June 18, 2006
Oh Pocket Aces, Why Have You Foresaken Me?
Played in three Sit and Go’s over at Party Poker tonight, after going out in fourth in the first one (losing most of my chips after I folded to a bluff made by the big stack at the table, still kicking myself about that one) I wasn’t in the best of moods.
Then to make matters worse, in the third hand of my next tournament I’m dealt:
:Ac::As:
I raise 3 X BB and get one caller, the flop is:
:6c::Qs::8d:
I bet the pot and get re-raised all-in. I call and he shows:
:8s::8h:
For set of 8’s. I don’t improve and am out… 10th place. Question is should I really fold aces here? I’m playing in low level Party Poker SNG’s, opponents would (and do) make this same move with AQ, KQ … heck half the time their hand wouldn’t even need to be that good! Maybe I’m just making excuses but I think that calling this bet in these games will win more often than it loses.
Ok, so that was fine… I mean, not great but it happens right? Ok, so back on the horse I up the stakes from a $5+$1 to a $10+$1 game.
Things didn’t start so good, I lost a big pot when my AK missed the flop and my continuation bet was raised. So, I tighten up a bit and eventually I’m dealt:
:As::Ah:
*gulp*
I raise it up 3 X BB again and again I get one caller, the flop is:
:Tc::Ts::5h:
My opponent checks to me, I bet the pot and he calls. The turn is a king and he checks again, I go all-in (for my last few remaining chips) and he instantly calls showing:
:Ks::Th:
For a full house, I’m out in 9th. Sure, I fell for a trap here but am I really going to check the flop heads up just because it’s paired? Perhaps I should have analysed his call on the flop a little further, but honestly I don’t see myself getting away from this one. If I check the turn and he goes all-in on the river what then? I have to think if I second guess myself too often I’ll lose more times than I win.
So, something for me to analyse in a couple of days time once the adrenalin dies down. The question is, was I just unlucky a couple of times in a row or should I have laid these hands down? In hindsight obviously I should have played them differently, but to actually do that in the heat of battle… well I’ve still got a bit to learn before that happens.
EDIT: At the end of the day I went out of these tournaments with nothing more than a pair. Sure, it’s a nice pair but just a pair nonetheless. Heads up a pair of aces is going to win most of the time, but you’ve got to ask yourself in these kinds of situations is this move worth my tournament if I don’t have the best hand? Honestly, if I asked myself that and I wasn’t already tilting a little bit from the previous beats I probably would have been able to answer “no” and fold (in the first case) or slow down (in the second). This was just a case of two good hands at the wrong time, luckily it’s not going to happen too often and hopefully the next time it does I’ll be in the right frame of mind to make the correct play.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Great post, Simon. No way to fold AA the first time, of course. As you point out, you could’ve gotten away there w/the two tens on board, but even there I’m not sure I could’ve done so, even if I weren’t tilting from the earlier beat.
I have a tongue-in-cheek post about folding AA you might like — http://hardboiledpoker.blogspot.com/2006/05/folding-aa-12-step-program.html.
Love the blog . . . very cool look & super-readable. I’m adding a link to it today.
July 20th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Just my two cents, but early on in a tournament I’d protect
pocket aces a little more forcefully before the flop. Let’s say
the blinds at Party start at 10/20, and everyone has a 1500 chip
stack.
If you raise up to 60 (3x BB) you will likely get calls
from a couple of players. Early in a tournament if you appear
pretty tight I would even suggest that it’s good for other people
to call your raises with dangerous hands like 8-9 or J-10. If they
hit the flop hard, and put you on a large pocket pair they are
going to take a chunk of your chips.
In my humble opinion I think you have to raise strong and hope you
get one caller, someone with a pocket pair, or an ace. A caller
that you have dominated. You probably shake out a guy playing K-10,
although you should crush that hand 70% of the time. Aces are so much
better later in a tournament when people are trying to steal blinds, or
go all-in because they are getting short-stacked.
July 20th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Good advice, makes sense. Worst case the big raise scares everyone off (better than getting three callers) but early in these low buy-in tournaments there always seems to be someone willing to call.
Thing is I always subscribed the the “raise the same amount (relative to the blinds) every time and they’ll never know what you have”, starting to read Harrington now and I’m thinking varying raises is the way to go and using his theory of randomly mixing it up.
Will try a bigger raise next time I’m in this situation and see how it plays out. Thanks for the input!