Aggressive or TOO Aggressive?

[Tom S.]

$85 Thursday night bounty tournament ($25 bounty / $50 in prize pool / starting stack of 10K). With blinds at 600/1,200 w/ 100 ante, when it’s folded to me in the HJ with 55 and a stack of around 30K, which has both villains covered. I raise to 3K, get a call from V1 on the button and then V2 in the BB raises all-in for 16K. I go into the tank and eventually make two spot-on reads that … 1. The V1 button caller (who had around 20K to start the hand) is pretty weak and SHOULD FOLD to my jam and 2. V2 has AK/AQ, some middling pairs, etc. and I’m willing to flip with him for about half my stack. (QUESTION: Is that stupid?) So, I DO jam and I get INSTA-CALLED by V1 on the button and we all turn over our hands: V1 (JQ off, believe it or not!), V2 AK off, and my 55. Flop misses everyone, turn is a J and a river brick gives V1 the come-from-behind win from worst to first!

My thinking: 1. I didn’t want to CALL V2’s all in, which I felt would invite V1 into the pot 2. I really did think that a) V1 was pretty weak and b) Even though I don’t know him, I was sure that he could get away from his hand, leaving me heads up for a decent pot. So, in my mind it was fold (which I “could” have done, but didn’t want to do) or jam. Right read/wrong action or wrong outcome?

[John S]

All of the stacks are just so short here it’s hard for this to play out much differently. You have the big stack at 25BB, V1 has around 19BB and V2 around 15BB. Once you raise, V1 calls, and V2 jams, there’s not much you can do. I doubt V1 is folding here much if you call or raise, since he’s getting a chance to triple-up with what he assumes is 2 live cards. If you fold, V1 might fold, but call or jam I think he’s going with this all day.

The problem with this hand is you have a 3rd person in the pot, and he’s behind you. You don’t get last action, which makes you vulnerable. As I was reading this hand I knew V1 was calling the jam with just about everything he’s calling your raise with.

Heads-up you have to go with this hand since you are a favorite against one 15BB stack jam. With V1 behind you after the jam though, it makes it a lot harder. You’re up against 4 overcards, you only win this hand about 30% of the time. Even if they share one overcard you only win about 40% of the time.

55 is such a low pair you really don’t want to play it multi-way this short-stacked. I think this is probably a fold as played.

[Kman01]

For me, I probably would have taken a different route pre-flop (but again, it’s just me and I don’t know if it’s proper poker strategy). Given that there were still 4 people ahead of you to act, I would’ve just called rather than raise because there’s just too many people to act. Maybe it’s too tight, but this way if you DO get raised huge or jammed on, you can get away from it pretty easily. Otherwise you end up in an awkward situation like you just did. 55 is just such a mediocre hand, that if you do get re-raised, you’re almost certainly dealing with a bigger pocket pair or at least two big overs and you’ll have a pretty good chance of losing an all-in call. In general (depends on position of course) when I get dealt those low pocket pairs I’ll call the blinds or call a small raise and hope for a set. I’ve always been really uncomfortable raising those hands except in special situations, such as when I’m about to be blinded out or only 1 or 2 players left to act in an unraised pot.

Anyways, since you did raise you then had a tough decision to make after V2 goes all in. Given the stack sizes, for me it’s definitely a fold, especially because you have one player left to act. It’s simply not worth the risk for more than 60% of your stack (or was it more with V1?). Given that you did jam however, I am very surprised that the JQ guy called this one after you went all in (and instantly no less)… he got lucky of course, but that was just pure gambling on his part. I’m pretty sure there’s no way any experienced player would have made that call. I don’t always know proper poker strategy, but I can say with near 100% certainty that he definitely made the wrong move. He did get lucky though and the rest is history.

[Tom S.]

I agree that once I found myself 3-way all in with 55, it wasn’t good! And some part of me agrees with your analysis on V1’s call, but if I were to simply to tell you that he faced not only a raise, but a 3-bet, and a 4-bet (both all in) with JQ off, I think it’s a slam dunk that he should fold. Yes, I get that it wasn’t raise, 3-bet, 4-bet leading to him, but sort of in staggered order which included his call of the initial raise. So, I’m torn. I personally fold to the squeeze and the re-jam, but I believe you when you say that you knew he was going to call. So, yes, IF I could have immediately sized it up that the jam/re-jam after his call was not enough to move him off of his hand, I do indeed fold all day long!

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