What would you have done?

[Firetrap]

Hi new poster on this section and indeed holdem so it may require a bit of imagination on your part /images/graemlins/smile.gif

2nd hand on a single table tournament (still 10 in)- blinds are 7 and 15:

from an early position with noone entering the pot before me, i raise to 60 with QQ.

Everyone folds around to the cut off who immediately goes allin for 1000 chips. The button, doesnt miss a beat and calls all in.
It was then folded back around to me..........what to do, what to do??

I had never saw either of these players before and so had no info about how aggressive they are.


Well heres is what i did.............

I folded, and got absolutely roasted by everyone at table when i told em what i had!!!

I figured that
1: I didnt have a lot involved in the pot.
2: There was a very strong chance i was up against KK or AA, and at worst was probably up against AK....and did i really want a 50/50 this early for all my chips? (i guess less than 50/50 cos of 3rd player?)
3: There would be other opportunities - this thing had just started!!!


As it turns out the two players both had AKo - the flop then came AQ3, they split the pot, everyone laughed at me!!!

Though the vast majority ive talked to about it have said they'd have called, Im still pretty happy with my decision.....after all i did go on to win it /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Sam T.]

You did exactly the right thing for exactly the reasons you cite. (The only thing I wouldn't have done is tell them what I had.)

[slogger]

Good fold.

[Meatmaw]

I think you made the right decision. Having to call 2 confident all-ins after your raise and not knowing any of their playing styles, you've got plenty of ways to lose to silly all-ins (like A7 in one hand and KT in the other). Maybe there's some justification to make these sorts of calls against one player going all in at a level where players are very bad, but two? I wouldn't.

But then I'm not really experienced, so I'd love to hear others' opinions.

[holeplug]

I'd probably lay it down too but I think you can make a case one way or the other for calling the all ins here. Don't worry at all about the table reaction to your play. If the Q never hit on the flop, suddenly you just made "the greatest fold ever."

[skierdude1000]

That's a real hard lay down... good thinking though, usually one of them would have had JJ, KK, AA and the other AK, and as you said it's not worth it that early on. However, at lower stakes, allins usually signify an ace is present, so i may have put them on AK and AQ or AK and JJ/TT, depends on the limits.

And never tell the table what you folded, they'll think they can walk all over you

[Firetrap]

wow - thanks guys.

I never really listen to what most people say around a table but it is good to get some impartial feed back - especially feed back like this!!

I never usually show or tell anyone my cards win, lose or draw, as i hate to give anything away for free - not sure why i did really. But it is a point that is noted!

Thank you for your time and advice.

[Eder]

I always tell em I folded AA

[Hood]

A 'me too' reply coming up - presuming you're a winning player and have a decent edge over your oppoents, I think this is an easy laydown.

As posted above, you don't have to respect your opponents and think your against AA and KK. If one's got an A and one a K, you're in bad shape you versus the pair of 'em, which is the way you've got to look at it. Being against a K and an A is very likely here - either in one hand or two.

If you've got KK, on the other hand, it's an easy call I think - unless I had a previous read on the caller, I wouldn't expect AA. There's only one overcard so I'm in great shape against two opponents. And there's a good chance that they're 'covering' (there's a better word for this) each other's hands - i.e. there's only two aces left in the deck.

[SayGN]

very good fold. No reason to risk all of your chips this early in the tournament against 2 opponents. Like Hellmuth says, "If you cannot occasionally lay down the winning hand, you will not be a winning player." And you went on to win the tournament, congradulations...think of it as a big middle finger to everyone who laughed at you at that table.

[aces_full]

Easy fold. Queens are not a hand I want to commit my stack with before seeing a flop. The responses you got from telling your opponents you laid down queens is a goldmine of information-you learned that they are idiots with little or no poker skills.

In a tournament, you're broke, you're done. You don't want to risk all of your chips in a coin flip situation. Pocket queens are good but not THAT good. Any A or K on the board kills your action. Sure your idiot opponents would have called with the queens, and I have broken many of them. So you would have flopped a set. The odds against flopping a set are 7.5:1. Even if you assumed the worst -one of your opponents has AA, you are only getting about 2:1 pot odds to try for a set.

QQ vs AK heads up 57% favorite. You are a favorite, but not enough to warrant risking your tournament on. However the interesting thing is that since they both had AK, you were actually a 66% favorite since they held each other's outs. But you couldn't know they both had AK. But since these people are idiots, let's assume one of them had ATs instead. This makes things worse for you because now you are only a 54% favorite. If one of them happened to have AA, then your odds of winning are only 20%. Let's assume the first guy still pushed with AK, and the second guy called with JJ-you are now a 47% favorite to outrun them both (although you are a favorite over each hand heads-up).

The point is, if you call here you are going to find yourself either slightly ahead or way behind-a bad situation for all of your chips.

Congratualtions on the good laydown.