Rick's Cafe Americain

I played a multi this morning on Party Poker - the first real money online multi that I’ve ever played.  It started well and then crashed spectacularly because of one stupid play.

Going over the top all-in with the set of 4s was the right move.  Your set is strong, but certainly not invulnerable.  Why give 5-5 or A-5s a chance to catch a straight?  You have no idea that your opponent holds A-A.  Minimum raises on Party can mean just about anything.  (As an aside, I think his pre-flop play here is terrible.  With one person already in from EP, he needs to make a “standard” raise or, if that pot commits him, just push all-in.)

As for 3-3, early on, when there is still lots of dead money in the tournament, I generally try to play small and medium pairs cheaply and in position.  Basically, I’m in “no set, no bet” mode.  It depends what the blinds were and what 4xBB means at that point, but if it was anything more than 100 chips, I’d have thrown it away too.  Same with 6-6.  In fact, the 6-6 hand is even worse, because you didn’t hit your set and have no way of knowing if your hand is good.  The guy might be raising KJ, but he also might be raising 7-7 or Q-Q.  Having an overpair to the board is nice, but when it’s only a pair of 6s against a preflop raise, you can’t be overconfident.  Even without the preflop raise, people limp 7-7 thru T-T all the time.

The last hand… oh, where to start.  The BB knows you don’t like your hand THAT much, because if you did, you would have reraised to isolate UTG.  Secondly, why are you bluffing at a dry side pot on the flop?  If you wanted the BB out, you should have reraised before the flop (not that he would have thrown away his A-J necessarily, but then you would have had more information).  When the ace falls on the turn and he bets it, how much can you possibly like your A-8?  He could very well have two pair; an ace on the turn often means just that, but even moreso, he could EASILY have you outkicked.

Pushing all-in might be a good move there if you think he can release his hand, but by that point, he’s already committed at least 4000 chips to the pot, so it sounds like he won’t be able to get away from it.  Bad move, bucko.  Get ‘em next time.