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The all-in advice is bad in my opinion. Why do you not want to get called? If you saw the guys cards before you made your move, would you raise all in, or would you raise to $500 and let him make top pair or some kind of draw so that you can stack him. Remember the fundamental theorem of poker? Would you go all in if you could see there cards? The answer should be no. Raising to $500 is fine and I might actually only make it $400 because I'm happy to get action. As far as both of the big stacks calling you, thats fine as it means you win more money on average, and better chance of one of them making a hand that will pay you off, which will happen far more frequently than one of them out drawing you.

Any hand that calls your $500 raise preflop is making a mistake so let them do it.

That is what I like about forums with good players, you can disagree and "then" it gets interesting. I am sending this situation to some friends ... they will weigh in with an opinion as well.

I have no problem being wrong since that is the way to learn. As for a smaller raise of $400 ... that would encourage action and probably result in AA facing both blinds. I am quite sure you are better off against one player with a high pocket pair, but considering the size of the pot, all your money is going in anyways, so I figured stick it in now.

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flintsword

"The lucky player is usually the player that knows how much to leave to chance."

Blog www.myspace.com/flintsword

Ok, I have an opinion from a really good player (Ed knows him & Jason you know him too): Hosh.

After looking at the situation he made the comment that with AA he prefers to make money with this hand, even if it costs him by getting outdrawn.

That said, given the fact that the two chipleaders are in the blinds and he only has some 3,000+ back, the money is going in anyways, so he would just push here.

HOSH says (7:58 AM):
I would just push
why save 1k
So it looks like we have a real debate with good players. This is perfect for Ed Hill to look at .

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flintsword

"The lucky player is usually the player that knows how much to leave to chance."

Blog www.myspace.com/flintsword

No Offense Flintsword,
but this is the worst advice I have heard in a VERY long time. Shoving with Aces with more than 10bbs is the worst thing in the world to do. We put in a standard raise here hoping that one of these guys come over the top and shove all-in. If one or both of them call, so what, you play poker IN position.

This is probably the worst case of results oriented advice EVER. If coffeeneone would have left off the results and just posted that he was on the button with AA, raised and got re-raised all-in. If you're going to tell me you'd fold, you will probably never win a tournament, EVER.

:bigla ugh:

1st of all, what does "why save 1k" mean?? There's no 1k decision that I see. He open raised 500 with over 3k behind. Did you explain the hand to your friend accurately?

and 2nd. There is no debate, open pushing all-in is a big mistake. Raising is clearly the best option. There are millions of scenarios that can be debated among good players, this is not one of them.

Good idea on not posting the results right away Zoe. I have to say, there have been good points made for both plays, on one side, the hand was played correctly and just got unlucky. On the other hand, in a tounament, one can say that it is ok to push in this spot because

1. You want to take the valuble blinds which is a definate + EV

2. You also don't want too much action because AA can be cracked with 222 or whatever. If this hand saw a flop of all spades, and then the push, it would be an easy fold (if you didn't hold the ace o spades of course)

So besides just the cards, the feel of the table and the level shold also be a factor if this was played correctly or not?

Anyway...great opinions all!
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P.S. Still looking for some more feed back.
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I am quite sure that worse opinions are posted every day in poker forums.

At no time did I advocate folding. Where did you get that impression?

The point being debated is a raise of $500, a small raise of $400 suggested by JediMethod, or going all in for a number of reasons that may be right or may be wrong.

Hosh started with the general principle that he wants to make money with his big pocket pairs and a raise was best. He probably misread the amount left behind.

Despite your comment, I still find this situation interesting. It is the bubble so you do not need a big raise to get people to fold. You have a big hand so you do not want to avoid action, so perhaps all in is too violent. One thing for sure you do not want is both the SB and the BB calling your raise, which is the worse possible scenerio with you holding AA.

I brought up the subject of what kind of table image the AA had at the table because it occurs to me that if it was loose, he would get called by the BB.

It is the bubble. You are not a big stack (yet) and you have AA in position. You want to make progress towards becoming the big stack by making a raise here, clearly. With AA you do not care if one player decides to call you. It is a short handed game so there is a very broad rang of hands that will reraise you and holding AA, you should not care if one player reraises you, granted.

My concern was the fact that the BB has you covered almost five times and the SB almost three times. If you make a raise and get flat called by the SB and the BB, it has to be worse that facing one player.

That was my concern, probably misplaced because even facing two opponents, the AA is still a 70% favourite (I am using AsTs for the SB & just for the sake of argument KhQh for the BB).

Well, when the flop comes Jh7s8h the aces are still ahead big time by 70%+. So it appears that I should not be worried about both blinds calling.

That said, clearly the SB had reasons to reraise all in. For the short-handed table AsTs is good enough to reraise and try to get the button to fold his raise. Since with AA you *want* this, I guess a raise is preferable to an all in.

Looking at the stacks again:

• SB ($5,775)
• BB ($15,730)
• UTG ($1,430)
• UTG+1 ($2,520)
• UTG+2 ($4,565)
• MP1 ($640)
• CO ($5,000)
• Hero ($3,460)

The blinds of $150 total represent 4% of your stack so there is no real pressure there.

Looks like an all in is not justified here and coffeneone just got unlucky that an aggressive player in the SB got lucky and tapped into his 12% chance of winning preflop.

__________________
flintsword

"The lucky player is usually the player that knows how much to leave to chance."

Blog www.myspace.com/flintsword

Hosh probably misread the post and thought there was less behind. It was a quick MSN discussion and I do not talk to him often, since he is currently in Asia.

As for your comment "There is no debate" ... Zoe, you are wrong.

There is a debate in a forum. Open pushing all in in this scenerio may well be an error, granted, but in a forum you are *always* going to have players taking risks and posting what they think in a situation.

This *is* a scenerio that can be debated because it is being debated, granted not by "good players" with the exception of you and JediMethod.

We are not all "good players" but aspire to be. Some posters are here because the viriolic posting environment of 2+2 is not their speed. Others like the fact that they can state an opinion, go into some depth as they see it, and not get flamed.

I actually like this question because it attacks a really important situation: The bubble, a medium stack, AA in position, facing the chip leaders in the blinds. I feel that this is a reasonably complex situation that would in fact be very debatable.

In this situation my instinct was to try and extract maximum value from the big target in the BB: the chip leader. This is why I like the all in with my AA. It turns out that according the good players on the forum, a raise is better: fine. I get to modify my game accordingly & improve.

__________________
flintsword

"The lucky player is usually the player that knows how much to leave to chance."

Blog www.myspace.com/flintsword

I don't agree with shipping it here, I am making it 3-4 BB's depending on how much I have been making it in the past.

I want to get played with; I don't mind if both blinds move in either, that would be just fine with me!

When I play in a tournament, I am going for the win, period. I have written in previous posts a lot about the topic of playing tight and letting others bust out when you are near the money, and as y'all know, I don't do it myself. When I am close to the money, I am pounding away. If my opponents are stupid enough to fold every hand, my raising standards loosen up drastically!

I have a real good tournament record and a lot of the top tournament players are close friends of mine, please take this to heart; I KNOW THAT THEY WOULD ALL BE LOVING IT IF THEY GOT IN A THREE WAY ALL IN WITH

What do your opponents figure to have in a three way all in?
and let's run a sim and see how we stack up.

71% 1% tie
18%
9% 1% tie

Honestly, I am fine with this proposition. 71% of the time I am going to triple up, 1% of the time the and I are going to chop up the and 28% of the time I am going home.

My goal is to the win the tournament and I am doing whatever I can to achieve this goal, I am not going to sit there folding, hoping others go broke and I make the money. My purpose for playing wasn't to get barely over my money back, I came to win.

Say you are playing in the Main Event and the first money spot pays $22,000. You make the money twice in four tournaments. You are $4,000 winner for all that work. This isn't what I came to do, remember it takes 7 days of your time to make the money; there are 4 day one's and two day two's and you don't make the money until very late in day 3. By then you have played around 34 hours, so in the two bust outs you probably lasted 10 hours, so for this example you have worked around 88 hours and have earned $45 an hour.

You see this all the time in the Main Event, people have won their seat via satellite and find themselves a few out of the money. Here is what is going through their mind.

"I am only in $1,000 "or less" and if a few more people bust, I am going to score $22,000, plus everybody at home will see my name in the money finishes."

My question is, if these thoughts are going through your mind, why did you ever play in the satellite to begin with?

I don't think Hosh really understood the situation when he answered your question. I have been guilty of not really understanding the situation and giving the first answer that comes to mind many times, then after thinking it over, realizing that my original answer was inaccurate. Hosh is a real good player, have him think it over and let's see what he says.

Read some of my other posts about folding your way into the money, what you are essentially doing is surrendering any realistic chance of winning the tournament for getting a little more than your money back, it just doesn't make sense.

That being said; it is good to see some discussions going on in here. I have tried real hard for four months to get you guys talking poker and haven't been very successful. This point has been made in MANY posts, active discussions will improve your game tremendously. I will be gald to chime in with my opinions, the problem in the past has been; I have to think of all the topics to discuss, then a few people give one paragraph answers and wait to see what my answer is, I feel like I am talking to myself. You guys have a big opportunity to improve your games totally free of charge, take advantage of it. This is an especially good time because I have totally blown my knee out, and been staying home way more than I usually do!

Jedi has been real active in here and his responses have been very right on, on every topic that has arisen.