near the bubble, short on chips, dealt QQ. All in pre or on the flop?

[myfutureself]

Possibly a simple question: all-in preflop or raise preflop and all-in on the flop.
This is a B+M hand so I'm guessing at the chips.

12 players left, 6 on each table, from 35 starters.
7 paid.
Starting chips = 6500 each, no rebuys. (Freezout)
Blinds: 400/800.
Approximate stacks at table:
UTG:15,000
UTG+1: 12,000
UTG+2: 12,000
OTB: 20,000
SB: 25,000
Hero (BB): 8,000 (Probable table image: tight)

Hero is dealt QQ.

UTG: calls
UTG+1: folds
UTG+2: folds
OTB: calls
SB: calls
Hero (BB): All-in.

Was this the best move? One possible alternative is to raise to 2,500 or 3,000 and push AI on the flop no matter what comes down? Any views or other ideas?

[cowboyeyes]

I play many B&M tourneys and I would push also pre flop. With a tight image in a live tourney you will probably get more respect than on line increasing your chances of taking down the pot right there. With three callers your queens are vulnerable since someone is probably playing at least an ace. Winning the pot preflop increases your stack by $3200 or 40% so push.

[sccrneo]

Easy push. You never really want to be making smaller bets when you are around or under 10bb's. Any hand your playing at this point, you should be pushing. And if you are pushing any marginal hands, which you should be, you need to be pushing you goods hand too or you become easy to read.

[CybrPunk]

That's nearly half of your stack there in the pot preflop! Push and either pick it up or make them pickup a hand to call you.

At this stage you should be pushing lots of hands, especially on the blinds of the guys with 12k stacks because you can really hurt them. They absolutely MUST have a hand to call you or they put themselves in a really bad spot by calling and losing. You're right on the final table bubble and they're all hoping to sneak to the FT and escape the blinds coming around fast. Exploit this opportunity while you can.

Odds are you're picking up the pot preflop or, at worst, flipping. The only hands you are scared of here are aces, kings and AK. The preflop action would lead me to think none of these guys is holding one of those hands. None of them are folding to a smaller raise because you don't have enough of a stack to protect your hand and you don't want to go to showdown here when everyone at the table covers you if you can avoid it. You don't hate a showdown but you're not necessarily rooting for one when you can pickup 50% of your stack preflop here with little to no resistance.

[Gary07]

Definitely a push preflop. Raising to 2500 or 3000 is just giving everyone with a big stack good pot odds, and an ace or king will flop a fair amount of time and then you are left in a quandary. Push all in and add a lot to your stack.

[Manup]

PUSH it like it's hot!

[AceLuby]

Really standard, esp w/ all those callers.

[Nottom]

Auto-push, any other option is pretty much wrong with 3 limpers in the pot and only 10BBs.

[myfutureself]

Thanks for the replies. I agree, AI is the best move. However a couple of things crossed my mind at the time:
1. The blinds are fast (15mins) and the table is slow, not many hands per hour.
2. The blinds are about to go to 500/1000
3. The table is loose and weak. Lots of calls to the river with bad hands (eg middle pair) earlier on but not so much now.
4. If I manage to get a good chip stack I would be optimistic about finishing in the top 5.
5. Payout structure is heavily stacked towards the top three places.
6. I have had a small stack since the begining and patience is running out!
7. This is the third best starting hand. If not now then how am I going to double or triple up. I know it's risky but would anyone ever slow play the QQ here?

[AceLuby]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the replies. I agree, AI is the best move. However a couple of things crossed my mind at the time:
1. The blinds are fast (15mins) and the table is slow, not many hands per hour.
2. The blinds are about to go to 500/1000
3. The table is loose and weak. Lots of calls to the river with bad hands (eg middle pair) earlier on but not so much now.
4. If I manage to get a good chip stack I would be optimistic about finishing in the top 5.
5. Payout structure is heavily stacked towards the top three places.
6. I have had a small stack since the begining and patience is running out!
7. This is the third best starting hand. If not now then how am I going to double or triple up. I know it's risky but would anyone ever slow play the QQ here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Only if you want them busted by someone who hits the flop hard. Here is the thing, calling here and pushing any non A or K flop is losing value. We want to build a stack and we need to do so by accumulating chips. This means maximizing our profit while minimizing our losses, which is what makes poker great since we usually have to do one or the other. You are in the mindset of only minimizing your losses, when it should in fact take a back seat to maximizing your profit.

If we push and take the pot down now we have added a significant amount to our stack right there w/out even showing our hand. We could also get called (hopefully only by one player) where we are either dominating or coinflipping, but we're getting our $ in w/ the best of it. If we lose it was simply not meant to be.

If we call we allow the limpers to see a flop for cheap, which is not maximizing our value. We also allow them to get away from hands like AK when they whiff, where we would get their chips if we would push PF. We also lose value from smaller PP where if they don't hit a set they can get away cheaply. Basically, pushing is your only good option here and if you run into AA or KK, then quit poker cuz you suck [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]