Correct fold or no?

[36offsuit]

I'm playing a 10 man tournament with people I've never played with before, but on average they seem to have a better grasp on hold'em than most I play with. The majority are rocks, with one really good player and a couple decent ones. It is fairly early in the tournament, 9 people are left, blinds are 50/100 and the following hand comes up:

UTG seems to be pretty solid, but is shortstacked with 650 (we all started with 2k) and moves all-in, it's folded around to MP, who re-raises to 1400 total (he had another 1400 behind him after the raise), everyone else folds to me on the BB, who has AQo. I had about 3k. Your play? No real read on MP, except maybe a little loose. Results below.








Results:
I folded. This seemed like a good fold, as I have to put one of them on a PP or AK-AT, and then I'm looking at a race/possible big dog for most of my chips against 2 players early in the tourney. The solid player knows that he cant raise an intermediate amount, so it was allin or fold, so i could put him on a range of 77-AA, AK-AJ (nothing worse than that). He may have tried to limp-RR with AA,KK, but moving in would be just as likely. I have no read on the other guy, so I have to assume similar holdings. Not to mention, that if I just call the 1400, I almost have to call the other 1400, because there would be 3600 out there giving me 2.5-1 to call. The only way I would be sitting decent in this pot is if UTG had a small pair, as did MP, or MP have a weaker ace, which would make me a big favorite for the large sidepot, and if they both have pairs, I'm looking at a good chance to triple up. However, I felt this wasn't that strong a possibility.

UTG had 99, and MP had A4s (???). The 99 held up, but I would've flopped a Q to knock both out. I went on to win the tournament regardless, but I wasn't sure if folding AQo here was correct because if i won I would've become a large chipleader and would've easily dominated the table and almost certainly would have won due to aggression.

[Michael C.]

Easy fold, no question. How can at least one of the raiser and re-raiser possibly not have you badly beaten at a conservative table? I have no idea what the MP was thinking though, as at best he's a 60-40 favorite, assuming both of the raiser's cards are above 5. I assume he isn't in the "rock" majority. ;-)

[ericlambi]

Before I read any further . . . FOLD! Please say you folded. On to read results.

Edit:

Okay. You played fine. No need to over analyze this . . . one player bet big and another raised big. The very best situation you could hope for is a coinflip (which is what you would have had), and the vast majority of the time you are way behind.

I think the most common playing error at all levels of poker is calling raises and/or re-raising with hands like AQ, AJ, KQ, etc. The pros on TV even do this with frequency, and it often ends their tourney. You are asking for trouble when you do this because you are so likely to be dominated.

[YourFoxyGrandma]

[ QUOTE ]
The 99 held up, but I would've flopped a Q to knock both out. I went on to win the tournament regardless, but I wasn't sure if folding AQo here was correct because if i won I would've become a large chipleader and would've easily dominated the table and almost certainly would have won due to aggression.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're being results oriented. You're behind any pp. Being involved in hands with a worse holding than your opponent=you losing.