Play and hand with me!

[bambini]

OK folks, time to play thorugh a hand. I'll talk you through my logic and thinking as I go along.

It's early on a 9-seater SnG. The table is generally timid, with quite a few players folding to big raises. Our villain is a strange one. He limps many hands and doesn't seem good at extracting value. In an earlier hand we saw him flop trip 9s (he checked), improve to a boat on the turn (he minbet then called a raise) and then check-called a small bet on the river.

Here's the current hand:

Blinds are 10/20 with an ante of 3.

You're in the SB with

Villain is UTG+2. Action folds to him and he raises to 97. +4 and +5 call, CO and button fold. The pot is now 348 and the action is on you. What do you do?

[J_Verschueren]

stacks?

[bambini]

Sorry! Forgot to mention that! It's early on so everyone is pretty deep. You're slightly ahead with around 1900 and all other players have about 1500. Villain has 1000.

These are rough figures as I'm at work and the hand history is at home. I'll update tonight with exact numbers.

EDIT: Here are the stack sizes.

You have 1967.

Villain has 1160.

+4 has 2020.

+5 has 1386.

BB, who is still to act, has 1416.

[J_Verschueren]

5% of our stack, multiple callers among which 1 who's at least equally deep. I'd say we call and hope for a good flop. I can't see much point in re-raising here, unless villain is a really intelligent loose-aggro player and UTG+4 is the biggest calling station ever.

Is this a regular speed or a turbo, BTW?

[bambini]

Regular.

Yep, we call. No need to get crazy. BB folds.

Here's the flop:



Since you're in the SB, the action starts with you. Your move?

[J_Verschueren]

Regular.

Yep, we call. No need to get crazy.

Here's the flop:



Since you're in the SB, the action starts with you. Your move?

Ok, so in all but a few rare cases, we will have flopped the best hand here, so what we do is really oppontent dependant. I would say the board is a bit too dangerous to check/call (i.e. slow play), so our options are to lead or to check raise. The line I would take would depend on villains tendencies, but, let's say, in a vacuum, I would lead.

[bambini]

Leading out is a good move, but in this case you check raise...

You check.

Villain minraises (20), UTG+4 folds and UTG+5 calls. You raise to 340.

Villain calls, UTG+5 folds.

Turn is the ace of diamonds.

What's next?

[RyckyRych]

You cry, wishing the flop wasn't so fucking evil. The turn is even worse. I've likely been counterfeited. I check, if he min-bets I'll call. I think I'd have lead out on the flop and watched what happened.

[J_Verschueren]

Agree with Ricky. We did our job on the flop, but villain decided to stick around. Unless you're really holding out on info about villain, the turncard improves a lot of what he will have stuck around with. Sucks to be us, but in a sit&go I think this is a clear check/fold to any sizeable bet.

[RyckyRych]

To add a bit more, I know people like to speculate but I fold preflop in a SNG. In a deeper-stack MTT, sure, call and look for a big hand. However, you don't have the same luxury in a SNG, plus KTs really makes a lot of second-best hands in a multi-way pot.