Am I a donkey?

[PFrese]

Right now, I feel like a giant donkey. I was solidly in 2nd or 3rd in a stars 180 with about 14000 in chips. I pick up QQ in early position. I raised it 3x the blind (600) I get reraised by a LP player with a stack just under mine. He makes it 3600 to go.

I thought about calling and pushing to any undercard flop. But instead I reraised to 7500. He pushes and i insta call.

Giant pot - He of course flips over AA and when and Ace hits the flop I am dead.

In retrospect, I think this was an obvious, obvious, obvious lay down, but I just wanted to check and see if anyone else would have donkeyed it up like this? Feel free to tell me to call a whambulance.... [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Ugg. I was in awesome shape to make the FT and I @(*#&@(* blew it!!

[DONTUSETHIS]

This is just one of those kinda hands. I would not suspect aces with such a large reraise. Most players with aces will raise 2 or 3 times your raise. Bad luck

[bruce]

I think too many players put their opponents on a hand by the size of a raise or reraise. I think this is a big leak.
Good players mix their raises.

Bruce

[ QUOTE ]
I think too many players put their opponents on a hand by the size of a raise or reraise. I think this is a big leak.
Good players mix their raises.

Bruce

[/ QUOTE ]

[bruce]

You have along way to the final table. How many players were left?

When you're reraised by a sane opponenet let's assume his range is JJ to AA and AK. We might be able to add AQ and 99
and TT with some players. If his range is wide you'll win
slightly more than half the time. If he has a tighter range you're ahead of JJ, if he plays that to begin with, dead against Kings and Aces, and off the races against big
slick. I think I can make a strong case for folding although I can't remember the last time I did and everytime
I called I was staring at Aces and Kings.

Bruce

[PFrese]

[ QUOTE ]
You have along way to the final table. How many players were left?

[/ QUOTE ]

There were 31 left. And aside from this hand, I was very much controlling my table and playing good poker. That is why I said I felt like I was in good shape to make the FT.

[ QUOTE ]
I think I can make a strong case for folding although I can't remember the last time I did and everytime
I called I was staring at Aces and Kings.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, it is good to know I was not alone in not laying down. The thing that drives me nuts about this hand is that I put him on three hands - AK, AA or KK. And, my first instinct was just to call him reraise of 3K and then fold if an A or a K hit the flop. Had I done this, I would still have been in good shape. But, nooooo I decided to hee haw is up and say "well, maybe I can push him off big slick" Ugg. Got to learn to listen to the voices in my head! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Oh well, thanks for the therapy session! And for the advice.

It's poker. But for your comment about pushing him off AK in a $20 180 person tourney, not going to happen...you are gonna race.

It's highly unlikely villian is making a play here - he'd be making a move against a stack that could hurt him, that has already shown strength and interest in this pot, and shown it UTG. I interpret his raise as saying: "if you and I are going to play a big pot we're making that decision now - i figure you have a hand so let's go - if you were just tramping around w/ a mid pair or suited connectors I'm not letting you get a cheap shot at breaking me 'cause I got a hand that I'm going to have a hard time getting away from". From his perspective a 3x raise here is problematic -you call and push the non-AK flop and then what? He gets the chance to be the donkey. I'm putting him on AA or KK - maybe QQ/JJ that he intends to fold to a push but I would have played that as a call and hoped I could break your AA/KK when my set hits - unlikely he has AK which I would either call or 3x reraise.

FWIW - if you put him on AA/KK/AK I don't think the chip EV is any better calling than pushing (I did quick manual math so I could very well be wrong) - you just increase the % of time you stay alive w/ a smaller stack versus busting out (which w/ your stack size isn't necessarily bad).

Generally, when you have a big pair and someone has a bigger pair, you're going to lose a lot of chips.

However, I'm not sure of the value of an open raise 3x big blind with QQ. It's not enough to gain any information about a following raise (if you'd bet 1200 and then you see a massive reraise from LP, I guess you're more likely to fold, call or otherwise escape) and it's not enough to stop all manner of hands from calling and flopping something nice when, again, you've got no information.

[betgo]

Why the minireraise? You are pot committed with any reraise, so why not just push? You certainly don't mind id villain folds.

Maybe the big raise was a good play by villain. He figured you had a good hand raising in early position. The big raise doesn't look like a big pair. Once hero reraises he is in for all his chips. Even if he flat calls the big reraise, there is a good chance he will bust out.

I think you would be a donk if you didn't go bust on this hand. You can't just fold QQ to a reraise. Early in a major tournament, you could fold QQ. Maybe, you could fold it based on the action, like two players allin. Unless you had a really good read, I think you go broke here.

These 180 SNG are more like tournaments than multitable SNGs. A lot of times, you will have a big stack and not cash.