Pocket Queens, five handed

[AlphaN3rd]

Party Poker $11 No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (5 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

UTG (t1935)
MP (t385)
Button (t855)
Hero (t2090)
BB (t2735)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q/images/graemlins/spade.gif, Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif.

UTG raises to 425, MP is all in [385], Button is all-in[855], Hero...


I really don't know what to do here. My queens might not be good here, and even if I knew they were, I'm not sure if I should risk going up agianst someone with just an ace or king.

UTG's raise scared me a bit, but while I didn't have too much of a read for him individually, there did seem to was a lot of OOP raising going on.

Do I push or fold?

[ChrisV]

Interesting one. UTG isn't your problem, it's the button.

I'd fold. I rate the chances of button having AA or KK as moderately high. UTG may also have one of those hands, which would be a disaster. QQ isn't such a giant favourite here that I can't afford not to play.

[Jimbobobb]

What an interesting situation. My simple insticts say push. The reason I say this is that you have every other person in the hand covered. Then I take a look and realize that big stack BB is still to act. What a nice little quirk. Let's forget about BB and just say he folds a good 99% of the time. I'm probably making this too complicated or way too simple. And so comes the thinking out loud: If BB and UTG go away, the most you can lose is 885 chips, leaving you still in a fine position hovering around 8BB's. If you win, you're automatically in the money and have a good chip lead. If UTG calls, he most likely has some big pocket pair or maybe AK/AQ. If he wins the hand, you'll drizzle out third.
I think most of the time UTG folds here because he's raising with a marginal holding that he didn't feel comfortable pushing into the two other big stacks in the blinds, but felt was worth a steal attempt. MP probably saw this as his chance to get some great pot odds with a very wide range of holdings. The only person I'd truly be worried about is button, who knows he has little to no folding equity from UTG but is ready to go up against 2 other hands. Why am I still typing? I think your hand is too good to fold and not the AA that I would call with. Push.

[Mr_J]

I would push knowing I'm the one player who can't get knocked out here. I expect to have the best hand going in, with decent to above average ace and mid PP from the shortstacks, and UTG to fold his KQ.

There's no way I can give shortstacks credit for a better hand, and if UTG has something then so be it. Shorties are usually very desperate, and I'm sure a decent PP or Ace is looking like a good hand to gamble up on.

[curtains]

Call Nick Frangos and ask what he'd do. Anyway I think it's close. Being that it's a $11, moving allin seems reasonable, so does folding. I don't know what to do, it does depend on what you think about the opponents.

[lastchance]

At an $11, I'm going to move in, because I don't buy AA/KK here, especially from some short stacks.

Then again, the other guys could be right, and this is an autofold at a $215, but I really don't give people at the $11 enough credit to fold QQ here.

[AlphaN3rd]

Thanks guys.

My instrincts told me that UTG probably held a good hand, but my instincts usually aren't very good and QQ is just too good of a hand for me to fold. So I pushed, and UTG called. MP and Button both showed pocket 8s, but UTG held aces which held up. I was crippled, but ITM. Had I not have them coverd, I definitely would have given folding some more thought.