Hello, i recently played a $500 almighty at borgata and (as usual) got eliminated fairly quickly. This time it “wasnt my fault” but still hypothetically wondered if i should fold pre. I have about 70-80k in chips (everyone starts with 100), its early on so blinds and maybe 500-500 or something, not too high. Anyways theres a little baby raise to 1500, some guy raises to 6k gets to me, i look down at the ladies. I raise to 15k. He pops it all in, i feel ugly for like 5 seconds and then call and he has bullets and holds. My question is can i get away from queens preflop? Or is this just a cooler part of the game situation?

I would cold call the 3!.

So no initial raise with QQ? Ok got it

3x isn't a baby raise.

You ought to think about what your goal is with a 4-bet and what range of hands are 5-betting all-in for 150BB.

Every tourney ive ever played in the beginning most raises are at least 3-5x. Now the raise to 6k can be argued is strong but yea to your second point i guess flip against AK? To me it really comes down to would i go all in pre with QQ for $500 in a cash game? In most situations i gotta say yes

4-bet is fine. Call is probably close and depends on if villain has AK in full and maybe JJ-QQ some small percentage of the time. If so then it’s a call, if not then it’s a fold.

These style of tourneys very hard to discern peoples ranges (dont know anybody, random field). I dont think he was an AA only type of player in my limited time playingthe event but just ran into it

But it's not a cash game where you can simply rebuy and have 100bbs. So the initial preflop raiser went from 1.5k to 100k or the 6k guy pushed?

Initial guy folded and the 6k guy pushed. And yea that is right, kinda a me problem, i do too much in tourneys and grow impatient and lose within a couple of levels. (That or final table them lol)
Im curious on if the queens are a standard call/fold in this situation

I tend to think of the early stages of a tournament as when I would like to double up with trips or five card hands rather than starting pairs, so I prefer gii on turn or river.

Once I have doubled or tripled the starting stack, I can take on smaller stacks with 2 card holdings preflop.

I don't think anyone here will tell you that calling off 100bbs to win 130bbs with the 3rd/4th best starting hand makes sense. It's too big of a 5 bet to be anything but a better pair. I certainly have done it (in a rebuy) but I would recognize it was a mistake in a freeze out, especially given the action as described.

The problem here is that its early and you don't know the 3 bet range of the guy who went to 6,000. If it was an older guy I would assume its a very big hand.

Also, its important to know the position of the 1st preflop raiser. If they were UTG or UTG+1 then the 4x 3-bet must be very strong. Worst possible hand would be AK. JJ is conceivable but will likely call some against EP, more likely it is AA/KK. The position of the 2nd raiser is also important because a 4x 3-bet would be normal if he is in the SB. but would be an overbet if he is in position

I would likely call here because our implied odds are more than 8x6,000 (48,000) which means I would go set mining on the flop. The other problem though is original raiser going to re-raise? That's why the position is important. Also, it is why I would prefer a call because we get to see if it is raised again.

If the flop did not have a lady or an A or K I would likely call a normal or smallish bet but on the turn it is likely I would fold unless it was a blocking bet.

I have folded QQ pre-flop to 3-bets and 4-bets. Here once you make it 15,000 and it is jammed I would fold unless I knew the jammer was super aggro and could have AK. In Prague I got it in with QQ vs AK and AK vs QQ a few times at King's casino in tournaments with a field that would be like this. But I had already ranged the other players involved.

Here best case is a flip and worst case is your out 80% of the time.

I dont know the exact names of the positions but both were early. The guy didnt seem like an omc but once he jammed my 15k raise it did feel ugly. Ive made far worse moves but youre right early on in tournies i should simply call and set mine.

To give a more thoughtful answer-- getting in QQ PF in this spot isn't strictly bad, and I don't even think 4-betting is necessarily bad. But given the positions of the players and that it's a $500 live, I'd probably think folding after the 4-bet is the right play. Unless I know someone is good, tricky, and aggro, at these stakes in the first level they are probably not getting it in light ever.

So I guess on a certain level it comes down to a read. But the typical live opponent at these stakes I wouldn't expect to ever 5-bet jam QQ- to a cold 4-bet, and probably not AK either, considering QQ might be your weakest holding to do this with (or at least as far as they know).

My read was its possible its not only AA in his hand, but with all that aggression the weakest would be AK. But like i said esrly and i don't playthese often enough to know anyone. Might have to throw QQ in my smooth call range, not the first time i ran into it wirh QQ recently lol

I once folded QQ after raising UTG getting called and then the BB 3 bet to like 6x. He hadn't raised much if at all so I was like he just 3 bet huge vs an a white OMC who raised to 3x UTG (it was like 600/1200). I had about 120 bb's he had like 150 bb's and I just thought it was going to be costly for no reason. Given what I said earlier I should have called to set mine but I had recently bounced from a tournament on Day 2 with QQ vs AA when he cleverly called a huge preflop 3-bet from the BB and I 4-bet jammed with QQ). In this case he actually showed me AK after I folded but I'm not sure I would have called him down if he 3 barreled post flop even with no A/K on board.

Yup this is right. I don’t think I would 4! Standard mtt population bc folks aren’t 3! Enough to make it good unless they are a good aggro player or some sick table dynamic exists.

When you 4!, ask yourself what is 5! Shoving. AA, KK, and maybe AK. At best you flip and most of time you are almost dead. Flat and let bluffs continue.

I'm not sure if I would 4-bet the QQ or not, but I would definitely prefer to 4-bet AK this early in this kind of field for the AA/KK blockers. The problem here is exactly as said, you shouldn't fold to the 5-bet if it's AK but you should if it's AA/KK, and you don't block those at all. On balance I think I'd fold because the typical player here is not 5-bet ripping 150BB with AK. A lot of them won't even 3-bet AK this early, never mind 5-bet.

When we 4 bet, my bigger concern is what hands continue to the 4-bet without jamming ,and we absolutely dominate those hands (stuff like TT-JJ, suited broadways, Ax, etc.). AA-KK and AK should be a small portion of villain's overall range here. If it isn't, that's an entirely different issue and I'm not sure the correct response here would be to flat.

Cold-calling the 3-bet makes our range really obvious and transparent, plus theoretically invites more action behind us which isn't great.

This is a fallacy. If a given play is a mistake in a freezeout it is a mistake in a rebuy as well. Consider two situations:

1. You are playing in a rebuy tournament.
2. You are playing in a freezeout tournament. The casino has a second tournament running concurrently with the same blind structure, starting stack, buy in, and start time. This tournament allows late registration.

Question: what’s the difference between scenario 1 and scenario 2? There isn’t any. Rebuying in a tournament is no different than buying into a completely different tournament with the same structure and buy in. Hence, there should be no difference in your strategy in a rebuy vs your strategy in a freezeout.

1. #2 never exists in reality in a live poker setting.
2. I may plan to play a rebuy more aggressively than a freeze out until the rebuy period ends.
3. As I flamed a prior new poster, I was looking for a time I would play hand as he did. I didn't plan to argue such minutia with you.

Yea good point. We fold out all the hands we have crushed like JJ and 10-10 when we 4!. I almost wanna say we can fold to a rip. At best we see AK. We see kk and aa often against most population in live mtts.

I find it crazy they find the jam. I don’t think I could jam AA and potentially let a player hero fold KK or QQ (if they can). Even AK will prolly call a smaller raise but might fold to a rip. I’m bad though, I 3bet small with AA or KK when stacks are shallow when folks will call an all in when I’m dominating them (for example at say 20-35 bb stack depth super late in a tourny).

Folding QQ to that 6k raise is a little nuts imo. Call or raise i feel are the only two options. If im folding QQ then im folding everything besides aces

I don't think anybody suggested folding.

My point was more along the lines of people continuing to the 4-bet. If the player pool is bet-folding their 3-bets with JJ/TT to a 4-bet (which are absolute pure continues in theory) then I am going to be looking to 4-bet them way more often. If they're continuing correctly or even a little too wide, then we win these pots a ton with tiny c-bets on the flop with our entire range.

I do agree that once we get 5-bet in this spot that it kind of sucks and stacking off is at best a 0 EV play against the population, although in theory we're probably supposed to call.

My point about "doing something else" is that if we're so worried about this 3-bet range being super linear and nut-heavy that we wouldn't want to 4-bet, then we have to consider our other options. I guess flat is a thing, but cold flats are usually really easy to play against, invite multi-way pots and gross reverse implied odds situations where we get a ten-high board and have to decide to stack off. I don't know that I'd have any flats here, so I'd probably look at 4-bet folding stuff like JJ/QQ and maybe folding hands as strong as TT.

I think a lot of this comes from people applying "rebuy" concepts to "re-entry" tournaments. In old-school rebuys, being aggro and running up a stack or firing again made sense because 1) there wasn't rake on the rebuys so the chips are cheaper, and 2) you stayed in your same seat, so this results in more chips on the table that you can potentially win back.

But in today's "re-entry" tournaments, it's exactly as you say, you're just entering a brand new tournament, paying rake again, getting a new seat assignment. No poker reason to be more loose/aggro just because a tournament allows re-entry at that point.