3rd hand - Hollywood Park $225+R ~40 players, more still arriving

(Everyone's still getting seated, some guy is off the table on a cel phone, lots of hubub. I guess they allow people to keep joining for awhile.)

BB $20 I think, 1000 chips apiece, I'm in on the button. I have KK. By the time the action gets to me, the bet is $100. I raise to $300. At this point I realize that the guy 2 to my right is not the original raiser but a caller. I realize this because a woman at the far end of the cramped, bustling table, now reraises to $500. The other dude folds.

What now? Normally I'd probably go all-in. But this is my first offline tournament (I had played in a few ring games) *and* I'd been on an ugly streak online of running up against AA with KK. So I call, I guess thinking if an A comes on the flop I can still escape with half my chips. Although how that was going to protect me from AA I'm not sure.

Ok so just writing this I realize it was pretty dumb to just call. To be honest it was probably mostly a deer in the headlights reaction, it all happened so fast I'm a little fuzzy on the memory. It's a little nerve-wracking going all-in 3 hands into your first real tournament, where you feel over your head money-wise to begin with. All I really wanted was a nice $100 no rebuy tourney at a time I can make it to after work on Fri. in LA. This is why I'll never go to the WSOP until I'm a serious pro. I just know I'd wind up with an all-in decision on the first hand and then probably bust out on some psycho beat like Goldie Hawn's son. (Note: I had probably only been playing NLHE for 2 months at that point. Now I would never fear AA with KK. It happens, but not often enough to worry about - IMO.)

But I digress.

So the flop comes QQJ. She immediately goes all in for her and my last $500. Ok pros, what do you do? Even though it's only the 3rd hand, I do have a little info. on the other bettor. I saw her win a $40 satellite to enter the tourney, and she seemed pretty serious the whole time. Also she's wearing dark shades.

Thanks in advance for any thoughtful analysis. I'm new here, but I just spent the day pouring over the forums. Very entertaining, and obviously there are a ton of really smart people on this board. I'm just curious what you think about this problem. I know what my home tourney buddies had to say about it. thx

-suzzer

Oh yeah, one more relevant piece of information. I purposely left my wallet in the car, because $400+ was just too much for me. So no rebuy possible if I bust out.

[McMelchior]

Don't leave your wallet in your car.

It's asking for being burglared, and it encourages criminals to hang out around casino and card room parking lots.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

Wow, I didn't think of that. Thanks for the advice, seriously. Luckily I live in mostly crime-free LA. And Hollywood Park is on the Inglewood/Compton border, which is a neighborhood watch area.

[AAmaz0n]

I live in SoCal, so if you want to hang out and play some time, let me know.

Some suggestions:

1 Don't play in a rebuy tournament if you don't intend to rebuy. It puts you at a horrible disadvantage.

2. as noted, don't leave your wallet in your car, especially at Hollywood park.

3. Don't play in tournaments that are over your head moneywise. the Bike has "Nooner Nites" that are $100 +25 with no rebuy and start at 7 pm. If you can play during the day, they have "Nooners" that are $20 with $10 rebuys. I thought that Hollywood Park was still running cheap rebuy tournaments at 7pm as well, but maybe my info is out of date.

4. In a rebuy tournament, folks often play fast and loose early to build a stack. I wouldn't put her on AA unless I knew her really well and that she was tight. Push all in preflop and rebuy if you get unlucky.

good luck,

Shauna

Thanks, maybe I will

1. Agreed. I find rebuys annoying in general.
2. Noted and agreed.
3. Agreed, absolutely.
4. Agreed I probably should have gone all in preflop.

But what do I do now?..............

Ok, well I won't be online for awhile, so I won't leave you all dying in suspense any longer.

Basically if you slow down and think about the hand for a while, which I didn't (again I'm in deer-in-the-headlights mode at this point) you come to an interesting conclusion. At first glance no A on the flop seems good for me. Now she goes all-in immediately. What to make of this? I'm thinking not much. Lots of people might try to throw out a bluff here with half their chips in the pot, hoping the flop missed me as well. Certainly there's a chance she's betting because the flop hit her hand, but seems like there's a decent chance she'd be betting either way.

So let's go back to the preflop betting. She raised to $100, I re-raised to $300, she re-re-raised to $500. What kind of hands would merit this second raise? Consider she has no read on me whatsoever, except that I raised her to 30% of my stake on the third hand. She could be a maniac, an idiot, late for a dinner date, or a pro trying some move I can't comprehend. But I just saw her play and win a $40 satellite to get into this tourney, which would seem to make the first 3 possibilities very unlikely, and let's just not kill ourselves worrying about the 4th. So, I would say realistically the most likely scenario for that kind of preflop action from her would be AA-JJ, AK, or maybe AQ, AJs, TT. But those last three seem pretty iffy. So let's knock out AJs, TT, and AQos. Now given the board and my hand, KK and QQ seem pretty unlikely. One would be very bad for me, the other neutral. So lets put her mostly likely hands on AK, AQs, AA or JJ. 3 of those are very bad for me given the flop of QQJ. One is good, although I could still get drawn out on.

So really if you stop and think about it, most likeley scenario is I'm beat here, even though no A came on the flop. Naturally I didn't think about it, and called. She turned over JJ and her FH held up.

All in all a very interesting hand I think. There was some post-discussion at the table as I made my ignominious exit, with everyone pretty much agreeing I was screwed from the time the cards were shuffled, as even an all-in preflop probably wouldn't have pushed her out. But actually, once I made the miscalculation of just calling preflop, I did have a chance to get away from the hand with half my chips. And I think it's certainly conceivable that a lot of solid, aggressive players still wouldn't necessarily want to risk all their chips, preflop, on the third hand of a major tournament, even if in their gut they think it's the right play. So I don't think this scenario is something that could never come up in a big-time arena.

The question for you pros is this: Do you think you could have/would have gotten away from this hand postflop, assuming for whatever reason you played it the same as me to that point?

I'd really love to hear some honest assessments of what you think you would have done. My home-game buddies were unanimous agreement that there's no way I could have reasonably folded that hand. But I don't know. I'm wondering if this is the kind of hand that separates the Eagles from the Lions (per Helmuth's poker animals). I'll say this, if it ever happens again... I'll go all in preflop and still lose. But at least I'll get a lot more sympathy that way. Woo hoo.

-Matt