Hand #9478759-52 at Sun1020pmA-001 (No Limit tournament Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 06/Nov/05 23:01:42

semizzou is at seat 0 with 3255.
Scws is at seat 1 with 4520.
Forbin123 is at seat 2 with 3535.
i am mean is at seat 3 with 2935.
flip177 is at seat 4 with 2320.
monkeyman1968 is at seat 5 with 1585.
yamez is at seat 6 with 4245.
lubone is at seat 7 with 3965.
mcmoney1967 is at seat 8 with 2950.
Bossmens Dad is at seat 9 with 4360.
The button is at seat 3.

flip177 posts the small blind of 100.
monkeyman1968 posts the big blind of 200.

semizzou: -- --
Scws: -- --
Forbin123: -- --
i am mean: -- --
flip177: -- --
monkeyman1968: Kh Ad
yamez: -- --
lubone: -- --
mcmoney1967: -- --
Bossmens Dad: -- --

Pre-flop:

yamez folds. lubone folds. mcmoney1967 calls.
Bossmens Dad folds. semizzou folds. Scws folds.
Forbin123 folds. i am mean folds. flip177 calls.
monkeyman1968 goes all-in for 1585. mcmoney1967
calls. flip177 folds.

Tournament all-in showdown -- players show:

monkeyman1968 shows Kh Ad.
mcmoney1967 shows Qh Ac.


Flop (board: Qc 2s 4s):

(no action in this round)


Turn (board: Qc 2s 4s 2h):

(no action in this round)


River (board: Qc 2s 4s 2h As):

(no action in this round)


Showdown:

monkeyman1968 has Kh Ad 2s 2h As: two pair, aces and deuces.
mcmoney1967 has Qh Ac Qc 4s As: two pair, aces and queens.


Hand #9478759-52 Summary:

No rake is taken for this hand.
mcmoney1967 wins 3370 with two pair, aces and queens.
----------------------------------------------------------------


I realize that AK is a drawing hand and that putting all my chips on the line in a tournament with big slick is generally not a good idea, but I was the small stack and felt I needed to make a move as the blinds were creeping up. I did get the call I wanted but he got lucky. Was this a bad push or was it okay given the circumstances?

AK is tricky in tournaments, so I'm going to defer to Sklansky's opinion of it.

"AK is a very difficult hand to play well in tournaments. You should try to orchestrate the betting to be all-in preflop with it in most situations. It's not as bad to call off an all in with it, even if you're short, because you're comparitively better off with AK than you are with, say, TT. TT has more ways of being dominated, and AK is flipping coins or 70/30 ahead much more often."

--Loosely paraphrased from his Tournament Poker book

I'm going to add that given all that, the next tricky thing about tournaments is knowing when to race and when not to race. You should race if you're short and need a double up, or if you're tall and want to bust someone. You should NOT race if you're average-to-big-stacked and playing against someone of equivalent chip values.

You looked short, you can take a race here, and you were better than a race in actuality. It happens.

Considering you had 2 limpers, one being the SB, and any suitable raise would have made you pot commited(IMO), I think it was the right move. With the hope of taking it down preflop or, better, geting called by a hand you dominate like AQ. :?

Nobody has shown any agression with their hands before the action got to you, so you are at worst in a race situation (say pocket tens or so - most higher pocket pairs would have shown some agression with a raise) when you push them all-in in that spot, and most likely when called you will be in a dominating position (ie. against ace queen). Excellent spot IMO to push there with your short stack. 8)