Step2, three-handed decision

[etotheipi]

Partypoker ST Step2, blinds are 250/500. I just lost an all in to the guy on my left and I'm down to 1800, and he's up to 7000. The other player has 1200.

I'm in the BB with AQo.
Button with 7k raises to 1000, fairly standard preflop min raise.
SB goes all-in for 1,200.

Mind you, Step2s pay out the Step3 entry to the top two spots. Do I push here, or hold on to my 1,300 and hope the shortstack goes broke?

Eto...

[Newt_Buggs]

On first glance I thought fold, but looking at the blinds and stack size i think a call is in order depending on your reads. If the button is good, he is pushing a lot of hands here, and with the blinds so big and the SB behind he could easily be calling here with a weaker ace. you're already in for 500, and if either you or the button wins you're into step 3. Its going to suck when the SB got delt AK or AA here and it holds up, but it looks like theres a lot of other hands you are ahead of that justifies a call to gang up on the SB.

[Sam T.]

Easy call, IMHO. Here's my thinking:

Nobody's going to give much credit to the original raiser. At this point he's a lock for the money, and should be raising any two, just to make one of you two bust out. Thus his raise ought not worry you. You are probably ahead.

If the SB has a brain, he knows the big stack is raising with any two, and with a micro-stack he has only two more hands to play. He's pushing anything that looks like it might be ahead of the big stack's range, and some hands that aren't. You are probably ahead of him as well.

Best of all, if either you or the big stack beats the SB, you get the seat since you were ahead at the start of the hand. This, I think, is the decisive factor.

Sam

[jayheaps]

i assume you are at 1800 after you posted the blind. Its close, however, I would fold here. The problem is that the big stack has so many chips that he will push you all in here no matter what since he just needs to have the 1st or 2nd dbest hand to move on. Most likely it is a coin flip or 40/60 between the SB and BB. that is a 40% chance to advance by folding. On the other hand, you likely have to improve to win a 3-way pot.

Its close but I fold