Guy Accidentally Busts Me

We're about 3.5 hours into a 1K multi-table satellite for the WSOP main event. Blinds are 300/600/75. Short stack moves all in for 3600. Button doesn't realize there's someone all in ahead of him and says "call", planning to call just the blinds. I have 99 in the BB and a little under 10K in chips. I shoved, Button called with JQ. Short stack has 66 and Button ends up busting us both with a hand he didn't even mean to play.

I wonder if my better play isn't to call and shove any flop. I kind of doubt that Button was open limping any pocket pairs, so there's not much danger of chasing out the hands against which I have the best equity. He was pretty LAGgy though, so I wouldn't be surprised if he would play something like 87s or some other hand I've got in bad shape the same way. It might not matter too much in the grand scheme of things, but it probably would have won me this pot.

Holy $%^& I Bluffed a Tourney Donk!

From yesterday's Sunday Million:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $200+$15 Tournament, 600/1200 Blinds 100 Ante (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t30683)
UTG (t23180)
UTG+1 (t69583)
MP1 (t45234)
MP2 (t42249)
MP3 (t22891)
CO (t38571)
Button (t32005)
SB (t14539)

Hero's M: 11.36

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3, 5
5 folds, CO calls t1200, 2 folds, Hero checks

Flop: (t3900) 5, 9, 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t2400, Hero calls t2400

Turn: (t8700) K (2 players)
Hero checks, CO checks

River: (t8700) J (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets t4800, Hero raises to t26983 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t18300

Results:
Hero didn't show 3, 5 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t18300

Hell, maybe I just had the best hand anyway.

There was also this:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $200+$15 Tournament, 1000/2000 Blinds 200 Ante (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t37483)
UTG (t57104)
UTG+1 (t76633)
MP1 (t92084)
MP2 (t57631)
MP3 (t36141)
CO (t25460)
Button (t28135)
SB (t20528)

Hero's M: 7.81

Preflop: Hero is BB with 3, 3
5 folds, CO bets t6000, 2 folds, Hero calls t4000

Flop: (t14800) Q, 9, 6 (2 players)
Hero bets t31283 (All-In), 1 fold

Total pot: t14800

Results:

Hero didn't show 3, 3 (nothing).
Outcome: Hero won t14800

I don't use the stop-n-go very often, but this seemed like a good spot. The guy was almost certainly not folding pre-flop, and on a flop like this, he's likely to fold a hand that he would not (or should not, anyway) if he could see my cards. Note that he's only got like 18K behind.


I ended up going quite deep, making the top 200 (out of 8800), on a coin flip:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $200+$15 Tournament, 12500/25000 Blinds 2500 Ante (9 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t723763)
Hero (BB) (t515200)
UTG (t1486381)
UTG+1 (t618409)
MP1 (t264735)
MP2 (t489035)
MP3 (t337651)
CO (t1006328)
Button (t405851)

Hero's M: 8.59

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, K
3 folds, MP2 bets t61000, 3 folds, SB raises to t721263 (All-In), Hero calls t487700 (All-In), 1 fold

Flop: (t1108900) 6, Q, 2 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t1108900) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t1108900) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t1108900

Results:
SB had J, J (two pair, Queens and Jacks).
Hero had A, K (one pair, Queens).
Outcome: SB won t1108900

Stop and Go

Before Greg Raymer was a World Series of Poker champion, he was 2+2 Forums poster Fossilman8. And even before his 2004 main event victory proved it to the world, his status as a world-class poker player and theorist was well-known to the 2+2 community. One of his most famous contributions to the game was the stop-and-go play, which has since appeared in such publications as David Sklansky and Ed Miller's No Limit Hold 'Em: Theory and Practice.

The idea is to pick up a little extra fold equity in a situation where you were going to move all in pre-flop by instead calling and then moving all in on any flop. If you're pretty sure you were going to get called pre-flop anyway, then you don't have much to lose.

The potential drawback is that you might give your opponent a chance to make a correct post-flop fold. For instance, if you have AK and your opponent folds AQ on the flop but would have called pre-flop, that's bad for you. And it usually looks like such an improbable line that you don't get a lot of fold equity anyway. After all, if you actually called pre-flop on a short stack and flopped top pair, wouldn't you usually check?

For these reasons, the stop and go isn't a play that I employ very often. I did find a useful spot for it recently, though:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold'em Tournament, 140/280 Blinds, 25 Ante, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG+1: 6,650
UTG+2: 2,660
MP1: 6,510
MP2: 6,105
CO: 6,620
BTN: 4,389
SB: 2,705
Hero (BB): 3,460
UTG: 6,155

Pre-Flop: (645) 7 7 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 800, 6 folds, Hero calls 520

Flop: (1,965) J A 3 (2 Players)
Hero bets 2,635 and is All-In, UTG+1 folds

Results: 1,965 Pot
Hero mucked 7 7 and WON 1,965 (+1,140 NET)


As you can see, I've only got about 12 BB left in my stack. With such a big chunk of my stack in the pot and a decent pocket pair, I don't think I can fold, even to an early position raise. But with a stop and go, my flop shove is big enough that it won't be a trivial call if my opponent makes like an underpair or misses with AK or something.

This looks like a bad flop, but this hand actually illustrates another important point about the stop and go, which is that once you decide to execute, it's generally correct to grit your teeth and shove even if the flop looks bad for you. I don't think my opponent folded an Ace, but I have gotten him off of 88 or KQ because I followed through on my plan.