Tournament Stupidity

How not to play in the Sunday Million:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $200+$15 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO (t9600)
Button (t10700)
Hero (SB) (t9850)
BB (t10000)
UTG (t10000)
UTG+1 (t10000)
MP1 (t10000)
MP2 (t9850)
MP3 (t10000)

Hero’s M: 131.33

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 7
4 folds, MP3 bets t150, CO calls t150, 1 fold, Hero calls t125, 1 fold

Flop: (t500) K, 5, 4 (3 players)
Hero checks, MP3 checks, CO bets t300, Hero raises to t1200, 1 fold, CO calls t900

Turn: (t2900) A (2 players)
Hero bets t1500, CO calls t1500

River: (t5900) Q (2 players)
Hero bets t7000 (All-In), CO calls t6750 (All-In)

Total pot: t19400

Results:
Hero had 8, 7 (high card, Ace).
CO had 10, A (one pair, Aces).
Outcome: CO won t19400

This one is against xthesteinx. As far as I know, he’s a successful tournament player but nothing more. As such, he’s going to prefer to open shove virtually his entire range with this stack size. The fact that he chooses not to do so here was a little suspicious, but I was willing to get it in with him with AQ. When he flat calls the 3-bet, though, I think I can probably even exclude KK from his range. In all honesty, I believe check-folding the turn would have been correct.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $500+$30 Tournament, 40/80 Blinds (9 handed) – Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t3231)
Hero (BB) (t5750)
UTG (t986)
UTG+1 (t1917)
MP1 (t3810)
MP2 (t3216)
MP3 (t3687)
CO (t2755)
Button (t1214)

Hero’s M: 47.92

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q, A
6 folds, Button bets t160, SB calls t120, Hero raises to t444, Button calls t284, 1 fold

Flop: (t1048) 3, 9, 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

Turn: (t1048) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t770 (All-In), Hero calls t770

River: (t2588) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t2588

Results:
Button had A, A (one pair, Aces).
Hero had Q, A (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: Button won t2588

5 thoughts on “Tournament Stupidity”

  2. That’s how these tourney donks roll. There’s a widely held belief, which I think is OK but not universally true, that you can’t raise-fold with 15BBs or less. Some guys (incorrectly in my opinion) extrapolate from this that they ought to open jam whenever they have <15BBs.

  3. 15 seems high to me. Especially with no antes. Unless you’re 5x-ing on your raise or something retarded like that. Then if they’re doing open shoving every hand except AA and KK, which they min-raise, it’s even worse. For me personally, it’s more like 10 bbs where I’m shoving or folding, and even then usually when the antes are in play. At that point, even if you raise like 2.2x you’re still getting close to 2:1 on a call if you get shipped on.

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