My tournament story

I've been playing no-limit for about 2 years now. I usually play the cash games (200 or 300 tables). Last week I played my first tournament. I got 27th place, just missing the bubble. Second time, I cashed in, pretty much got my buy-in and re-buy money back. Today was my third tournament.

$40 buy-in, $15 entry fee, $20 multiple re-buy and $20 add-on. 279 total players.

So I'm in the final table with 5 remaining players. I'm the chip leader with about 55,000 behind me, second chip leader had about 40,000 and the rest of the players had relatively short stack ranging from 7,000 to 13,000. Blinds were at 3,000/6,000 w/ 500 ante.

The Hand:

I'm under the gun, I get dealt AK clubs. The player to my left always looked at his cards right away instead waiting for his turn to act. So I looked at him before I looked at my whole cards and had a good feeling he was going to push. I just call and player to my left does indeed go all-in with about 13,000. Second chip leader, lets call him Jerry goes all in (40,000) right after him. Small blind and big blind folds. Jerry was playing very aggressive throughout the tournament, it was really hard to put him on a hand. Regardless, I was going to call knowing I can knock two players and have pretty much 10:1 chip lead with the two remaining players. Short stack shows Q7 diamonds and Jerry holds AQ off suit. Short stack has one of Jerry's outs. Flop comes out 9c 10c Jd. Good flop for all of us. Turn is 9s. No help for any players, but I'm still ahead. River is a bitch ass Ks. OMFGLOLWTFBBQSAUCE just happened? I look back at that hand and regardless of how I played it, I would of got the same outcome. Its not that bad of a beat, but geez...it had to happen in the final table?

So after Jerry picks up the pot, he says "get'em and got'em bitch" now this is a grown man, in his late 30's or early 40's saying this to a 21 year. I can't believe he had the nerve to say that after he got lucky. Its not like I was bullying him at the table or being a dick.

I ended up getting third, but was so close to getting 7,400 and some change  Welp, I just had to share that story

 

 

 

 

god forbid, you couldve folded facing 2 all ins, AK is just a drawing hand, not nearly the nuts.

 

There is no way I was folding in that situation. Like I said, I had the chance to knock two players out and have a commanding chip lead with the other two players. I knew short stack didn't have much of a hand because he would go all-in with mediocre hands and try to get lucky. I put Jerry on either a A10/AJ or a mid pair. You're telling me, you would fold in that situation? Come on now.

 

Yeah i am telling you i would fold, im feeling pretty bad right now, didnt get much sleep and just generally feel shitty, so im not in any mood to type a paragraph of a response, ill just give you some bullets:

 

- you are right, the first guy couldve had anything, but the second guy going all in, if you hadnt said already what he had, would signify to me that he had something like qq jj 1010, maybe even kk, a hand youd want to protect and think you have a good chance to knock out the guy who already pushed

 

- why would you put your whole tournament life on a coinflip when you are at the final table? (again not knowing you have him dominated)

 

- unless you were in some sort of hurry, do you really need to take the chance to knock both players out, normally this is an ok strategy when two small-medium stacks push in but really, i dont think you need to take a chance like that when a guy who can cripple you that badly pushes in.

I think Jerry was right to call because no doubt first guy could have gone all-in with anything.  But, like spoon said, AK is a drawing hand and I would have thought Jerry to have a better hand than AQ.  I would not want to risk the majority of my stack on a coinflip when I am the chip leader and only 5 players remaining.  I would prefer to keep my chip lead and try to outplay the remaining 4 players.  I see this too often where multiple players call someone's all-in hoping to knock out more than one player.  Personally, I would want to have QQ-AA in that situation in order to call. 

Having said that, you basically put Jerry on the hand that he had and called.  He outdrew you and took the majority of your stack, that's poker.  That's why I prefer not to gamble when there is multiple all-ins in front of me, especially when there is only a few players left.

Of course you could have raised UTG and maybe pushed "Jerry" out. Maybe the short stack folds to and you pick up the blinds.......or maybe the short stack calls and Jerry then dumps his AQ. If not then it's a bad beat. I agree with most of those who would have folded the AK after two all-ins; in that situation AK doesn't look very good to me. I'd have just played it straight and raised when the action was on me and hopefully avoided the train wreck that happened to you. That said it could have played out exactly the same way....no telling, it's a card game after all.