Tag Archives: A-Q

In One of the Tourneys

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Hello,

I’ll start by sharing that I love to play a lot of online tourneys with play money because I’m not yet ready to lose with real money.

In one of the tourneys I was able to participate in, something happened. I remember we started with approximately 3000 players and the starting stack was 3000 chips. At the start, I was seriously tight.

At mid part of the game, about 1000 players were left. I remember that point, the average chip count of all players was always beyond my stack. So I’m curious, is there any sense at all to continue playing when you are just at your starting chip count and then blinds go to 400/800 and antes then kick in?

And another thing, do you think I played too tight at the start? How about going out early to have a good chip count, should I have done it?

Thanks and great site!

Regards,
Thorsten
Thorsten,

As long as you have chips, you are still capable of winning. Freeroll tournaments are tournaments that you need to either try and gamble a lot early to win chips, or you need to push your strong hands almost hyper aggressively.

In freerolls with large fields, I would try and pick up chips early as I can to have a shot to win. With me, I will usually push with any pair or any reasonable hand like A-K or A-Q. These are freerolls. If you bust out first, you lose the same as everyone else, and that’s nothing.

About My Mistake

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Hey there!

In a tourney with a thousand of players, I had 12K in chips and blinds were up at 200/400. Being the first one to act, I called. By the way I had AQ then. Quite disturbing, nobody raised. There were four players keenly observing who saw the flop actually.

Flop then came and was Jd Kd Kc. Other two players checked while the other one placed 800 bet. Except from me, everyone else’s folded. Because I felt like gambling more, I called and then hit the 10 of spades thus giving me a straight. One of the other players then placed 1600 bet and then I raised to 4K. Later, he called.

River then came and was 9. He then opted to check. Afterwards, I decided to bet 1600 and so he went all in. Then I called, but I discovered he had a full house, Kings over nines and so I was busted out.

Now, I’m curious if after the turn I should have decided to go all in, considering he might not actually call pre flop with K J, and he may have with K 10. What do you think? Also, I think it was so foolish of me, though I knew he had a K, I still gave him another card that may complete his full house. However, I also thought that maybe it was not foolishness, I was just unlucky perhaps. The result would have been the same if he called all in on the turn with K9 back then.

But still I was thinking, where did I went wrong? At what point? At not raising pre flop? Or else calling his 800 bet after the flop and drawing to a hand against a tall stack?

Hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you very much!

Lockett Zubak
Lockett,

You were in early position with A-Q. That is not necessarily a raising hand. Some do, I tend not to unless I haven’t played in a bit. On the flop, you had a gutshot straight. You really did not have proper odds to draw to the straight, but you did and hit.

After the flop, I don’t think you opponent is going to fold. He flopped a set. Since you didn’t raise, he has no reason to put you on a king, and even if he did, I still doubt he would fold.

I think that after the flop, you just got unlucky. You sucked out on the turn, and he resucked out on the river.