Common Situation

[Utah]

Poker Stars SNG

Long tourney and the blinds are 200/400

Button (me) 3000
SB 7500
BB 3000

I have: K /images/graemlins/heart.gifQ /images/graemlins/heart.gif

I have the BB outclassed and he is very very tight. SB is a solid aggressive player.

I open for 1200 (3X BB)
SB raises to 2,000
BB Folds
I Call

Flop is rags. He bets 400. I am guessing A,x no pair. I push the rest in an pray. Rags off and I lose. He had A, rag and won with a high card.

Here is the question - what do you do preflop? Too good of hand to lay down but to raise puts your whole stack at risk.

I think that maybe pushing in was best? Maybe limp, (which I never do late in a tourney)? Maybe fold as the BB was bound to eventually lose?

[Bluff1]

IMO I would have moved in preflop.

[CrisBrown]

Hi Utah,

I'd have pushed in here ... and lost ... as SB wasn't going to lay down Ace-rag in a three-handed game. But I think it would still be correct to push in with KQs in this case.

Cris

[M.B.E.]

I agree that you should have pushed in preflop although I'd say it's somewhat close. If your stack had been 4000 rather than 3000, I think your raise to 1200 is okay. (For one thing, if you're confident of your read of the BB, you'd be able to fold to a reraise from him.)

When the SB (who you said was aggressive) reraised to 2000, you should have reraised all in. Very unlikely he's going to fold to the reraise preflop (which would only be 1000 more), but you don't want him to be able to get away from his hand on the flop if he has a small pair. For example, if he has pocket fours and the flop comes A-K-T, it's easy for him to fold and save the 1000.