The Hand -- An Ace-Queen Problem Part I

[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.