Middle pair facing an all in, heads up in a MTT

Game type: Small MTT online, no limit hold em
Stage of tourney: Heads up for the win
Avg stack: ~85k
Your image: Aggressive
Opponent’s image: A little weak-tight and frustrated
Your hand: 8♥6♥

The setup: You’ve made it to the final two of a small lower buy in MTT online. You had a bit of a rough stretch in the final 5, but you started hitting cards and knocked out the last three opponents to narrow it to HU. You and your opponent began the match with equal stacks (he instantly offered a chop, but this site doesn’t support those), but you’ve put decent distance between you two in the dozen hands so far, and you can tell he’s getting frustrated.

This hand you’re dealt 86h in the SB and you limp. Your opponent makes it 2,260 more, just over a minimum raise. He hasn’t been raising much PF. You call and flop a gutshot:

3♣7♦4♥

The BB checks and you check behind. The turn adds a flush draw for you with the Q♥. Now your opponent springs to life, overbetting the pot with 10,760 into just under 9k. You think and decide to peel off a river. You end up with middle pair when then 8♠ hits.

Now your opponent pushes all in for their last 49k into a pot just over 30k. This was a $30 buy in MTT with 115 players. First place pays $1,000 and second pays $600. What’s your play?

5 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

Jeremy Fisher

This entire hand was played atrociously, from preflop all the way through. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

86s is certainly a raise-worthy hand preflop HU (any hand worth playing is, and 86s is worth playing). It’s also a hand you’ll easily fold to a preflop reraise, which may have happened in this scenario and made this a whole lot easier.

As played, the flop shouldn’t be checked behind either. The flop almost certainly missed him and when checked to here I absolutely will fire a bet, taking down the pot there a good portion of the time.

But, as played, we faced a big bet on the turn, and made a bad call without the pot odds to draw out (unless you count your implied odds and really believe you can stack the guy if you hit, which isn’t at all a sure thing.) On the turn your options are push or fold. Neither one is bad, but calling certainly is.

But having come to this river and mangled this hand as bad as we have, I just can’t call the huge overbet with one weak pair.
The tipping point for me here is the obvious edge we have over our opponent, as per the description. It’s true that I’ll still have a decent stack if I lose here, but why not hold onto the lead we have and chip away at him nice and steady like we’ve been doing? I don’t feel the need to double this guy up in such a marginal situation.
Let this one go, then dig in your heels and keep grinding him into the floor. A weak-tight player will break eventually, and then you’ll be able to find a much surer spot than this one to get your chips in.

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John B.

I’ll call. Mainly because my opponent is obviously frustrated. I love when players become impatient because it gives me that much more of an advantage. Let’s face it – some people simply don’t have the temperament to play a tournament of any length. I think my opponent just wants out (as he’s already demonstrated by wanting a chop), so I’m calling. I’m in no hurry. I can play heads up all day!

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Rondleman

I agree with Jeremy – if we feel that we are more skilled than Villain, then we should definitely pass on marginal situations in favor of the likely better situations that we will have. We still have a slight chip lead if we fold, and pretty deep stacks with Ms around 25-30, which would allow for a lot of maneuvering. We can attack relentlessly since he’s a weak-tight player and have a solid lead again in no time (barring any bad beats). But I still can’t put him on air here enough times to call him,

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Rondleman

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matt harrell

This would be a quick call for me. The main reason why is he gave away his hand by not raising much and then raising here. That shows he most likely has 2 high cards tens and up. with the flop being that low you can’t put him on 2 pair or a straight. when the queen hit and he overbet. that 2 me would mean he was weak trying to buy the pot. STRONG IS WEAK. THat queen is 1 of 5 cards i think he has so i wouldn’t be swettin it. i would have a 4 out of 5 chance of being right. plus i would still be in it if i lost. That 8 is not medium pair. its second highest pair.

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