I want to describe two hands that I played in MTTs. I think that I made the right play both times, but I would like comments.

The first was in supersatellite at the Borgata. There were about 80 people left. 20 would win seats in a supersatellite to the Borgata Poker Summer Open.

The blinds were 100/200 + 25 ante. They were going up to 200/400 + 50 on the next hand. A weak player limped in from UTG. It folded to an aggressive player on the button. He raised to 1200. He had between 6,000-7,000 chips left after the raise.

I was in the BB with 55. I had 3,400 plus the 200 BB. From watching the button play, I knew that he liked to be aggressive when no one showed strength to take down small pots. I had also seen him let go of a hand when someone played back at him and if it wasn't a good spot for his money. I thought his most likely holding was a weak ace, suited connectors (something like QJ), or a small pair. I decided to push, making the total pot 5,325. That meant the button had to call 2,200 chips to win the pot, a little over 2:1.

He called with A6o and hit both of them on the flop to win the pot.

In the second hand, it was the final table of a MTT at the Showboat. Eight players were left. The blinds were 3,000/6,000. Everyone had less than 10M, and people were playing tight. I had 30,000, including 3,000 chips that I posted in the SB. A EP with about 32,000 chips limped. He was a little loose, but an above-average player. He would raise any pocket pair or two painted cards. Everyone folded to me, and I had 77. Again, I pushed, believing him to be weak.

With the pot now at 42,000, he called with 24,000 (out of his remaining 26,000) at 1.75:1. He turned over A6o, flopped an ace, and knocked me out.

I'll explain my reasoning on both hands after some comments, but for now two questions: (1) in both hands, were my only reasonable choices to go all in or fold? (2) if you had my opponent's hands, is A6o a strong enough hand to call given my likely range of cards? (I'm interested in the answer to this question because I want to know if I'm playing too tight in these situations when the hands are reversed).

1)I think you were right to make those, especially if you know that much info about them.

2)In the first hand, yeah he was gonna call, but in the second hand wtf why limp in EP with A6, that's an insta-fold

Definitely bad luck, but I'm pushing with your read because you KNOW that you're 50/50 at worst. This is a good case to be in because when you throw in the minute fold equity, the times, you're a 7:3 and 4:1 make these +EV moves.

Not to mention that though you're short, your Q in both hands aren't devasting, so doubling up has a huge potential reward when you figure to be one of the better players in the field or have people figured out, for the most part.

In both cases you are short and have, what looks like, very solid reads on your oponents. Thats the kind of play discribed in the inflection points section of HOH2, and I'm pretty sure Action Dan would have push both hands.

So I guess these are good plays...

KJ

Thanks for the comments. A few of my poker friends commented that I am too aggressive with small pairs, but the way that I play them is situation specific. Here, I felt that if my reads were right, I could take down both pots without a confrontation, and that's what I wanted. I didn't want to showdown the best hand or to just call and then have to play a small pair out of position.

In the Borgata hand, the player made a lot of big raises, but when he raised in LP after no one showed much strength, he generally turned over a marginal hand. While it was possible that really had something good here, I felt that he wouldn't call off 50% of his stack with something weak. He took a really long time to think about what to do, and so I knew that I had read him correctly. It turned out to be a coin flip, and he won.

In the Showboat hand, it was much the same thinking. Unless he was trapping (and that was not his style), the limp meant he was weak. I really didn't think he would call off all of his chips, and I felt that this was a good place to pick a nice pot without a confrontation. I was happy when I saw he had only three outs and sad when one of them showed up on the flop.

I don't think would have made any of these calls in their spots. Against any reasonable player, the widest range of hands that I think could put them on would be any pair and AT or better. Except for pairs 55 or lower, my A6o is dominated and at least 3:1 underdog. Thus, in both cases, I would have folded.

Is that too tight?

I stick to what I said above in that you needed to take a good gamble and you saw good spots to elevate your chance to win the pot and stuck to 'em. Tournament poker so much about the table you've drawn, the stacks around you, and how people are treating you. If these guys were giving you too much action, I could see where someone could argue that the gamble too risky because there's such little chance of getting a fold from these.

Don't know I can point the finger at them. For all they know, you're capable of doing the same with KQ and KJ. Huge gambles on their part, but that's how they play the game. I don't like it- investing so much for so little, but that's poker. Different people play differently.