Here's the final hand of the tourney for me . .. Busted out 2800ish out of 4700. Last orbit I was UTG+1, UTG raised to 3x bb, I reraised all in with AA, he called and I double through him. I've only played 1 hand since the last break - AA. The table is very active with a lot of raises and reraises . . . and I just haven't had an opportunity to take a shot at the blinds. I've been more or less card dead since the last break. The players remaining (with the exception of CO, who is a donk) are all above average tourney players.

Villian has a VPIP of 25, but has suddenly become more active and just won a big pot when his set of jacks busted KK. He seems to be a cautious but tricky player.

Blinds go up in 3 minutes. I like my stack, but i'm looking to keep moving.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t300 (10 handed) CP hand converter

SB (t6010)
BB Tricky Villian (t13952)
UTG (t5587)
UTG+1 (t5342)
UTG+2 (t6230)
MP1 (t4201)
MP2 (t7681)
MP3 (t6214)
CO (t4555)
Hero (t9610)

Preflop: Hero is Button with , .
7 folds, Hero raises to t750, 1 fold, Tricky Villian raises to t1200, Hero raises to t3500, Tricky Villian calls t2300.

Ok, obviously I'm looking to steal cheap on the button. And I get a typical blind defense play, which is to min raise me back, hoping I fold my nothing hand. I'd be much more worried about a call here. This pot has just gotten interesting, and I'm going to see if I can put in one more raise to blow villian off his hand. If he reraises again, I'm done. If he calls, I have 1/2 a hand here and position, so I'm not totally SOL. But I'm likely to have to let this one go on the flop.

Flop: (t7150) , , (2 players)
Tricky Villian checks, Hero bets [t6110] , Tricky Villian calls t6110.

Ok, couldn't ask for a better flop that's not TT9. Villain, checks. My options are to see a free card - which might help me (but likely not), or semi bluff at this pot. The pot is as big as my stack, so I have one move here. If villian calls with a hand like AK/AQ, I'll actually be in pretty good shape. But I think he lays down any unpaired A here, as well as any smaller pair that isn't a set or trips (99, TT, 22-77). KQ/KT/QT are going to fold here. AJ may lay the hand down 20% of the time as well, KJ/QJ more like 40%. KK/AA/QQ/JJ/88 are calling no matter what. Even if he calls with an overpair, I've got outs to win a huge pot. I'm only drawing dead to 88.

Turn: (t13260) (2 players)

River: (t13260) (2 players)

Final Pot: t13260

Results in white below:
Tricky Villian has Qs Qd (two pair, queens and eights).
Hero has Th 9s (one pair, eights).
Outcome: Tricky Villian wins t13260.

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

Dude, we talked about this. Party's structure doesn't allow for this. You judged your stack by the rest of the table as opposed to keeping your M in mind, first and foremost.

Never resteal PF in an early stage of a tourney. Early, meaning before the bubble, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong. You have to raise the button PF and you raised the right amount with no limpers. You got what you wanted- the pot or information. You got information and you got a lot of it.

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This is from the PFO article I wrote on tournament aggression and this is with a big stack. http://www.pokerforums.org/articles/6/ I don't care what other people have. An M around 21 sucks if you wanna play poker.

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Word up. Remember, Q is the weak force. M is the strong force, to use Harrington's words.

I think the resteal is also too aggressive here. Because the blinds were about to go up again, I'm actually playing my M at the next level (which is 200/400 for an M of 16).

So you get min raised. Do you really fold for 500 more?

Couple of things I didn't like about the table and/or this hand:

1) I'm going up against another big stack at the table.
2) The BB when I'm CO (UTG above) is a very loose passive player, and calling a lot of raises with crap and getting lucky. He just took a beat, but I don't think any raise will likely take his blind unless he has utter crap.
3) MP2 and MP3 above are raising just about every pot (one of them took the KK beat last hand).

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Passive guy and minimum re-raise, not raise, but re-raise SCREAMS big hand. The discipline behind aggression is folding when you're caught with your hand in the cookie jar. If he has 2 overs to your T9, the math says call. But this is where the math is heavily flawed in interpretation.

1.) The math is calculated after seeing 5 cards.

2.) Most of the time when you do have the best hand, you won't know it.

3.) This is a tournament, not a cash game, and your M can't afford to call another orbit with this hand.

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My comments about loose passive are related to UTG (who will be the BB next hand when I'm the CO) - not villian. Villian is an aggressive tricky player.

I agree RE: folding here, and it was my first thought. I stupidly discarded it because of the odds, and because villian has shown himself capable of making this defense.

I considered my options to be either reraising 3x his previous bet, or flat calling and hoping I get an undercard flop against AK/AQ or a total lemon hand. I decided reraising had the greatest potential for success, but was also the riskiest.

Given time to rethink, I should probably have folded, maybe called. I felt too much pressure from an impending M of 16, the aggressive table, and the fact that the next hand the bb would be a calling station. So I decided to see if I could "make something happen", and sure as shit I did.

I made my exit happen . . .

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

That's right. I'm reading a different thread every minute, it seems this afternoon and 4 tabling on the other monitor. My bad. You even called him "Tricky Villian." I just forgot.

Remember those three points on interpreting the numbers. Numbers define nothing. Man defines numbers.

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Day After Analysis:

Ok, it's always fun to take a look at these hands the day after . . . .

It's an opportunity to drain the "man I fucked up" emotionality out of the analysis and take a much more even keel look at my performance.

Frankly, I'm torn on my play above. Villian was a very good, tricky player. Previous hand he had called UTG with JJ, then when MP3 raises a smallish amount, flat calls again getting the necessary odds to hit his set. He hits the set, bets it out (doesn't slowplay), and doubles through when KK (the former table chipleader) raises him all in. He played JJ UTG for set value the entire way, and knew not to slowplay it against an aggressive player when he hit. . . now that's a good, tricky player, IMO.

So when villian min reraises here, I'm putting him on a much weaker hand - a small pair, suited connectors, maybe a weak A holding. Yes, a big hand is in the back of my mind, but I've got an incredibly tight image at this table, and I haven't ever raised his blind (because I never had the opportunity). So against a very tight opponent he could think I'm ready to fold here, or will call and he can take the pot away from me if no A or K flops.

If this is a donk here, I fold instantly to the min raise, because it screams big hand. Once he calls the big raise, I hit the open ended straight draw on the flop (with no A or K), he checks (as opposed to betting out as in the last hand), I think my move is obvious. I'm getting 2.2:1 on my money, and even against a range of AA-JJ, 88, AK I'm just a 2:1 dog. Given the folding equity out there against a lot of better, but unpaired hands, it's just too hard to get away from this.

Note that he took his full time, and 1/2 of his time bank before he finally makes the call. And he turns over the worst hand for me - QQ (it kills 1/2 of my outs, now I just can win with a 7).

All in all, I think there's a mixture of too aggresive play at this stage of the tournament (though my M for the next round is starting to get very shallow) and just bad luck (first time raising his blind he wakes up with QQ). But of course that's why being a tricky aggressive player is rewarded . . . when you actually have a hand no one believes you . . . .

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Jason75: Ok, you check and the button bets 400. Now what?
Beavis68: You play poker.
Jason75: Darn, I was really hoping for canasta. Maybe Gin.

fold this preflop.... blind stealing isnt worth it early in a tournament...

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