I just got home from a live MTT. Here was the key decision:

I made it to the final two tables. There were 17 players left (top 7 paid). Blinds were 1000/2000. I have 6,000, and so I'm in all-in or fold mode. There are 8 players at my table.

I'm dealt KQo UTG and have to decide what to do. After thinking, I decide to fold. I just felt that there were too many players left to act, including several big stacks and several small stacks. The last three hands included raises to 6,000 or more, and all drew calls. Thus, I felt my hand was just a little too weak to play out.

As the hand turned out, two huge stacks went all in preflop against one another. One had QQ, and the other had A9.

As the hand played out, the flop came down K high. Thus, had I gone all in, I would have threaded the needle and tripled up.

I'm killing myself over this decision. Was I way too tight here, or is KQo just too weak to move in with from early position, at an 8-player table, if you still have 2 full orbits left?

regardless of the outcome, yeah you were too tight.

Next hand you are forced to put in 1/3 or your stack blind.

You probably should have been in long before this.

Were there antes?

Your M was 2 which is ultra critical.

Say you survive through the blinds, you have 3k in chips, so what?

Even a triple up will leave you with 3BBs at the next level.

I would have tried to be all in at 8BBs in any spot where i can be first in.

hey beavis... thanks for the help. I was looking to move all-in from the time I got down to 11 bets, doing just what you said. I just didn't have any of those spots until I got to this point. And if I'd been in a later position and wasn't looking at the full table yet to act, I would have been all in here, too.

But in this precarious of a situation it is moot if there are 9 people left to act or 1, and I don't think there is any difference between calling an all in or pushing all in yourself at this point. That's a great hand when you are in this bad a situation, and frankly I might WANT several people to call anyway so if I hit and win I'll triple or quadruple up and be in a good position to move up some slots without needing to play a hand. But NL is not my forte so I'll let someone more experienced give their thoughts.

i agree with beav, you definitely played this way too tight. think about it this way: if the KQ was suited, would you have pushed? probably. you can't let the suited factor decide for you in these situations. you have two big cards, you're very shortstacked, and this is precisely the type of hand you want in this situation. JJ you would have pushed as well, no? i dont want to be so results-oriented, but i would much rather be all in with KQ than JJ...

I'm pushing any 2 cards in this situation. If I get called I want the extra 3000 in the blinds to be added to my stack if I win.

__________________
“There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.” - John von Neumann

Yea, this is a definite all-in. I'm pushing with even weaker cards here. It really boils down to how shortstacked you are now, and will be after this hand. You hit the blinds next hand, so you will have to go all-in there anyway, and chances are you hand will not be nearly as strong as KQ.

I haven't been playing in the regular cash tournaments much, but in the turbos, knowing when to push is critcal.

I will even raise limpers all-in from a later position if I have the chips to really put the hurt on them.

I will sometimes push with a hand like 98s.

If you put a person all-in when you have 10+BBs, and you have at least 60% or more of their stack, they have to have a pretty good hand to call, one they should have been raising with. You will occaisionally be called by 55 or AQ, but they will usually fold.

The games I play use antes, that makes the pot a lot sweeter to steal.

I don't get it...two huge stacks go all in, and one of them was calling the all-in with A9? That play just doesn't make any sense to me at this point in the tourney.

__________________
"Ok, this is for the game. How you doin' over there? NOT TOO GOOD!"" -Bubble Boy

most definately all in here. you can assume the hand you get on the bb is going to be worse than k/q.