Saturday, April 11, 2009

exploit a tendency

Three handed at the end of a $22 SNG. The player on my left is the best of all 9 who started at the table - a sick 35% ROI with almost 1500 tourneys played. I've been watching him. He's tight but takes his shots. I have seen him isolate poor players with regularity, and I have also seen him three bet with high frequency (once he had the chips to throw around). He's currently the big stack at the table.

I get dealt AK in the small blind, and the button folds. I only have 11 BB left - I will obviously play for my short stack here. So what's my move to get him to make the biggest mistake possible? Shoving is always an option - he might call me with a few hands I'm dominating, but I'll fold out some other stuff like KQ/KT that I don't want to. I could just complete the blind, but that always gives him a free play with junky cards and he could hit some bizarre two pair or trips hand.

My last option is the smaller raise, maybe even a minraise. I have seen him pounce on perceived weakness before - so let's try and a small raise that looks like I could easily fold. I decide on 2.5 the BB - I haven't minraised anybody yet in this tourney, and I don't want to arouse suspicion by doing something I haven't done before.

It's so sweet when a plan comes together. He shoves over my "weak" raise, and I insta-call. He has A9 suited. It's even sweeter when your plan actually works and the villain doesn't suck out on you - I double up to take the chip lead.

I would have won this tourney if not for a runner-runner wheel straight coming in while headsup. We play several dozen hands after that (88 vs. A2 while all-in). He ends up going into a shoving mode with the chip lead, which I perceive as weakness when he does it postflop. I make a hero call with bottom pair on an all-low board. My read was good, he is in fact weak - but he has top pair, crappy kicker.

2 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

Sounds like you played well -- sometimes you have to satisfied with second.

How's the pooch doing? (I mean pooch in an endearing way.)

matt tag said...

pooch is fitting in very well. He's a bit hyper sometimes, but he'll calm down, I think