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Alright, this has NEVER happened to me before. In fact, not even close. I always tend to last quite awhile in tournaments even if I don’t cash. Today, for the first time ever, I busted out after the first freakin’ hand in a tournament. I immediately felt like a gigantic idiot.
I was dealt KK in UTG plus 2. The UTG plus 1 player decided to raise it to 250 (blinds were 50/100). I reraised to 600. It folded around to the small blind who called. BB folded, UTG folded, and the original raiser called, so we are 3 ways to the flop. The flop was 10spades, 7clubs, 3spades. Seemed to be a pretty good flop for my kings. It went check, check to me, and I put out a bet of 1,000 to get value from hands like a flush draw or A/10, Q/10, etc. The small blind folded, and the UTG+1 immediately check raised all in. I thought about it for a good minute, and felt he probably had A/K or K/Q of spades. I mean yeah, he could’ve hit a set, but I just figured the odds were pretty low. So I did make the call, thinking I would be somewhat at risk, but of course he turns over 10’s for a set of tens. (!) Unbelievable bad luck. Of course I did not make my set on the turn or river.
I’ve been beating myself up all day about this call. Was I nuts to make this call?? Just given the fact that it was the first hand and I didn’t want to go home right away, maybe I should’ve laid it down. Clearly, hindsight is 20/20. But strictly in terms of odds, what would you guys have done?? Was my call stupid or the correct one? I’m really just not certain about this one. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so uncertain about a hand.
Just a cooler situation. I had a similar spot with KK and my opponent flopped a set, in a cash game.
Preflop looked pretty standard for a tournament.
The flop c/shove is very strong, but he could’ve done this with over-pairs as well: JJ, QQ, AA. When I included the range you think villain would do this with, your equity does not change much compared to preflop. In the early stages of tournaments I tend to see people play pretty loose, almost like maniacs, then turn into nits when they cant rebuy anymore. So going with it with this premium, this early in the tournament is not a bad idea.
As played, being dealt a premium the first hand and busting is just a cooler. Don’t beat yourself up.
Thanks for the reply. Good to get another perspective on this. I’ve been questioning my poker ability ever since this happened, haha! I mean I know someone always has to be knocked out first, but not only was I knocked out first, on the first hand as well. I guess it’s shocking also because it’s the first time for me. It actually was not a re-buy tournament, and was a bounty tournament as well. So given that, I had also thought that maybe he using those factors to try and get me to lay down my cards. Well, I’ll just have to chalk it up to a cooler situation as you mentioned. If this does happen again though, I’ll probably just lay it down if for no other reason than I don’t really want to take the risk of going home on the first hand! 🙂
You do have better hands there sometimes (AA or you’ll be the one with TT once in a blue moon), but even if you’re only 3-betting UTG+2 with TT+/AK/AQs (which should be about it from that spot), then you’re still close enough to the top of your range to call there. Folding is probably too tight long term.
As others have said, don’t beat yourself up to bad. Losing with a good hand to a better hand just happens sometimes.
That being said, the type of tournament may influence my decision too. If it is the daily $50 buy in at the local casino, or even weekly $200 deep stack, I would call every time. Knowing I can go sit at the cash table and win back my buy in. In these type of events the rounds are shorter, the payouts are nice but not a major payday. The starting stack if often around 30-50 BB so accumulating chips early is a key part of running deep. Some of our local daily tournaments have starting stack of 3000 so at this point you would only have 15 BB if you folded.
If it is a bigger event that has a large buy in and 5 figure payouts I would consider folding. In these events the blinds are longer and the price money can be some serious money. The starting stacks are usually deep so you can recover from giving up the 1600 and survive to earn it back.
Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah this wasn’t a major tournament or anything, just a $120 buy-in. In fact, if it was a major tournament ($500+ buy in) I almost certainly would have folded, although I’ve never played one at that level, haha. When rents in my area are $4.5k+ per month, not much leftover for poker! Anyhow, although we know I lost, glad to hear my call wasn’t such a shitty move after all.
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