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.

[MLG]

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



[/ QUOTE ]

Is this a typo? Seriously.

[erc007]

I don't think that you have to worry about anyone other than UTG, unless any of the other limpers have very short stacks. I think a listing of stack sizes is vital here, in order to properly analyze this situation. You might be concerned if there is a very large stack in the pot as well. A large stack, who has seen you make a move before might look you up here. If UTG had limped marginal hands in the past, or if he had folded after limping from EP, then a big raise here might be +EV. The other key factor here is your table image. You sound like a good, thinking player, but what matters is how the table sees you. Have you raised aggressively before, and if you had, have you shown down any strong hands? If you have a tight table image, you will probably take it down right here. One other consideration, if you raise and take it down, you will have to play extra tight for a while, as your good opponents will see this as a move.

[schroedy]

There were two larger stacks than mine involved in the hand.

Villian had around T4000 (plus his rebuy ticket) and another player on the far end of the table had around T3300 (with no rebuy ticket) or so. The UTG limper had rebought and had T2000 or so. Everyone else was between T800 and T1500 (most with rebuy tickets in reserve).

I left out precise and individual stack sizes because there were so many opponents. As to the small stacks, I am very willing to play AQo against a small stack pushing in or calling. In fact, if I am a significant chip leader at the table, I think that a big raise is an auto-response. I tried to indicate that Villian was the critical stack, in my mind, both preflop and as it turned out, ultimately.

As the small blind, I merely completed because it seemed too overwhelming to try and analyze all the other possibilities. This is a pretty typical weakness in my NL Tournament play -- I get lazy and make a play without fully analyzing the consequences because I can foresee that making a different and possibly better play can also put me to a hard decision later (an example of this type of "lazy (one-decision only) play is pushing all in pre-flop with TT and plenty of chips so I don't have to agonize over what to do about a reraise).

When I just completed, it was because I felt my hand was weak, I was out of position and I had a tricky opponent with a lot of chips in the hand. I wanted to see what the flop brought for a minimum investment. I am pretty sure that this was not a good decision (in retrospect) but it was the one I made at the time.

[mlagoo]

i complete here. i see no reason to think you're behind the UTG limper, but OTOH, i see no reason to build a big pot with AQ out of position.

has to be a typo. i hope.

[elmitchbo]

i think being out of postion would make me more inclined to stick in a larger than average raise. maybe $750.

i think consideration #1 is the key. try to take it down on the spot. good chacne a solid raise wil do that.

i think consideration #2 is silly. who limps with anything better than AQ. i would think that i almost surely had the best hand, absent any kind of limped AA trickery. he could have T9s.

consideration #3 is of some concern, but if you get called you can play poker on the flop. if you get reraised you do some math and make a decision to push or fold.

consideration #4 contradicts #2 and #3. if he's just raising on principle then you probably have the best hand.

don't worry about consideration #5.

You would be surprised at the garbage some of your opponents will limp in with trying to hit a well concealed monster. Your A-Q is ahead of most limping hands (probably all, except the Pocket Pairs), but the main point is that you are out of position in a multi way pot. Completing, and then evaluating the flop is not bad at this stage.
Just a thought
Carl

Firstly, I don’t like playing AQ out of position against a table of limpers.
If you call pre-flop, then most of the time you are going to be check-folding the flop.
When you do get a good flop e.g. Q,8,6, then you can bet out to protect your hand, but you’re not going to like it because there is a good chance you may get raised as there are 7 players to get by, and they can’t all be playing trash. There must be a few pocket pairs out there, and you just gotta hope that none of them has hit a set.
If you receive the above flop and decide to check with the intention of raising all-in, that’s not a bad move. It may work out, it may not, but you can’t sit around all day having less than 20 BBs, you have to get in there and take a chance.
So like I said, if you call pre-flop then most of the time you will be check-folding, but a small percentage of the time you have to play some poker. Nobody wins tournaments by not taking chances, sometimes you just have to grit your teeth.

Alternatively, you can raise pre-flop. There is 1200 in the pot, and you have about 2800 left. A pot sized raise leaves you with 1600. If you raise the pot, and someone reraises putting you all-in, then you have a clear call. The only hands you are worried about are AA, KK and AK. It is unlikely anybody has AA or KK except UTG, and if he reraises, then you have an easy call as he had only 2000 at the start of the hand.
However a pot size raise takes 45% of your chips, so you are probably better going all-in instead.

Whether I called or raised would depend on what the table was like, and how I was perceived. You wrote a fair bit about your considerations, it would have been better to tell us what the table was like. You can’t expect anybody to analyse this properly if you’re going to withhold so much information.

To be honest, I can’t make much sense of your considerations. You seem to be overly worried about the villain. If you raise pre-flop and he reraises ‘on principle’, you should love that as you will have an easy call.

[bruce]

I believe your stack is about 20 times the size of the big blind. My auto reflex is to raise the pot and make it around
T900 or so. I also don't think completing your bet and seeing the flop can be that bad a play either.

Lot has to do with the table dynamics and how good or bad
the opposition is. If they're real bad I might complete and play accordingly.



Bruce