Am I too timid or is Ace Queen very foldable to a reraise?

[homedog]

Hi guys. I'm mainly a reader of this site. Don't post too often but am working daily to improve my game.

Last night I was playing live in a 3 table tourney. Started with 2000 chips but around an hour into it I'm down to 1100 and blinds are 50/100. I raise early with Ace Queen off and a guy in middle position reraises me all in. He usually shows good cards and I don't think he's bluffing. I put him on decent pocket pair or ace king. I figure that I'm either a slight underdog or dominated. I fold and decide to pick a better spot for the rest of my chips but since a better hand never came along I woke up today and began to rethink the experience.

I have that Doyle line stuck in my head about how there are many players that will put all their chips in there with ace queen and they're not good players but they'll do it. Yet in the wild wild west that has become modern hold em, ace queen can often seem like a powerhouse against some of the garbage we see.

Was I too timid? Was attempting to win that hand a necessary risk towards advancing in the tournament? Or is folding a better option in the long run?

Thanks for your help.

[Yuv]

Folding to a re-raise with AQ is perfectly fine, but with your chip stack and the size of the blinds, I think i'm calling, and maybe pushing myself preflop.

[PFrese]

I agree with your fold. He most likely has AK, or a larger PP. Against ANY PP, you are an underdog. He could easily have QQ here. AA and KK he most likely tries to trap. I would most likely put him on - JJ, TT, QQ - all big trouble for you. OR, AK and MAYBE AQs, but unlikely since you have the Q. Yes he could be a donkey overplaying AJ, but...

Good fold.

It would help to know the size of your raise. Frankly, with 1100 in your stack and blinds at 50-100, it was probably a bad fold. The re-raiser has probably lowered his standards as well, with the high blinds. If there had been any limpers, you should have just gone all in. With 1100, I would raise to 300 and intend to call any all in. I think there are a lot of players who will come over the top with KQ or AJ when blinds are at 50-100. Depends on the buy-in, too, that's a helpful thing to include in your post.

[nsj]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with your fold. He most likely has AK, or a larger PP. Against ANY PP, you are an underdog. He could easily have QQ here. AA and KK he most likely tries to trap. I would most likely put him on - JJ, TT, QQ - all big trouble for you. OR, AK and MAYBE AQs, but unlikely since you have the Q. Yes he could be a donkey overplaying AJ, but...

Good fold.

[/ QUOTE ]

Against 22-JJ, Hero is priced in for the coinflip. Unless I know Villain to be an absolute ROCK, I'm not folding AQ with 11bbs, and as someone else mentioned, I may go ahead and push it in preflop.

Some info is missing. Did you raise to 300? 400? When were the blinds going up again? I think this was played a little timidly, but another more cautious line may be to limp, and either call a reasonable raise and stop/go the flop, or come over the top of a lone raiser all-in.

I guess, in conclusion, my thinking is that as short as you are, I think you want to get your chips in with FE here, and a standard raise from EP causes problems that way.

[JeanieJ]

Folding AQ to a reraise is fine in certain spots. Your stack is too small to be folding here, so you shouldn't have raised in the first place. You're either pushing preflop or folding. There is no room for making 3-4x the bb raises, you're leaving yourself with hardly any chips.

If my stack is bigger it's an easy fold, but given your stack size your chips should've been in the middle before the guy even had a chance to raise you.

[homedog]

I see the merits of pushing preflop and I find humor in knowing that I would have pushed preflop a year ago but this smaller 3x the big blind raise is me trying to play poker.

what hands are you gonna commit almost 30% of your chips then fold to a raise getting 2-1 on your money? AQ is a decent hand, even if you dont give him AJ,AT in his range, its still def. +EV. call in a heartbeat.

[nsj]

[ QUOTE ]
I see the merits of pushing preflop and I find humor in knowing that I would have pushed preflop a year ago but this smaller 3x the big blind raise is me trying to play poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure. But there's 1550 in the pot and it's 800 to you, so you're basically getting 2:1. Not a great place to be in, but the way you played it, you have to call.

[madmisha]

I would push preflop, and call the raise in your situation.

M=7. You have two viable choices in my view: limp and call any all-in raise (or if it is a small raise, re-raise all-in) or just go all-in and see what happens. Personally, I would raise all-in about 80% of the time and limp the other 20%. If it was a super tight table, I would limp more often. With your stack size here, the best result is getting everything in pre-flop for a hopeful double up. If you had 2100 and raised and then were re-raised, you could safely fold. Your read that the Villian was a rock doesn't matter since you don't have a lot of chips. To answer your question though:

Bad fold. You must call here.

-Gross

[homedog]

What can I say? I'm tighter than Harrington.

If I could see my opponents cards and know for sure he held A K then it's an easy fold right? 3 outer situation where it isn't worth the 800 to win 1550. I'm not exactly psyched to see aces, kings, or queens either.

But lets say my opponent has a pocket pair jacks or lower and I'm getting the 2:1 pay out on the coinflip. How do we readjust my risk vs return in terms of my tournament life being at stake? Obviously I'm making this call in a cash game. But how about when I can't put more chips on the table? My next hand could be pocket aces. I still have 800 chips left. I can double up. I might move all in and steal blinds. And that's where this isn't an obvious call for me. I've had tourney success lately just being really really patient picking my spots as a small stack. But maybe I've just been getting lucky. If the math doesn't support it, I'd gladly call here. I just have no clue how to factor "survival" into those pot odds.

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
But lets say my opponent has a pocket pair jacks or lower and I'm getting the 2:1 pay out on the coinflip. How do we readjust my risk vs return in terms of my tournament life being at stake?

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless you're already in the money or a few off the money this isn't even worth discussing yet. Trying to double up is risky, but so is trying to come back from a 7BB stack.

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
If I could see my opponents cards and know for sure he held A K then it's an easy fold right? 3 outer situation where it isn't worth the 800 to win 1550. I'm not exactly psyched to see aces, kings, or queens either.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you knew he had exactly one of those, then yes, fold. But you don't have enough information to be that exact.

[ QUOTE ]
But lets say my opponent has a pocket pair jacks or lower and I'm getting the 2:1 pay out on the coinflip. How do we readjust my risk vs return in terms of my tournament life being at stake?

[/ QUOTE ]
Been over this many times. Common misconception. Winning tournaments requires that you take favorable gambles, not pass them up because you afraid of "tournament death". 46-48% to win getting 2:1 is a call.

[ QUOTE ]
My next hand could be pocket aces. I still have 800 chips left. I can double up.

[/ QUOTE ]
You could also get nothing better than 8 high until you're blinded out. Chaos theory: don't try to predict the future, make the best play you can now and let the future take care of itself.
Let's look at the flipside of your reasoning. Say you do call, he turns over TT, you hit a queen on the flop and double up (you're at 2350 now). And THEN you get pocket aces. You bring it in for another raise and get two calls. You get all in on a Qxx flop against a guy with KQ and double up again. Now you're at 5000 chips and in commanding position. If you'd folded the AQ, you'd only be at about 1700 chips.

[ QUOTE ]
I just have no clue how to factor "survival" into those pot odds.

[/ QUOTE ]
There are differing opinions on this but for me the most successful way to factor in survival is "don't".

From the looks of it, you only had 1100 left to begin with and were short stacked with 11bbs. To me this is an easy call because you have to take a stand at some point and survive a few all ins. If you win, thats a huge double up and you can go back to being rocky. Like you said, you never got any better cards and waiting on big PPs is a big mistake IMO. My guess is this guy had one of your outs or JJ to 77.

How many chips did villian have? If he just barely covers you, he may be making a desperate play. If he's about 2-3 times your stack, seems very unlikely he's on anything other than a premium hand. Any more than that he could be bullying. #1 or #3 I'd call instantly, I think #2 is borderline.

Even if you are up against AK, you are very nearly getting the right odds. 70-30 is 2.3:1 and you are getting almost 2:1. If you double-up here you'll improve to >2200. If you double on the next hand you'll have >1600. The odds are, you will not get a better hand than this before the blinds eat you. And remember, you probably have the best hand more than 55% of the time. The range of hands the Villian would re-raise with, along with the pot odds, chip stack size, and the fact that you have a decent hand makes this an MUST call.

On a side note, if I had played the hand this way and was faced with this all-in call, I would call with any pocket pair, any two face cards, and anything suited down to 8-7s. But OTOH, I would not have played the hand this way!! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Gross

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My next hand could be pocket aces. I still have 800 chips left. I can double up.

[/ QUOTE ]
You could also get nothing better than 8 high until you're blinded out. Chaos theory: don't try to predict the future, make the best play you can now and let the future take care of itself.
Let's look at the flipside of your reasoning. Say you do call, he turns over TT, you hit a queen on the flop and double up (you're at 2350 now). And THEN you get pocket aces. You bring it in for another raise and get two calls. You get all in on a Qxx flop against a guy with KQ and double up again. Now you're at 5000 chips and in commanding position. If you'd folded the AQ, you'd only be at about 1700 chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has actually happened to me many times. Last night is a good example:

I was the short stack with 8 left. Went all-in preflop with Q-10, was called by JJ. Hit my queen on the flop. Doubled to 2000 chips. The blinds were 200-400. Very next hand was dealt AA. Was able to get it all-in on the flop. Doubled to over 4000. Very next hand, got KK. Doubled through again. That streak of luck inspired me to play better poker and I won the tourney. But had I not gone all-in with the q-10 in the first place, I am convinced I would have been out 8th.

Perhaps not the best example, but I am still excited about my win last night! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

-Gross

[ZootMurph]

First, I don't like AQ against any reraises. Second, you raised from an early position, which in itself shows strength. To compound all that, you have a guy who you said has only shown down good hands. I really think this is an easy easy fold unless you feel a miracle coming on.