....but I thought this one was a little different.

Middle of an MTT and everyone has just made the money 15-20 mins ago. UTG + 2 was a really solid player. He was catching a lot of good hands and playing them well. He seemed to be fairly straight forward as I hadn't seen him get caught making any moves. UTG I didn't have a read on at all. He had only been at the table for a little while and had not done anything worth noting.


Table '21925837 198' 9-max Seat #8 is the button

Seat 1: BB (9586 in chips)
Seat 2: UTG (5518 in chips)
Seat 3: UTG + 1 (9010 in chips)
Seat 5: UTG + 2 (25222 in chips)
Seat 6: Hero (7255 in chips)
Seat 7: UTG + 4 (7810 in chips)
Seat 8: BUTTON (11415 in chips)
Seat 9: SB (3570 in chips)



Everyone posts $25 ante, SB posts $200 and BB posts $400.
Total pot: $800

Hero is dealt


UTG calls $400. UTG + 1 folds. UTG + 2 calls $400. Hero raises $1100 to $1500t. 4 folds. UTG calls $1100. UTG + 2 raises 4100 to 5600. Hero.......

Originally Posted by Mr.McJ

1. Fold or push?

2. Limit the field and/or take the pot down right there. The table was fairly tight ever since the blinds made it above $100.

3. 2-3bb raises seemed to be the standard PF raise prior to this hand. Since I was happy with taking the pot down PF, coupled with the fact that 2 people had already limped, I figured a slightly larger than standard raise was a good idea.

4. My thoughts? Oh shit.....lol. Seriously, I figured he had a PP anywhere from 99 - AA. UTG I had no clue.

1. Ok. but lets look at your pre-flop play first.

2. Good reasons.

3. I would never expect a 2x raise to make limpers fold. 2-3bb may have been the opening raise but you have two players in the pot.

Then the action gets to you, there is 1600 in the pot. You raise to 1500 making the pot 3100. your opponents have to call 1100 so they are getting well almost 3:1 on their money. I would raise to somewhere between 2400 and allin.

4. a. Your first thought should be "how much is in the pot" By my count there is 9400 in the pot (you should get yourself in the habbit of including this in your posts).

b. your second thought is, how much is it for me to call? 4100

c. what are my pot odds? 2.29 to 1

d. how does my hand rate vs his possible holdings? Even against 99-AA you are only a 1.6:1 dog so you are getting a nice overlay. In truth you will most likely be much closer to 1:1

e. What if I push? You are still getting almost 2:1

You are getting into low M territory, you have a strong hand and favorable odds.

I'm deep in thought about this one. There have been multiple conversations on this site where the majority believe that when somebody limp/reraises it usually means AA or KK. From what I've seen since the last time it came up, in ring games, that's 60-75% correct. In tournaments, I haven't seen it that often so I couldn't say as to the accuracy that I've witnessed.

I feel it might be slightly different in a tournament because with decent players, you have different moves (Squeeze plays which is what this looks like), isolation plays, and just plain pushing around. I think I push here and hope that there are mid PPs and I catch a great flop.

I don't think I've ever hesitated to push with AK because I've never been good enough to make a read where I could put the villian on AA or KK and since there are host of hands I dominate and a few that I'm flipping a coin with I have always felt that it's a good hand to push with. The way this one went down, I believe I would push. If it was somebody with a similar stack to mine that was doing the reraising I might be able to lay it down, but since his stack is so large, he could be thinking you are just trying to steal the pot (had you been caught doing that, or had you had a decent run of cards where you've been doing a lot of raise PF?).

My guess is he is making a move. UTG limps villian calls. You raise and get called by UTG.

I think Villian is seeing a big pot in front of him and has AXs, KQs, or maybe a smallish pair, even something like JTs. It is unlikely he limped behind another limper with AJ+ or a decent pair.

I can't put UTG on a big hand since your re-raise would be a good spot to re-raise again.

I would re-raise all-in to try to eliminate the other caller or make this a huge pot if he wants to call.