Confessions of a two face monster

To all of my loyal readers, those of you who have stumbled upon my blog and in particular bayne_s and Kajagugu, I have a confession to make to all of you. I have deviated from the path of righteousness and travelled down the road unsavory.

I played AQ. And I won.

I know how I have travelled these here intertubes declaring this hand as evil. Going so far as to call it the hand of the devil. I still believe this. This is the hand should never be played. But alas, I did play it.

Lets examine the reasons why I might have chosen to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

FullTiltPoker Game #5337976538: The Mookie (40010845), Table 4 - 300/600 Ante 75 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:26:02 ET - 2008/02/21
Seat 1: emptyman (9,970)
Seat 2: ZowieZ (30,774)
Seat 4: surflexus (31,169)
Seat 5: Mean_G (5,617)
Seat 7: NewinNov (11,081)
Seat 9: OhCaptain (25,389)

We are at the final table and into the money. As you can see, I'm 3rd in chips and EmptyMan has an M around 10. The table walks to us in the blinds.

OhCaptain raises to 2,250 <--I'm gonna raise here. I have a large stack. Blind vs blind, AQ is theoretically a favorite to two random cards.
emptyman raises to 9,895, and is all in <-- This is not unexpected. In a way, I assuming he's gonna either fold or push. His range of hands to push with falls within expected parameters to call with AQ
OhCaptain calls 7,645 <--Is there anyone here that would not do this very same thing? I know, the hand of the devil, but you see, I rarely go to church any ways. Let's face it, I'm an agnostic.

Now, Card Player's Hold'em Odds Calculator says QQ should win this hand 68.97% of the time with a 1.33% chance of a chop. AQ is a pretty good dog here. There is 2700 in the pot after my raise. After the all-in, there is 12195 in the pot and I need 7195 to call. That's roughly 3:2 pot odds. But what range of hands would a short stack push with in this situation. Any pocket pair, almost any ace or king. The vast majority of these hands, I'm way ahead. Its only the other bigger hands I'm behind. Heck, even JJ is giving me the right price. I just don't see how I could fold this hand...even with the devil pulling the strings.

*** FLOP *** [Ad Kd Js] <--Its a Mookie Miracle! But wait! I need to dodge a 10 for a split.
*** TURN *** [Ad Kd Js] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [Ad Kd Js 5h] [2h]
emptyman shows a pair of Queens
OhCaptain shows a pair of Aces
OhCaptain wins the pot (20,240) with a pair of Aces

This is not proof to me that this hand is worth playing. I did it here because frankly, I loosen my standards way up in this situation. I'm gambling. But faced with this same situation, who out there would fold this hand? I figure the axiom remains, if you NEED to win a hand, never play AQ...it's certain doom. If you don't need to win the hand, glory, glory hallelujah, we've found the promise land.


Did I play this hand that I speak so poorly of. Yes, I confess that. Will I do it again? Yes I will. I hate this hand with a passion, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just throw caution to the wind and say screw it. I want to win the friggin Mookie!