pokerstars 20+2 180 peson SNG, 30 left

my stack 13,000, blinds are 100/200 25 ante, M= 26

villian has 8k and appears to be a pretty solid player who is capable of letting go of big hands. He made a few TP/TK laydowns on flops earlier

1 limper, he bets in MP 2,000 10x the bb, folds around to me in the bb with AQs.

I raise to 4,500 and he instantly reraises all-in. (you'd think he'd put me on some kind of a real hand)

pot is 12,700, 3,500 to me. Easy Call?

anything else you can see here that maybe I did wrong?

Honestly, in the BB to a raise that big, I'd likely just fold the hand. An argument CAN be made for calling, but it would put me out of posistion, and I really dont like that. Anyway here's why...

I really tend to try and play small, easily won pots at this stage in a tournament, and by raising 10x bb he's already made the pot the size I would expect it to be if a RE-RAISE had occured. I wont be calling any reraises with AQs out of posistion, and there's more money in the pot then then there is now.

Anyway fold would be my immediate instinct in this situation.

IF I were to reraise, the only argument I could make would be if I picked this guy up as a VERY good player, and I havent been at the table long enough for him to think Im any good. It's not a play I make often, but I have done it RARELY, and that's just hit the mini-raise button. I always see this is strength and other decnt players tend to interpret it the same way. If he shows you more strength after that, he's gotta have a hand he's willing to go home with.

Anyway, once you made the reraise you obviously have to make the call, there's not even a question there, and really Im not trying to say the reraise with the AQs was a bad play. Im sure you could argue with me for hours about why it was OK, and both of us would have valid points and sound correct: Im just much more comfortable playing small pots, and only taking the big risks when they're needed. With 13k chips at 1/2 hundred: the risks aren't really necessary.

I would be tempted to call his raise rather than reraise it.

Why is he raising so much? Small pocket pair? Ace King? The one thing I'd notice about his raise is that he's telling you that he's willing to go all in on this hand, so that should have been your warning not to reraise him. I don't think that he'd raise 10x bb if he wasn't willing to go the distance here. That's a quarter of his stack, and you said he was tight.

What do you think about calling and seeing a flop? I know he'll probably put all his chips in regardless, but at least you'll know if you've got a pair or a draw to put the rest in with.

As I said when I was responding an argument can be made for calling and seeing a flop, BUT this really leaves you no room to outplay the guy. Like you said you KNOW the rest of those chips are goin in on the flop, but now you know you have to catch a piece of your hand, and honestly, you dont even know if that's good?! I dunno I like calling better than reraising, but I REALLY like folding as the best option.

This is a clear fold preflop. I'm talking about before your reraise (the size of which made very little sense to me)

This is a stars 180 - the only hands you need to be playing in a situation like that are KK/AA/AK. I'd probably lay down the QQ, and I'm not sure about what I'd do with AK ( either push or fold).


With a stack your size relative to the other stacks and with those blind levels, there is no reason you should be looking to get into a confrontation against another medium+sized stack in a hand where you have no clue where you are. You shouldn't be gambling with marginal hands. You can steadily accumulate chips through a combination of stealing liberally preflop as well as by playing your good hands against short stacks who have to make a move to stay alive. Your hand range for entering a pot should be very broad. Your hand range for calling/reraising should be very narrow.

Easy fold.

What would you do with AK and QQ in hero's position?

AK I fold without a second thought. Im not flipping a coin with this stack, and I could well be behind As or Ks.

QQ is tougher but I still fold it. Hes not a desperate stack, so what can such a big bet hope to gain other than hoping someone calls his monster and doubles him up?

QQ is the minimum I can see him doing this with, so I call with KK.

I fold this hand preflop. That is a very large raise and it you will play this hand out of position the rest of the way if you decide to call. I do not think calling here is an option. If you raise, it must be for all of his chips, as a 2500 raise will not be enough to get him to fold.

As copernicus stated, I fold AK here as well. QQ would be a very difficult decision....I would probably lean more towards folding than reraising, simply because I can't see the villain raising with too many hands here except for AK, KK, or AA. I look for a better spot than this.

thx for the advice everyone, really good stuff that I definately learned a lot from. I especially like this line here. pretty much sums up everything i needed to know for big stack/late tournament play.



another thing about this hand, I kinda lost focus here because my girlfriend called me the hand before. So my attention was elsewhere at the time and didnt even realise it was a 10x bb raise until I replayed the hand in Ptracker. :roll:

otherwise, I think I probably would have folded here too. I'll chalk that one up to money lost because of GirlFriend.

well, i hope you guys are ready for this one, here are the results.

I call and the villian flips up a...................................... 2 2 Thats right, he put his whole tournament on the line here with a 2 freaking 2! pocket f#cking dueces... I couldnt believe my eyes and almost lost it

flop rolls out Q 8 and last but not least, the 2. what a sick game.

turn and river are no help, and i'm down to 5k and bust out in 22nd place.

I'll try my luck again tomorrow

I dont think QQ or even JJ are auto folds here. Actually I'd be very hard pressed to lay the QQ down, because there's too big a chance this is a pair like 99 or 88, and really it could even be AQ. I dont think Aces or Kings are a likely possibility, as usually people try and get action off of these hands. If he raised to 10x the bb with AA/KK then he played it right for QQ to be inthe blinds, because Im going to raise him here.

Without past information on this particular villan, I think QQ has to be considered a re-raise, and call the allin, and AK couldnt really be faulted for a raise, but I'd be more inclined to lay it down. It'd really depend a LOT on the table I was at and what I know about this particular player.

Regardless of the hand you hold, wouldn't pushing all in preflop be the right play if you were going to raise and call an all in? By pushing you take away any fold equity that the villain may think they have. I as well probably don't get mixed up with AQ here, but JJ-AA and AK I'm pushing back hard.

Yep, easy fold with AQ and AK, hands which derive much of their value preflop from fold equity, which you have none of here.

I'm calling with QQ, jamming KK.

just in case anybody cares anymore, heres a link to my 2nd place finish in the same tourney that i played today.

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-foru...9206&highlight=

kept this thhread open the whole time and kept on rereading some of the advice given, it seriously helped get me that far into the money.

thx all

Whew. You guys almost had me thinking I was a complete idiot for a second.

In all honesty, I would probably fold this hand, too. However, I think it's interesting to get into the psychology of his bet. What are his chances of having a small pair? I thought they were pretty good, but most of you are putting him on a premium holding. How more likely do you think it is that he is raising with a premium hand here?

good point, i mean, who raises 10x the bb with a premium hand here while your chip stack is still in good shape. wouldn't your goal here be to maximise profits on your premium hand. to me, the big raise reaked of weakness, that he didnt want anybody calling so he could pick up the blinds.

dont get me wrong though, a fold here is still the right play

and for the record loogie... yes, you were correct on calling the hand. brownine points for you