The Hand -- An Ace-Queen Problem Part I

[schroedy]

Harrah's has a Friday morning single re-buy tournament (with a waitlist for alternates that turns it into a multi-rebuy structure of sorts). By the way, they also have a great overall physical setup for their cardroom, far superior (in terms of physical setup) to any of the other rooms in Vegas (lots of room, enclosed smoke free room, etc.), IMO.

The tournament is some kind of $50 buy-in in total (my wife paid my entry) and a $40 rebuy. Each of the entry and the rebuy gets you $1500 in chips.

We are at level III (minutes 30-45) of the tournament, blinds are $75 and $150 and I have a pretty good read on what the players on my left are doing. In particular I have a read that Villian, who has accumulated a lot of chips and still has his rebuy left, is playing the "I am the big stack and I am going to use it to pressure you" game. A couple of hands earlier, I exercised my rebuy when I still have approximately T1500 in chips in front of me and when someone asks about it, I say that some stacks are getting big and I want a big stack so that when I get all in with an edge against the big stacks I will win a LOT of chips. I then wave my hand at Villian, in a gesture by way of example only because his was the nearest big stack. Although I did not intend this, it slightly hurt his feelings, and he winces at my gesture (I really thought nothing of it, except that I was sorry to use him as an example of my intended strategy).

I am the small blind and UTG limps, Villian limps, four more players limp and I look down at AsQd.

Question #1 : Now what?

Consideration #1: The pot is big and if a big move could win it right here that would actually be a very good to great result.

Consideration #2: Hard (for me) to imagine an UTG limp that AQ is ahead of.

Consideration #3: Hard for me to believe that a big move will get me isolated with a worse hand (although this was a flash decision and may be as a result of having more experience at cash game limit than tournament no limit).

Consideration #4: To some extent I am afraid that reopening the action with a raise is going to cause Villian to reraise "on principle" in keeping with the kind of game he has been playing -- hoping to isolate me and use his stack to intimidate me.

Consideration #5: If I take a long time to process all this I might as well announce that I have AQ or 88-JJ (although this may be giving the opponents too much credit).

Part II to follow in a day or so.