Advice?

Did I play this right? Tournament last night with seven players. Three have gone out. I was the big stack previously but tight play combined with bad cards have left me a bit short of the other three players. Buy-in was for $2500 in chips (with a rebuy that I didn't exercise); at this point I've got about $4500, other players have between 5500 and 15000. I'm in the big blind, which is currently at 300.

The two players outside the blinds fold. Small blind sees the 300 and raises 1000. My hand is pocket aces. Here's my question: do you call, raise somewhat, or raise all-in? My move was the aggressive one. I was thinking that it gave me the best chance to make him lay down his hand, and if he called I stood a good chance to nearly bust him out and double myself up. So I moved all-in and he called me. Turns over K-Q suited.

Before I get to the aftermath... I think I had to raise in this situation, just calling is weak. What I'm still not sure about is if I should have left myself some outs. I wonder if I'm too aggressive for tournament play. If I had only raised another 1000, for example, I would have still had 2200 left when...

...the flop came 9-10-J and he busted me out with the luckiest POS straight I've ever seen.

Some additional thoughts on not raising with aces. Earlier in the night I had had pocket kings and there were several callers before it came to me (I was in one of the blinds). No raises. I raised 1000 and got called by one player. Flop came K-rag-rag, I bet big and he called, and I busted him out with the trips. He had pocket aces.

Now this was some bad luck for him, but I think he shot himself in the foot. He called the minimum bet (I think it was only 150 at that point) with pocket aces. Then he just called my very large raise. He gave me every opportunity to take my kings (although I could have had anything) to the flop and beat his aces. Raising in either spot, or both, would have at least made me consider folding my hand in that situation. It was with that in mind that I made my all-in raise later with the aces, but you saw how that turned out.

Don't worry about the hand. It was unavoidable. You played it well, but realize, no matter how you played it (call, raise a little, raise all in) you would have been beaten.

Originally Posted by Humphrind

Don't worry about the hand. It was unavoidable. You played it well, but realize, no matter how you played it (call, raise a little, raise all in) you would have been beaten.

That's true. I'm just curious if it's better in a tournament to leave yourself outs, or to just go for the jugular every time. In this situation I knew he had face cards at least. I was certain I had at least a 60-40 edge when I raised... but is that enough to justify the aggressive all-in? Against a tighter player this might have forced a fold, but knowing this guy there was no way he was going to fold. As it turned out I think I had him dominated pre-flop, but if he had held kings or queens it isn't as clear, is my understanding.

While I'm on the subject, can anyone refer me to a document that breaks down odds on one hand vs another pre-flop? One player at the table who knows this stuff inside and out said I had him 80/20, is that correct? I guess I would always take those odds for an all-in, but it seems like I manage to hit the 20% once per tournament. That's why I'm asking about leaving myself outs; maybe I'm too quick to move all-in.

He will lose in the long run if he is playing k Q that aggressive....

Originally Posted by brian1175

He will lose in the long run if he is playing k Q that aggressive....

blind stealing with KQs against a smaller stack is a good move in my books...calling the AI was iffy tho...he probably thought the AI was just protecting the blinds with crap hole cards.

Originally Posted by dalecooper

While I'm on the subject, can anyone refer me to a document that breaks down odds on one hand vs another pre-flop?

http://simulator.pokertips.org/

Originally Posted by hypermegachi

Originally Posted by brian1175

He will lose in the long run if he is playing k Q that aggressive....

blind stealing with KQs against a smaller stack is a good move in my books...calling the AI was iffy tho...he probably thought the AI was just protecting the blinds with crap hole cards.

Interestingly he told me later that he really didn't even put me on a hand. He put almost no thought into the call. It was the first good hole cards he'd seen in about an hour and he made a shrug call - as in, "*shrug* what the hell...". Very frustrating hearing him say that. He made a questionable decision for basically no reason and profited from it. The one thing that I think factored into it was that I had already sported pocket aces and pocket kings earlier in the tourney (it was a pretty amazing night, at least for my starting hands) and he just didn't give any thought to it happening again. It was so outside the realm of possibility that he didn't consider it at all.

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hypermegachi - thanks for the link, that site kicks butt. Although I'm disappointed to note that I was actually an 82% favorite, not just 80 like I thought. Stupid 18% bad beat.

Talking to him about it afterward, he kept comparing it to a hand that he insists was a bad beat that put him out of our last tourney (which I won). The hand: he had two pair, unders (6s and 9s) and myself and one other player had paired the over (a jack), plus I had another over and the other player had a middle rag (7 or 8). So he was definitely ahead, but this site tells me, as I suspected, that he was only a 63% favorite after the flop, even with his two pair. So that's not really in the same ballpark. I also feel that the situation was very different. In that example, the other player and I had already done some betting; his all-in was a mere 300 raise, with the pot already much higher. So I think we were getting pot odds to make that call (I ended up winning that hand by the way). But last night, there was really no justification for that call unless he just thought I was bluffing, or simply didn't care if he lost at that point. We were the two shortest stacks of the remaining four players, so you can make a good case that both of us were looking for an opportunity to swallow the other's chips and get healthier. I guess I couldn't have asked for a better opportunity than that one!

I don't think you can play that hand any differently.

I've always read that you have to play poket Aces agressively to try and knock out drawing hands, and your bet could have been looked at as trying to buy the blinds.

Like was posted earlier, preflop you are the favorite to win the hand, play it like you did enough times and you'll come out on top in the end.

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