bully. If you fold, its ok because you are better than him and can find a better spot.The problem with raising is: You also arent getting a great price and if you get called you are either flipping or drawing 20%. In the end, I prefer folding.

3. This is the third best flop (behind set and overpair) for you. Its fairly dry, and you have middle pair. If you called preflop, YOU HAVE TO GET IT IN NOW, the flop is too good for you to muck. If you fold this, you have to fold preflop .You are not getting the odds for set value, nor overpair value when you called preflop. Your oppenent continues with his whole range he 3-bets preflop so your hand is doing ok.

Edit: To mark F., raising to 90k seems like a horrible idea... Just look at the stack sizes and you will know why.

Edit: To sincity, if you are folding in this spot, why did u call his reraise preflop in the first place? There is less than 1% (.077) chance of flopping an overpair and you clearly arent getting the direct OR implied odds to flop a set.

Answer 2

Great question as always.  Put him all-in.  He's going to bet no matter what if he's this committed in the hand this late in the game.  He could have almost anything.  Don't read anything into his bet.

Answer 3

raise him another 300k to see if he is wanting to take a chance on the turn.  I put him on AK.

Answer 4

Well it seems like a decent flop for 77.  I don't see calling the bet pre flop (marginal call as you put it) without continuing a raise after the flop.  I'm just curious, raising to 40k with the blinds at 8k/16k seems a little small, don't you think?  Since you are chip leader, I would have liked a raise like 80k - 90k, puts a little more pressure on this player.  

Thinking about this, you said outplay your opponent after the flop what hand do you put them on?  If they had anything less than AQ or KQ it may be hard to call an all in here for them.  However though, this player may be pot committed at this point.  It's a tough question...I say go with the hand and shove.  I would have raised more pre flop and also possibly not called their raise if I only put 42k into the pot.  You said they make this move with real hands.  Again tough spot and good question.

Answer 5

I don't mind the call here pre flop since you have position on him in the hand, and you have been out playing him after the flop as well. I wouldn't have even been to upset with an all in here pre-flop to really put the pressure on him, but he most likely has A-Q or a middle pair here, so you would be coin flipping with him for a huge pot. But as you know sometime you have to take shots at tables, and this table being short a pair goes up in value. But anyways we call pre-flop and it comes out pretty dry, but if he has A-Q-K-Q we are dead, and this is the hand i would put him on. I think we fold here for sure since we still have  800k still i chips and the blinds are still pretty low in relation to our chip size, there are just so many better spot's to go broke. I never go broke on just one pair, especially 2nd pair.  So we fold and go on to the next hand with 800k in chips, we may even of had the best hand, but that's not the point here, in tourneys keeping your chip position is so very important, we let the short stacks take each other out and move up the ladder.

Answer 6

Very tough and good question. You said you know he won't reraise unless he has a hand. However....

I think it's an all in play. It's a $430,000 pot now.

You are already in 3rd place no matter what so you're looking at a nice payday. Pocket 7's 3 handed is a great hand.

You have to take the chance that he didn't hit the set, the Queen or have a higher pocket pair.

If you push and he folds you take the pot down. And have a nice chip lead.

If you win, you're now down to 2 people with a huge chip lead. If you lose, you're not completly out. So the positives definatly outways the negatives here.

Also, it looks like 3rd place has 300,000 in chips left. If you lose, you have 300,000 in chips too. Its still a battle for second. And if the 3rd place guy gets knocked out, anything can happen heads up.

If you're further away then 3rd place already, it's probably a fold. But I say push it.

: )