This hand has bothered me!
 

$200 buy-in NLHE MTT at a Florida parimutuel facility. This facility has regularly been playing poker for about three years. Recently, Florida legislature expanded the rules to allow NLHE with $100 max buy-in and slightly increased LHE games. There has been a tremendous increase in the number of players. Most players are loose, like to gamble and really not very tough. This is the first "large" buy-in tournament held at this facility.

150 players started and after about three hours down to around 50. I have about t10,000, which is the large stack at the table, with average stack size about t4,500. Blinds are t150/t300 and no ante.

Tight player in early position raises to t1,000 (has has about t9,000), one fold and I peek at AKo. There are five live players behind me three of whom are short-stacked. I decide to fold. As I muck my cards they flip over and everyone sees that I folded AK. Everyone folds behind me.

The player to my left is incredulous. A lady seated across from me says, "I can't believe what you folded; you should have at least called. You read the wrong book." I ignore them and sit there thinking about my fold.

Here is my thought process. I didn't call, because as a general rule, I don't like to call a raise with AK, since I hit the flop only 1/3 of the time. I don't mind raising big with this hand, but if I'm not first in, then I feel like I'm in a raise or fold situation. I didn't want to reraise, because I would have been pot committed. That aside, my real reason for not calling was the existence of the short-stacks behind me. I didn't want to call and either have to fold to an all-in reraise by a short-stack or call knowing that the EP raiser probably had a big pair and I was either racing for as much as half (or perhaps all) my chips or else I'm crushed.

In hindsight, maybe this was my spot to gamble, I ended up being card dead for the last two hours and having no opportunities to steal and busted out a few hands before the money.

All comments and criticism are welcome.

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

AK is the nutz

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

you have to take risks in tourns coin flips are ok raise to 5k he'll either muck or shove. u only get so many big hands and w these stacks u gotta go here ...i think at least.

btw no way i call either but if u had 20 k then u could.

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

[ QUOTE ]
Here is my thought process. I didn't call, because as a general rule, I don't like to call a raise with AK, since I hit the flop only 1/3 of the time.

All comments and criticism are welcome.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you serious? You realize you don't have to "hit the flop" to win the hand? You were in position. That is just awful.

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

yeah, I would also vote for at minimum a call here so you can play your position regardless of the flop. If you hit an Ace or King, you are probably in great shape to get a great payoff.

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

Also the presence of the short stacks behind you isn't necessarily a bad thing. They might be inspired to shove with AQ or AJ figuring it's now or never.

Re: This hand has bothered me!
 

Terrible, terrible, terrible. Nothing scares live players more than a RR because all they see is American Airlines. I have had live players fold QQ JJ AK to my re-raises. You HAVE to re-raise AK live - you will not see many hands and this might be the best you get. The blinds will eat you up. If you RR, and he shoves, be very happy - you get to see all 5 cards with AK. Better yet, if the players are loose like you say, you might be up wind up being AI against AJ or AQ. You WANT the short-stacks to shove.