[Dave D]

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I agree that AA/KK is unlikely here but it is still about a 10% chance (1/220 X 10 X 2).


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There's a 10% chance you'll get hit by a car or something tommorow. Doesn't mean you don't cross the street. You cant play AK scared of AA/KK.

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I think only a really weak player would raise with AQs/AQ/AJs against a healthy EP raise.


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Umm, nope, not on party, not even in higher buy in tourneys. There's donks everywhere, even once you're in the money, and even towards the end. Once you're reasonably far in the money it's interesting how sometimes people just crack and do stupid things. Maybe the pressure gets to them, or they're tired, or they get too fancy. Regardless, wierd things can happen late in a tourney, even weirder than earlier parts.

Incidently, think about how badly villian played this hand in this situation. If he has AA/KK/QQ/AK why in the WORLD would you push back against a shorter stack? The only thing that calls you is something that beats you (probably), and most of the time people will fold w/o those 4 hands. So villian loses his chance to win lots of chips with a premium hand like basically 90% of the time here. It's awful. What if villian has a mid pair, that's even worse. Anyone with half a braincell is going to think "hmm, EP raise, he probably has a group 1", pushing means that you're probably gonna get called, and you're hoping for a coinflip at best. The best play here would be to just call. Short story is, people are dumb.

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So it is about an 80% chance that I facing QQ or less. I guess races are part of the game, but I would prefer to get all my chip in the middle with an edge and I would rather have the pair in that situation.


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That's weak tight thinking. Villian could easily have AQ, AJ, KQ, or who knows what. This kind of raise implies that he's trying to steal or something. You DESTROY so much of his range, you can't be thinking about not wanting to race b/c there's soooo many other hands that you destroy here.

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The problem that I am having is that the money paid in the tourney seemed to improve quite a bit through the later stages.



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This is exactly why you have to call. You need chips to get to the late stages. These tourneys have quickly escalating blind structures, which means you really have to take every possible EV+ situation you can get.