pocket pairs v. overcards

The classic battle: when you hold a pocket pair and your opponent holds overcards.

In the middle stages of a SNG, I was getting short-stacked when I was dealt 77. The blinds were 25/50, and I had just over 500 chips.

An early position player raised to 150 and the next player raised to 300. I'd seen both these players in just enough hands to have a read on their play, and felt strongly that the first raiser held an ace and that the second raiser held a bigger ace and was trying to isolate. If my read was right and they each held an ace, my chances of winning the hand and tripling my stack improved. I opted to raise all-in. My odds of winning would improve if one of them folded, and felt good about my read.

The first player re-raised all-in (he had me covered by a few hundred chips) and the next called all-in. The hands were turned over and I liked my chances after seeing the first player's AT and the second player's AQ.

A queen on the flop made me the dog, but a K on the turn followed by a jack on the river made AT the winner. The worst hand won. I was happy with my read, but probably didn't need to gamble in this spot with 77. Not counting straights and flushes (both my opponents were unsuited), that they had duplicate cards increased my chances of tripling up in this spot -- especially if I could have gotten heads-up. Oh well.