Step 2 - Still Alive!!

So after a crappy start yesterday I only had 2 step 2 buyins and $4.50 from my initial $75. First the payout structure for step 2:

1/2 - Step 3 ticket ($82)
3/4 - Step 2 ticket ($27)
5 - Step 1 ticket ($7.5)

First 2 I played I basically never won a pot. Never had over 2k in either one and just did nothing except make a few really standard shoves when blinds were getting big. Luckily people were busting and I survived my way into a 4th and a 5th.

Started up the next step 1 and 2 and got off to a quickish start in the step 2, flopping quads and winning a medium pot to get up to 2k from 1500. Didn't do too much after that until 50/100 when I busted the step 1, losing 99 to KQ where he limped the sb, I jammed 1400 and he called. That play can be good or bad depending on reasons behind it, I'll discuss it a little more later. In the step 2, I just kind of found good spots to steal blinds until I was lucky enough to get AA against AK for a 6500 chip pot with 4 to go. I had the second biggest stack on my left which is great in these because they (correctly) don't want to gamble much, so I won a lot of blinds and got top two without a problem. So, bankroll is now 1 step 3 ticket and $4.50, or $86.50. Played about 3 hours now, so my $11.50 profit so far leaves just a little to be desired :) Oh well, that's part of the fun, and don't forget the $1 or so worth of FPP's I've earned!!!

Anyways, back to the KQ hand. In a normal MTT, especially if we were in an ante stage, if he's unknown to me limping and calling my shove is almost certainly best. If he shoves, unless he's been super tight I'm calling any ace and any pair (and a bunch of hands worse than his, but not THAT many). Shoving certainly shows a pretty big profit compared to folding, but if he limps he'll often get me to shove any two cards, obviously a better situation. KQo is 60/40 against any 2, and more importantly ~67% vs any two less the hands I'd call his shove with anyways. And that's what really matters, when I have a hand that can call a shove, it doesn't matter what he does, I shove if he limps call if he shoves and the money goes in. It's maximizing against the hands that can't call a shove that's most important. Note that while in this case that means limping is good, if he had like 65s, it would make shoving good, shoving does better vs my non-calling hands. You can't take this strategy too far though, good players will catch on if you go around limping strong hands and shoving bad hands. In a vacuum though it's often best. Lastly, this isn't a normal MTT, there are significant advantages to not taking a 60/40 for your stack. And in this tournament without antes and 14bb I'm not shoving close to any 2, so it's probably close between shoving and limp/calling. Pretty sure I'd just shove in his spot though.

Anyways, not sure when I'll play the step 3, maybe even tonight if I get bored. Maybe I'll post the hand history on here after if anyone's interested.

Steve