Stupidest Tourny Move Ever

[lwestatbus]

(And I didn't make it for once.)

I was in a Stars $2.20 36-player SnG satellite for the Sunday $1/4 million. The payoff structure is that places 1-6 all get the same prize, an $11 entry into the Sun $1/4 mil and 7th place gets $6. We are down to eight players with two dominating chip stacks and three short stacks with M of 1.5 or less. (I'm comfortably above the average with an M of 4 or so. The two dominating stacks are literally in a position where they can fold every hand and guarantee a cash (and I sometimes see players in this position just sit out, presumably to move on to another tourny).

I'm dealt K T under the gun. An intriguing hand but one I don't NEED to play so I fold. Big Stack 1 (BS1) Limps, Short Stack 1 is all in for less than the big blind, it folds to Big Stack 2 (BS2) in the big blind who checks. BS1 has BS2 covered by about 1,000 chips, less than 10% of their stack sizes.

Flop comes K K 4 BS1 (who has been pretty conservative in the few hands I've seen--he joined the table when the final table consolidated at 9 players) places a min bet. BS2 then raises about 1/3 of his stack and BS1 reraises the same amount and BS2 calls with about 2,500 chips (M = about 1.5) left. Turn is 3 . BS1 min-bets and BS2 raises all in. BS1 calls and shows K J (good thing I folded, I'd have been out kicked) and BS2 shows a stupefying Ace 3 !!!

BS2 donked himself out of the tournament as the bubble boy (he did get the $6) completely unnecessarily. In hindsight, BS1 was showing good big stack citizenship by min-betting to say, "I've got this one--get out of the way and I'll eliminate the bubble-boy." BS2 completely ignored this message and made an idiotic play for a pot that literally could not improve his tournament outcome. His flop aggression was strictly on ace-high where a whole range of hands had him beat and his turn raise all in was on bottom pair, ace kicker on a king-king paired board. He had just been in the big blind and could easily afford the small blind (even after his turn call) and the blinds had to hit both remaining small stacks (both of which would be all in with the blinds) before coming back to him. I'd been at tables with BS2 for over half the tournament and he'd shown an aggressive gambling style of play but this was bizarre even by that standard. I'm still scratching my head but I banked my $11 and immediately converted them to tournament dollars for my next attempt. (The only thing that has any explanatory power for BS2's play is that he wanted the six 'real' dollars instead of eleven 'tournament' dollars and was just throwing himself on his sword to arrange that outcome.)

[HalfSugar]

Bottom line - he is a donkey. There is mileage in playing regular bubbles aggressively but that was just terrible play in a terrible spot considering it's a sat with multiple 'first place' prizes.

[UrAteUp]

BS2 was trying to buy a pot and made a play at the wrong time. He could have had to leave or get out and didn't want to just sit out but more then likely I say pot steal attempt gone wrong.