$2.5K MGM Main Event Part Two: Semi-Bluff Shove

Another interesting hand occurred at my new table. I was a bit under starting at 16k, and my opponent and I were very close to equal stacks.

Blinds: 300/600-50

Hand: KTo. I raised in the Hijack, the big blind who had recently moved to the table called. Interestingly, he looked like he was going to fold pre (subtlety) but then called. We had never played together, which usually means players are more likely to assume I’m a literal player.

Flop: Q22, which looked pretty familiar lol. The pot was ~3.5k. He checked, I c-bet 1.2k, he called. The pot is ~6k, and the effective stack is 13k.

Turn: J, giving me an open ended straight draw. He checks.  His range seems weighted towards small pocket pairs (though his thinking of folding pre, if an honest read, does take away from that somewhat), and smaller queens. Being as I can get him to fold all the smaller pairs, and some of his queen-x holdings, and the stack-to-pot ratio, I decide to shove.

He calls (boo) with T2o. Which I am really surprised he called with pre, and also means that my read that he thought about folding was likely legitimate. Then I bink an Ace on the river, much to his annoyance. I still like how I chose to play the hand, and saying anything else I think would be results-oriented banter. I think it is pretty hard to account for deuces in his range given the pre-flop action; though it does make me realize that I should perhaps start giving the live tells I pick up on a bit more credit.

Collin and I both made it back for day 2. I came back with only 30k, and managed to get my stack up to 110k, mainly by finding good squeeze spots and being fortunate enough to have a good enough hand and the prefect stack size for 4-bet shoves pre. I busted in 11th when I got it in on the flop with an overpair versus overcards.

While the field was tough, I found it interesting that I was still able to take advantage against my image as a female versus great players. I was able to shove wide with a 25-ish bb stack over raises pre, and was very frequently shown hands as the guys folded that were better than what I’d shoved. Needless to say, I never showed unless I had to!

My next tournament is the Caesar’s $1.1k Main Event tomorrow. Here’s hoping I manage to luckbox every semi-bluff and run deeper than in the MGM! :)