was it worth a raise preflop

craigcu12

Very foldable hand UTG at that situation in a SAT.

As played probably worth a bet on that flop. Villain would have probably reraised a big A so only really worried about a small ace and not worried about draws.

Min-raise UTG and lead out will look strong and much less likely that villain will make a move in that spot in a SAT so can fold if reraised then find a better spot to open raise with later on.

craigcu12

it's a 2K BH freeroll sat we down to the last 26 I hold KQ UTG a hand that usually in poker looks good so I decide to raise. having been called, the flop shows an A so I now fealt as though I put myself in a very tough spot. i was currently 6/26, the total chips in the MTT was over 2,000,000 and the top 10 go through so I didn't see myself certain yet, my estimate is that I would have need 200K to feel certain of getting into the top 10.
at these period's I generally think to myself an A is very commonly called in MTT's so I can become stuck in a tough spot because if I were jammed on I could see it being a good chance they hold an A or pair.

is KQ a hand worth raising UTG this late or should I just fold?

thumb8908	Small blind		3000.00	3000.00	50510.00
petebryn	Big blind		6000.00	9000.00	53724.93
	Your hole cards	Q K
craigcu12	Raise		12000.00	21000.00	107661.25
MATTV	Fold
fulbluff77	Call		12000.00	33000.00	80280.14
thumb8908	Fold
petebryn	Fold
Flop
		2 K A
craigcu12

DoubleAAA

As played. Lead out cbet 1/3 pot, give up if called or raised.

BorinLoner

It would be nice to know MATTV's stack size. If he has say 12BB or less, I think we should be shoving pre-flop.

If he's deeper than that, we can fold.

I don't like min-raising unless we think that the villains are folding to this raise size just as often as they are to a shove. We don't really want to be getting called and playing flops when we're this shallow in a satellite and we certainly don't want to give anyone the opportunity to 3-bet shove light on us. If we think either of those things is likely, this becomes a shove or fold spot. We definitely don't want to be raise-calling it off against one of the shorter stacks and absolutely must fold if the bigger stack shoves. We don't want either of those things to happen. We prefer to win the pot without showdown.

If we think they're liable to call off their stacks fairly light, then we should fold. If we think they're going to be calling tight, then we should shove.


As played, on the flop we have to decide whether the villain is going to play face-up. If we bet here, I don't think we're really betting for value because we won't want to be called. If we do bet, we have to be sure that we're going to get an honest response from our opponent. We should also want to bet very small because otherwise we're risking too much to win too little. Much more than 10k would be a waste of chips, in my opinion. If he doesn't have an Ace, he'll struggle to call any bet and if he does have one, he's not folding.
 
So if we check, is this villain liable to check behind if he's missed or does he bluff at it? If he's not going to bluff at it, we can check-fold the flop. If he is liable to bluff... we still should probably check-fold because we need to maintain our stack. The chips in our stack are more valuable than those in the middle.

It shouldn't really get to a flop, in my opinion. Once it has done, we need to have some idea of what our opponent is going to do. I probably check and hope for cheap showdown but don't put another chip in if I don't improve. It's annoying to be so weak, but I think we've already made our mistake.