Winning Poker Tournaments III – Hand No. 24

Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume III by Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet, and yours truly, analyzes 50 online poker hands. In Volume III, PearlJammer, Rizen, and Apestyles analyze the same hands and then I give a summary of lessons learned at the end of the hand. This article looks at hand #24.

Seat 1: 2,038,160 Button
Seat 3: 7,694,626 Small Blind
Seat 4: 1,381,672 Big Blind
Seat 6: 2,643,445
Seat 7: 4,724,202
Seat 8: 3,462,895 Hero

70,000-140,000 Blinds, 17,500 Ante

Setup: This is six-handed at the final table in an $11 freezeout.

Pre-flop K Q (315,000): Seat 7 raises to 357,000.

What do you do?

PearlJammer

With my stack size, I should be looking to reshove all-in instead of just open-raising pots or calling to see flops.

I prefer to reshove all-in rather than call, hoping to play the hand out postflop with shallow stacks. Calling also opens me up to a squeeze play from one of the blinds.
Although I would be risking a bigger stack with a weaker holding than I did in the previous hand, K-Q offsuit plays better in this spot than A-6 suited against my opponent’s calling range. I would be racing against all pocket pairs of jacks and below, whereas A-6 suited is dominated by most of them. Also, with 25 big blinds, I will likely get my opponent to lay down hands as strong as 77 or A-10, perhaps even a bit stronger. It would cost him about 75 percent of his stack to make the call, whereas if he folds, he is still second in chips. If I pick up this pot preflop, I would increase my stack by almost 20 percent, too good of an opportunity to pass up. I reshove all in.

Rizen

This one varies a lot depending on my read on the table. K-Q offsuit is the type of hand with which I usually look to flop top pair. That usually means it plays best heads-up. Now, if the 1, 3, and 4 seats are all fairly tight players who I am relatively certain will not be calling or making squeeze plays very often, and I can take a flop heads-up in position, then calling can be a viable option. However, that depends upon a rare and very precise read of my opponents.

Seat 7 is raising from the hijack seat, so K-Q offsuit is likely to be ahead of the hands he would open. My standard play would be to reraise to about 900,000 and probably fold to a four-bet shove. That essentially turns my hand into a bluff, but I do have some backup if he flat calls. If I had been very active at the table or had been three-betting players a lot lately, I might even just fold, but with no additional information I would reraise to 900,000.

Apestyles

I have 25 big blinds, and I am now third in chips at this final table. 25 big blinds is the upper limit of what I’m willing to reshove over a late-position raiser. I usually don’t push all in for more than 10 times the initial raise (although there are a few exceptions). Calling isn’t bad since I have position and my hand flops well, but I think the stacks behind can squeeze too often for a call to be best. A reshove would be slightly plus chip expected value (EV), but it would be an independent chip model (ICM) disaster to get called and finish sixth with three shorter stacks left at the final table. Since the shove is already marginal, I elect to make the tight ICM play and fold my K-Q.

Matthew

A stack size of 25 big blinds is tricky to play. This is right on the line of where you could possibly call preflop, three-bet shove, three-bet with the intention of folding to a four-bet, or fold. This hand demonstrates the complexity of this stack size clearly, as the three guys each choose a different line of play.

All three guys discount calling due to the risk of an opponent making a squeeze play behind. When you are looking at a marginal calling situation, always evaluate the risk of a potential three-bet behind you, as this can sometimes be the deciding factor as to whether calling or folding is best.

In this hand, PearlJammer’s main focus is the fact that a reshove gives you an opportunity to increase your stack by over 20 percent. Whenever you can increase your stack by 20 percent or more with decent folding equity, you should at least consider a reshove. Rizen takes the less risky approach and would three-bet with the intention of folding to a four-bet shove. With this approach, you would still have a stack of 18 big blinds with three-bet folding equity the times that you end up folding. With a smaller stack, this wouldn’t be an option. Finally, Apestyles considers the Independent Chip Model), which generally says to choose the less risky line of play in marginal final table situations.

In the actual hand, the hero folded, Seat 3 three-bet to 980,000, and the villain folded. ♠

Matthew is the owner of Dimat Enterprises, “Publishing Today’s Best Poker Books”. Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume III is available at pokerbooks.InternetTexasHoldem.com in both print and e-book format. You may also try our new iPad app for free, Poker Coach Pro, based on content from the Winning Poker Tournament series.