Would you ever fold a full house? Tough spot in a $110 tournament

Natiq 90 · Mar 16, 2026

Let me give you some context first — I didn't actually pay $110 for this tournament. I satellited in through a $1.10 → $11 → $110 chain, so my real investment was just $1.10. Does that change how you approach risk? Maybe. But let's talk about the hand itself.
Early stage, deep stacks. I'm on middle position with around 90BB, villain is UTG with 75BB.
UTG limps. I raise to 3.8BB with AK. Button calls, UTG calls.
Flop: A K 8
Top two pair. UTG checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button folds, UTG calls.
Turn: K
Full house, Kings and Aces. UTG checks, I bet 1/3 pot — trying to keep him in. UTG moves all-in.
The only hand that beats me here is pocket Aces. But UTG limped preflop. In my experience, most players raise AA from UTG, especially at this stage. I put him on AQ or KQ and made the call.
He showed AA. Flopped top set, turned higher full house over my full house. I lost almost my entire stack.
My question to you all: would you ever find a fold here?

frank174 · Mar 16, 2026

Natiq 90 said:
Let me give you some context first — I didn't actually pay $110 for this tournament. I satellited in through a $1.10 → $11 → $110 chain, so my real investment was just $1.10. Does that change how you approach risk? Maybe. But let's talk about the hand itself.
Early stage, deep stacks. I'm on middle position with around 90BB, villain is UTG with 75BB.
UTG limps. I raise to 3.8BB with AK. Button calls, UTG calls.
Flop: A K 8
Top two pair. UTG checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button folds, UTG calls.
Turn: K
Full house, Kings and Aces. UTG checks, I bet 1/3 pot — trying to keep him in. UTG moves all-in.q
The only hand that beats me here is pocket Aces. But UTG limped preflop. In my experience, most players raise AA from UTG, especially at this stage. I put him on AQ or KQ and made the call.
He showed AA. Flopped top set, turned higher full house over my full house. I lost almost my entire stack.
My question to you all: would you ever find a fold here?

Not me,would not put him on that hand at all,would have had him on kq,kj, would have me shaking my head but in the end just cant see me folding

fundiver199 · Mar 17, 2026

Since this hand history is hand written and not exported from an online poker site, I almost feel like saying "cool story bro". But lets pretend, this actually happened, and look at the hand.

Preflop
Obviously fine to isolate a limper, and I like your sizing.

Flop
Very good flop obviously, and the pot must be around 14BB. Obviously we should bet for value here, but blocking both top pair and second pair I kind of like a smaller sizing than 2/3 pot. We are betting this flop a lot, and most of our range like to bet small. But this is kind of nit-picking, since obviously a big bet is also very profitable with a hand as strong as top two.

Turn
Obviously a good turn as well, and pot must now be around 32BB or so. The opponent has around 60BB left in his stack, so if you bet 1/3 pot, and he call, pot will be around 54BB, and he will have 49BB left for the river, which mean, you can put him all-in with less than a pot sized jam. I think, this is fine, since it increase the chance of getting draws to continue, but you could also go a bit larger.

Facing the jam and your question, this is where I fell like saying "cool story bro". Are you really seriously asking, if anyone fold here, or is this basically a bad beat story, that should have been posted in "bad beats and vents"? Of course we dont fold the second nuts in a situation, where we only lose to one specific combo, and the opponent can be jamming plenty of worse hands for value. Its called cooler for a reason.

Chunhong319 · Mar 17, 2026

In most situations, folding a full house would be extremely rare. But in very specific spots — like facing huge aggression from a very tight player on a scary board — I think it can be possible. It really depends on the action and reads.

Natiq 90 · Mar 18, 2026

fundiver199 said:
Since this hand history is hand written and not exported from an online poker site, I almost feel like saying "cool story bro". But lets pretend, this actually happened, and look at the hand.

Preflop
Obviously fine to isolate a limper, and I like your sizing.

Flop
Very good flop obviously, and the pot must be around 14BB. Obviously we should bet for value here, but blocking both top pair and second pair I kind of like a smaller sizing than 2/3 pot. We are betting this flop a lot, and most of our range like to bet small. But this is kind of nit-picking, since obviously a big bet is also very profitable with a hand as strong as top two.

Turn
Obviously a good turn as well, and pot must now be around 32BB or so. The opponent has around 60BB left in his stack, so if you bet 1/3 pot, and he call, pot will be around 54BB, and he will have 49BB left for the river, which mean, you can put him all-in with less than a pot sized jam. I think, this is fine, since it increase the chance of getting draws to continue, but you could also go a bit larger.

Facing the jam and your question, this is where I fell like saying "cool story bro". Are you really seriously asking, if anyone fold here, or is this basically a bad beat story, that should have been posted in "bad beats and vents"? Of course we dont fold the second nuts in a situation, where we only lose to one specific combo, and the opponent can be jamming plenty of worse hands for value. Its called cooler for a reason.

Fair point about the hand history format — I honestly don't know how to export hands from the site, so I typed it out manually. I'll figure that out for future posts. No deception intended.
As for the fold question — I appreciate the detailed breakdown, and you're right that mathematically folding is hard to justify there. But here's the thing: in that moment, facing the shove, I genuinely had a feeling something was wrong. Not a read, not a calculation — just a gut feeling that I might be beat.
But I couldn't bring myself to fold a full house. I don't think many players could in that spot, and I'm not sure it would even be the right play given how often he gets there with worse hands.
That's exactly why I posted it here. Not to show off a bad beat, but because that moment — where your gut says one thing and your cards say another — felt worth discussing. Has anyone else been in a spot where they felt they were beat but couldn't pull the trigger on the fold?
That's the real question I was asking.

fundiver199 · Mar 19, 2026

Fair enough. Most of the time "your gut" is just another word for fear. Or what some call "monsters under the bed syndrom". And while there was a monster this time, I firmly believe, that if you listen to such emotions and try to make huge folds, you will fold the best hand more often than not. Another way to look at it: If the opponent had continued to slowplay, would you not have jammed the river for value? Of course you would, so it just is, what it is. And while it sucks, that a big cooler happen, when we are playing above our normal buyin-level, there is still nothing, we can do to avoid it.

Natiq 90 · Mar 20, 2026

fundiver199 said:
Fair enough. Most of the time "your gut" is just another word for fear. Or what some call "monsters under the bed syndrom". And while there was a monster this time, I firmly believe, that if you listen to such emotions and try to make huge folds, you will fold the best hand more often than not. Another way to look at it: If the opponent had continued to slowplay, would you not have jammed the river for value? Of course you would, so it just is, what it is. And while it sucks, that a big cooler happen, when we are playing above our normal buyin-level, there is still nothing, we can do to avoid it.

You're absolutely right, and honestly that's what makes poker so fascinating and so painful at the same time.
Yes, I would have jammed the river for value without a second thought. So the call was correct. It just happened to be that 1% moment.
And that Fischman hand you mentioned — that's exactly what I was thinking about when I talked about gut feelings. Folding Aces preflop is the kind of move that looks like pure genius once and looks like the biggest mistake of your life the other 99 times. Most players who attempt that fold are wrong. Fischman happened to be right that day.
But here's the thing — I don't think even Fischman would tell you to make that fold as a standard play. It was a specific read, in a specific moment, against a specific opponent at a specific stage of a major tournament. The stars aligned.
For the rest of us mortals, folding a full house or Aces in those spots is just fancy losing. We'd be heroes once and broke ten times over.
I guess that 1% is what keeps us all thinking, debating and posting hands here at 2am instead of sleeping. 😄

MAFNL16061986 · Mar 20, 2026

i will ony fold a full house ifbthe chance of quads is verry high possible otherwise all in

Omar.Imrane · Mar 20, 2026

Interesting hand, and honestly I don’t think your satellite path ($1.10 → $110) should change the decision here — once you’re in, you should play it like any other tournament.
As for the hand, folding here is extremely hard, almost impossible in practice. You have top two on the flop and then improve to a full house on the turn — that’s a dream spot most of the time.
Yes, the only real hand beating you is AA, and theoretically UTG limp with AA is possible, especially from tricky or passive players. But it’s not common enough to justify folding a full house here, especially in the early stages with deep stacks.
The sizing (1/3 pot) could induce exactly this kind of shove from worse hands like AK, KQ, or even some weird bluffs. So your call is standard in my opinion.
In short: this is just a cooler. If you start folding hands like this, you’ll be overfolding massively in the long run.

fundiver199 · Mar 21, 2026

Natiq 90 said:
And that Fischman hand you mentioned — that's exactly what I was thinking about when I talked about gut feelings. Folding Aces preflop is the kind of move that looks like pure genius once and looks like the biggest mistake of your life the other 99 times. Most players who attempt that fold are wrong. Fischman happened to be right that day.

David Fishman did not fold AA preflop on the "Big Game" TV poker show due to some kind of read. He had decided to lock up his win and not play any more hands, because he was up around $130k, which to him was a lot of money, and he did not want to risk losing it again. In a normal cash game he could just have left and cashed out, but in the "Big Game" the loose cannon was not allowed to leave, until all 150 hands had been played. When Fishman was dealt AA, he considered to play the hand but decided to stick to the decision, he had already made.

Uncloggie · Mar 22, 2026

Slow hand claps

eetenor · Mar 22, 2026

Natiq 90 said:
Let me give you some context first — I didn't actually pay $110 for this tournament. I satellited in through a $1.10 → $11 → $110 chain, so my real investment was just $1.10. Does that change how you approach risk? Maybe. But let's talk about the hand itself.
Early stage, deep stacks. I'm on middle position with around 90BB, villain is UTG with 75BB.
UTG limps. I raise to 3.8BB with AK. Button calls, UTG calls.
Flop: A K 8
Top two pair. UTG checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button folds, UTG calls.
Turn: K
Full house, Kings and Aces. UTG checks, I bet 1/3 pot — trying to keep him in. UTG moves all-in.
The only hand that beats me here is pocket Aces. But UTG limped preflop. In my experience, most players raise AA from UTG, especially at this stage. I put him on AQ or KQ and made the call.
He showed AA. Flopped top set, turned higher full house over my full house. I lost almost my entire stack.
My question to you all: would you ever find a fold here?

This hand is incredibly important for your growth going forward. We do not want to focus our attention on hands like this. This is a cooler nothing more and without a very strong read- near impossible read without history-- we cannot fault ourselves for calling.

Which means spending mental and emotional capitol on this hand is not good for our growth. It delays us getting better in spots where there were more clear decisions to make and we failed to recognize those divergent decisons.
A stronger study for you would be to look at all the decisions you made after the bad beat to see if the bad beat put you off your game. Or if there was a spot you could have taken an action you did not take.

I myself often take bad beats and then play too tight with my short stack. Looking at that possibility is far better for your growth.

I know it is frustrating to satty in then take this kind of cooler but as many of the posters have said this is just one of those terrible spots in poker.

❤️

ratbat615 · Mar 22, 2026

limping with AA utg is a play the solver does. this is a cooler.

eetenor · Mar 22, 2026

ratbat615 said:
limping with AA utg is a play the solver does. this is a cooler.

I have never seen a solve like that. What were the inputs used to limp UTG then flat in the middle at 75bb 3 way?

Thanks

fundiver199 · Mar 23, 2026

Omar.Imrane said:
Interesting hand, and honestly I don’t think your satellite path ($1.10 → $110) should change the decision here — once you’re in, you should play it like any other tournament.

Absolutely. The only slightly valuable information here is, that there might also be other players, who are in for just $1,1, which might slightly affect, what we think, and UTG limp then just call range could look like. And my interpretation is, that without info this can be lots of stuff, since bad players love to limp and then call from any seat.

Omar.Imrane said:
The sizing (1/3 pot) could induce exactly this kind of shove from worse hands like AK, KQ, or even some weird bluffs.

AK is a chop, but other than this you are right. The point here is, that plenty or worse hands can be jamming for value. 88 is a worse full house. Also K8, and depending on the suits maybe there is 1 combo of K8s, which would be a typical limp then call hand preflop for a bad player. And yeah even trips like KQ, KJ etc.

A really simple rule in poker is, that if you beat some of your opponents value range, you have to call. And here we are even way ahead of the realistic value range. We lose to AA (1), but we beat K8s (0-1), 88 (3), KQ (4) and KJ (4), and we chop with AK (2). So even if the opponent is never bluffing, we have the best hand at least 90% of the time.

Mario7 · Mar 23, 2026

Noone should fold here. If anyone decided to fold it would be a bad fold. Crazy things happen in poker from time to time, but longterm, such fold would be burning money.

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Would you ever fold a full house? Tough spot in a $110 tournament

Natiq 90

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frank174

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fundiver199

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Chunhong319

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Natiq 90

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fundiver199

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Natiq 90

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MAFNL16061986

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Omar.Imrane

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fundiver199

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Uncloggie

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eetenor

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ratbat615

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eetenor

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fundiver199

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