final table blunder ...

so i wound up playing a low stakes tournament today at pokerroom.com ... field of 220 or so at $2 a shot with $100 added. there were five of us left and i was feeling a little tilted after losing 1/5 of my stack (good for the chip lead at that point) to the all-in short-stack who caught a ten on the river with J10 to beat my AJ.

it's a couple of hands later ... i'm in the big blind, everybody folds to the small blind, who calls. having watched the small blind player do this before with strong hands, i checked with K7 suited. the flop comes 99K (no flush draw). the sb bets 10k into the 16k pot. at this point i think the sb is holding a weak ace ... so i call to see the turn and minimize the chances of a bad beat, plus the sb could have a nine. the turn is a jack and the small blind checks ... i bet 20k and get called. the river is another jack and i throw the rest of my stack (roughly pot sized) in without thinking it over. the sb calls and turns over AK.

obviously, i should have checked the river ... but i'm questioning my decision making lately, so would anybody like to comment on the hand?

Yes i would agree that you should of checked the river. You could not be sure by any means that your K was good.
Not sure of your thinking that it might have been a weak ace. It seemed like a bet(2/3 pot) which was wanting a caller...Rules out weak ace.
Your kicker put you in a bit of bother as well....Lets just disregard the posibility of SB holding a 9....If you both have K then your hoping for the split after the two J come out??? as the 7 becomes somewhat irrelevent now.
Did AK not enter your equations...it seemed that it was a likely hand with the betting pattern.
I forgot a few points in your post but that is the way i would read it.

Sorry the point i forgot in the last post was...you said that you had noticed that the SB had just called with strong hands on several occations. i think alarm bells should have sounded for you when the 10K went into the 16K pot....if SB was a strong hand limper then not a weak ace hand but the AK was a huge possiblity.
there are so many nuances to a game that is hard to convey that some points are not possible to comment on.
I dont think you played the hand to badly....like you said you were slightly tilted....did you give the player enough credit to bet out in the way they did??? Just a thought.
Cheers.

dijwaila wrote:so i wound up playing a low stakes tournament today at pokerroom.com ... field of 220 or so at $2 a shot with $100 added. there were five of us left and i was feeling a little tilted after losing 1/5 of my stack (good for the chip lead at that point) to the all-in short-stack who caught a ten on the river with J10 to beat my AJ.

it's a couple of hands later ... i'm in the big blind, everybody folds to the small blind, who calls. having watched the small blind player do this before with strong hands, i checked with K7 suited. the flop comes 99K (no flush draw). the sb bets 10k into the 16k pot. at this point i think the sb is holding a weak ace ... so i call to see the turn and minimize the chances of a bad beat, plus the sb could have a nine. the turn is a jack and the small blind checks ... i bet 20k and get called. the river is another jack and i throw the rest of my stack (roughly pot sized) in without thinking it over. the sb calls and turns over AK.

obviously, i should have checked the river ... but i'm questioning my decision making lately, so would anybody like to comment on the hand?

i would've mucked the k7s without a thought right on the flop. even if the hand happens to be the best at the time, it's not worth my time to or chips to play that pot considering so many kings beat me, and any 9 does on the flop...
that's just my 2 cents... not like i havent shoved weak before heh.

i began observing the sb when we made the final two tables ... playing tight/aggressive. the sb likely also observed me playing roughly the same way. once six handed play began, the sb started betting at more pots and making large reraises once we got to six handed play ... seemingly loosening up and pushing for a dominant chipstack. the previous time i had been in the bb with A7 and raised the sb call, the sb reraised all-in and i folded. so ... i also felt like i had to make a stand or the sb was going to run the table.

i definitely didn't give the small blind enough credit. the call on the turn indicated more strength than the majority of his/her recent hands and i should have taken notice. from the small blinds point of view it was very unlikely that i had either a jack or the straight ... leaving a king, nine or maybe pocket pair (aces being very unlikely) as legitimate possibilities ... or maybe i just called the flop with an ace, wanting to bet and take the pot later in the hand.

the question i really should have asked myself with this hand but didn't is ... what can i beat? the sb likely pondered that question, knew the nine to be the only significant danger card and didn't think i had it based of the way the hand was played.

i still feel the flop call was necessary given the circumstances ... and the turn is where it started to go wrong. i should either have checked it too or gone all-in when the sb checked, representing the nine and trying to protect my hand from the straight draw. i had approximately 65k remaining against the small blinds 75k, with the pot of 36k.

thanks for the responses thus far ... more commentary welcome ... any thoughts?

flop call isn't necessary. it's a tournament. you should prioritize conserving chips. i just don't see calling with a 7 kicker as anything but trouble. you should've potentially raised him on the flop and seen what they did then... unless of course it is the calling station deluxe type of donk