An interesting situation

A friend was playing in his league's end-of-month tournament. On the line was free entry into a tournament at Chinook Winds. They started with I believe 20 people and were down to the final 6. He had 46K and the blinds were 3/6K. On the button, everyone folded to him. He picked up A/Q off suit.What do you do here?


I will argue there are several "correct" plays and they depend on personality.


1) Fold


This is for the "rock", the player who plays nothing except the absolute top hands. It is way too conservative. The person who would do this will seldom...most likely never... win a tournament. When it is folded to you on the button, A/Q figures to be a big favorite over the 2 random hands behind it. You have to do SOMETHING with it.


2) Call


This is a very conservative play, and probably correct for people with risk-aversion type personalities. I actually have one friend whom I consider a stronger player than myself who uses this strategy almost exclusively and has had excellent results with it. It has the positive aspect of disguising your hand. If you hit it on the flop you are likely going to pick up a nice bundle of chips because very few people will believe you limped with a strong Ace in that situation.



On the dark side, it opens you up to a bluff if the small or big blind is an aggressive player. I think A/Q is a good raising hand, not so good as a calling hand. If you raise with it and someone calls you can assume they have some sort of hand. Conversely, if you limp and the small blind raises they might have a real hand...including the disastrous A/K or pocket Aces or even pocket Queens...or they might have a 2/6 and sense weakness and just be trying to pick up a weak pot. Obviously, they might have that hand even if you limp...but you are more likely to know about it if you raise. In other words, one advantage of raising is it protects you against a trap. Sure, they will be out of position...but if the flop comes K/7/4 rainbow and they raise out of the gate, can you call with A/Q? So you are risking your chips (if you call) to find out nothing. So it works well against people whom you know whether they are bluffing or not...or people whom you are pretty certain won't bluff even in perfect circumstances...but carries a certain amount of risk.


3) Standard Raise


For people who habitually enter a pot with a raise, let's say the standard raise is 3 times the blind. I might argue that 4 times is a little better since it gives them a pot odds disincentive to call unless they have a real hand, but that is personal taste. This can win a couple ways. First off, it might win the pot outright. Picking up 9K adds almost 15% to your stack, a very nice pick-up and you will win with this raise often enough to make it worthwhile. However, what if you are re-raised? In this case, that would be 18K leaving him 28K...an M of just over three and if you get a re-raise all in, now you would be offered some nice pot odds: at the least you are calling 28K to win 67K, or 2.4-1 and A/Q is certainly strong enough to make that call. And that is if it is the small blind that re-raises you. Your odds are slightly better if it is the big blind. You have to be ready for this move because people are always suspicious of button raises in unopened pots.


But what if one or both simply call? Then you have options. You can play the pot, raising if it hits you (or if it looks like it missed your opponent) or even completing the oft-deadly stop & go where you raise regardless of the flop. Many players will call the all-in pre-flop but once they see the flop will fold if they miss even though their pot odds...and probably outs... are the same. So a raise lets you win one of three ways: they fold pre-flop, they call and the flop hits you, or they call, the flop misses you but you raise them out on the flop. This can backfire if you miss the flop, they hit it and that leads to their call where you are drawing thin. So you risk losing all your chips.


Of course, any time you enter a pot you risk losing all your chips. Is A/Q a hand you feel comfortable busting out on? In my case...yes. But I am a loose aggressive player when my M reaches that point.





3) Raise all-in pre-flop


This has the advantage of taking maximum advantage of your fold equity. If you raised, you probably aren't getting away from A/Q anyway pre-flop and if you will call a bet, my theory is you are (almost) always better off MAKING the bet. Put the tough decisions on your opponent.



It has the downside of allowing your opponent to call with a wider range of hands in this case if they have an awareness of tournament play. With 46K and blinds of 3/6, you have barely over M5 and blinds are going to go up. Therefore you are real close to the danger zone and good players will make moves from the buttons. They still aren't calling you with 3/9...but you might get a call with a dry Ace or something like K/10. You are actually hoping for the Dry Ace call since you have it dominated. But they can call with so many more hands because they KNOW your situation that if they are astute players you have an excellent chance of getting called by a weaker hand. That is a pretty strong argument in favor of the all-in...but the huge negative is they are also locked into the hand and if they miss the flop you can't get rid of them...and sometimes those hands river you.



If you have A/Q, they have something like a 7/8 suited...that is the type hand a lot of people will call with...if the flop misses you both they would probably fold to a bet. However, if the chips are all in the center they aren't going anywhere. Let's say the turn is also a blank...yes, they are way behind, about 6-1...but they do have those 6 outs so about 12 - 15% of the time they are still sending you home. That is the downside to going all-in pre-flop...sure, you get your double-up when you win but the flip side is you can't get rid of them before the river. Pros and cons each way.

Well, he elected to go all-in. I cannot fault his choice. I probably would do they same things because I am an aggressive player, I know I am very likely to have the best hand and only be called by hands I am at worst in a race with and more likely dominating. I expect to see an Ace in the hand of anyone who calls in that situation.

The small blind went into the tank for a long time before she eventually called. Personally, I think she made a huge mistake. She should have gone all-in herself rather than just a call. Her hand, as we will see, is the type of hand you really do not want to see multiple players. If the Big Blind has any hand at all he is now getting a nice price, about 2-1, to make the call...calling 46 to win 92. Essentially he is getting 3-1 on his chips and there are a lot of hands you could call with that. However, if she raises all-in his odds go down. If your hand is worth calling an all-in, it better be worth calling a re-raise behind you...and once one player is all-in, if you have a marginal hand you really want to isolate. I really dislike her play here.

The Big Blind folded rather quickly. Our hero flipped up his A/Q and she flipped up A/6 suited. He was almost a 3-1 favorite to double up. Personally, I like those odds and would take them every time. Of course, when you are a 3-1 favorite, 25% of the time they hit a 6 or, in this case, a flush and he was gone.

Later he said that looking back he should have folded the hand. I disagree. With his chip stack, position, and hand the very least he should have done was raise. He got in with a big advantage. The only other thing he might have done here was the stop-and-go, but that would leave the door open for the big blind to call based on pot odds if the small blind called, so then he would need to beat 2 hands instead of one. I will argue he played this hand correctly and simply ran into a mathematical problem...and one reason Hold 'Em is fascinating. If the better hand won every time people would play a lot fewer hands...and I would rake in a lot less chips from the people who often call me with trash hands like A/6 suited.

Of course, not being upset depends on being happy with playing better. If you are results oriented and think that someone sucking out on you when they should not be in the hand or should not have called then this is probably the wrong game anyway. The player who consistently gets in with the best of it will, in the long run, have more success, though there are certainly times when it seems like you should play incorrectly as you see K/3 beat A/K or some such brutality. But that is short term and over the course of several hours of play you will see the guy playing K/3 give his chips to the guy playing the A/K. Unless, of course, the guy playing the A/K lets the K/3 in cheap....