Ladies Night II

[7n7]

Surprised no one has mentioned the early hand in Wednesday's LNII.

New-to-poker Zhang raises w/Ad8d, Clonie pushes all-in w/AhQh, and Sharon folds AKo.

Do you make that fold in a winner take all final table? My buds and I are at a disagreement. I shove, they don't b/c it's too early for a perceived coin-flip according to them.

[Rasputin]

How much did Zhang raise? I seem to recall it was fairly significant but I could be misremembering.

Regardless, you have to figure she's going to be folding unless she has AA or KK which means you have slightly less than a 50% chance of more than doubling up.

Don't you pretty much have to call?

[Cohiba Al]

Here's how I look at the situation:

The AK is faced with a large preflop raise and an significant all-in re-raise.

AT WORST both Zhang and Gowen have pocket pairs. Gowen's must be good enough to re-raise with, indicating middle to high pockets. Zhang's pair could be anything, low middle or high. Zhang is a new player and might not fold her middle or even her low pair. AK fairs very poorly against two opponents with pocket pairs.

MIDDLE RISK would be one of the two has a pocket pair and the other has AK. Putting Gowen on AQ (which she indeed had) would be very hard to do here while looking at an ace yourself. I would be inclined to put Zhang on the ace and Gowen on the pair. Either way, Gowen is all in and can't be raised off the hand, and if Zhang indeed has a pair and doesn't fold then you are up against a pair and a strong ace which removes one or maybe two outs you need to hit. And you will NEED to hit to win this pot. You know for certain an unimproved AK will not win. Even if Zhang folds you are unsure if you dominate, split, or have a weak-side coin flip to Gowen. And Zhang may not fold.

AT BEST both have strong aces or Zhang was stealing with something moderately strong like a KQ or KJs. In this situation, if the AK pushes all-in then Zhang will most likely fold. But Gowen can't as she is already all-in. For this situation you have either a split hand, or a dominating hand. Again you have to figure what percentage of the time would Gowen push with less than an AK. And you hope hers isn't suited.

SUMMARY: To play, the AK must commit all her chips preflop. Out of the three possible scenarios only the last one provides a reasonable chance of positive outcome. Even that though relies on either both not improving, or atleast hitting an A or K to win. Two of the three scenarios suck for the AK, with one person left to act on the re-raise still to come. This is a GOOD FOLD in my opinion. Pick your spots better with AK, like a heads-up situation or one where the AK is the first to raise or re-raise. Calling two raises with a hand that must improve to win is really risky business.