Bellagio $1500: 88 vs. Barry G

[Todd Terry]

Around 36 left in the event (27 pay), redrew at 36, first time I've played with Barry in this event. I'd played with him for less than 20 minutes total prior to this when he was very short stacked, so I don't have any first-hand experience about his game. Those who know his game better, please try discussing the hand both from my perspective and from the perspective of someone who knows his game as well as you. I'm fairly sure Barry has no idea who I am at the table here.

We've been at this table a little while, I lost a few hands early. One where I raised from EP, c-bet the flop, and c/folded the turn. Another where I raised from LP, checked down the flop and turn, and called a small river bet and lost to 2nd pair. Barry's open-raised a few times, but hasn't played any hands postflop IIRC.

Blinds: 600/1200/100. I have 40K, Barry starts the hand with 30-31K. Barry opens on the button to 3300 (which has been his standard opening raise at this level), I look down at 88 in the BB. I ask Barry how much he has behind, he looks and says 26, I say I think it's 27, he says he thinks it's 26. I think this is a tough decision preflop. Shoving is an option, I would assume Barry's opening wide enough for it to be profitable, but 25 BBs effective is really on the outer bounds of what I like shove over an open. And I'm down below 10 BBs if I shove and lose the hand. Against a non-pro I'd shove all day long here near the bubble. The problem with calling is that 88 is going to be a tough hand to play OOP against Barry, who I assume is probably not too bad postflop. I actually considered folding for that reason. I'd really be interesting in hearing from others about what to do in this spot. I elected to call.

Flop: Q 5 3, 2 diamonds, 1 heart. I check, Barry bets 4500. I haven't seen a postflop hand from him yet, but I assume the betsize is standard and means nothing. I call.

Turn: 5h, putting a second flush draw on the board. I check, Barry takes a long time, looks like he's arranging chips to bet, and finally checks. It really looked to me like he almost pulled the trigger on a bet and then decided against it.

River: 4h, completing the backdoor flush. I check. Barry fairly quickly bets 10K. Before he bets, he says, "Ten". He pushes out a stack of 10K. Both the announcing of the bet amount and the pushing out of the bet (as opposed to his normal splashing of chips) are actions I haven't yet seen from him.

Your action?

[Adam Junglen]

AIPF.

I understand not wanting to move in 25bbs pf, but it's not like he opened from MP and you're on the button....he opened button and you're in the blinds. Shove Shove Shove.

[Todd Terry]

Adam:

At what effective stack depth does this change from a shove to a call for you?

[Adam Junglen]

30-35bbs. Might even jam 35...just don't like playing the hand OOP, and I've gotten called by worse in that spot (you gotta have AK, right?).

As played, I might call the river btw. Barry's betting a very high % of his range on the river. Pretty read-dependent at that point though.

[Alex Kamberis]

Originally Posted by Adam Junglen

30-35bbs. Might even jam 35...just don't like playing the hand OOP, and I've gotten called by worse in that spot (you gotta have AK, right?).

As played, I might call the river btw. Barry's betting a very high % of his range on the river. Pretty read-dependent at that point though.

just seconding everything adam has already said, to a tee. even if you think barry is strong on the button preflop here (probably giving him/any player too much credit if you think that), you're still gonna profit more by shoving preflop (or rr/calling) than you will by calling and playing the hand oop.

actually, i'm not even convinced that calling with stacks like these is significantly better than folding, since playing a small-mid pair oop with <30 bbs effective is almost always gonna be a pretty miserable task. shoving (or rr/committing) is really your only play here.

as played i definitely think river is a fold. it's VERY rare that a good player takes the bet flop/check turn/bluff river line against anyone. the backdoor flush does give him something to rep, and all initial draws did miss, but i still think his bluff % is very small here. unfortunately i don't think i've ever played with barry so i can't really say anything about what his tendencies might be here.

also... i'm not sure if this is a silly rule and i don't have much math behind it, but my general rule for the amount that i'm willing to shove over an open is that if my shove is 10x or less than their open, then it's not too big of a shove. in certain spots i'm willing to break this rule, but only slightly. so with barry opening to 3300 here, i'd be willing to reship ~33k/30 bbs. with barry only having 26-27 back, you definitely don't need to worry about a shove being too much here. it's really fairly standard.

[Todd Terry]

My personal threshold for shoving over an open is around 8x (somewhat depending on the open size as well, so there's a BB component to it also), and in some spots I'm willing to break it, so we're not that far apart. I think (1) the proximity to the bubble (which is going to make the chips we lose somewhat more valuable than the chips we win) and (2) the taking away of the ability to resteal with FE if we are called and lose are additional factors that potentially call for not shoving as wide or as much as we normally would in this type of spot. I could probably make a very rough estimate of the effect of (1) via assumptions about ICM, but (2) is something that's difficult to quantify. But at the end of the day, as I said in the OP, I would expect it to still be a profitable play.

And I didn't have any doubt that Barry's range on the button here was going to be fairly wide. I just hadn't seen enough hands with him to get a better sense of exactly how wide.

[Kevin Saul]

Online It's become common to shove in these situations, which I don't really like doing (for points you stated Todd), tho I have started doing it for the reasons Alex and Adam have stated...especially with my image I get looked up really light some times.

Now live I wouldn't hate shoving vs an unknown, but vs a known player I might rather make it 9500 or so and calling a shove. If flatted, there's to much in the pot to c/f this kind of flop so I'd prolly just send it kamakazee style and hope he didn't smoothie with a big hand or flop a queen where were in big trouble.

As for how the hand played out...I think I play the flop the same way and call the river. If my math is right, by the turn there's 18kish+ in the pot and Barry would have about 22kish behind. If he had a queen or an over pair I would think he would jam the turn to protect his hand, unless he flopped a set and now filled up. Now the river is a very tricky card as he could easily be trying to represent the backdoor flush, and his betsizing is very fishy along with the timing. He basically leaves himself 10 BB's behind if he loses the hand which I know Barry is very comfortable playing push/fold when needed. If he flopped a set I think he would have jammed the river trying to make it look more bluffy for value. Also if he backdoored a heart draw on the turn after making his standard c-bet he would prolly jam the turn to try and take it right there. Barry is pretty fearless and will c-bet a large majority of his hands in heads up pots. Looks to me like he has air too much to fold the river.

Kevin

Kevin

[Justin Bonomo]

Shoving is much much more profitable than calling here.

I don't understand why you would be less inclined to shove vs. a pro than a weak player. It should be the opposite. If someone plays terribly postflop, calling might be a better option, but in all other cases, shoving will be more profitable.

[Eric Lynch]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

Shoving is much much more profitable than calling here.

I don't understand why you would be less inclined to shove vs. a pro than a weak player. It should be the opposite. If someone plays terribly postflop, calling might be a better option, but in all other cases, shoving will be more profitable.

What Justin said 100% IMO. I'm also with Alex in that against Barry here I'm not sure calling is better than folding at all, although I think folding 88 in this spot would be nuts. Against a good player OOP here I'd rather just get the hand over with and neutralize his positional advantage post flop with these stakcs. If he wakes up with a big hand and calls I'd just consider it a cooler personally, although maybe that's a leak of mine (I had a very similar bust out in the WPT champ against Jared Hamby with 99).

-Rizen

[Todd Terry]

Originally Posted by Justin Bonomo

Shoving is much much more profitable than calling here.

I don't understand why you would be less inclined to shove vs. a pro than a weak player. It should be the opposite. If someone plays terribly postflop, calling might be a better option, but in all other cases, shoving will be more profitable.

A non-pro could fold a fair number of better hands to a shove. Assuming shove > call if EV(shove) > EV(call), EV(shove) is higher against a non-pro, you're right that EV(call) should be as well, though. I don't know if the gap between the two increases or not. And shoving versus a non-pro is lower variance than shoving versus a pro as well given the reduced call frequency.