Releasing Quality Hands in Tournaments

In the early stages of a no-limit hold'em tournament, it is often quite correct to fold certain hands that are considered strong starting hands. The reason is that the ratio of starting chips to the initial blinds makes stealing the blinds often dangerous and not worth the risk. This means that if you raise and get reraised, your opponent almost certainly has an extremely strong hand, too.

One example of a strong hand that should be folded in certain circumstances is A-K. Whether suited or not, A-K is still just a drawing hand and not a made hand. It is an underdog to any pair heads up. If you are the first player in the pot and bring it in for a standard raise of three to four times the size of the big blind, and a player then reraises half or more of your remaining stack, you have a problem. You could be up against A-A or K-K, in which case your hand is dominated.

Even if you are up against only a medium-sized pair, you are still an underdog. It is not worth the risk of going broke or getting crippled with A-K in this situation.

Another tough hand to fold is pocket kings, especially with a garbage flop. In a recent World Series of Poker event, my writing partner T.J. Cloutier had K-K. With the blinds at $25-$50, he made it $300 to go and was called by Jay Heimowitz, a top player who has six World Series of Poker bracelets to his credit. The 9-7-2 mixed-suit flop elicited a pot-sized bet from T.J. Jay immediately made a strong raise. T.J. thought about it briefly, showed his kings, and folded! T.J. was positive that Jay had a pocket pair and had flopped a set, probably nines. Always the gentleman, Jay turned over his nines as he raked in the pot.

Why would T.J. be so quick to fold in this situation? Because it was early in the tournament and he had not made a major commitment of his chips to the pot. He also knew that Jay was a very solid player who was capable of running a bluff, but wasn't likely to risk most of his chips on a bluff that early in the tournament. Another factor was the texture of the flop. Since there weren't any logical drawing hands with a rainbow flop of garbage cards, with what kind of hand could Jay be raising? If he had Q-Q, for example, Jay might have tested T.J. with a preflop reraise. T.J. was able to make a good read and get away from his hand before any more damage was done.

Pocket queens can be another dangerous hand. Here is a typical scenario: The blinds are $25-$50 and everyone has started with $5,000 in chips. A player you've never seen before makes it $200 to go from early position. Everyone folds to you. You are on the button and decide to reraise an additional $500, making it $700 to go with your pocket queens.

The blinds fold and the original raiser then moves all in. Now what? Since you have committed $700 of your chips to this pot, your choices are to fold or put the rest of your chips in and hope for the best. The only hands you are a favorite against are a smaller pair than queens and A-K. If you are up against A-K, you are only a small favorite. Most players would not move in this early with anything except aces or kings. I think this is a clear fold at this point in the tournament. You still have plenty of chips with which to work and are not crippled.

If pocket queens are potentially dangerous, jacks are even worse. They are usually too good a hand to fold, but must be played with caution to avoid getting trapped for most, or even all, of your chips. Here's a typical example of a dangerous situation: An early raiser makes it three times the size of the big blind. You are sitting two seats to the right of the button and decide to flat-call. Everybody behind you folds to the big blind, who reraises, making it three times the size of the original bet. The original raiser calls, and it is up to you. Clearly, you are in serious trouble.

Even if you have one of your opponents beat, you probably don't have both of them beat. The fact that the big blind reraised even though he will be out of position the rest of the hand indicates considerable strength. Your best-case scenario is that you are up against just overcards. You are a big underdog against a bigger pair, and a tiny favorite at most if your opponents have done all of this raising with just overcards to your pair, which is possible but not probable.

A-Q, especially suited, is another attractive holding, but it goes way down in value when you are faced with an early-position raise, or if you raise and someone puts in a big reraise behind you. If it's late in a tournament, sometimes you have to take a stand with A-Q, but that is almost never the case in the early stages of the tournament. It is nothing but a trouble hand in a raised pot. If you are the first player in the pot and bring it in for a raise, you feel a little more comfortable if you are not reraised. Even then, you must proceed with caution if you flop an ace or a queen, make a big bet, and somebody plays with you, because in the early stages of a tournament, players like to slow-play their bigger hands.

If you don't go broke with your big pairs, A-K, and A-Q, I hope to see you in the winner's circle.

Tom McEvoy is a representative of PokerStars.com, and the voice of Pro Play. You can find out more about Pro Play at https://www.mypokerbiz.com/.