Tournament hand

[aceragclubs]

3 hours of work down the tubes on this one. Pokerroom $5 MTT, 297 entries, down to 13 players. I was chip leader with about 40 players left, but a couple of unsuccessful steals and cold cards leave me 5th out of the 13 players left, with 40k. Villian is 4th in chips with about 45k. I am in the big blind (blinds 1k-2k). Folded to villian on the button who minraises to 4k. I have KQ of spades. Considered re-raising, but with my chip position I just wanted to see a flop. Folding never really entered my mind. I call. I have no real read on villain as he was just moved to our table. Flop is K-9-2, one spade. I check, villain bets 4k, I raise to 10k. He re-raises to 16k. This kind of threw me off. There are lots of horrible plays in these $5 tourneys...but the small re-raise had me wondering. AA? 99? If I folded I would have 26k left, a small but workable stack. Calling seemed pointless and he would bet any hand on the turn again that was beating me. I thought until the last possible second and pushed. He called quickly with K9, and I got no help. Anyone fold this to the re-raise? Pot was pretty large, and he ended up with a pretty good chip lead after the hand. Since the real money was in the top 3 spots, I went for it. Thoughts?

[kuro]

Preflop: Flat calling here is bad. Villain is on the button so you have to figure that he'll make a play for the blinds with a wide range of hands. KQs is a good hand to defend with. You have to raise here. Given the strength of your hand and your stack, I'd push because I know that I'm not laying this hand down to a re-raise and that I'm pushing on any flop if my raise is called. By doing this you also send a message to the rest of the table to stay off your blinds.

[Sam T.]

Kuro is probably right that you need to push PF here, but I'm weak-tight and probably would have called as well.

As for play on the flop, I think this is tough, and very dependant on your reads. I have a list of questions that I try to remember to ask myself before I make this kind of decision:
-What hand can I put him on?
-What hand does he put me on?

I realize that in low buy-in tournaments Question Two is not always applicable, but this deep in the tournament you have to keep it in mind.

In any case, I like the check-raise. This is a lovely flop for you, and you have to think he's going to fire at the pot, whether the flop hits him or not.

The t4000 (pot is arount t8000?) bet is tough to interpret, but you absolutely have to raise (hell, I might have pushed). When he re-raises red flags go up. Your check-raise screams "King" and he doesn't care - he is going to felt with this hand.

So what do you put him on that you beat? Pockets lower than KK? KJ? KT? K8? Unless you can put him on one of these, I think you have to lay this one down. Not that I'd be able to do so, of course...I'm probably right there with you on the rail.

[aceragclubs]

Thanks for the replies. Kuro, you're probably right on needing to push preflop. I am probably a little weak tight myself. Sam, you're right about him not caring about my checkraise. I saw the 29k pot, and that I only had 26k left after his re-raise, and figured there was a halfway decent chance he had KJ or QQ or something. If someone posted this hand and i read it, I probably would have told them to fold too, but 'not that I'd be able to', just like you said, Sam. Everything is easier in retrospect!

Aceragclubs