What Would I Have Done Differently?

Here’s a hand that’s been bugging me since it happened. Fortunately, I wasn’t involved. Unfortunately, a friend was. Afterward I tried to think of how I might have played it differently had it been me that had woken up to KQo in the BB...

Last night, a friend and I played in a $2 SnG. We were down to 5 players and the blinds were up to 50/100. My friend (aka “HERO”) has 1500 in chips and is short stack, but his M is still 10, so he’s not in terribly bad shape.

The other significant player in this hand is FK IT ALL IN, who has been semi-loose (VPIP of 40%) and has stolen the blinds 14 out of 41 times when he had a chance (34% or so). When he's had to showdown his steals, he's turned up decent cards; i.e., he's not being totally crazy with the steal attempts. Anyway, here’s how the hand played out:

FullTiltPoker Game #4767708966: $2 + $0.25 Sit & Go (36184029), Table 1 - 50/100 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:23:17 ET - 2008/01/06 Seat 1: torubu (5,380) Seat 2: FourYawkeyWay (2,220) Seat 5: FK IT ALL IN (1,955) Seat 6: bugeyebug (2,445) Seat 8: HERO (1,500) bugeyebug posts the small blind of 50 HERO posts the big blind of 100 The button is in seat #5 and raises to $600 preflop on what looks like a steal attempt.



Now, my question is whether there was a better way to play this hand or not. We know that FK is aggressive and was likely stealing, but we also know that he only steals 35% of the time, so he’s not attacking the blinds with just any two cards.

KQo is a pretty good hand, and it’s certainly worth playing here, but is it worth pushing all your chips in with? My friend Alex likes to say that you should bet the minimum to attain the result your trying to achieve. So, what was HERO trying to achieve with the all-in?

1) Was HERO trying to get the button to fold? Answer: No way. FK is not going to drop out, as it costs him only 800 to see a pot of 2250; i.e., he’s getting nearly 3:1 on his money. Just about any two cards are good for a call here.

2) Did HERO think his KQo was good and wanted a show down? Answer: probably not. KQo is just K-high unless it improves. If the button has any ace he’s a favorite, as is any pair. A lot of other cards are a coinflip against KQo, too.

In hindsight, I think the correct play would have been a “stop and go.” HERO could have called the button’s raise, and then pushed all-in on the flop if no ace appeared. If the button was stealing with any ace, he would have to consider folding to a bet on the flop. Also, if the button had any small pair (which he ended up having), he would have also had to fold to a raise too. (And, perhaps more importantly, it would have allowed for an escape route for HERO to take if the flop was scary and he was likely beat.)

Unfortunately, this is all 20/20 hindsight. The truth is that I probably would have made the same (incorrect) play as HERO did. The trick is slowing down and thinking through all the ways the opp is likely to react to any given bet or action. In this case, the opp did exactly what he should have done to HERO's all-in...

In other news, I had a pretty good day playing yesterday:
24-Hour Bankroll Change: +6.4%

All-in for now…
-Bug