Need advise on all-in move in detailed context.
This is my first post, as this is the first time that I would like to discuss a recently played hand with more experienced players than myself.
I started playing poker online 3 weeks ago, participating in NL tournaments.
The hand I would like to discuss took place at a Hold'em NL re-buy tournament shortly after the add-on period was over. I haven't been doing particularly well in the tournament and was slightly behind the average stack at this point. I had $3440 at a 9 player table, while the average stack in the tournament was about $4500. The blinds were at $60/$120 with no antes, so I wasn't exactly under extreme pressure either. I was in first position and picked up:
Ace King unsuited.
I decided it would be a reasonable play to raise here, as I must win chips at some point to start catching up to the other players. I raised 3 times the big blind, $360. The player in second position folded and the player in third position($5xxx) called, I did not have much information about this player as I was seated at this table just 2 hands ago. The player in fourth position($7500) however decided to put in a strong raise of about $1140. I had actually seen this player participate in the last 2 hands of this table and he seemed to make some weird plays.
In the first hand he played, I saw him in a heads-up situation where he bet $200 into an opponent on a flop of something like 5d 8h As, giving him 5-1 pot odds. As his opponent called he went on to increase his bet to $1200 with a turn card as blank as it gets. This play seemed rather strange to me. In the second hand I saw he went all-in pre-flop.
Everyone else folded around to me. I started to think that he might be attempting a squeeze play with a rather weak holding, having displayed strange, aggressive tendencies. If I were to just call at this point, I end up with a positional disadvantage on the flop and I would still have to worry about the caller in third position. Instead I thought that it might be smarter to isolate the re-raiser by going all-in, putting in about another $2000 and discourage action by the player in third position.
The player in third position indeed folded and the player in fourth position called me and turned over Aces. The flop came: Jack diamond King hearts Six spades
So I was just about dead in this situation, but the trouble is that I find it hard to come up with a better play considering the flop. If i had just called pre-flop and had seen this flop, I might aswell have went all-in to make a reasonably sized bet. Since top pair with top kicker tends to be very good. It's almost like I was destined to lose money on that hand, which frustrates me a lot. I have literally absorbed all the information of pro-players I could find over the past 3 weeks since i started playing poker and almost all of them say that the better poker player will win the most NL Hold'em tournaments.
So I would like to know what you think about all this, my current assessment is that I would have had to play more cautiously until I gained more information on the players at the table and gotten out of this hand when he tippled my raise. Moreover that the better poker player does not necessarily win the most tournaments, even though the pros claim that this is the case. If this assessment is indeed true, poker has become less viable an option to continue spending my free time with, as I prefer skill to predominate over luck.
Bring it on.
