The Phoenix

Jam-Fly is right. This is an easy isolate shove. The initial raiser has a 7BB stack and the blinds are coming. His opening range should be very wide here, and if it isn't it should be. AQ is definitely ahead of that range so its a clear raise situation. No matter how "odd looking" or how much it "screams strength" the play here is to raise and get the dead money if we win the showdown. As Jam said, you can't pass up spots like this, even though you will run into a monster from time to time. This is a great spot for us to chip up.

I don't want to pile on but I agree with the other its an extremely easy shove. Instant. You have little fold equity but you almost always have the best hand. If not its a bigtime cooler. I don't know how you could even consider folding. You have 5.5 BBs. I'd be shoving here if both of you were 15 to 20bbs deep. Just as an FYI, if you were both deeper, you shouldn't be calling, you should be raising/shoving. You are not getting value if you aren't re-raising (obviously it depends on raiser, ie. PMJackson fold Jacks immediately), even moreso shorthanded like in this situation. This ramble is no

Sheiky, I had a similar problem adapting to tournaments. I was primarily a cash game player who just dabbled in tournaments for fun. I like tournaments more than cash games. I get bored in cash games now. The plus side for cash games is consistency. Your winrate is generally consistent. Obviously variance exists but the swings are nowhere as brutal as tourament variance. I'm a big fan of Annette, I watch her play often and have viewed a number of her HH's on PXF including the blind 180. I feel like I've learned a ton from her. After watching the blind 180, I thought it would have a huge impac

^^^ what Eddie said.In case you are serious, him calling with JJ is very standard, as in snap (insta) call. Normally he goes out on a bubble cooler, this time he got lucky. Poker sucks.

awesome job twist, congrats!

I think Annette's comments can be attributed to the P5's culture. It's a constant topic of discussion over there. I think its a narrow minded attitude (online players > liver players), but these are mostly teenagers or young 20 somethings than are making a ton of money with huge egos. I think Annette has fallen into that culture. She's still a 19 year old kid, she is still going to say and do immature things. The OP expecting her to act like Doyle (an 80 year old man) is kind of ridiculous. You don't think Doyle was brash and cocky as a kid? By all accounts Annette is a great ambassador for

Definitely a good topic. I think most of us have had the "What if I FT'd the Sunday Million" thoughts. I have and I have decided that if I ever have the good fortune to make one, I won't chop until heads up, and depending on the situation...probably not even then. I agree with Roothlus' thoughts. It's most likely a one shot deal and I'd have more regrets if I chopped 3-5 handed than if I got knocked out in 5th trying to win. That is me, everybody is different. People have different perspectives and different financial situations. You have to do what is best for you even if you sacrifice some e

Let's try to get this topic back on track. Late tournament strategy is the most important strategy topic because that's where all the money is in tournaments.I disagree with several replies in this thread, most notably hblask (not a criticism). I used to think the same way, and it is pretty closed-minded. I'd encourage you change your outlook... I changed mine and it helped my tourney game immensely.To say you shouldn't be calling with AJ is incorrect. It's all about stack size (yours and theirs), their hand range for whatever position they've raised from, and percentage of your stack. In the

Too much love in this thread. PMJ sucks!!Like others PMJ was the first FCP player I evered rail I railed him at Party Poker (that was only site I played at the time) and then I'd come to FCP and he'd vent his disdain for the site. The other guy I frequently railed was Rdog who was seemingly going deep in something at Party everyday. How could two nits feel so differently about a site?I thought I brought my bad karma to PMJ when I railed him but that all changed in the $22 rebuys when he reshoved 77 into QQ and hit the 7 ball on the river. He took it down and then made the final table again the

Awesome job! Supreme patience as the shortstack ninja. Congrats again sir.

Congrats on the FT, now it's time to TID!

I'd be interested.

nice score, well played!

There are several weak links at this table. GL Jburn

She originally posted the chart in response to a post asking how to play a small-medium pairs, and he had some other general tournament strategy questions. When she started the new thread she left out her other thoughts. I copied and pasted them for my own reference so here they are...Stacksizes r key, u wanna be going after the stacks that are vulnerable and not the big stacks that can afford to lose chips to u.-Pay close attention to the table. Who limps a lot? Who raises in LP? Who will fold to reraises? Who backs down if u put a lot of pressure on? Who chases a lot? etc, and adjust ur game

The fastest option would be to go to Money Mart and buy a Prepaid Mastercard. It costs somewhere between $15 and $20. The money you put on the card will be available within an hour. There are monthly fees for the card so you might not find it to be worth it for just a short-term issue.Western Union is also an option and I've heard its pretty fast but the fees are excessive.

gl Marky. Sicko indeed.

Obviously what Grinder said is the truth. We all make many mistakes every tournament even if we try to convince ourselves we played perfectly.I've made some adjustments to my tournament game recently, mostly after some great nuggests of info by Annette on P5's, that have really helped my game, particularly my understanding of the game.I think what the average player/below average player might not realize is that the little mistakes that they make early on (early to middle stages of a tournament) are what come back to hurt them later. I have tried to eliminate the "spew" from playing passively

LOL@ Great Dane

nice Win Mark. Nice day overall Rdog. Congrats guys.

He's also 3/13 in the Stars 162. GL GL Loosh, take'em both down

Wow, sick day for FCP. I was going thru the tournaments and saw a lot of big FCP scores. Not to mention OPR showing Marky and Rdog's score on Tilt.I chopped the $3r for 5k, obv brag post.I'll jump on the rail, I saw you were deep, but then I got distracted by Loosh in the $162. GL GL

If this was an online tourney structure, then you'd be right. Those suggesting a fold would be full of it. You just wouldn't have a deep enough stack to get away from such a hand. If PMJ folds here he'd have around 75BB's. With his abilities he would definitely still be a force.The more I read PMJ's comments the more I think he liked his read. If you believe your read to that degree you go with it, but based on what I know (cancelling out PMJ's read) I fold.

If you had a commanding chiplead there, what would you do against a button raise and you held A9, or A7s in the SB? What would you do with a pair of 4's pair of 9's?From your perspective you should be willing to race.If this guy really was passive and only reraised with huge pairs then maybe you can find a fold. However, a SNG is only an hour long. You might only get one or two big pairs in that hour. It's hard to have that accurate a read, but sometimes you just have to go with it. I played the final two tables with a guy that made two absolutely terrible plays and got himself a gigantic chip

And what about when you miss which is a greater percentage of the time. You have 1000 chips at 25/50, two limpers and you raise to 300 which is 30% of your stack with AQ. Sure, you probably have the best hand now (normally when you have a healthy stack size raising for value is the play), barring a baby pair, but at these limits you generally know people aren't folding pre after a limp. I think limping and winning a smaller pot on a hit flop is better than risking 30% of your stack preflop with an almost zero percent chance of taking the pot down preflop. We are putting a lot of our stack at r