I realize that the following hand is one of those unfortunate events that sometimes happens, but I was wondering what that majority would do in the following situation:

There were 4 players left in a $20 SNG, with only 3 paying spots. The blinds were 75/150. I had about 1800 in chips, another player had about 1500, and the other two players were over 4000 in chips.

I posted the BB of 150. UTG folded. The short stack was on the button, and he came in for a minimum raise, making it 300 to go. The CL, with about 5700 chips, called.

I held QQ. Liking my hand, and having only 1650 in chips left after posting the blinds, I felt like my choices were to go all in or fold. Feeling I had the best hand, I went all in. The short stack folded, but the CL called with AA. I did not improve, and I busted out short of the money.

People were playing reasonably tight, solid poker. This definitely applied to the short stack, but even the CL was folding to raises preflop when he appeared to be beat. The minimum raises suggested to me that one or both of the others had a real hand -- which obviously could have included Aces or Kings -- but also could have been hands like AK or a lower pocket pair. Given that my hand was behind only Aces or Kings in the range of possibilities, I opted to play.

I suppose one argument for folding was that the short stack obviously liked his hand enough to raise with it, and since the CL called, I might have opted to fold and let them duke it out. If the CL won, then the short stack might have either been busted or crippled in the process.

Which course would most of you have chosen: make your stand with this hand or fold and hope that the CL beats up on the short stack?

I think I'd have pushed as well - the call by the CL makes it awfull tough to put him on aces or kings. If you fold here, you're stuck with the SB next hand and then you're pretty much short-stacked yourself. What are the odds of getting a better hand before the blinds come back around to you. Good move, bad break IMO.

This was a really shrewd play by the CL to try and trap and eliminate the small stack. You just happened to have a hand as well and stumbled into it first, allowing the short stack to escape.

Since there's no guarantee the short stack's going all-in here, I don't see how you could lay this down and get away from it, especially in an online environment. And calling or raising for anything less than all-in, to me, just aren't options here. About the only thing a call does is put you in a position to bail out on a scary flop of AKx, but more often than not you'll be staring at an undercard flop with essentially the same scenario you have preflop -- feeling pretty confident that you're holding the best hand.

I think its just a classic case of making the right play at the wrong time. If I'm holding QQ, I'm doing the same as you -- pushing forward, busting out and watching three people split my 20 bucks between them.

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:cool:

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The short stack isnt THAT short that I would even consider folding. Pushing to pick up the pot is my play. I may have considered over calling, and pushing if there are no overcards on the flop. It is surprising that the CL slowplayed AA into a raise, worked though.

But pushing now, or on the flop are your best moves. The short stack probably wouldn't get busted here, so folding is WAY TOO weak-tight.

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Your play was perfect.

with a raiser and a caller with high standards of hands to raise/call with i may be reluctant to push QQ, I would feel that i would either get a call from a hand which is ahead or around 50/50 against my hand (or maybe AJ/AQ), or win the pot there. winning the pot pre flop would not be a bad result although they have both allready represented some strength.

in the games i usually play players will call an all in bet with a wider range of hands so i would usually push all in.

I think that in this situation i would call and push if the flop did not contain an ace or king (and still get eliminated anyway).

i am not sure however if this is the correct way to play in this situation as if you were forced to fold you would have 1350 (around 9BBs i think) and would have to move all in relatively soon.

in this situation i would usually push all in, however as you think they are playing tightly and put them on AK or a highish pair i think i may play the hand diferently on this occaision.

OK. I just found this nifty piece of software called pokerstove (www.pokerstove.com). It 's what we've been looking for in hand evaluators. It evaluates a hand vs specific hands, or random or a specific range of hands. I figured this was a good test scenario for it. It takes a while to compute, but within 10-20 secs you get a good picture where the outcomes lie. For this scenario, I ran it over 117 Billion games. I think thats close enough (thats only 15% of the possible games though!)

I put your hand (any QQ) vs (x2) Any Pair, Any Ace (AKs-A2o) and any broadway cards (AKs-JTo). I figure those are close enough for the hands playable in the game you describe. Heres the results:

117,067,874,615 games 476.797 secs 245,529,805 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 56.7876 % [ 00.56 00.00 ] { QQ }
Hand 2: 21.2127 % [ 00.20 00.01 ] { AA-22, AKs-A2s, KQs-KTs, QJs-QTs, JTs, AKo-A2o, KQo-KTo, QJo-QTo, JTo }
Hand 3: 21.9996 % [ 00.21 00.01 ] { AA-22, AKs-A2s, KQs-KTs, QJs-QTs, JTs, AKo-A2o, KQo-KTo, QJo-QTo, JTo }

So at worst you will be getting 2-1 on your push, maybe 3-1ish, and at 56.7% equity, this is a winning play, per the numbers.

The difference between hand 2 and 3 is due to the fact I only ran 15% of the hands, after 100% it should level out. With simple calcs, like AA vs KK it only takes a few seconds. It doesnt require suits, so generic pair vs pair evals are possible

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I dont think you can fold there. You just ran into aces there was nothing wrong with the play. I always play queens kinda cautiously pre flop, they usually dont hold up for me. Its hard to put him on aces or kings due to the fact that he didnt re-raise the shortstacks raise. I would problaby think he had two overs maybe a small pair.

OK if you add no gap suited connectors to one hand, heres what you get (this ran for about 40 minutes, whew)

850,349,985,408 games 3455.203 secs 246,107,098 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity (%) win (%) / tie (%)

Hand 1: 56.6854 % [ 00.56 00.00 ] { QQ }
Hand 2: 21.8940 % [ 00.21 00.01 ] { AA-22, AKs-A2s, KQs-KTs, QJs-QTs, JTs, AKo-A2o, KQo-KTo, QJo-QTo, JTo }
Hand 3: 21.4207 % [ 00.21 00.01 ] { AA-22, AKs-A2s, KQs-KTs, QJs-QTs, JTs, T9s, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, 43s, 32s, AKo-A2o, KQo-KTo, QJo-QTo, JTo }

Surprisingly, the Equity of the hand with the SC's is less than the one without. Not by much, but it is.

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Thanks for the thoughts. Sounds like there is no real sentiment for folding here. In his book on tournament poker, Sklansky suggests that there may be some situations when you are on the bubble where it makes sense to fold even strong hands, but it sounds like no one feels that this was one of those situations.

Marm... thanks for running those numbers. But I'm a little slow, and I don't really understand the results.

Is this the correct interpretation: QQ will win 56% of the time when the caller may have (1) any pair, (2) any Ax, or (3) any two painted cards?

Or stated differently, if you have QQ and you put your opponent on one of those three hand categories, then you should expect to win more than half the time?