[tvdad]

Thanks for all the sarcastic answers. That's what I was expecting, because it's obviously a ludicrous question. If I really ever considered folding AA preflop in any situation other than on the money bubble in a tourney that paid significant money, I would expect someone to take away my card playing privileges.

One point: Raising the minimum (or even limping) UTG with AA (or any big hand) isn't unusual in these cheap/freeroll tourneys. I can practically guarantee somebody will reraise, and then I can make the big reraise to try to get max value out of the hand. Sometimes I'll get unlucky when nobody reraises and I have 6 people see the flop, but that doesn't happen very often. You have to make an awfully big bet to get the really loose players to fold at this stage. I hate to bet T500 into a T30 pot just to take down the blinds with my AA. That's great later when the blinds are bigger, but now I want to build my stack.

Anyway, there was a method to my madness here. I was kind of hoping at least one person would run with it and offer up an actual statistical answer for why you should ever call when you're only a 44% favorite to win, as you are when you've got AA against four opponents who will see the hand through to the river. This doesn't happen often, but when it does anyone will say you'd be a fool to fold. Oh really? If it's okay to call in this spot, then why would you ever fold when you've got one of the "coin flip" hands; a pair against two overcards or vice versa. Well, part of it is because you don't really know for sure that that's the cards you're playing against. But if you can somehow put your opponent on AK/AQ/AJ/KQ/etc and you've got 55 and he just pushed all-in, why would you ever fold? You have better than the 44% chance of winning in the AA situation. Is it simply a matter of the amount of chips involved?

Say it's the first hand of a tourney where everyone starts with T1000. UTG pushes all-in, gets three callers, you look down and see AA and call. If you win, you've now got T4000. Nice quadruple-up on a 44% shot. Now let's say it's much later in the tourney, but still a way to go until the money. You've got T10000. UTG pushes all-in and has you covered. You know he will push all-in in this spot with Ax, and only Ax. You have 55. Do you call? A lot more chips on the line this time, and your odds are better than that first hand when you had AA. So is this an automatic call? If not, then why would you call with the AA for lower odds?