No Reason to Slowplay Donks

I can't find the exact HH, but I remember observing this hand in the early stages of a 90-player KO tourney...there's maybe a limp or two up front, a late position raise, which is called by one of the limpers. The flop is A-high, it goes check-check on the flop and turn, the limper leads for 1/2 pot or something on the river and gets called by the pre-flop raiser. The limper shows AA and the raiser shows KK. What a MONSTERPOTTEN of value missed by AA by not raising preflop. He could have gotten a whole stack, instead he got 9-10 bbs.

I guess some players feel that their raises are so transparent that they won't get paid off. But let me tell you, I play tight enough early in tourneys that any non-brain-dead opponent wouldn't be putting in their whole stack with, say, middle pair. But fortunately, early in MTTs, there are plenty of brain-dead opponents for the taking. These guys will probably not be around long and you don't want to lose what might be your only chance at getting all their chips. Here are a couple of hand histories where my hand was completely obvious, yet I still got paid off:

Seat 3: MP (3,150)
Seat 5: Button (2,408)
Seat 6: bruechips (SB) (2,970)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [Kh Ks]
MP raises to 95
Button raises to 345
bruechips raises to 875 (You might think that this raise looks ridiculously strong and I couldn't possibly get action from less)
BB calls (I promise I'm not doctoring this HH)
MP folds
Button calls 530

*** FLOP *** [2s Qs 9h]
bruechips bets 2,095, and is all in (Don't worry about QQ or check to induce a bluff from AK, just shove for value)
BB folds
Button calls 1,533, and is all in
bruechips shows [Kh Ks] (What were you expecting?)
Button shows [9s Ac] (Apparently something else)

Seat 1: bruechips (UTG) (2,985)
Seat 6: CO (2,860)
Seat 9: BB (3,190)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to bruechips [Ah As]
bruechips raises to 120
Button raises to 280
BB calls 240
bruechips raises to 1,000 (UTG 4-bet into two players usually indicates strength)
CO raises to 2,860, and is all in
BB folds
bruechips calls 1,860
CO shows [9h 9s] (This donk missed that memo)

I have literally dozens of similar hand histories. The moral is, when playing vs. donks, playing tight does not mean you won't get action from your big hands. And early in tourneys, there are a lot of donks at the table.

-BRUECHIPS