It's interesting to see that the votes were pretty split between folding and re-raising 10,000. Those are CLEARLY the best two options here, but one is just a little bit better than the other based on the description I presented.

One of the luxuries of having a big stack of chips is that you can easily continue to climb by making calculated risks that don't hurt you very much at all when they don't work out. In this case, you are getting a decent price to increase your stack at little risk to you. It's a +EV situation and the more of those you take advantage of the more chips you'll end up having in the long run.

There is nothing WRONG with folding at all, but I asked for the BEST option and illustrated an excellent situation to make a steal raise. Remember, this play doesn't have to work 90& of the time to make it profittable. If it works 50% of the time you are going to make a profit.

If your pre-flop read is good then the real threat is one of the two blinds waking up with precisely AA or KK. Anything else and they'd have to consider folding in the face of a raise, call, and re-raise.

The other problem arises when one of your opponents calls your raise. What do you do then? For the most part, I advise aborting mission, but sometimes the flop comes just right where you can pick it up with a continuation bet.

Don't you agree that reraising to 7k would be a better play than reraising to 10k? It looks a little more like AA or KK, so I think the chances that the first two players fold is roughly the same (even though the amount for them to call is less), but making it 7k has the added benefit of reducing the amount that you lose in case one of the blinds wakes up with a monster, or in case you misread one of the first players and they come over the top of you.

$7k is not really enough to get them to fold. You would be asking them to call $4800 into $13,500 which would be callable with a wide range.

You run the risk of pricing in a player with a hand like 77 that is trying to flop a set on you. With a trash hand like this one, you don't want them to be priced in at all.

you wrote that For the most part you shouldnt make continuation bet if you get called, unless the flop comes just right, i wonder what that means just right.
do you mean flops like 227, or maybe you mean flops with an ace?

But then again, if they call you just to try and flop a set (and you read that as the case) then chances are you take it down postflop with a continuation bet.

I agree you'd rather they not call when you reraise with Q3o, but its not such a bad situation if the only hands they call your raise to 7k with (as opposed to reraising you or folding) are smallish pocket pairs. They're only going to hit a set roughly one out of 8 times and they're likely folding on the vast majority of other flops.

I am assuming decent, tight players though, standard players in a high buyin live tournament. Moves like this obviously don't work as well in most internet tournaments where many people have a hard time laying down any pair when their stacks aren't that deep.

But I still think most of the time standard tight players are going to fold preflop if you raise to 7k, putting you on a big pair and not wanting to risk more chips. They only have 30k and 40k respectively in their stacks, its not like they're getting that much in the way of implied odds. If one of them wants to call off almost 5k more of their stack just to likely fold to you on the flop, more power to them.

The only real risk I see is both of them calling, but again, even if you just check fold after the flop every time (and never hit), you only need the preflop raise to work about 50% of the time if you make it 7k. Its closer to 60% if you make it 10k, and they're probably both folding more like 70-80% of the time whether you raise to 7k or 10k.

When I took the quiz I answered "correctly" and my other choice was to fold... so i guess that's good! This is a move I wouldn't normally make but i'm glad the situation was brought up because like i said i had never considered a play like that as an option. I'm new to this and all poker forums but I look forward to checking regularly for more insight from one of the world's best! If i'm fortunate enough to build a big stack at the upcoming event at Borgata i'll be sure to try that move a couple times!

Phil

I'd prefer to wait until I was in the SB or BB to make this move, as it seems like AA or KK would be more believable, but who am I to argue against DN...

I ended up choosing the $10K raise but what gave me pause was the concern that Mr. Desperate might respond by pushing all-in. I'm assuming that the correct move at that point would be to throw away the hand, right?

(By the way, it's great seeing a fellow Toronto boy tear up the world of big stakes poker!)

Mr. Desperate can raise alot but not reraise, unless he has a PP or AK... then being desperate is enough to push and pray... but hands that might raise from a desperate player are liable to in the small to mid PP, KJs+ ATs+ AJ+, all of which, so long as he can lay it down (i.e. not online) then the play makes sense... I didn't vote... but I think 7K is too cheap, I call my bogus UTG 87s raise with at this price... I also think the raise needs to equal 2/3rd of pot... and 7,8K into a 12Kpot... is about right... just my thoughts

I am curious too what type of flops would be good for a continuation bet vs. bad flops for continuing.
Don't make me wait for your book please!

Be sure to pay attention to stack sizes in the blinds when doing this...

If there is a 15k stack in the blinds who wakes up with a hand:

1. You have to call

Worse.

2. You have to show Q3o lol

RAISING 2 7 K WOULD NOT BE A GOOD PLAY CAUSE THEY CAN SMOTH CALL YOU AN FACE IT YOU DONT WONT 2 GO 2 A FLOP AGINST A RAISE AND A CALL WITH QUEEN 3 SQUEZE IS STILL BAD GOT ALOT OF CHIPS I DOTN ARE WHT D/N THINKS AN YES YOU MIGHT HAVE POS EV BUT DONT MATTER HOW MUCH EV YOU GET IF YOU GO BROKE EV ONLY HELPS IN CASH GAMES THIS IS A TOURNY NEED 2 STAY IN IT 2 WIN