Monday, April 30, 2007

Donking out after the bubble

I chipped up in the Sunday $400K Guaranteed tourney mostly from steals, a timely bluff with 95o and a double-up with KK. Pretty standard.

The bubble had burst a few minutes beforehand when I went bust myself close to 250th place. It's a shame because I was in good shape going into this hand. I had 22,440 chips, and my M was over 7. I wonder if I played this hand poorly?

600/1200 Ante 150
Seat 1: smizmiatch (22,440)
smizmiatch posts the big blind of 1,200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to smizmiatch [3d Tc]
1creeper calls 1,200
smizmiatch checks
*** FLOP *** [Ts 5c 6d]
smizmiatch checks
1creeper bets 3,600
smizmiatch calls 3,600
*** TURN *** [Ts 5c 6d] [4s]
smizmiatch checks
1creeper bets 7,200
smizmiatch raises to 17,490, and is all in
1creeper calls 10,290
smizmiatch shows [3d Tc]
1creeper shows [Jd Td]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 5c 6d 4s] [6c]
smizmiatch shows two pair, Tens and Sixes
1creeper shows two pair, Tens and Sixes
1creeper wins the pot (46,530) with two pair, Tens and Sixes
smizmiatch stands up

The way I played this hand is plenty debatable. I could have folded. I could have bet out the flop. I could have pushed all-in on the turn when I picked up the open-ended straight draw to go along with my top pair. I could have even check-called the turn and folded the river.

Instead, I decided to check-raise all-in on the turn. My reasoning was that a check-raise would
get more folds than an outright shove on the turn. Also, I felt like it was a good semibluffing opportunity because I had so many outs (11).

I ran the numbers on twodimes.net and found that I was a 75-25 dog on the turn.

I'm curious to hear from people who would play this hand differently. Let me know, because I need to improve my tournament play, and this is the kind of hand in which I'm never sure whether I'm being foolish to risk my stack or if I'm making the most of an opportunity.

2 comments:

Dave said...

Seeing how you flopped top pair with a crap kicker - you needed to take more of a lead here. Your opponent didn't exactly have top kicker either and could have possibly been forced out of a hand if you had taken more of a lead. Simply check calling probably made your opponent feel like you had a lower pair or were simply on a draw. On the turn you checked again. I think you needed to take more of a stand earlier and you probably could have put him more on a hand and then either re-raised the flop or reraised on the turn. Simply pushing on the river when you check called made it look like you were trying to buy the pot. By that time, he probably figured his Ten Jack was good. Next time, check-raise that hand and see how confident he is on his holding.

Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo said...

I don't like the way you played this hand at all. Once you're called on the flop, I would start thinking you might be beat. That kicker is just so bad that I would try not to lose another dime into the pot once he calls me there on the flop. You might -- probably not, but might -- have gotten him out on the turn with a check-raise, but in the end playing top pair uttershiat kicker like this is a recipe for going broke late in tournaments. The money move would be to get away from it after he called your bet on the flop. Very hard to do with top pair, but a lot of people play Tens (AT, KT, QT, JT, TT, T9, T8) and I like to think I could have laid this down in this spot.