Q♣Q♦ on the Button, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament where blinds are 400/800 a Middle Position Player min-raises to 1,600. It folds around to you on the Button with Q♣Q♦. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: In a Tournament at 400/800 blinds with no ante we are dealt pocket queens on the Button. It is folds to the player in MP1 who makes a minimum raise to 1,600. It then folds to us with a decision to make.
Our opponent raising in middle position likely has a range that looks something like: 22+,ATs+,KTs+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+,QJo,JTo
Versus that range we are a 71.1% favorite. Some players would be tempted to slowplay here, and in position that is a viable option. There are a few other factors we need to review before making our decision.
Continued below...
One factor is that an ace or a king is going to flop around 41% of the time which will make it tough for us to play this shallow and potentially kill our action versus worse hands. Another factor is that the chips in the middle right now (2800) represent just under a 20% increase to our stack, so picking up the pot now is still a huge win. Our opponent could also potentially still call us with much worse hands.
Given our equity advantage in this spot, the stack depth, and how many chips are already in the middle; this is a spot where while slow playing may be profitable, just moving all-in now is likely more profitable and lower variance.
Moving all-in is the best play.
What would you do here?
Share your answer in the comments below!
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