Could you ever imagine a situation where you would fld pocket Aces before the flop?
My initial reaction is no, it is clearly going to better than everything except another pair of pocket Aces. Bu then my friend proposed this hypothetical: You are in a tournament where the money goes up quickly the higher you finish. Currently the tournament is on the bubble or in the money. You are a middle stack and there are several low stacks left, say less than 5 times the big blind. A large stack makes a bet that would put you all in with pocket Aces. If you wait out some of the low stacks it could mean several thousands of dollars as opposed to going out at that point. If you go all-in, of course, you have a good chance of doubling up and increasing your chances of finishing even higher.
In Hypotetical World I play the Aces. In Real World it’s much harder to say of course.
ACtually, as I think about it. Of course I would play the Aces. I was just doing a mind game trying to figure out if I could devise a situation where I would fold pocket Aces.
If your goal is to win the tourney, you play em w/o question. If your goal is to finish comfortably in the money, its a toss-up - is that player loose, tight, on tilt, in position, out of position, etc?
To answer the OP: I can only recall once where I folded AA - earlier this year, first to act about 20 hands into an online sit and go, loose table. I doubled the big blind, had 2 callers and two re-raises by the time it got back to me. Judging by the play at the table, all-in from me (I covered 3 of the 4 ahead of me) would maybe knock out one player, so A A would be up against three hands, and I figured someone would outdraw me. I folded and a suited K Q won (the small blind had A A too) - K x x - K - Q. Online play!
I’d also fold if there were, say, only 5 people left in a tournament where the top winner gets $1,000,000, and everyone but you is all in, and the 5th player gets $100,000 and the 4th player gets $200,000. $200,000 has almost as much marginal utility to me as a million, and I’d be guaranteed to jump up in position simply by folding.
Card Player Magazine had a column about this in its last issue. It described a super-satellite – in which the top n finishers all get the same prize, a buy-in into a larger, more expensive tournament. Let’s say the top 28 would win the buy-in, and there are 29 players left. You’re a medium-sized stack, and you can see that because of the blinds at least five players will be forced to go all-in on the next hand. You pick up AA. The smart play is to fold that puppy as quickly as you can.