Hand from last night

[John]

9-seater STT, 4 people left, top 3 paid out

Blinds 300 / 600

BTN: stack 3000 ish
SB: 300 – stack 5500 ish
BB: 600 – stack 2100
UTG: Me – stack – 2900

My cards: KK

UTG: I push all in for 2900
BTN: Fold
SB: Fold
BB: Calls my all-in with 23o [ ! ]

Board:
A332J

Me: shows KK – 2 x pair, Kings and Threes
BB: shows 23 – Full House, Threes Full of Twos

BB wins the pot.


Thoughts? Was he correct to call with any two cards? Hmmmmmmmm, no I don't think he was, yet two people in chat said he was based on the pot odds... pot odds that were in my favour pre-flop then. :doh

[Laf]

He's probably thinking he's up against a couple of overcards, not an overpair. It's the most likely senario. If he's right, he's 2/1 to win the hand and he's getting 2.5/1 to call which makes it a correct call. Obviously he was wrong though!

[mathare]

Assuming neither of your Kings matches the suits of his cards so he still has flush outs you're 84.72% to win that pot (he's 14.81% with the tie 0.47%).

You correctly shove for 2900 making the pot 3800. The BB would have to call 2300
to win 3800 but the effective stacks aren't that big as he's the shorter stack. All he can do is call to 2100 into a pot of 2400 (your 2100 plus the SB). That assumes the stacks are before blinds are posted. If not he's got 2700 total and would be calling into a pot of 3000 (your 2700 plus the SB). It's only just over evens on his money here.

What's your shoving range here and how does his hand stack up against that? Your range is huge given the stacks and blinds. You could reasonably shove any two here so he has to ask himself what chances he has against a random hand. 23o isn't great but against how many hands is he worse off than the chance the pot odds represent? Quite a lot. But this is the bubble and he is now desperately short-stacked. He has 3-4xBB in his stack (depending on whether the stacks above are taken from before or after blind posting) and should have been shoving several hands ago. He needs to be the aggressor not the caller here but he figures he's going to have to get lucky sometime and this may as well be the hand on which he makes a stand. He then gets massively lucky and presumably you bust out on the bubble.

Personally I think he made a bad play.

But stacks must have been short for a while given the blind level so I would have been shoving hands from a long time ago looking to build up a stack I could win with or bust out. Even the chip leader is short-stacked here and this is truly a lottery. You had a massive hand but it got cracked - that's poker I'm afraid.

[mathare]

He's probably thinking he's up against a couple of overcards, not an overpair. It's the most likely senario. Indeed.


If he's right, he's 2/1 to win the hand and he's getting 2.5/1 to call which makes it a correct call.Are my pot odd calculations way out then? Assuming the stacks are after posting blinds John has 2900 and shoves building the pot to 3800. The button and SB fold and the BB calls for his last 2100. John gets 200 back and the pot is 5700.

So the BB was calling 2100 to win 3600. 36 to 21 or around 1.7/1. So yes, my pot odds calculations were crap (I confused myself after realising part way through the stacks could be before or after blinds) but it's still a bit under 2/1. I think it's a loose call but given the situation he may not have thought he had many other options

[Laf]

Indeed.

Are my pot odd calculations way out then? Assuming the stacks are after posting blinds John has 2900 and shoves building the pot to 3800. The button and SB fold and the BB calls for his last 2100. John gets 200 back and the pot is 5700.

So the BB was calling 2100 to win 3600. 36 to 21 or around 1.7/1. So yes, my pot odds calculations were crap (I confused myself after realising part way through the stacks could be before or after blinds) but it's still a bit under 2/1. I think it's a loose call but given the situation he may not have thought he had many other options

I calculated wrong. I forgot to take out the extra chips John had. I'm also assuming the 2100 chips is before the BB is posted so he's calling 1500. Perhaps John can clarify this one. If this is the case then the pot would be 3000 so he's getting 2/1.....I think.

[Laf]

Just to add, regardless of pot odds I think i'd still be reluctant to call here with 23o. I don't like putting my chips in knowing I'm behind. I may just wait and hope for something a bit better in the SB.

[mathare]

Just to add, regardless of pot odds I think i'd still be reluctant to call here with 23o. I don't like putting my chips in knowing I'm behind. I may just wait and hope for something a bit better in the SB.I'm with you 100% on that one. At least if he open-shoves from the SB next hand the BB may not call him and he takes down the pot winning back the BB he lost by folding this one. Then he can keep shoving and hoping. But with that stack he needs to be the one betting not calling unless he thinks he really can win a showdown. I'd have folded here.

[counterfeit]

In this situation a good player would have shoved all in on the hand before when he was UTG not waited for the BB and have to risk calling with zilch.

Having said that I would still have folded and waited for next hand.

[John]

But stacks must have been short for a while given the blind level so I would have been shoving hands from a long time ago


Just to add, regardless of pot odds I think i'd still be reluctant to call here with 23o. I don't like putting my chips in knowing I'm behind. I may just wait and hope for something a bit better in the SB.


In this situation a good player would have shoved all in on the hand before when he was UTG not waited for the BB and have to risk calling with zilch.

Absolutely, on all three counts. The blinds were eating away at everyone's stack a few minutes before this all happened, as is always the case with Turbo STTs on the bubble. You're always push/fold unless you're huge (say, 7000+ chips) chip leader, unless you prefer to limp with a monster hoping someone will shove over the top of you. Like Laf has said, the guy would have been better waiting for the next hand to shove when he'd be UTG.

I didn't mention the antes - I forgot what they were at this level but it doesn't make a lot of difference to the odds calculated.


I calculated wrong. I forgot to take out the extra chips John had. I'm also assuming the 2100 chips is before the BB is posted so he's calling 1500. Perhaps John can clarify this one. If this is the case then the pot would be 3000 so he's getting 2/1.....I think.

Sorry - no, to clarify, the 2100 was what he had left after he posted the big blind. So in effect he had 2700. At least this is how I remember it. So this puts the odds marginally more in his favour (to call) but still, not by much, and as has already been said, with 2-3 he's probably calling in the hope that I have two overcards (my range could be almost anything but if he had any logic he'd put me on K7 or better). Also if neither of us hit a pair, with two unpaired overcards I'd nearly always win the pot (against straight and flush draws).

Thanks for posting your thoughts folks. If you like I can request hand history from 'Stars and post the hand up.

[mathare]

the guy would have been better waiting for the next hand to shove when he'd be UTG.He'd be SB. He'd have been better shoving on the previous hand when he was UTG. In fact he should have been shoving long before this hand came along.

[mathare]

If you like I can request hand history from 'Stars and post the hand up.Are you not running any sniffer software then Johnny boy?

[John]

Are you not running any sniffer software then Johnny boy?

Nope, not ran any for about a year! Managing okay without any software... sometimes I feel like I can read too much into stats and they can be a hindrance rather than an aid, so I haven't bothered with any trackers for a long time now. May decide to get one in the future if I feel the need to though.

[mathare]

Nope, not ran any for about a year! Managing okay without any software... sometimes I feel like I can read too much into stats and they can be a hindrance rather than an aid, so I haven't bothered with any trackers for a long time now. May decide to get one in the future if I feel the need to though.For tourneys I use PokerTracker more for managing my own stats such as ROI, ITM etc broken down by tourney type than I do at the tables for making decisions. I only really use it when playing to check if someone is likely to fold to a steal attempt and to get an idea if they are loose or tight. I only have any confidence in this information when I have enough hands (a subjective measure) on a player though. I think it comes into it's own more for cash games as the blinds don't chamge so there is less of a need to change gears as the game goes on and you can build more of a history against players. Sniffers will also be more useful at higher stakes as the player pool is smaller so you build up more info on regular foes

[John]

PokerTracker - that's not a HUD piece of kit is it? I think PokerTracker was the one I used to use - still got the license for it somewhere but it only worked on Windows which I no longer run on my Mac.

Think any software is probably useful, I wouldn't advocate otherwise. I think provided you occasionally play the same players in the same tournament types, it's a useful tool to have, if you want to find out detailed information on players. I frequently see the same players at the tables, and to be honest, I don't want to get overly familiar with them. I know that the majority of the folk I run into are probably multi-table players who are good, and they'll no doubt each have their own cases to make about me.

[mathare]

PokerTracker - that's not a HUD piece of kit is it? It's a full tracking database with a customisable HUD. I love it :thumbs

[counterfeit]

I agree with you Mat when you say it's a bigger advantage in cash games.

I used to run something (can't remember what now) when I played at Party Poker. It is an enormous help when playing cash NLHE, to know that someone you last played against three weeks ago and can't quite remember, is a loose as Katie Price's morals.

[mathare]

I agree with you Mat when you say it's a bigger advantage in cash games.I have my PT HUD running for tourney play for a couple of reasons:

1. I want to keep a rough eye on my own image (only my stats for this table session are displayed, for all other players it's all hands I have on them regardless of which session they came from)
2. I use it as a quick check of how likely a potential blind steal is.

I generally don't use it for loose-tight aggressive-passive classification of opponents as in tourneys I don't think it means much. When it gets short-handed everyone is forced to loosen up by rising blinds so few people maintain any sort of single style throughout a tournament so classifying them as TAG etc doesn't help much.

But more than anything I use PT to replay hands and track my tourney results