Beginners' Questions With Dr Flopaset 7

** Help support Poker Verdict by using one of our links when choosing to download a new site **

Hi Dr.Flopaset,

I was recently playing a no limit Holdem sit n go and had reached the 75/150 blind levels with a chip stack of 1260. There were five of us left in and I was on the button. The first player limped in, the next player folded and then the action was on me with Ac Th. I decided to raise three times the big blind to 450, the small blind folded and the big blind called while the limper folded. He started the hand with 1650 in chips. The flop came down 8s Ks 4d and now the big blind checked. I went all-in for 810 and he called and knocked me out with his pocket 8s which had flopped a set. Was there any way I could have played this differently and avoided going broke?

Thanks,

Timmy Twopair

Hi Timmy,

I’m afraid there wasn’t much you could do here to avoid going skint apart from not playing the hand. Once your opponent has shown weakness on the flop you’re forced to bet seeing as you only have 810 chips left and there is a good possibility you have the best hand. If you check and then he bets the turn and you decide to fold you would still have been in the SNG, but with a pretty low stack of 810 which would only have been 5.4 big blinds. Seeing as there were only five of you left this stack would not have posed much of a threat nor would it have given you much room to manoeuvre, thus making it hard on yourself to win the SNG. Unfortunately for you your opponent had flopped trip 8s and so was going nowhere.

What’s interesting is how you chose to play the hand pre-flop. SNGs tend to play a lot faster than a typical MTT due to there being less chips in play and less players on the table when the blinds go up. Raising three times the big blind is standard and favoured by many players and this is fine during the early stages of any tournament, be it a SNG or MTT. However, at the stage you had reached your stack was now around 10 big blinds which is a critical level. You still have enough to put pressure on other players, but not really enough to actually “play poker”. How you played your hand is a perfect example – once you have raised you only have 810 chips left to bet with. In your situation the pot size had grown to 1125 on the flop. Once you go all-in for 810 your foe is now getting 1935 to 810 (2.3-1) which is a fairly easy call with anything. In other words both you and your opponent are pretty much pot-committed. He would have to have really missed that flop to fold to your bet plus you have to factor in the fact that he probably knows there’s a very good chance you have missed the flop too. To put it another way, there isn’t much fold equity with your bet on the flop.

The better way to have played your hand would have been to go all-in before the flop. Now you have fold equity. In other words, there are now hands that your opponents may raise with themselves, but find very hard to call a large all-in raise with. This is also known as the “Gap Concept” which was coined by top poker theorist David Sklansky. There are many hands which you would like to raise pre-flop with, but it’s only the really strong hands that merit calling raises with. Also, now that you have gone all-in you have removed the possibility of your opponents out-playing you and bluffing you out on the flop, turn or river. As it is in your particular example even if you had gone all-in before the flop your opponent would have found an easy call with pocket 8s and the result would have been the same, but at least you would have got your money in when you were only a 44% dog as compared to only having a 1.62% chance of winning when you bet your last 810 on the flop, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a better situation.

* * * * * * * ADVERTISEMENT * * * * * * *

Poker Verdict Private Tournaments and Freerolls:
Great value events, qualifiers and guarenteed prize pools

Poker Verdict Special Offers:
Win a chance to play in the WSOP $1,500 event

* * * * * * * ADVERTISEMENT * * * * * * *