Mucking Aces Pre-Flop

Here's a story I heard at the WSOP circuit event in Atlantic City a couple of weeks ago. One of the satellites was a $500 buy-in tournament with enough entries to send the top 17 players into the main event. They were down to 18 players, so one more had to go before the rest achieved their goal.

Of the 18, there were 6-7 extreme short stacks (six big blinds or less, so they'd have to make a move soon), and four really big stacks. Two of the big stacks were at the same table and played a hand where they both got it all in pre-flop!! Why? It didn't matter where you finished after making the 17, you were in and the tournament was over, so why not just muck every hand until that happened?

I don't know which was the bigger idiot of the two, the guy with aces or the guy with queens. For the record, the aces held up, but I don't care. I would have mucked those aces pre-flop — probably the only time I'd ever do that! There was no reason to risk being eliminated on the bubble there, even as an 80-20% favorite.

When I told Greg Raymer this story, he went one step further. Greg said if he'd been one of the big stacks, he wouldn't have even looked at his cards — just auto-mucked every hand, so he couldn't be tempted — and cruised into the main event.

Update: I got part of the story wrong. It turns out that they got it all-in on the turn, and then the aces were cracked when a third queen came on the river. But it still doesn't matter. Neither of these players should have been putting any chips at risk at that point!

Got a question/comment? E-mail me at dennisphillipspoker@gmail.com.

And check out the podcast of my weekly radio show, too!! This week, our guests included Pat Walsh (a fellow St. Louisan who made the final table at the LAPC Main Event) and Bernard Lee (author and radio host who finished 13th at the 2005 WSOP Main Event), plus Joe "The Poker Coach" McGowan with tips on when to show your cards at the end of a hand. You can find the show on my website, TheChipLeader.com right now.