Hello, my name is Andreas and I have been reading the pokerblog for sometime now. Im from sweden by the way so my english might not be 100%correct all the time but I think you will understand what I am trying to tell you guys.

This morning I ( about 2-3 AM for you ) played in a 5,000$ tournament at the Prima Poker network.
We were down to the last 21 players and the money started at top 10, the final table. The price structure was 1:th 1,800$ 2:th 1,100$ 3:th 700 and the 10th place 85$ with a buyin of 20+2$.


I was currently in 6th place with 17,000 in chips with the blinds at 500/1000 and I pick up AK off suit on the button.

In the small blind sat the chipleader of our table and he had been playing pretty weak for the last 45 min or so. The guy in the BB had about 11,000 and defended his blind almost each time if you only made the raise 2x BB.

I raised it up to 4,000 with my AK and then the bigstack moves over the top for all of his chips aout 24,000. I called and he showed me pocket Queens ( QQ ) , I didnt hit anything and so I was out of the tournament.

My question now is should I have folded the AK since he was bigger then me or should I have called like I did when there was 5,500 in the pot already and I was somewhat pot-comitted and as I thought it was a 50/50 chance for me.

If I win the hand I am a real bigstack with a good shot at the top 3. But if I loose I am out of the tournament with 0% chance of winning anything.

If what you said was true, about the small blind playing pretty tight, then IMO its a bad call. You are either a BIG underdog here, or a SMALL underdog, for your tournament life. I couldn't see him making this move with a hand like AQ or AJ. You only have T$4,000 invested, you would still have T$13,000 leftover. I say fold ( based on your read )

However, if he has been playing pretty wildly, I would call him knowing that he could easily have a hand that I dominated and a win here would give us about $35,500 in chips... a pretty dominant lead. But in the situation you laid out, I would fold here and move on.

I will probably almost always call in this situation. You are most likely no worse than a coinflip, and could have him dominated. Even though you are in 6th, the blinds are huge in relation to your stack, and you need to make a move still. I call and take a coinflip if that's what he has. You played it correctly in my opinion.

This isn't one you can ask for help on, I don't really think... it's pretty obvious here that he has AK, AQ, maybe even AJ, or a decent pocket pair... you can take a gamble that he has AQ or AJ (probably going to be suited if it's one of these two), but most likely you're looking at a coinflip situation.

I think the question you have to ask is yourself is how you're playing these $20 tourney's over the long-run? Is your goal to play safe until you get into the money everytime, and then hope to catch a few late breaks and nab 3rd or 4th, or is it to take chances and try and get 1 or 2? The answer depends on your bankroll in part - if you have only a couple of hundred dollars in your account, I'd be folding and sitting on your chips until you make your +$65, and then try and claw your way up. If you have a good sized bankroll, you can try and coinflip your way to the top, but I personally would fold in that siutation.

I honestly am surprised to hear that you guys would fold AK here. To make it deep in tournaments, you have to win coinflips eventually. The blinds seem to be going up pretty fast, and I think this is as good an opportunity as any. We're not right on the bubble, so that isn't an issue IMO. I would call without hesitation here.

Good call - your stack is about 11x the blinds and you have a chance to move up in chips to a dominating position.

AKo is great in short stacked situations and it's not like you were right on the bubble.

If you want to win the tournament, then this is the type of play that you'll have to make.

It is interesting to read how people think in this situation.
The explanation that took my bankrool in to consideration was extra interesting for me to read since this is somewhat how I think. Now I took a gamble hoping to boost my bankrool instead of building is slow.

I have a tendency to about 70% af the time making it at the top twenty it really does not matter if we are 1000 players or 200 in the tournament when it comes down to 2 tables I usally go out on a hand like AK AQ -vs- QQ JJ and so on.

And it is true that you have to win coinflip situation, perhaps you want them to be against people about 50% of your stacksize so you dont go out if you loose them.

You simply need luck to win deep in tournaments. I made the money and didn't make it much deeper than that in my first 10 tournaments on FullTilt before I finally got a couple of breaks deep and took a 1st and 3rd in one week. Just keep getting to that position and you will get deeper eventually.

Listen to zimmer on this one, he speaks truth.

when you called with AK the pot was 22k, 4k from your 1st bet 17k from his all in, and 1k from the big blind. you have 13k left to call so you are getting 1.7 to 1 from the pot. you have a huge overlay to call if you think it will be a coinflip on average so you must call.