He Should Have Folded

While the following scenario sounds simplistic, it bears sharing since I saw this happen just a few days ago in a satellite I was playing.

I was three handed in a single table satellite that paid two seats.  The third place player was down to 300 chips at the 500-1000 with 100 ante level.  The player was clearly disconnected.  The 2nd place player had around 3,500 in chips.  I was the chip leader with around 5,600.

My play at this table was somewhat tight-aggressive.  I never made that many bluffs as I didn’t need to.  I was running decent and getting reasonable cards for my position.  I was in the small blind and limped in with J-6.  I would have folded to a raise easily here and if I would have missed the flop, I would have gotten out of the way.  However, with the pot sitting at 1800 pre-flop, I’m going to put in 500 to see a flop.  My opponent checked and the flop fell J-6-4.

Ok, I figured that I would bet about 2,000 and take the pot here and we would bust out the sitter.  I bet 2,000 and my opponent called, leaving them with 400 in chips.  What?  If my opponent was going to call, why not put the other 400 in?  The only thing I could think of was an over pair or a set.  However, it didn’t matter as they had 400 left.

The turn fell a 2 and I bet 1,000, which was the minimum.  My opponent called all-in to show A-4.  What?  They called with bottom pair on the flop.  Had they pushed all-in pre-flop, that would have made more sense. Instead, they were needing an Ace or a four to win the hand.  The river fell an eight, and they were busted in third.  The player that was disconnected received the other seat.

If my opponent would have got out of the way on the flop, he would have received his seat.  Instead, he has to play another satellite.  If he was short stacked, I could see playing that bottom pair.  But in this case, folding would have likely yielded in a seat.  The odds of that player making it through the blinds were pretty long.

In sit-n-go and satellites, there are times that it is profitable to fold.  This was one of those spots.

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