Which strategy do you prefer?

[Pierre]

I went all-in with JJ. Given that i had one of the shortest stack and that i definitely needed chips to make the top 30, folding didn't enter my mind.

UTG called and showed AQ offsuit (a marginal call in my opinion)

Flop : 9 8 5

Turn : Q

It is highly probable that if i had just called the raise and gone all-in on the flop my opponent would have folded.

This is the kind of situation that doesn't come up often, but i think it's important to consider the possibility that sometimes just calling a raise and waiting until the flop to go all-in might be the best strategy...

[Copernicus]

and there is the possibility that going all in with 73o is the best strategy if you are going to flop 456.

His call was marginal at best with AQo, and you got your money in as a 57/43 favorite. At least half the world would fold with AQo realizing they are underdogs to a very likely pair, so your all in should win nearly 80% of the time (50% when they fold plus 50% times 57% when they call.) I'll take that position every time.

I think calling and seeing the flop could be right when you are one of the boss stacks and the opponent is one of the smaller stacks, but big enough that you if you double him up he becomes a contender again. His raise in that situation is more likely to be QQ,KK,AA,AK,AQ and you might want to see if you are an overpair or set first.

[Gus]

Actually I dont think the big stack call is marginal, he would make a mistake not calling, as he definitely has the odds against any cards (apart from AK, AA, KK and QQ). From his point of view, if he looses no big deal... with 7000 left he can just go back into his shell and wait for 10 smaller stack to bust out. If however he wins the coin flip two very good things happen:

_ He knock an opponent out (only 9 to go then), without having a small stack doubling up
_ He increased his stack to a very comfortable size, so he can take more coin-flip against small stacks

When a reasonnable player open-raise from UTG, he probably has a hand that will give him the odds to call the re-raise of a small-stack if the guy is all-in.

From the hero point of view... he put his money in the pot when he had the best of it, and he definitely needed to double through if he thinks he's got no chance of being in the money by just waiting. So I would say both players played it fine actually... does that actualy make sense?

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Be careful about being results oriented, here. If he had AK, you'd have won. He was a little bit better than a 6-5 dog here getting 8-5 on his call, so his call was marginal, but in light of stack sizes *and* the fact that this is a super satellite structure, not a huge mistake.

I stand by my previous statement that preflop is raise/fold. An overcard to your jacks will flop over 40% of the time. If there were no smaller stacks than yours, you made the right play.