The K-K and Q-Q Hands: My Answers

Thanks for all your comments on the two kinda bizarro hands I threw up yesterday. I think there's merit to playing it either way (calling the all in or folding) but here's how they actually went down:

I played the K-K hand. It really was the 4th hand of the tourney and my opening raise from MP was insta re-raised all in. Like Kajapoker points out, there are a lotta donks in these things that are more than willing to gamble early trying to work up a big stack. I have seen people move in with literally anything from A-A to 8-9 offsuit in this spot. Yeah, sometimes it's aces, but most of the time it's not. And the times that it is aces, I think a majority of players will make a smaller re-raise in this spot for value, instead of just rolling the dice and shoving-- as most hands worth an open-raise in this spot are just going to fold and those magic bullets will only turn a 110 chip profit on the hand. With K-K, though, I made the call relatively quickly and (of course) saw the bad news when my opponent flipped up A-A. The tournament started at 5:00 and I was out at 5:03. Weeeeeeeeeeee.

I witnessed the Q-Q hand only minutes later in the Full Tilt $24K that I was playing at the same time. It was literally the same scenario-- the Q-Q open-raised from MP and a LP player shoved all in. This time, the MP player tanked forever before calling with the queens. Again, the LP re-raiser had A-A. Only this time, the guy on my end of the 80/20 flopped a queen and rivered quads to get the early double-up and the guy with the A-A screamed at him in the chat box for five minutes after the hand went down.

In a SNG, I'm calling in both scenarios. In a MTT, I would have likely folded the Q-Q (though, would I have folded because I had just experienced disaster with the K-K or would I just make that play anyway?) I'd make the call again with the K-K, and I think I'll see A-K or Q-Q there a good percentage of the time. Hell, I'll see Q-J offsuit there some of the time since we are talking about early-stage play in a large-field, low-buyin online MTT. And sometimes I'll see A-A like I did this time. But I think there's enough of a case for calling with the K-K in this scenario.

I'm still running breakeven to mildly icky in single and multi-table SNGs. I'll sit down, play a couple, lose one, bubble the other, and then lose motivation to play any more. It's probably a good thing I've only got a week left in the States before I go back to Australia because I certainly won't have time to play while I'm down there.

(cue record scratch)

Holy fuck-all. I'm going back to Australia in eight days? Seriously? I mean, I have a plane ticket and I know I'm going, and I know Pauly's flying out here in 4 days because we're going together but I really haven't begun to process this prospect in the immediate. Another month on the road. The last of my great international poker trips for a while. I mean... wow, that was quick. I still have pictures of the last Aussie trip sitting on my digital camera.

Hopefully I'll get in at least one $5-10 session at the Crown. That was a good game. And maybe this time I'll try the Vegemite. And see a kangaroo.