The OMG Hand

    This is the world we live in
    And these are the hands we're given         Genesis

  So anyway, I'm playing in my regular Friday night live tournament. The starting stack is 25,000 and the blinds, at 300/600, are at the third level. So the tourney is still in the early stages. I'm sitting at a table with a number of new players and it's fair to say that it's a very 'sticky' table. In other words, most of the players are finding it hard to release their hands. There's a lot of calling and very little raising or folding. My stack size is above the average, somewhere around 28k.
   I'm sitting in the big blind when I'm dealt KK. As usual, nearly everyone limps in, just calling the big blind, from the player on my left around to the small blind. By this time I figure there's over 3000 in the pot. So the first thing I do is make sure the dealer doesn't start dealing the flop, as everyone is used to the BB just checking most of the time. Then I have a decision to make. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I'd decided to limit my pre-flop raising of big hands to around 5% of my stack and just take my chances on the flop. But this is not a big hand, this is a monster hand. And as even the greenest poker newbie knows, AA and KK play very well against one or two callers, but very poorly in multi-way pots.
   I have three options at this stage; push all-in, raise or call. Actually, I don't even consider going all-in. I'm not willing to risk all my chips on the second nuts. It's not at all unlikely that I'd get called by a medium to large ace, and if an ace hit the board, I'd be in big trouble. So it's raise or call. I'd be risking less by just calling, but I'd also be turning my Kings into Dogs with so many drawing hands in the pot. The trouble is, I know that if I raise, I'll have to commit a big chunk of my stack to the hand. I know that if I raise, say five times the blind, I'd be lucky to push more than a couple of players out of the pot. So I decide to raise big in the hopes of forcing everyone to fold. I throw 7000 into the middle, amounting to over 11 times the BB, and about a quarter of my stack.
   The 'under-the-gun' player folds and then I sit and watch as player after player calls my huge raise. By the time the Small Blind calls there are a total of five players in the pot besides myself, and my jaw has dropped enough to go CLUNK on the table. OMG! The pot is now a monster, amounting to an entire big stack on its own. I know these guys are likely to call light but this is ridiculous. I figure there must be at least one ace out there, maybe several. At this point the worst thing that could happen to me would be seeing an ace on the flop.
   So the flop comes A A x. OMG! This is the second worst thing I could see. On the face of it, it could be good news. With two aces on the board, the chances of another ace being out there are reduced. But I just can't get past the number of hands that are in the pot and find it hard to believe that none of the hands that called such a big bet have an ace in them. I can just imagine someone limping in with something like A 5 and then calling into a huge pot in the hopes of hitting on the flop. Then the Small Blind bets 10k. OMG! In hindsight, most players wouldn't do this if they just hit trips. In my experience, a player who hits trips on the flop will usually check. They don't want to scare anyone off. They'll wait for someone else to bet and then either call or raise. If no-one bets, then they can always bet the turn or (if they're very patient) the river. Betting this flop seems more like the action of someone with two pairs.
   However, I'm thinking that even if she doesn't have it, there are still four more players to act behind me, any one of which could have me beat. And if I call this bet, I'll have to keep calling to the river and will probably end up all-in with what could be the second best hand. So I fold my KK and then watch as every other player folds in turn. Then as the player to my right drags in a massive pot she obligingly turns over her hand to reveal..... QQ.   OMG!  Oh    My     God.
   It took me a while to regain my composure after this hand. I played a number of hands after this on auto-pilot, and kept playing the hand over and over in my mind. I nearly went on tilt. I was tempted to push all-in with my next halfway decent hand in one of those call-this-you-bastards moments. But after taking about 45 long deep breaths I finally calmed down and got back into the game. In the end I got knocked out in 11th place. Maybe if I'd called that bet I would have got into the money with my early big stack. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
   Looking back at this I don't see what else I could have done differently. I really don't see myself playing it any other way. The only realistic possibility would be the pre-flop all-in push. But this is an option that puts all my chips at risk for what could be a coin flip. Of course, the advantage of this is that you are forcing your opponents into making a decision. But then again I thought I was doing that by putting in a huge raise! If this ever happened again, what would I do? Probably the same thing. Then again, maybe I'll toss a coin (or a chip); all-in or raise. Let the chips fall where they may.