Weak pair in blind battle, Sunday Million

DailyHandQuiz

Game type: Poker Stars Sunday Million
Stage of tourney: Deep in the money, 72 remain
Avg stack: 1.2m
Your image: Tight
Opponent’s image: TAG
Your hand: J♦5♦

This hand is taken from actual gameplay in the PokerStars Sunday Million on August 3rd, 2008

The setup: You’ve got a decent stack, about double average, deep in the Sunday Million when the following hand comes up. You get a suited jack in the BB. The table folds to the SB.

This is the first time you’ve been in this spot with the SB. He raises 3x. You call and flop bottom pair:

9♠5♣7♠

Your opponent bets 200k into about 270k.

What’s your play?

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12 COMMENTS (Jump to comment form)

DHQ Staff

The stacks are such that you have very little fold vig – your opponent has basically cuffed themselves to this pot with any reasonable draw, as they’ll be getting about 1.75 – 1 to call your all in. You’re not doing well against any hand that might call you, and you don’t need to take a gamble at this point in the tournament. I fold.

What actually happened: bigbalu67 min-raised and luckyleru shoved. big called and luckyleru showed 87. His pair held up and he won the pot.

[Reply]

Rafal

am i the only one who folds this preflop?

but certainly fold after the flop.

[Reply]

kaimano

If you call his raise with J5 you are probably tired of his continuous raises. But if he raises often you can’t put him on high cards and this flop could have hit him. So bottom pair is not good enough to commit to this pot. The mistake was the preflop call, you can wait for better spots to go to war.

[Reply]

brock

there’s no need to reraise or call, he may have showed strenght preflop (a sb raise isn’t always a steal attemp)
u got a lot of chips left so just fold and look for a better spot.

[Reply]

samo2

I’d raise and attempt to take down the pot. Villain could be trying to steal and you have them outchipped by more than 3-1. If villain re-raises, fold.

[Reply]

Mike

Fold. No need to risk a 1/3 of your chips on that crappy hand.

[Reply]

Rhycar

Fold pre-flop and wait for better. Definitely fold post-flop. Your opponent is tight, there’s no reason he can’t have a hand. Muck and move on.

[Reply]

James Cockfield

If you call a raise in SB with J5s against a player which you’ve marked as a TAG, then you have created a hypothetical situation which you never will end up with.

Good luck with that.

[Reply]

_CityBorn_

Raise, 2/3 of the time hes got nothing and you have the best hand. The other 1/3 he either has something weak and folds or hes got something good and will put it all in. Hes going to lead regardless of his holdings, its a cbet in the most obvious cbet situation. If you lose, youll still be above average. Raise and take this one down.

[Reply]

poker noob

This is the type of bad big stack play that takes you out of contention. Either be the bully, or be patient and fold. It’s not okay to call off 1/3 of your stack with a low pair/no draw.

The question after the flop is ridiculous. I should never be in this position. Under most circumstances, I would fold pre-flop, but depending on what I experience from villain in other hands where I’m BB, I might shove preflop and play some bully. Weak calls and min raises with big stack is just lame.

[Reply]

Chad Gerson

Another other than a pre-flop fold is a donk play. But you already called, so fold now instead and learn your lesson. There’s a big difference between aggression and stupidity.

[Reply]

Utherrex

you have to be very very bored to call that raise pre flop…
the rest is not poker.
maybe bigbalu was already dreming what would he do with the 1st prize…

[Reply]