How to play QQ early in tourney?

[jimmy44]

I suppose the following hand is an example of how not to play QQ early in a SNG:

Hero's M = 21.33
***** Hand History for Game 5356157880 *****
Condensed history provided by the Tournament Trimmer (v0.7.6) from FlopTurnRiver.com
NL Texas Hold'em $6 Buy-in Trny:29901853 Level:2 Blinds(30/60) - Wednesday, October 11, 16:38:06 ET 2006
Table Table 112125 (Real Money)
Seat 3 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: Nowa3076 ( $3985 )
Seat 2: iogene ( $2385 )
Seat 3: toseednback ( $945 )
Seat 5: bezacher ( $2180 )
Seat 6: dsettle ( $2170 )
Seat 8: contranepp ( $1600 )
Seat 9: jockmac111 ( $1535 )
Seat 10: Mythstaken ( $1740 )
Seat 4: Hero ( $1920 )
Seat 7: Bernard147 ( $1540 )
Blinds(30/60)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Qs Qc ]
dsettle folds.
Bernard147 folds.
contranepp folds.
jockmac111 folds.
Mythstaken folds.
Nowa3076 raises [120].
iogene folds.
toseednback folds.
Hero raises [370].
bezacher calls [340].
Nowa3076 calls [280].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Kd, 7h, 3s ]
Hero bets [600].
bezacher folds.
Nowa3076 raises [1800].
Hero is all-In [920]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2c ]
** Dealing River ** [ 5c ]
Nowa3076 shows [ As, Ks ] a pair of kings.
Hero shows [ Qs, Qc ] a pair of queens.
Nowa3076 wins 280 chips from side pot #1 with a pair of kings.
Nowa3076 wins 4240 chips from the main pot with a pair of kings.
Hero finished in tenth place.


Would you have checked on the flop and folded to a bet? Villain seemed to be min-raising once in a while so I had to put him on AJ/AQ and I was hoping not AK ...

[taipan168]

Would you have checked on the flop and folded to a bet?

Preflop is good. Since he just minraised I might bump it up to 500 though.

On the flop, yes, with two players calling your big preflop re-raise, I would check and see what they do. Against one player I might consider leading as you did, but against two there's too much chance that one of them has AK/KQ/KJ/KT leaving you drawing to two outs.

EDIT: Don't play $5+1 tourneys on PP. Play somewhere where the rake is 50c like Stars, FT or UB. 20% rake is murder.

[jimmy44]

Would you have played the same having KK and the flop comes with A x x?

EDIT: Don't play $5+1 tourneys on PP. Play somewhere where the rake is 50c like Stars, FT or UB. 20% rake is murder.

Actually, that's the reason I normally do not play SNG at Party. But as I have some Party Points that I want to use later I had to play a $6 tourney to keep them as I do not play there often but I like the Club freerolls ...

I said to myself, that with the experience of SNG I'm getting I could place in the money but boom!! Out in the first hand in 10th place ...

Thanks for the advice!

[taipan168]

Would you have played the same having KK and the flop comes with A x x?

Yes, this is one of the very expensive lessons that I have learned. If I had KK in your position and the flop came Axx I would definitely check the flop, even more so against two players. In fact, I hate betting an Axx flop with KK even more than I hate betting a Kxx flop with QQ.

[gingerwizard]

The $6 at PP has the advantage of 10 players and biggar prizes for 1st 2nd and 3rd

[FlyingSaucy]

If Nowa has been tight I just call his 4x raise and take it post flop in order to manage pot size. As played preflop, you need to put him on a hand range when he makes that call. I'd say AK is a very likely holding, as are JJ and in some rare cases, the other QQ. If he's fishy, AQ, AJ, KQ, TT-22 are also likely.

When the flop comes up, I know already that my line is either going to be check/fold or check/raise. I check it to keep the pot small, seeing as you don't even have top pair. When he bets into your check, you need to decide to c/r or fold. With lack of reads early in the game, I'd probably think for a while. and then dump it.

As played with your lead-out bet, unfortunately his 1800 raise means you need to fold because he's trying to get more of your $ in the pot. Fold and you still have M=10 to work with.

[biondino]

Almost every site has ten-man SNGs - Stars and Full Tilt should be avoided as they only offer 9-handed, IMHO.

[FlyingSaucy]

Almost every site has ten-man SNGs - Stars and Full Tilt should be avoided as they only offer 9-handed, IMHO.

Prize pool distribution is exactly the same. The only difference is that you should have more ITM hits at 9 handed games.

[fasin8ing]

Go Pro ..

Fold the turn dude.. Hes got a set, two pair, or a king.. Hes got you beat..

[johnny_fish]

Betting the flop in this spot is a huge leak.

[LimpinAintEZ]

flop a set of Q's, push all in over the BB pot bet and get called by a 1 card flush draw...of course get sucked out on - these are a few of my favorite things...and the main reason i no longer play tourneys...cash only