Since nobody has posted here in over 2 days I thought I'd liven this place up a little bit. This is a 2 part post. Part 1 a call or fold to an AI. Part 2 an HOH example playing medium pairs from EP.

Part 1 - $10+1 MTT at Full Tilt. Half hour in, over 1000 players.
CO had been asking about good poker books. I thought he was just messing around, but after seeing the way he played some hands I believe he was a beginner.
Blinds 30/60
MP2 open-limps, CO pushes 1322. It's up to me in SB with [Jd]. I have 1245 after posting.

No read on MP2.
Blinds 30/60
UTG limps, UTG+2 limps, MP2 pushes 2685, I'm CO with [Kd]. I have 1245 left.

Do you call 1st hand, 2nd hand, both, or neither?

Part 2 - Playing 88 UTG M=10
This is directly from HOH2 and seems to be a situation that many of the posts in this section are about. I admit to having trouble with these type of hands myself.

Blinds 50/100
SB 400
BB 550
YOU 1500
UTG+1 1300
MP1 2300
MP2 1500
CO 1200
Button 1250

You are first to act with 8's. HOH offers 5 options:
Raise to 400
Raise to 300
Raise to 250
Call
Fold

He then chooses to raise to 400 because it gives him the best odds to call an AI behind him from a bigger stack. I find his logic here amazing as he is advising you to commit your stack here by making a bigger raise so that you have an easier mathematical decision and can't make a mathematical mistake by calling an AI later. In that case, why not push to begin with? Thoughts?

Hand 1 I definately call... but if I didn't call there I would definately call the second.

I might, however fold the second if I called the first and won (and therefore had like 2500 chips.)


The 88 hand is basically the most difficult standard decision for tourneys imo. I mean that it's something that happens relatively often and noone really has a perfect reasoning for it. Harrington's logic is retarded at best I think...

You could do basically anything here, and I think most plays have some merrit depending on the situation. If there's been a lot of restealing going on I'll pop it to 300-400 cause I'll be a good bit ahead against their ranges I think. If it's been really tight I'll probably pop it to 250 knowing that if there's a raise I'm either way behind or a coinflip and I'll have enough chips to fold. I think a case could be made for a limp here, but only at weak tables, basically hoping that one of the blinds puts it in. Then you can reraise any other limpers and get their dead money in. Folding works too. Anything really.