QQ preflop decision

[Elvis]

Late in a four-table tournament (40 players), I was in second place with seven players left. There were five prizes, so we are just outside the money at this point. I had a stack of 12k, the chip leader who was sitting on my right had 22k, and the other five all had between 4k and 7k (average 5k). Blinds: 300/600 ante 50.

Since we were down to 15 players, the play had been rather tight. The maniacs were all gone, and everyone seemed to know what he was doing.

The chip leader had just started to steal blinds more often (maybe done it 4 times in 10 deals), and each time he had made a bet of 7k and everyone had folded. He had been nice to me though, not attacking my blinds. :-)

The chip leader is UTG and raises to 7k (again). I have QQ. I am thinking "raise all-in or fold?"; I am probably ahead of him, but is this the right time (just outside the money) to gamble with my whole stack when I'm in second place and comfortably sitting behind the chip leader? I thought for a long time, but then I decided to fold. So did everyone else so I don't know what I was up against.

Thoughts on this one?

Jonas


PS. Chip Leader finished in 3rd place, and I won.

[Frodog]

awful awful decision.
You have the third best starting hand you can get and you are afraid to not make the money? You need to rexamine your poker game. THis is a prime oppourtunity to take a huge pot and give yourself a great chance at first place. IF he had not been stealing at all then you could consider laying this down. but I would definitely go all in in a second.

[sdplayerb]

Due to his raising so much like this, I am not folding this hand. Don't play to just make the money (unless the payout structure is really flat.) Plus if he this time had a huge hand, he probably would have raised less.

As for pushing in or calling, it depends if you are in the blinds or not. I don't usually call then pushin. But if it is a situation where he is going to call your allin anyway since he is getting odds on it, I will do that since he could throw away a hand that would beat me on the last two cards. That last 5K isn't worth as much as the 14K+ already in there.
But I am not going away on this hand since he is a maniac.

Congrats on the win.

[ohkanada]

Glad it worked out but I can't imagine folding based on how you say he has been playing. Raising 4 out of 10 times, he obviously raising on hands that you have dominated.

Ken Poklitar

[cferejohn]

All-in like a shot. It isn't close.

Congratulations on winning!

[Redsox]

I disagree with the other posts. You had a ton of chips left, and had a great chance of just anteing your way to second place. Even if the raiser had just one ace or king in his hand, he is going to take the pot from you about 30 % of the time. Going up against the one guy at the table who can bust you with a 2.5/1 favorite isn't a terrible move, but you've got plenty of time to use your skill to wear this guy down, and really bust him when you know that you've go the best of it. I must admit, I probably would have pushed all in, but who can argue with the outcome. You won, and that's all that really matters.

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
I disagree with the other posts. You had a ton of chips left, and had a great chance of just anteing your way to second place. Even if the raiser had just one ace or king in his hand, he is going to take the pot from you about 30 % of the time. Going up against the one guy at the table who can bust you with a 2.5/1 favorite isn't a terrible move, but you've got plenty of time to use your skill to wear this guy down, and really bust him when you know that you've go the best of it. I must admit, I probably would have pushed all in, but who can argue with the outcome. You won, and that's all that really matters.

[/ QUOTE ]

The question is: Are you playing to win, or playing to make the money. If you're playing to make the money, I don't see anything wrong with folding. You can probably slip into 4th place by folding your way to the money. If you want to win though, push all in on this one. You might bust out, but that's probably the best hand you'll see in a long time, up against a known blind stealer. If he has AA or KK, so be it. If he has Ax or Kx and an Ace or King flop, then be assured that you had the best of it.

[iblucky4u2]

[ QUOTE ]
Going up against the one guy at the table who can bust you with a 2.5/1 favorite isn't a terrible move, but you've got plenty of time to use your skill to wear this guy down, and really bust him when you know that you've go the best of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Help me here - being a 2.5/1 favorite is about as good as it gets this late in a tourney. Not counting results, how can you say wait till you've got the best of it but advocate not pushing when you do? Do you mean waiting for AA?

[Nottom]

Not to mention that the chip leader isn't all-in, just making rediculously large steals. He is gonna end up just folding to the all-in from the next-largest stack most of the time. This is clearly your opportunity to take control of the tourney, if this was a satellite then the decision is much closer.

[Elvis]

Thanks for all the input!

This was a $20 four-table tournament, where fifth place paid $58, and first place paid $291. To my defense, I would like to say that my decision was affected by the passive style of the small stacks. Everyone folded to my BB on a regular basis, so I thought that I could just play passively until two more players were out and still have an above average stack. Had this been an aggressive table, I would have pushed all-in without hesitation.

But I also know that I need to be more aggressive towards the end of multi-table tournaments.

Thanks,

Jonas

[Redsox]

I guess my point was that even with as little as one overcard, you are still going home 30% of the time. Why wake a chance wiht going home just out of the money when you could probably ante your way to the money, and wiht your chip position, probably do plenty stealing of your own? Problem 48 in the hand quizzes in Sklansky's tournament book deals pretty closely wiht the situation mentioned here. He gives you JJ. You're the second chip leader, and the chip leader raises from your right strongly. There are also a few less people remaining in the tournament. But generally its a very close match to what occurs in our example. Sklansky suggests throwing JJ away. It ends with "This is a classic example of avoiding someone who can bust you in no limit, especially when most of the others cannot." Good luck. Eric

[Bigwig]

My personal opinion is to push all-in. There's a good chance he would have folded, knowing the situation you were in. He would HAVE to think he was up against a big pair. He probably would have put you on KK or AA, in which case he's likely folding unless he's got AK suited, possibly AQ suited, or KK, AA himself. However, why raise like that with such a big hand? If everyone is tight and folding, I'm sure he would've slow played a top hand.

If he folds, you're up to 19K, and have a great chance of winning (good money), if you win, you double up to 24K and ARE the big guy now. I love that position. That's when YOU pick and choose to call the all-ins, and push everyone around in them meantime.

I say go for it.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess my point was that even with as little as one overcard, you are still going home 30% of the time. Why wake a chance wiht going home just out of the money when you could probably ante your way to the money, and wiht your chip position, probably do plenty stealing of your own? Problem 48 in the hand quizzes in Sklansky's tournament book deals pretty closely wiht the situation mentioned here. He gives you JJ. You're the second chip leader, and the chip leader raises from your right strongly. There are also a few less people remaining in the tournament. But generally its a very close match to what occurs in our example. Sklansky suggests throwing JJ away. It ends with "This is a classic example of avoiding someone who can bust you in no limit, especially when most of the others cannot." Good luck. Eric

[/ QUOTE ]

But the 70% of the time you *don't* go home, you're the massive chipleader. It's not like your either done or unimproved. Plus the chance that he might just fold to your all-in (if he had crap).

As for Sklansky's example, treating JJ like QQ is a great way to get into trouble. I would often toss JJ in this situation, but QQ is a substantially better hand.