[Guma]

This is my first bad beat story that I will share with everyone!

Yesterday I am playing a $12 + $2 MTT $2000 Guarantee on Bodog. 176 players pays out Top 18.

Almost 3 hours in to the tourney we are finally down to 20 players left. For the last hour or so I have been hoovering around the average chip stack. On this particular hand I have close to T5800 in chips.

8 players at the table, Blinds are 400/800 ante 150. I am in UTG+1 and get dealt AA. My thought process here is that I want action, not too much but I do want to get some more chips. Min raise to $1600 has been taking down the blinds quite regularly so I know I don't want to raise anymore than that if I want to induce any callers. Best situation would be Heads Up action.

I min raise to $1600 and get one caller from the BB (T13,500), so I got what I wanted. K64 rainbow comes on the flop and the BB checks. I bet 2000. This is half my stack, trying to let him know that if he raises I am willing to commit the rest of my chips to the pot. The BB raises putting me all in and I call. BB shows 24o for a pair of 4's. Lo and behold the 2 comes on the river beating my AA with 2 bottom two pair. After almost 3 hours of play I am pissed that I walked away with nada, nothing, ZERO!

Afterwards I was thinking about my play in this situation. I know I could have pushed preflop and taken the Blinds and Antes down and continued on easily making it into the money. But I do not like playing to "just make the money." I know there has to be a fine line between playing to win and playing to mazimize your profits at the table. I am second guessing my min raise to induce a call instead of simply raising and taking the pot, given that the situation was we were two away from the money.

Any thoughts on this and how to avoid something like this in the future? I know I can't avoid all the suckouts, but I can't help but think it was a bad decision to set myself up to be beat like that.

[JM]

I would have a. raised more preflop, and b. if I hadn't raised more preflop I would have been all-in after the flop with that board. If you're willing to put it all in post flop and you want him to know you're willing to do so, might as well do it up front and scare him off.

[D3scride]

Move all in preflop

You have 7BB approximately

Even if you just pick up the blinds and antes you will add 400+800+(8x150)= 2400 which is approximately 40% added to your stack.

[littlebu]

I would have just pushed preflop. If I didn't push preflop I would have made it 2400 and pushed any flop.

[jojobinks]

haven't read any responses yet:

push. you have nowhere near the chips do to anything else. and pushing, btw, IS playing to win.

you have 5400. the blinds are 400/800 with 150, 8-handed. the starting pot, then is 2400, which is nearly 1/2 your stack! if your stack is about average, you're likely to get a call even with a push, after all your m is barely >2.

pushing and increasing your stack by 50% is a great result...there's no other play. if you had 20k, you should think about something else...maybe.

...imo

[jmc]

You wanted action from 42 in that spot -- you trapped someone with the worst hand by a long shot (4:1). If you wanted 0 action and just steal the blinds (and coast into the money) move all in preflop. If you're trying to win and want to get more chips you played it fine (since your minraise looks like a steal). I usually raise a little more, to say 2k or so, since this will tend to get a little more respect than a minraise, but not too much that someone might not play with me.

[tomb1]

The idiot who "defended" his blind is the one who made the stupid play. AS JMC said, you got him to make a really bad move, and that's exactly what you want.

Your logic is OK, but pushing all in is also OK. I couldn't fault you either way. I'm not a good enough player to know which would have the statistical edge over a million similar hands, but either play would win the vast majority of the time.

Given your small stack, this might say push rather than slowish-play.

Good tourney regardless!

[toblat]

definitely would have pushed pre-flop, you didn't really have that much and the blinds are enough that even if everyone folds you are increasing your stack size considerably, allowing you to get into the money and start playing to win.

[BigWoody]

A lot of people are saying "push". There is nothing wrong with this play due to the fact that you are so low, but most of the time you won't get action. Therefore...

I have only one reason that I feel your play during the hand was perfect, and I mean that in every sense of the word (IMO). By picking up the blinds/antes you win the pot and are still in the tourney, but are basically still in the same boat as you were before - hovering around 10 BBs. You played the hand in such a way that you were going to hook someone into a big pot, which you did...it just didn't come your way. Your bet on the flop was perfect aswell, it was the same kind of bet someone would make with AT or QJ, a cheap (fake) continuation bet looks weak here. The guy read it like that, as he should of, and thought his pair was good so he moved in. You call and he's dead to 5 outs, with 2 draws at the deck. 80% of the time you look like Phil Ivey, 20% of the time people question your play and say you should've play it differently. Not me...PERFECT PLAY, bad luck.

If it means anything, this is almost exactly how Daniel Negreanu went broke about a month ago at Foxwoods in 27th. There was a huge discussion in his forums about whether he played the hand wrong/right, he was very adimit that he played it the best way possible...he would either double up and contend for the title or go broke (which probably would of happened very soon anyway with his short stack and high blinds).

[timsta007]

Have to agree with you woody. I like the way the hand was played, pushing is the safe move, but is too conservative. With QQ or even KK? yes push. But in this situation AA is too big a hand to waste just picking up the blinds. Anytime you can get your money in and get called as a 4:1 favorite you've played about as good as you can. If you were playing to make the money - bad play, but the top few spots always pay much better. I'd agree you definately want to try and double up here.