Message Board : Deep Stack decisions in a Satellite Elimination Event

I was recently playing in a major tourney satellite event.  The winner, and only the winner advanced to the next level.  The stacks started at 200BB. 

 In the 2nd hand of the event, I was faced with the following hand and decisions, which I think I made more than one mistake with.

UTG+1 limps.  2 folds, and a known, aggresive player raises 3 BB.  I am in the button, and find KK. 

The villian’s range is probably pretty wide, although certainly all pairs, big aces, maybe higher suited connectors.  I re-raise to 12 BB.  It folds back to the aggresive player, who then raises again to 30 BB.  Now his range is much smaller, with AA, AK, or QQ being the most likely.

I called.

The flop was raggy and uncoordinated.

7  5 2

He leads out for a pot bet…taking me immediately to the commitment threshold.  I make a mistake here, and simply call.

The turn is a 9, and he moves all in.

I mull it over for awhile…and fold.

I am pretty sure I played this hand badly, both pre and post flop.

Here are mistakes I think I made…

1.  Calling the flop bet, moving past the commitment threshold, yet folding the turn bet.  The nature of the game weighed heavily in my decision.  Had it been a cash game, or a regular tourney, I may have called, but since stacking off was essentially the death of my tourney hopes, I was more conservative.  I still have 100BB, and felt I could recover.

2.  But I think the larger problem may have been the lack of a plan after my initial raise.  I raised the KK preflop, for value, and because I did not want to play it in a 3-4 handed pot.  But I don’t think I responded well to the 30BB re-raise.  I did not have a good plan after that point, and fearing pocket AA I played it weak-tight, and just called off half my stack the rest of the way.

I would appreciate any thoughts on how I could have better choices here.

Wasn’t looking for this, but stumbled onto it over at 2+2:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5386340&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1 

A couple of very successful (JMan, durr) high stakes online players share opinions on how to play AA OOP in a live 10-20 game.  Some interesting opinions from some of the better players. 

Todd said:

Wasn’t looking for this, but stumbled onto it over at 2+2:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5386340&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1 

A couple of very successful (JMan, durr) high stakes online players share opinions on how to play AA OOP in a live 10-20 game.  Some interesting opinions from some of the better players. 

Very interesting.