Sunday, September 13, 2009

does the read matter?

I'm three handed with 2 aggressive players. I get AQo in the big blind. The button limps - he hasn't done that one time yet. My radar goes up, but does it matter? I've got a pretty big hand anyway - we're down to 10-12 BB each.

I decide to shove even if his limp is fishy. It was fishy - he had QQ, and my 30% ship doesn't come in.

I'm left with 1000 chips, and get JJ on the next hand. I shove into the same guy, now HE calls with AQs, and hits his flush on the turn. Buh-bye for me.

Do you play AQ slowly this deep into a SNG, fearing the worst? In my famous live tourney QQ disaster last month, the general feedback was that I shouldn't be worrying about AA/KK when I have QQ. I know AQ isn't quite as strong as QQ, but the feeling of dread was the same - "uh-oh, what does that limp mean?". I mean, I had the read, but does it matter here?

BTW- it was one of those tourneys where my cards were complete crap for the first 100 hands, yet I managed to make the money. As is often the case, the good cards at the end are what got me knocked out.

3 comments:

Forrest Gump said...

Are you asking does the math over-ride your read? Does the obvious tournament play take precedence over the feeling in your gut?



FG

diverjoules said...

Couldn't you have just min raised to see if your read was correct? If Fishy repopps you then your read was right, and now you know for sure and still have enough chips to fold. Or did you not have enough chips to do that? Your radar seems pretty highly tuned, and paying close attention to it might serve you well. (IMHO)

matt tag said...

the minraise is EXACTLY what I did in my live QQ hand a couple weeks back - the problem was that I gave A5s good odds to call and chase his flush (and that player LOVES to chase flushes).

Plus, if the villian is smart, he WON'T repop with aces/kings - he will call for deception, and I'll end up getting all the money in anyway if I hit my ace or queen.

this game is hard