Fold AA pre-flop?

[LinusKS]

What's the right strategy here?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (10 handed)

CO (t770)
Button (t175)
SB (t740)
Hero (t800)
UTG (t770)
UTG+1 (t1415)
UTG+2 (t470)
MP1 (t975)
MP2 (t925)
MP3 (t960)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, A/images/graemlins/club.gif.
UTG calls t15, UTG+1 calls t15, UTG+2 folds, MP1 calls t15, MP2 calls t15, MP3 folds, CO folds, Button calls t15, SB completes, Hero raises to t125, UTG folds, UTG+1 calls t110, MP1 calls t110, MP2 folds, Button raises to t175 (All-In), SB raises to t740 (All-In), Hero raises to t800 (All-In), UTG+1 calls t675, MP1 raises to t975 (All-In), UTG+1 calls t175.

Flop: (t3695) 2/images/graemlins/heart.gif, 4/images/graemlins/heart.gif, T/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(5 players, 4 all-in)</font>

Turn: (t3695) 7/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="blue">(5 players, 4 all-in)</font>

River: (t3695) 6/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="blue">(5 players, 4 all-in)</font>

Final Pot: t3695

[Jsb]

Um yes, you made the correct play. there is only one case in which it is possibly correct to fold aces preflop, as discussed by sklansky in TPFAP. if you are in a huge expensive tournament, and you are in fourth/last place, and the top three people all have the same amount of chips, and they all push preflop, so that by folding you are gaurunteed second place, which must be a HUGE difference from fourth or even third place, ONLY THEN do you fold aces preflop. even then i don't think i would have the discipline to do it.
for all intents and purposes NEVER fold aces preflop. never. never ever.
you want to get as much money in there as you think possible preflop. going all in generally may not be the best move at this point because chances are you will not be called. if you think you can get called, awesome, and the more people you are called for, the better.
your initial raise was great, since there were already so many people in the pot. with aces, yes you want alot of money in the pot, but you don't want alot of people seeing the flop, so that was probably a good sized raise. and of course going all in was the correct move.

[MicroBob]

yeah....this is a bizarre question to even ask in such a situation.


on the bubble it is POSSIBLE to fold AA PF.


i almost got to when i was playing one of the MTT-satellite rebuy things on stars.

the top 20 all got the same prize. i was around 9th or so with 35 remaining....but looking at the various chip-counts i determined that i wasn't quite in a position to be able to fold my way into the money...i was close, but i didn't think i was quite there yet.

i called a shorter-stack's all-in that would have done significant damage if i had lost but would not have knocked me out.

anyway, i won that hand and was able to fold my way in including AK PF (with nobody yet in the pot) when 2 or 3 players were on the verge of getting knocked out and i had no incentive to put money into the pot.


i think it can also be argued that an expert player (who is significantly better than the field) may want to fold AA if its the first hand of a huge MTT (like a 2600 player field at WSOP) and 5 or more players push all-in PF.
you have a good chance to go from 10k to 50k chips but there is still a lot of tournament left so that doesn't mean TOO much...especially when compared with the chances of getting knocked out on the very first hand.



aside from really extreme examples like these it is silly to fold AA pre-flop. in a 5-way all-in you stand a good chance of busting out...but the chances of increasing your stack by 5x (quintupling-up??) more than makes up for this.

[PrayingMantis]

Fold?? I don't want to sound harsh, but this is about the best scenario you can have in an SNG. You hold AA , and all the clowns around you are willing to put everything in the middle. If you're folding AA here, poker is definitely not for you. Sure there's a chance someone will suck-out on you and you'll bust, but at this point you're holding the NUTS. Folding is simply horrible.

[Dooner]

Of course there is no way to know that four hearts are going to hit on the river or the fourth straight card. Someone could flop four of a kind, trips, or a straight flush. Anything can happen, that's poker. But pocket Aces is such a strong hand, to fold them preflop would be wrong in almost any position. Yes, you will lose with them, but you will win with them (I believe) just over 50% of the time. With odds like that, you would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to fold them.

/images/graemlins/cool.gif

[patrick dicaprio]

presumably your thinking is that with 5 players four of which are all in you are a dog to win the hand. while this is true you also will likely win the tourney if you win this hand and you have the best possible hand. there is no way i would fold here and if i lost so be it. usually the best strategy is to call and catch an A on the flop. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Pat

[Jason Strasser]

Fold, you're behind.

[Tosh]

Jason speaketh the truth.

[Jason Strasser]

Another truth is that the hero surely must've won this hand.

[PrayingMantis]

[ QUOTE ]
Fold, you're behind.

[/ QUOTE ]

After giving it A LOT of thought, I take back what I said and I agree with Jason. You should fold *everything* in that spot, except of 3 /images/graemlins/heart.gif 5 /images/graemlins/heart.gif, which will give you the straight flush on the river.

[William]

/images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I can't believe you even bother anymore PM.

Even harder to believe that such a post exists.

W.

[LinusKS]

Thanks. I had a feeling folding was the right thing to do. If only I had had 3h5h, like you suggested!

Well, next time I'll know better.

The other 4 had:

[ Kd 2d ]
[ Kc Ah ]
[ 5s 5c ]
[ Jd 8d ]

Cardplayer says I had 51% equity in the hand. However, in my experience I need about 80-90% to win half the time, so I figure I was actually way behind there. Like I said, next time I'll know better.

[Bmurn]

please, no one ask this question EVER again /images/graemlins/tongue.gif