KK utg in the bubble

£5 buy-in, 270 riders, down to 25 with 30 paid. I have a medium stack, sitting in 12th position having doubled thru against the villain in the sb an orbit earlier. That hand, I had 10J and got to see the flop because the chip leader called utg and everybody else folded. I have been at the table the whole tournie, playing few hands, winning those I played and showing good cards. Not caught on any steals and had good enough cards to play conservatively. Now I'm in the money I'm about to start playing much more aggressively as soon as the blinds have gone by. The flop comes down 10xx on this previous hand, I check, the BB raises, the CL folds so I put the BB all-in and he flips up 10-9, turn comes 9 (!) but the river comes J and I double through. There is a little chat between us, all good-hearted as I was the favourite before all the chips went in. He wins another hand that orbit and when I get KK utg, he has a few hundred more chips than I.
I look at my KK and decide that I'll go all in. I've got the second best starting hand but I don't want to see a flop because any caller could well hve an ace and it's going to be hard to get away from if an ace hits the flop. I don't flat-call because I figure if I get raised and then re-raise myself, I'd get a call with any ace/face. The villain types 'gl' and calls from utg+1 with AQ0, gets the q on the flop and the ace on the turn and I'm out.
I don't see how I could have escaped this hand. A stop and go strategy would have worked, especially given the flop, but the turn would have sucked me out.

[NorthernGuy]

Push was fine. The stop and go would not have worked because he likely would have called thinking he had TPTK, then sucked out on the turn. You were way ahead when he called the push.

Agreed with northernguy.

Just another point, you say now that your ITM your going to get more aggressive once the blinds pass, i aggree with the stealing part, but i find the first few hands after the money has passed are pretty dangerous to steal in. I prefer to tighten up a bit after the money for a little while, and do my stealing before.

[TheBlueMonster]

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he likely would have called thinking he had TPTK, then sucked out on the turn.

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obviously that's always your concern... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]