Question About An All In Move In A Tournament

Ok, this was last tuesday, final table in tournament, 5 players left, everyone into money.

Ante $500, SB $2000 BB $4000

Pot is $8500

I started final table with $52,000 did not see a decent hand for 2 rounds, played 2 holds and folded after flop.

Now Im short stacked, with about $17,000 Im Hold KJ Clubs

Im 3rd to Act. Player 1 Folds, Player 2 Folds. I went all-in hoping to steal the pot to carry atleast another round.

SB Calls. He has me covered. He is holding QcJs, Flop comes Qd 7h 2d Turn 4c River 5s. I am out of tournament 5th place $165 win and cost me $65.00 buyin

So was this a wrong move on my part?

in the end clearly it was the wrong move... you lost. In that situation you would have been committed with your blinds two hands later anyway, and probably stuck with a worse hand. given that the others may have figured you were just making a move with a tiny stack already committed more than 1 may have called. I think it was a good decision...

How much longer would it have been before the word "chop" was uttered?

Hell. no one there was gonna chop, especially with the the guy who knocked me out only doubled up and the the next lowest stack was only equal to him, and 1st/2nd place had equal stacks of about 150k each

Though over all not bad i dont think been playing less than 3 months i hit 9 final tables and placed in the money in 3 of them.

I wouldn't expect a chop offer when there was someone with 4BB left, assuming everyone else has greater than 10BBs.

You got the money in as the favourite. You played with position. You can't fold two high cards with just the blinds to call (unless I misunderstand the set up, you were in button), as King High is good here. You'll get outplayed on most flops, or get no value if it's scare flop for your opponent.

All in here looks good to me. This might not have been the key hand. It may well have been a hand you folded on the early goes around when you had more of a stack.

Quote: kauboj

So was this a wrong move on my part?

On the surface, I want to say this was the wrong move on your part. KcJc is a strong hand 5-handed, and pushing all-in, the only people likely to call of the remaining blinds will be holding an Ace or a pair. If you've been playing as tight as you say you have been, calling with QcJs is a VERY bad move, since you are likely holding an Ace or better.

Perhaps then that is the correct play. The SB probably should NOT have called you with that weak of a hand.

Then again, my feeling is that you should have just called, hoping that one of the blinds would try to make a move at it. If you don't like the flop, get out. If you flop top pair, you're more likely to get called on your all-in there with the best hand, as they wouldn't put you on a K. And the flop is easy enough to get out of anyways if you don't flop anything.

But congrats otherwise!

Quote: thecesspit

This might not have been the key hand. It may well have been a hand you folded on the early goes around when you had more of a stack.

I am inclined to be more on board with this answer. The problem with having 4 BB's as you stated you were left with is that your chips lose a lot of their power. Even if you manage to win that pot and steal the blinds, you are still looking at an uphill battle with only 8-10 BB's left. Once you get into the money, you need to start taking some more chances as to be successful in tournaments, you simply have to be lucky at certain junctures of play. I'd suggest that once you start approaching the 10-15 BB mark, you really have to take a look at your table position and consider making a move at that point. Even if you end up being an underdog, if you make a move with a relatively strong hand and manage to win when you push with 10-15 big blinds, winning actually keeps you in the race and allows you to be more creative with your plays. Dwindling to 4 BB's is a bad position to be in, because even in the best case (a win) your chips still don't have much staying power.

Hope this helps. Best of luck on the tables.

Without knowing exactly what the other players' stacks are, it's hard for me to answer this question. You are trying to get out the SB, who only needs $15k to call you, and the BB, who only needs $13k to call you. If a call for those amounts by either of those players would be detrimental to them, then an all-in move would be a good idea. On the other hand, if either of those players can easily call you, and not be hurt even if they lose, then an all-in move would not be a great idea. You did say that the SB has you covered, but you don't say by how much. So, I would say that I would need to know how much he has you covered by, a little, or a lot?

Quote: konceptum

Without knowing exactly what the other players' stacks are, it's hard for me to answer this question. You are trying to get out the SB, who only needs $15k to call you, and the BB, who only needs $13k to call you. If a call for those amounts by either of those players would be detrimental to them, then an all-in move would be a good idea. On the other hand, if either of those players can easily call you, and not be hurt even if they lose, then an all-in move would not be a great idea. You did say that the SB has you covered, but you don't say by how much. So, I would say that I would need to know how much he has you covered by, a little, or a lot?

Really? I don't understand this. The pot is unraised, you're on the button, you've got 4 big blinds left, and you've got K-J suited. What else are you possibly going to do other than go all in?

Was it live or online?
Online, people trying to steal the blinds with a short stack do look desperate. I would be very inclined to call, just to take an opponent out if nothing else, so it's no surprise your competitors called.
On the other hand at that point your position didn't left much choice, a strong move was probably a bit late to the game.
Live... you can be seen as desperate, but you can also pull it off, because your stack isn't all there is to it - too individual to tell.

Quote: PapaChubby

Really? I don't understand this. The pot is unraised, you're on the button, you've got 4 big blinds left, and you've got K-J suited. What else are you possibly going to do other than go all in?

Fold. If either of the blinds has more than enough to call me without denting their stacks, I can safely make an assumption that they are going to do so. Goal at this point, for them, is to knock me out. If I was small or big blind, even with a crappy hand, and sufficient chip stack that the call will not hurt me, I'd call with a marginal hand, just for the off chance of knocking someone out.

On the other hand, if I fold, I can safely ride through the upcoming blinds. I can hope for a better hand and/or the possibility that someone else will get knocked out, pushing me higher up on the payout list.

A lot of this would depend on what I know of the other players as well. Online, a lot of people play fairly poorly, and I know that being able to just sit through a couple more rounds of blinds would most likely see 1, if not 2, other people being knocked out before me. And, again, a lot of this depends on where everyone is at chip-wise, which is why I would still need more information on what all the chip stacks at the table are before I could say whether or not OP's idea to move all in was a good one.

Quote: konceptum

Fold. If either of the blinds has more than enough to call me without denting their stacks, I can safely make an assumption that they are going to do so. Goal at this point, for them, is to knock me out. If I was small or big blind, even with a crappy hand, and sufficient chip stack that the call will not hurt me, I'd call with a marginal hand, just for the off chance of knocking someone out.

On the other hand, if I fold, I can safely ride through the upcoming blinds. I can hope for a better hand and/or the possibility that someone else will get knocked out, pushing me higher up on the payout list.

A lot of this would depend on what I know of the other players as well. Online, a lot of people play fairly poorly, and I know that being able to just sit through a couple more rounds of blinds would most likely see 1, if not 2, other people being knocked out before me. And, again, a lot of this depends on where everyone is at chip-wise, which is why I would still need more information on what all the chip stacks at the table are before I could say whether or not OP's idea to move all in was a good one.

OK, I can envision folding in an attempt to wait out somebody who might get knocked out before me. But I can't envision folding in hopes of getting a better hand to go all-in with before I run out of chips.

I'm no expert on tournament strategy. But I'd be ok with somebody calling me with a marginal hand because they think I'm desperate. Chances are that I'll have the better of them, and I'll be better (maybe much better) than 50/50 to more than double my stack. In this particular case, he had his opponent dominated (75%?) and just got an unlucky draw.

Yes, he got unlucky. But again, all you can really think about it, at the time you made the move, was it the right move to make. All I think is that without complete knowledge of the various chip stacks at the table, I couldn't, with certainty, say whether or not he made the right move.

He mentioned he was short stacked, but not whether or not he was THE short stack. I kind of assumed that he is. But still, there's a difference between chip stacks of 17K, 18K, 20K, 20K, 200K and 17K, 50K, 50K, 50K, 50K.

I'm not saying he might have gotten a better hand later. As fewer players exist at the table, more players play marginal hands. Further, someone with a large chip stack could be someone who likes to over-dominate, or someone who wants to sit back and glide his way to a higher placement. Without know what kind of player you're dealing with, it's also hard to determine if the decision was the right one.

The OP also mentioned something about not having gotten any good hands worth playing for some time before getting the hand in question. That tends to have an effect on people as well. We want to believe that our luck hasn't been that great, and this is the best hand we've seen in a while, and that makes it a good hand to play. The bottom line is that either of the blinds, if holding an Ace, would already dominate the OP's hand, and thus be worthy of calling the all-in bet, as long as it wouldn't be detrimental to the stack. In that regards, the KJ suited doesn't look so great after all.

In tournament play, it's often easy to look back at a situation and try to wonder if you made the right decision, but you also have access to a lot of information that you didn't have at the time. The first tournament I ever won, was with a pair of 6s against an AQ of spades. In retrospect, it's easy to see that trying to bully the other player by pushing all-in was pretty stupid, but at the time, the pair of 6s looked pretty good. Further, I knew that my opponent wouldn't call unless he had a pretty good hand, so I thought it was a fairly safe move. In the end, I got lucky.

You have 4 BB and suited big cards... easy shove. Maybe they fold and you pick up the blinds. If they call there is a decent chance you are ahead or in a flip anyway.

Plus you are already in the money and are short stacked. You need to find chips in the immediate future anyway.

It comes down to whether you are looking for long-term success or maximum payout in that one tournament. As i stated before, once you make the money in a tournament, the goal should be to win, not to move one more spot up the money ladder. The difference between 5th and 4th is not proportional to the difference between 5th and 1st, thus you must take significant risks at calculated points to attempt to maximize your winnings. Making the money is goal #1, but once you're in the money, the goal should shift to putting yourself in the best position to win as that is where the overwhelming majority of the money remaining lies. Tournaments are too volatile to simply forfeit any real chance of success to simply die a slow death via the blinds and antes.

In the OP's original scenario, I would say that getting to 4 BB's was a mistake, but regarding whether the all in at that time was advisable, the answer should be a resounding yes.

Quote: konceptum

The OP also mentioned something about not having gotten any good hands worth playing for some time before getting the hand in question. That tends to have an effect on people as well. We want to believe that our luck hasn't been that great, and this is the best hand we've seen in a while, and that makes it a good hand to play. The bottom line is that either of the blinds, if holding an Ace, would already dominate the OP's hand, and thus be worthy of calling the all-in bet, as long as it wouldn't be detrimental to the stack. In that regards, the KJ suited doesn't look so great after all.

Completely agree with that, as stated in my first post on the issue. You have to figure 5-handed, both players in front of the OP don't have an Ace or any high cards for that matter. This leaves a higher probability that one of the two blinds DOES have an Ace. Given the stacks as he briefly described, an A would be a correct call there.

Then again, I think the SB should have folded given the information provided. He made a bad call and got lucky... it happens, but calling QJ off against a tight player is a VERY weak play, regardless of chip stacks.

Quote: kauboj

Ok, this was last tuesday, final table in tournament, 5 players left, everyone into money.

Ante $500, SB $2000 BB $4000

Pot is $8500

I started final table with $52,000 did not see a decent hand for 2 rounds, played 2 holds and folded after flop.

Now Im short stacked, with about $17,000 Im Hold KJ Clubs

Im 3rd to Act. Player 1 Folds, Player 2 Folds. I went all-in hoping to steal the pot to carry atleast another round.

SB Calls. He has me covered. He is holding QcJs, Flop comes Qd 7h 2d Turn 4c River 5s. I am out of tournament 5th place $165 win and cost me $65.00 buyin

So was this a wrong move on my part?

If x =6. what does y equal? I have a better chance of answering that question than yours ! 2 Rounds at ante's and blinds means
$17,000/ What does two holds mean? Were they BB or two hands you called ? If BB where is the other $18,000? You give no information as to other players style of play ! Even if we assume you have no real knowledge of that, what are the stack sizes ?
What do the other 4 places pay? You wanted to carry another round but do not state why? Did you think you might move up a spot or two simply by surviving?

How much time left in this round and what were the next level of antes and blinds? We now know the small blind had 17 k? That leaves 34k, 150K and 150K? Surely the BB had only 34K or your play was really really DUMB. With 4k already in and a chance to put you out for less than 10% of his remaining stack, the BB might call with most anything. But the SB saved him the trouble.
Congrats on making final tables, but the money is in first place. That 52K was 14% of the table chips. And you had a payday guaranteed. That was the time to gamble !!!!! You 2/7 offsuit will beat aces 12% of the time heads up.

In that spot, I -want- the Big Blind to call with anything. I'm short stacked, I need to double up, and I'm a favourite against any two cards.

Sure, I'm getting called a lot in this spot. That's just fine, once your down so low, your getting called pretty much anytime you sneeze.

Why have you allowed yourself to be in this spot? If you were hoping to just move up a spot, who go all in now? Why were you
just pissing you chips away instead of being aggressive when it was 5 handed and you had 14% of the chips. 2 double ups then and
you are the chip leader !!! And have more chips than the other players combined.
Faint heart never won fair lady
And damn few tournaments !

I would have called, and waited for Flop. Pushing all-in is just begging for "another Ace to call", and you don't have one. As alluded to previously, by several others, steering the table with more chips is preferable.