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SPT hand - to call or not to call?
SPT Glasgow - final table 10 handed.
I was in the small blind (am 2nd highest stack 115K) with 10h Jh and raised to 17,000 (blinds 3,000 / 6,000 a500) - mewillows (big stack 200K) called. The flop came 9 high, and I bet 20,000 - he called again. The turn was the 10 - giving me top pair and so I bet 30,000. mewillows shoved. My heart stopped. I have top pair and have committed 2/3 of my stack to this hand. to call, I put my tournament on the line. 10th place pays £360 - 9th is over £500. Do I want to be first out on the final table having gone in 2nd? Can I afford to fold - I am down to about 35,000 chips?
What do people do?
Comments
There is one thing that does jump out about your post though. You are talking about the payout structure and laddering potential etc. When you are sat second in chips and are comfortable, until the table settles down into whatever pattern happens then there is an arguement for just biding your time laddering up a bit and then changing gears later when you have firmly established your image as a tighter player. If this is a thought going through your head that you wish to do some laddering to start with then this would be a snap fold preflop. If however you are thinking of going for the win and not caring about the ladder at all then the option of the open shove comes in because you are 20BB deep and not possessing much play down the streets.
Criticisms of your pre-flop play have been made and make sense. The flop play is a bit iffy but its an understandable c-bet. I want to focus on your turn play. (Btw, I'm assuming that the pre-flop action was folded to your SB and mewillows is the BB. You don't actually say that)
The pot is at least 79000 and you have either 65000 (According to your last statement) or 78000 (According to the maths of the betting you've given us) left in your stack. Either way, we have less than a pot-bet back. So why do you bet nearly half your stack and less than half of the pot? If I'm your opponent, this looks like you must be committed. If you wanted to bet this turn, it has to be an all-in.
The question of whether we can call this all-in is an interesting one. We've put so much of our stack in the middle, that we ought to be committed, so most players would say that we can't fold. That's fair enough if you think there's a chance you might be winning this hand but if we don't think there's any chance that we're winning, then why can't we fold? You have to remember that your opponent is going to be looking at your stack and believing that you're committed and he still wants to get it in. He simply must have some sort of hand to do that, so do you think your top-pair, Jack kicker is winning?... I don't know. I wasn't at the table and I don't know owt about mewillows but I certainly think we can consider folding here. Even though it's a disaster for us to have lost so much of our stack without seeing his hand, now we've got to this point we shouldn't make one last mistake and call off our stack if we think we're beat.
Playing with between six and eight big blinds isn't going to be fun, but it's better than being out... but I suppose mewillows might have a nine if you're really lucky. You just have to decide.