AK against a re-raise

[Beavis68]

This was the second tier of an Aruba Free-roll. 1832 entrants, but this event had to be re-played - original prizes still paid out, and only about 1100 players actually showed up.

Late in the touranment - 150/300 blinds plus an ante. I am at 7400 in chips EP.

112 players remaining, I am 53rd in chips, avg stack is ~9000. There are some HUGE stack in the top 20. Tournament pays 1 Aruba package 2-10 get a $100 tournament entry chip. I am feeling ok about my chance when this hand came up.

EP - short stack raises all-in to about 1100.

I have AKos - I decide to call, and hope that someone else will call and I can flop an A or K and hit a nice payday.

Folds around to a late position player button or SB, who raises an additional 3800. He has about 8600 in chips.

I think for a few seconds - but no long enough - and go all-in. As soon as I do, I think "the short stack has an A" and realize that one of my outs is probably gone.

Re-raiser calls of course.

Stock stack has A-8os, re-raiser has QQ. I flop an Ace, but a Q hits the turn - what emotions to feel in about 6 seconds.

I am really torn on my play here. On the one hand, I dont like AK in a 3-way all-in, on the other, I needed a lot of chips in order to have a chance to make the final table and be competetive. Any thoughts?

[Jon Matthews]

I likely reraise all in here instead of call. The call give better odds to lesser hands to call and trap you or push you off the flop when you miss and they hit their kicker or something. When you are all in, the QQ has a decision to make. He may call anyway, putting you on AK quite accurately but a small amount of the time he may make the weak-tight decision and fold fearing an EP all in.

Jon

[CrackerZack]

completely agree. isolate the SS who likely has a weak or dominated hand.

[Beavis68]

Once I made the mistake of just calling, should I fold to a re-raise?

[LargeCents]

A pretty prickly situation. But, you said that you were hoping to see the flop, and get paid if you flop an Ace or King. Therefore, the reraise doesn't make sense. If anything, you can save that raise for the flop, which might scare the other guy for one reason or another, or if you spike a pair. It was pretty obvious the guy was going to call the preflop raise. But, this is all after I saw how the hand played out, so I think it was played reasonably well. My only concern is the reasoning behind your call and re-raise. The call-reraise seems like a generally weak move, unless you had AA or something. The beauty of AK is that you can get away from it easily if you miss the flop.

Then again, I am a just a complete novice who has only read a couple of books.

--Cents