Calling Off A Short Stack From The Blinds

[Ricer98 0]

Two tough hands out of the blinds in a $5 tourney on ultimate bet.1st hand blinds 200-400, with i think a 50 ante, in the big blind with about 4500 in chips left. Were about 5 spots out of the money at this point. UTG, who has about 12k, makes a rather large raise to 1875, folded to middle position player who pushes all in for a little over 6k. Folded to me in the big blind with JJ. After an UTG raise and a reraise i'm not thrilled with calling off all my chips with JJ. After much thought I ended up folding figuring I could find a better spot to put my chips in and knowing i'd be in steal positions at a tight table for the next few hand where I could easily get my blinds back. Anyone have any thoughts on how this could be played differently? I've been question the laydown since, amoung other things they both edned up having AQ and i would've trippled up. The larger than standard raise threw me off at the time, but if you think about it is he really gonna raise that much with AA, KK, or even QQ? Prob not, he should know the table is tight and would pry min raise or limp and hope a short stack pushes. So this makes AK or a smaller pair a stong possiblity. Now the guy that pushed for 6k, seeing as it was only a $5 buy in, is gonna push with a med stack with a lot of hands I can still beat. Does any of this reasoning for a call make sense, or am I just thinking too result oriented and it was a good laydown, just bad results?2nd hand, bubble has burst, quite a few short stacks went busto, and just from stealing blinds and antes i'm up to 8400 in chips. At this point blinds are 600-1200 with a 200 ante. I'm in the big blind again, UTG open pushes for 15k, folded to me looking at AJ. Once again I hate my hand, and don't like it for calling off all my chips. Not sure why i just had a sick feeling the guy pushed with AK or AQ. I basically figured screw i'm short if hes got me hes got me. Sure enough AK, i'm out in 59th place. Is there anyway I can make that laydown? I'm sure that answer is no but honestly I'd rather be calling with 4-5 suited than AJ at this point. I just don't see anything he pushes that AJ beats unless he pushed with 10's then i'm in a coin flip, which I just don't see him doing from UTG. If I fold I can just keep playing short stack poker, which I think is one of my strengths. I had allready survived 3 levels and built my stack by just knowing when to push in position, and what to push with. Looking at a pot odds stand point, the pot is at 3800 with blinds and antes, hes esentally betting 7k to put me in so i'm only getting 10.8 to 7 odds on a call here. This is the perfect price if he happens to have a pair smaller than J's or a weaker A. But its much more likes i'm up against a dominating A or a big pocket pair. Again any thoughts would be appreciated.

[throwemaway 0]

Hand 2 is a clear fold..Hes coming from UTG so you can be pretty sure you are not going to be dominating him in any way w/ AJAs for Hand 1, I'm really not sure what the correct play is here..I think folding is probably not awful, but if you want to gamble and try to get a bigger payday, then calling isn't awful here..I would probably go w/ the JJ here, but it's probably a bad call

[trystero 0]

Welcome to the forum, but don't post results or Actuary may bruise your soul (and rightly so).Both hands are folds, I think. You seem to know that it's better to be pushing your chips around than calling them off. Hand 1 I have to think that most of the time you're against QQ+ with at least one of the players. You're on the bubble and many players don't want to get involved sans premium hands. It's close, but a fold IMO. Hand 2 you're dominated by a lot of hands, AQ, AK, JJ+. That's a fairly standard fold. This is the real mistake here. Whether calling or folding in Hand 1 is correct, it's close. Hand 2's not really close at all.It seems that you allowed an earlier laydown, which was probably the correct move, to haunt you and prompt a bad call.

[Ricer98 0]

Thanks for the insight, I think your right trystero that the earlier questionable laydown got to me. The AJ I know should've been an easy laydown but I think I let my stack size factor too much in the decision, I didn't want to get blinded off, but I defently chose the wrong time to just go with a hand.