Big mistake with AA, or just a bad beat?

[tvdad]

Online tourney, PL HE, near the start so everyone has pretty much the same stack size; blinds are 10/20 and the stacks hover around 1000.

I've got AA. UTG calls, I raise to 40, and get five callers. Pot stands at 240.

Flop comes 592 rainbow. UTG bets 160, I raise to 320, next player pushes all-in for 1040. UTG folds. I have slightly less than the raiser, and I call all-in.

Board ends up 592K8. Raiser has 52 offsuit. Bam, I'm gone.

I honestly don't think I could have scared this guy out of the pot. I could have made a pot limit raise preflop, but if he was willing to cold-call 40 with 52o, I have no doubt he would have called 90, which was the max I could have raised. After the flop, I was hosed. I was going to raise, and he was going to reraise. My only escape would have been to put him on 55 or 99 and fold after he went all-in. But I figured him for a big pair, not a set.

Oops. Okay, let me have it!

T

[Keith Fellmy]

well...

There are many theories as to what you should have done. Since it was early in a online tournament most eveybody stays in the first hand (from either being stupid or, like you, having a legitimate hand-mostly from being stupid). I have only played in two online tournaments (and won both). What I would have done and always do is check. You know someone else is going to bet. Once all bet and it comes to you jack it up skyward. Make it expensive to draw cards to beat you.

Just my two cents!!

Keith (i am in no way a poker expert)

I am just getting started myself. But I've won the only two tournaments I have played. So i must be doing something right.

[cferejohn]

I certainly hope that you see the problem was only making a minimum preflop raise. Raise to 80 or 90 and I'm pretty sure 52 is gone before the flop. Sure everyone might fold, and you will have 'wasted' your aces, but frankly, the UTG limper is usually going to call (most people who limp UTG are willing to call a pot-sized raise). Raising to 40 just assures that your going to see a multi-way flop, which in a big-bet tournament is not really what you want with AA.

Your statement that "if he was willing to cold-call 40 with 52o, I have no doubt he would have called 90" is just wrong, and more to the point, wrong thinking. First off all, there are plenty of players who will call a minimum pre-flop raise with crap out of spite. That is to say "oh, this guy is min-raising with his AA/KK, well I'm going to call with my crap and if I happen to hit, I can break him". Furthermore, given the minimum raise, he's not all that wrong to think that way. The larger your raise is, the bigger mistake he is making to call pre-flop, and you want him to be making the biggest mistakes possible.

Let me give you an example. Fairly early in a tournament its folded to me in the cutoff and I have Q8s. Not much of a hand, but the table was pretty tight, so I tried to steal with it. The button raises me back the minimum (i.e. the amount of my raise). If he had raised back 3 times my raise (i.e. pot-sized raise) I would have folded in a heartbeat. As it was he could have just turned over his cards and said "I have AA, if you call and hit the flop you can bust me." I called, flop came Q89. I checked, he bet, I raised all-in as a huge favorite and got called. Was I making a mistake to call the minimum raise given that I was 90% sure that he had AA? I don't think so since I was a) perfectly willing to lay down top pair and b) I knew if I flopped something better than top pair, all his chips were mine.

Sadly, the next 2 cards were both 9's, but that isn't really the point...