Local tournament tonight. 25 runners @ £20. 3 prizes - £250, £150, £100.
6 left, me and two others on about 35k and 3 others on 15-25k. I"m a slight chip leader over the other two big stacks.
Before the final table started another player told me about one guy who was very drunk and had been going all-in repeatedly. He had been waiting for a big hand to take him on but it never came. On the final table he continued doing this, shoving pre-flop about every second hand and then showing 3 6, Q 2, 8 5, etc, so everyone was waiting for a big hand to catch him. I had folded my previous BB to his shove and he shoved again on my next BB, everyone else folded and I found I had AQo.
I"m definitely miles ahead of his range. This could be the time he actually does have a monster but that is pretty unlikely. He is one of the other big stacks so if I take him out I"m a huge favourite to win the whole thing, but if I lose I"m as good as out.
I"m pretty confident playing against this table - the 3rd big stack is another maniac, though not so much since we joined tables with maniac 1. The two shortest are about 70 years old and are looking for reasons to fold everything that isn"t two pictures that look like each other. I"ve been cutoff to their SB & BB all night and have been helping myself to their blinds. Don"t know much about the last guy as he hasn"t done much, but seems pretty average/tight. I wouldn"t normally consider calling an all-in from a big stack with AQ, but I am probably a big favourite to win the hand. On the other hand, I could fold and delay the confrontation until we play down to the seemingly inevitable three-way face-off between maniac 1, maniac 2 and myself.
I can"t decide whether the right option was to risk my tournament on a call (that I would probably win) or to fold and wait for a better opportunity (or, at least, a less risky one). At the time, I kept thinking that if I won"t call him with AQ, what hand am I waiting for?
