Tournament advice

[Edmunddantes]

A few nights ago on Full tilt I bought into a $150 dollar tourney. There
were 211 total entrants.

Doing pretty well in tourney maintained a top ten status for awhile. We were a little past break one when this hand came up. I am in BB and chip leader at table 8K in chips. Blinds somewhere around 50-100. I look down to see AQ of clubs not bad. Everyone folds and the button raises to 400. The little blind goes all in for
another 600 making it 1K for me to call. Given the situation I think the button was trying to steal, the little had a marginal PP or perhaps Ace
anything or a blackjack hand "two face cards".

I decide to call. The button then goes all in four another 4K. Now I think
uggg I will not go broke if I call and I could knock out two players. But if
he is re raising that much he has to have QQ KK or AA in which case I may be way behind looking for the draw rather than the pair. I wait and decide to fold. The little shows 99 and dealer shows KK. The kings held and he knocked out the little, however, I would have spiked an ace off flop and won the hand.

Should I have called his all in with AQ suited...or maybe to take that decision out should I have gone all in myself after the little and take thinking out of the equation. Had I called though, I would have moved up to the overall chip leader in tourney. Instead I did not lose that much and was still in a good postion. But having finished just oustside the money I can't help but think this hand was a big missed opportunity.

 

[mrsnake3695]

That's a tough one. But you have to consider that playing a MTT is different than playing a cach game where that is a pretty easy fold (read dependent of course). In a big tourny, sometimes you have to gamble. This looked like a good spot for a gamble to increase your chips. You had a correct "read" on the button and then second guessed yourself. Happens to all of us when facing a decision that could make or break your tournament. I think in factoring in everything a push all-in after the sb went all-in was probably the best play. Usually in this situation, if you are going to play you want to move to isolate the short stack. Plus you would have been out of position for the rest of the hand if the button just calls. hands like ace-king, ace-queen are best played if you can see all 5 cards as this hand demonstrated. If the button called and then bet on the flop you would have had to fold and the result would have been the same.

I think this was a push or fold situation. Remember the object is not to just get into the money but to win, or at least top 3, so sometimes you have to take a chance to eliminate players and move up in chips.

 

[bubbasbestbabe]

AQ suited is a pretty good hand to have in the position you were in. There are only 3 other hands PF that are better than that to start with and you have the possibility of the flush and or str8.If you weren't going to be all in at that point, it would have been a good time to call that.

The reads you had were right. As Mrsnake said you are there to gamble, what hand are you waiting for? You have to pay to see the flop so why not then with a hand like that?

 

[JeeDub84]

I agree on the part where you should have pushed pre-flop after the SB went all in. If you had pushed preflop then you are putting the Button on a hard decision if he wants to risk all his chips and risk getting busted from the tournament. He might fold the Kings even though you dont know he has them. When you just called you let the Button have the easy decision by pushing all in with the kings. Now this leaves you to a very hard decision. With a raise, reraise, and an all in move you should assume that your AQ is beat and let it go, unless you have a strong positive read on your opponent. Another thing is if you are in the top 10 with 8000k chips then you still have lots of opportunity to pick up better hands and better spots where you are at less risk. just my 2 cents

 

[richiecski]

I dunno i sorta have to disagree a little bit here with whats been said above. The first part of your question, no I think you made the right decision by folding the A-Q because the risk does not correlate with the reward. Ok say you call with the the A-Q, even though you did spike a A, you were still dead to only 3 outs in the deck basically, the three remaining aces. Go to CardPlayer.com or wherever else and find a hand simulator and do the odds here. You're a 28% to win the hand pre-flop. You were getting roughly 5-4 on your money after the guy pushed with his kings. Plus like you said it was early on the in the tournament, you have a healthy chip stack and you facing a raise, an all in and another all-in, so somebodys got to have the joint over A-Qs, if you get lucky and spike the Ace like you would have great, but agaion, the risk doesn't correlate well with the reward.

The second part of the question, should you have pushed in with it instead of simply calling. As we all know in online poker, people don't give the other players enough respect with their raises. And most players with Kings, know that theres only one hand that beats them preflop and more likely than not, refuse to believe that you have aces and would have gone all in anyway, thinking either they had the best hand, or that they might get lucky against you and crack A-A. So either way I'm pretty sure this guy would have moved anyway with the Kings. All in all, I think you played it good and minimzed your potential loss at 1K instead of possibly over half your stack. Is it unfortunate that you missed the money, of course, but I think that this hand probably would have done more harm than good in the long run of things.

 

[blankoblanco]

I think you made the right fold. I agree with your read... for the button to make that move, it's almost certain he has QQ, KK, AA or AK, all of which own you. He just so happened to have KK, which was the hand that dominated you the least, but you probably wouldn't have second guessed yourself if the A hadn't hit on the flop. At that point you knew you were behind, and, over all, the range of hands he's most likely to hold don't give you proper odds to call, in my opinion.