How would you play this hand?

[Big Country]

Hand 1 -

 

Blinds are at 100-200. I still have about 18000 in chips and I am UTG (note we are 6 handed, tourney had 12 players, so we started with 2 6-handed tables). I find QQ. I raise to 600. Player to my left makes it 1200. The Button calls the 1200. Blinds fold around to me. I reraise it to 3600. The initial re-raises folds. The button now pushes all in. I get a count, and if I call and lose, I will have about 1700 in chips left.

 

What would you do?

 

 

Hand 2 - Blinds are at 500-1000. I am now at about 22000 in chips (about average size stack). We have condensed to a full table, and now have 8 players left. I am UTG+1 and find AJ offsuit. I raise it to 3000. Folds around to the cutoff who pops it to 6000 (he has a large stack, around 35K). Folded back to me. I call and we see a flop. The flop comes jack, seven, four with two hearts. I have the jack of hearts. I check and opponent bets 6000. Do you fold, call or raise here?

 

 

I'll give the actual results after seeing some discussion.

[muck]

Call the all in.

 

Re-raise the big stack.

[Grits and Shins]

Hand 1 -

 

Blinds are at 100-200. I still have about 18000 in chips and I am UTG (note we are 6 handed, tourney had 12 players, so we started with 2 6-handed tables). I find QQ. I raise to 600. Player to my left makes it 1200. The Button calls the 1200. Blinds fold around to me. I reraise it to 3600. The initial re-raises folds. The button now pushes all in. I get a count, and if I call and lose, I will have about 1700 in chips left.

 

What would you do?

Hand 2 - Blinds are at 500-1000. I am now at about 22000 in chips (about average size stack). We have condensed to a full table, and now have 8 players left. I am UTG+1 and find AJ offsuit. I raise it to 3000. Folds around to the cutoff who pops it to 6000 (he has a large stack, around 35K). Folded back to me. I call and we see a flop. The flop comes jack, seven, four with two hearts. I have the jack of hearts. I check and opponent bets 6000. Do you fold, call or raise here?

I'll give the actual results after seeing some discussion.

 

 

Hand 1. You've invested 20% of your stack. The button is playing like he has K-K or A-A (slow played first raise, puts it all in after the action before the flop. So I believe I am behind in the hand and the decision is do I want to risk it all that I will out draw him. I probably lay it down, it is very difficult to do so though. UNLESS my read on him says he is trying to buy the pot from his position.

 

Hand 2. Now I have to decide if he is playing his superior stack AND his better position. I don't believe I will fold here as the only hands I lose to are pocket As, Ks, or Qs. I'm going to raise. If he re-raises then I have strongly consider folding.

[Big Country]

Hand 2. Now I have to decide if he is playing his superior stack AND his better position. I don't believe I will fold here as the only hands I lose to are pocket As, Ks, or Qs. I'm going to raise. If he re-raises then I have strongly consider folding.

 

 

Note that with his bet of 6000, and my only having 16K left after the preflop betting, any raise on my part is essentially putting me all in, so, raising the min then folding to a reraise is not a realistic option. Does that change your input at all?

[Bring Back Pat!!!]

1. Unless you have another reason to not believe him, I lay it down, as he's representing AA or KK.

 

2. You could very well be ahead right now. Guess is probably AK or AQ with hearts. He's betting his draw and doesn't want you to call. I go all in over the top and make him call off his chips on that draw.

[Def.]

Call the all in.

 

 

+1 there

 

As for the other I would fold. He raised over your raise preflop. Odds are he has a decent hand that he's either chasing with or already had you beat (pocket pair). He's got the money to bully you and with possible flush, possible straight, and possible higher pair out there its really risky committing to the all in off just jacks.

 

I never do well though so I'm probably wrong.

[spain]

Hand 1: Something would smell a little fishy to me about the way the button played it by him simply smooth calling the re-raiser, and then making the all in move after another raise. Does he really want to see a flop with 2 players, 1 a raiser and the other a re-raiser, with a big pocket pair like AA or KK? I would want to get heads up to lessen the odds of my hand getting cracked, plus get more money into the pot pre-flop when I am ahead. With AA of KK it makes sense for the button to re-raise to about 3600, and surely at least 1 and maybe both of you 2 guys fold immediately. Him smooth calling the initial re-raiser and then re-raising to all in later, makes my spider senses tingle. Definitely strange for him to play it that way..

 

BTW, I dont like your re-re-raise there to 3600. Why not after getting re-raised and then the button calling, smooth call to see a flop? Although he is representing AA or KK, this dude may be holding Big Slick, which alot of online players love to push to hard with. So, I dont re-raise a re-raiser with a caller in this spot with the ladies. But thats me. But since you did re-raise you and he put you all in, you are really put to the test here. Since he has pushed all in, alot would depend on this player. If you dont know him or havent gotten any reads on him we have to assume he has a big pair, AA, KK. QQ(unlikely as it may be), JJ, or AK. Tough lay down with QQ though. With no further information, I lay it down and look for a better spot. You still have alot of chips and dont need to make a call where the info you are getting from this player is that he has a big pocket pair that might have you 80-20.

 

Since you are asking this question, I assume you folded and he flipped over JJ or maybe 10 10...

Edited March 20, 2007 by spain

[Azazello1313]

fold hand one, raise hand 2.

[spain]

Hand 2: I smooth call the raise and take off another card and see what happens. No need to raise here as you might get re-raised all in by a guy who can afford to do so. And if he does re-raise you all in, you would be forced to fold. If you dont know where you are in the hand, dont be re-raising in this spot. Try to keep this pot small until you can gain more information. Raising here probably wont get him to fold, and he might set you all in. Betting into a big stack is dangerous in a tourney.

[keggerz]

Call the all in.

 

Re-raise the big stack.

 

+1

+1

[Big Country]

The way it played out.

 

Hand 1: I folded the queens. The player did not show, but did say he had AK suited. I do believe him. The stinger is that the initial re-raiser said he had AQ and the player that folded between us (after I raised) had folded a King, so, rather than being in a 50/50 situation, I would have gotten in as closer to a 65/35 favorite. In retrospect, I believed a call of the reraise preflop was the right play to take off a flop. IF all undercards, I could bet out and take down a good sized pot. If the A or K hit, I could play cautiously as Icould be almost 100% certain one of my two opponents woul have held an ace.

 

Hand 2: I don't see calling the bet as an option, as the call is about 35% of my stack, and would leave me with only 10K (10 bets) in chips with a 25K pot out there. With the min-raise preflop, I put this player on two big cards, possibly a big pocket pair, and I also knew he would be capable of betting if he completely whiffed on the flop. I have played with him a lot and he knew that my raise and subsequent call of him preflop meant I had a pretty good hand. I really thought he likely had two big hearts. A fold leaves me 16 bets, so, I decided to push all in, as he is capable of laing down the hearts if that is what he had, and he would lay down if he was bluffing. He thought for a minute and called. He had KK. He did tell me that he thought I quite possibly had JJ because of my call preflop and the general way the hand played out, but that other than that he could not put me on any hand that had him beaten. The turn was a third heart, giving me the heart outs, but the river blanked and I was out.

 

In retrospect, I should not have gone broke there. Most times I lay down AJ from early position, especially since I had a decent chip stack. Instead, I raised (not neccessarily a mistake), and then called the reraise (probably a mistake, but, I was getting a little over 3 to 1 to take off the flop). But, my read was just off. The play of the hand reaked of big hearts to me. One warning bell was that he did not push all in on the flop. In the past, my big tell on this player was that he would only bet out all-in with marginal hands or bluffs, and would make the 1/2pot to 2/3 pot bets with strong holdings. We discussed this at one time (he is my wife's cousin, so we discuss strategy together a lot and share thigns we pick up on one another), so, I started overthinking that he remembered our talks on this and was trying to throw me off by making a standard continuation bet in a situation where he would push.

 

Thats what I get for overthinking. Hoping to get another one going in the next three weeks before the baby gets here. The structure was nice and slow (blinds started at 25-50, though I was running late due to family commitments and did not arrive until the third level, and we started with 18K in chips) and rounds were 20 minutes each.

[darin3]

Hand 2: I smooth call the raise and take off another card and see what happens. No need to raise here as you might get re-raised all in by a guy who can afford to do so. And if he does re-raise you all in, you would be forced to fold. If you dont know where you are in the hand, dont be re-raising in this spot. Try to keep this pot small until you can gain more information. Raising here probably wont get him to fold, and he might set you all in. Betting into a big stack is dangerous in a tourney.

 

Agreed.

[Big F'n Dave]

You folded QQ?!? Could the rest of the table hear the sound of the wind blowing through your gaping hole as you laid them down?

I wanna play with you.

[Bring Back Pat!!!]

You folded QQ?!? Could the rest of the table hear the sound of the wind blowing through your gaping hole as you laid them down?

I wanna play with you.

 

In tourney play, after the flop, you have to be able to lay anything and everything down. I layed Aces on Saturday night. raised pre flop, I could tell he was thinking about coming over the top, but ended up smooth calling. Flop came KK3. I led out and he did come over the top then. I thought about it for a minute, ended showed him the Aces as the table gasped. He flipped over KK. Flopped quads. I knew I was beat and got away from it. I tell you, nothing earns you respect points like a lay down like that one. I think I won 4 of the next 10 hands after that. Nobody wants to be in a hand with a guy that can lay down Aces. Funny thing, ended up going broke with Aces later. Got it in pre-flop against 10s and he rivered a J high straight.

[Easy n Dirty]

Hand 1 -

 

Blinds are at 100-200. I still have about 18000 in chips and I am UTG (note we are 6 handed, tourney had 12 players, so we started with 2 6-handed tables). I find QQ. I raise to 600. Player to my left makes it 1200. The Button calls the 1200. Blinds fold around to me. I reraise it to 3600. The initial re-raises folds. The button now pushes all in. I get a count, and if I call and lose, I will have about 1700 in chips left.

 

What would you do?

Hand 2 - Blinds are at 500-1000. I am now at about 22000 in chips (about average size stack). We have condensed to a full table, and now have 8 players left. I am UTG+1 and find AJ offsuit. I raise it to 3000. Folds around to the cutoff who pops it to 6000 (he has a large stack, around 35K). Folded back to me. I call and we see a flop. The flop comes jack, seven, four with two hearts. I have the jack of hearts. I check and opponent bets 6000. Do you fold, call or raise here?

I'll give the actual results after seeing some discussion.

 

 

Here's my thoughts without having read any responses yet:

 

Hand #1 - the only 2 hands we're worried about here are A-A and K-K. You would think that either of those 2 hands would have reraised at the first opportunity, but that is far from a certainty. Alot of players with either of those 2 monsters might have simply called the first reraise, taking the risk of playing against 2 opponents (potentially even more if one of the blinds called as well) for the benefit of not giving away their strength. Probably truer of A-A than K-K, I think K-K has to reraise the first time. Other possible hands here include A-K for sure, A-Q if the button is a weak player perhaps, and any medium to high pocket pairs. Be nice to know something about the button in terms of how good a player he is and is he bold enough to make this play with 7-7 or something like that, which would be bold indeed given the stack sizes here.

 

I really think the only hand we're worried about here is A-A, it seems to me that K-K would have had to reraise the first time around. And there are enough other hands he could have, at a minimum A-K and 10-10 or J-J, where a call is absolutely mandatory. I make a very nervous call.

 

Hand #2 - ugh. This is a tough one. You have about 16k chips left after the flop, giving you a below-average stack and an M of just over 10. A call here would bring you down to 10k with 25k+ in the pot, seems to me that in that situation you're probabbly not gonna' be able to get away from this hand. The hands we're afraid of are Q-Q and K-K, both of which fit with the way the cutoff has played this hand so far. A-A and J-J too, of which there are less possibilities because we have one of each, but they are out there too. What else could he hold to make him play the hand this way so far? Certainly A-K, especially A-K of hearts, maybe A-Q or 10-10. Again, would be nice to know a little about the cutoff as well as your own table image at this point. But absent that, this one's awfully tough. The reraise before the flop was a minimum reraise, which tells me he wanted you to call but wanted to insure that a third player did not see the flop. That sounds like a high posket pair to me, higher than jacks. You hated seeing that reraise pre-flop, but almost had to call it given the odds you were getting.

 

The one question I ask myself here is when I called the reraise pre-flop, what was I hoping for. Very few flops were gonna' fit me better than this one - yet I still think that I am behind. It's an odd situation in that I think you had to call him pre-flop, now you got a very good flop for your hand, and I still think you're behind.

 

I'd probably throw it away here. I certainly would not call, to me it's either fold or go all-in. A very reluctant fold IMO.

[Easy n Dirty]

Hand 2: I smooth call the raise and take off another card and see what happens. No need to raise here as you might get re-raised all in by a guy who can afford to do so. And if he does re-raise you all in, you would be forced to fold. If you dont know where you are in the hand, dont be re-raising in this spot. Try to keep this pot small until you can gain more information. Raising here probably wont get him to fold, and he might set you all in. Betting into a big stack is dangerous in a tourney.

 

 

 

I can't see a call here. A call brings you down to 10k in chips with a pot of 25k+, and with blinds at 500-1000 you are essentially pot-committed at that point IMO. It's too late to "keep this pot small".

[Big Country]

You folded QQ?!? Could the rest of the table hear the sound of the wind blowing through your gaping hole as you laid them down?

I wanna play with you.

 

 

SO, let's look at the logical hands this player akes the all-in move with.

 

AA - I am dominated

KK - I am dominated

AK - I am in a coin flip

QQ - Tied

 

I really don't see him making the move with JJ or lower, but, let's say he could do it with JJ and TT - I dominate those.

 

All in all, I feel I have an advantage skillwise with these players. The blinds are still very low, so why would I commit my entire stack in a situation where I am likely way behind or a coin flip at best when I know I will be able to get my money in there in future situations as a favorite?

[Big F'n Dave]

In tourney play, after the flop, you have to be able to lay anything and everything down.

 

 

I agree. He folded his Queens pre-flop.

[Bring Back Pat!!!]

I agree. He folded his Queens pre-flop.

 

 

Right. I had forgot that detail. I've done that as well.

 

Actually laid down Aces once in a tourney pre-flop. I was right in the middle of the pack chip wise, and down to the bubble. I had two all ins in front of me, both by bigger stacks, and I looked down at AA. I could have gone all in, but would have been up against a minimum of two other players, both who obviously had some sort of good hand. I decided to live to see another day. The guys turned over KK and QQ. I would have lost to a Q on the turn.

 

Only time I've ever laid them down pre-flop.

[Big Country]

I find it interesting that it seems most feel I played the first hand incorrectly (folding the QQ) and played the second hand okay. IMO, the folding of QQ was clearly the right play. On the second hand, as I was in early position at a full table, I probably should have just folded rather than get involved with a marginal hand out of position, but, once I raised, and then the follow up min raise, I felt compelled to call, caught what I wanted and got myself stuck. As stated, I really felt he had hearts, but he could just as easily had the KK he had or even completely missed, as he is known to take shots. He also knows I am perceived asa very tight player and would lay down most hands there unless I connected on the flop.

[Grits and Shins]

Nod. You have to know when to fold 'em.

 

In the last tournament I played in I was looking at suited KQ on the button when a very tight player went all in over a smallish raise (not by me ... I had yet to act). We were down to 5 players I had decent chip position and there were 2 short stacks on the table (not the guy that went all in, although I did have him covered). We paid top 3 positions. To the amazement of those already out of the tournament that got a look at my hand, I folded.

 

Later, after the 2 short stacks had busted out and the blinds were getting a bit heavy the same [tight] guy went all-in in front of me and I instantly called with A-Q suited. I busted him out when the board did not improve either of our hands (he had K-J).

[Big Country]

KQ was an easy fold there, unless the aal-in raiser and the initial raiser both had very short stacks where you could get in at a minimum of risk and try to bust two players. Otherwise, you're not very likely to have a strong holding against someone going over the top of an early position raiser.

 

ETA: But you go all in with 22 with three overcards and an early position preflop raiser and postflop lead out bet?

Edited March 21, 2007 by Big Country

[tonorator]

you guys sound really cool when you use all those complex poker terms.

[wildcat2334]

I find it interesting that it seems most feel I played the first hand incorrectly (folding the QQ) and played the second hand okay. IMO, the folding of QQ was clearly the right play. On the second hand, as I was in early position at a full table, I probably should have just folded rather than get involved with a marginal hand out of position, but, once I raised, and then the follow up min raise, I felt compelled to call, caught what I wanted and got myself stuck. As stated, I really felt he had hearts, but he could just as easily had the KK he had or even completely missed, as he is known to take shots. He also knows I am perceived asa very tight player and would lay down most hands there unless I connected on the flop.

 

 

 

Interesting opinions all around, my quck thoughts....

 

1) - I agree it was the correct play, and a rather easy lay down-

 

2) - like you mentioned AJo out of position is a recipe for trouble, and obviously in hindsight should have been folded. A kinda like the smooth call here as well, but once you rr and were basically pot committed, had him on hearts and getting down to 10k in a tourney you have to push .

[Grits and Shins]

ETA: But you go all in with 22 with three overcards and an early position preflop raiser and postflop lead out bet?

 

 

 

I was playing the player not the cards. The flop showed all cards less than 10 and I was hoping you'd put me on a large over-pair with my all in bet and would fold. I did not put you on a pocket pair at all. Obviously I seriously mis-read the hand/player and got lucky with a suck out at the end. I knew I was in trouble when you called.

 

One thing has become clear to me ... always fold pocket kings

Edited March 21, 2007 by Grits and Shins