Help settle a debate...

[magic_man]

Hi everyone, I need your help to settle a debate I'm having with another 2+2er about a tourney decision...
It's the end of a rebuy satellite on Stars, and we're down to 6 players from the original 26. Top 2 places get seats in the Sunday WSOP $650 Super, and 3rd gets $450. I'm the short stack with around T12500. Blinds are 300-600 with a 50 ante. A big stack with about T27000 makes it 3600 UTG. It folds to me on the button with AJs. What's my move?

~Magic_Man

[SossMan]

How much of a short stack are you? What are the other short stacks?

Is the raiser a rock, LAG, TAG? How likely is it that he's doing this with a weaker ace from UTG?

At first glance, I would fold. You still have 20xBB, so you are not in desperation mode yet. I would stay away from close gambles against an EP raiser.

I would change my mind from fold to push if he was open raising from the CO.

Otherwise, I think you can find a better spot.

[Legend27]

Easy fold.

[Scooterdoo]

While the early position raise was large for you, given your chip position, it wasn't that large for him. Unless I saw this player as extremely tight and rarely saw him make early position raises and didn't see him play many hands I would either push all-in or call and then feel things out on the flop. You say you're short-stacked. It's also important to know how short stacked you are compared to your competition. How many other players other than your opponent have considerably more chips than you. I might fold if only two other players have twice the # of chips and the other 3 were relatively close to me, but if I was way behind 2-3 other players I would say this is a good chance to make a move. Given the large stack of your opponent he could be making this move with an Ace and a worse kicker than you. He could also be doing this with any pocket pair. You still have enough chips to scare him off many hands by your push. I really don't like the fold given your short-stack -- it would help though to learn more about your opponent and the other stack sizes.

[magic_man]

The blinds were actually 600-1200 with a 50 ante, making his raise the standard 3x raise.

[SossMan]

Well that changes things.
You now have a clear push or fold here. Without having any reads on my opponent, I would probably push here. With 10xbb left, and T50 antes, you are either in, or very close to, desparation mode.

I would change my play to a fold if there were a couple of other short stacks close to my stack who were worse players than me.

[fnurt]

I was with Soss 100% when I read his prior response, and I am still with him. 10xBB is about the point where I would feel it was necessary to take the chance, with a higher stack I would remember AJ is not usually as good as it looks.

[cferejohn]

[ QUOTE ]
I was with Soss 100% when I read his prior response, and I am still with him. 10xBB is about the point where I would feel it was necessary to take the chance, with a higher stack I would remember AJ is not usually as good as it looks.

[/ QUOTE ]

I found something funny about the idea that your memory is tied to your stack size.

Semantic frivilosity aside, I agree with Soss and fnurt that I would push here. I think it is quite close and some kind of reasonable read on the raiser could sway me though.

With no other information, this is pretty much the worst hand I would push here with. I don't really like putting my money in with "the worst hand i would put my money in with", but well, *something* has to be the worst hand you would play...

As Soss said, if there were a couple other players who were nearly as small as you, I could see this swinging over to a fold.

[curtains]

If you want to wait until you only have 10BB to make this reraise, then you eliminate any chance of making the original raiser fold.

[Tyler Durden]

If he's raising UTG, I think you can fold and wait for a better spot. You have to ask yourself, what hands is he raising here with?