Sticky Pre-flop Situation. Trust The Read?

[cheetaking 0]

I encountered this hand last Friday in a $20 NLHE tournament.This was the first time that I was making a legitimate effort to stop and study player actions before making my decisions, so I was still kind of unsure about a lot of my reads, but I was seeing them for sure. This is what made this one confusing for me.THE TOURNAMENT:$20 NL Hold'em. 3000 starting chips, blinds start at 25/50, double every 20 minutes.Level III... blinds 100/200.8 players remaining at table, 43 players remaining in tournament. Payout = top 7.PLAYER INFO:Hero:Has only played one hand to showdown... 7/4, which flopped the nut straight and then slow-played it until the river and busted someone about 10 hands ago.Villain:Has raised once pre-flop, then lost at showdown with A/K. Has won 2 pots without showdown. What I have noticed about this player is that he exhibits very tight behavior, is quite smart about choosing his moments to strike, and also has shown quite an obvious tell... the traditional "looks away when he has a hand, only stares at you when bluffing."CHIP STACKS:SB: 50 (he just lost a huge all-in, and is all-in no matter what this hand.)Hero: 3550 (UTG+4)Villain: 2575 (Cutoff position)THE HAND:(A Q )ACTION:SB posts small blind (50) and is all-inBB posts big blind (200)UTG foldsUTG+1 raises (600 total)3 players foldNow, UTG +1 was an aggressive, but completely amateur, player who was giving off tells as clear as if there was a sign on his head, so I decided to flat call and try to win some more chips off of him by outplaying him after the flop.Hero calls (600)Villain re-raises to 2575, and is all-in.Button foldsSB foldsUTG+1 foldsHero ?Main Pot: 250 (2 players)Side Pot: 3175 (1 player)Call Price: 1975Total Odds: 1.7:1Normally this would be an automatic call for me, because I had a gigantic suited ace, the Villain could either be risking it with a small pair, and seems smart enough to know how to do a squeeze play, both of which are great for me. Plus I have the bigger stack, and the blinds are getting high fast, so risk is usually a good idea. But not this time. And because I was finally paying attention, I noticed some things that made this go from an automatic call to a very questionable one.I stared Villain straight in the eyes. He held the focus for a fraction of a second, and then looked away as if he was uninterested. This meant strength.Then, I asked him a question. "Do you have a monster, or are you just trying to pull a squeeze play on me?" He sould have kept his mouth shut, but he didn't. He replied very comfortably "Hey, I just threw my chips in and hoped for the best." From past experience, any sort of strange reply like that means a strong hand, while either no reply or something threatening like "Why don't you call and find out?" means a bluff. So even though the odds would usually be in my favor, I now had two tells that were pointing to him having quite a good hand.So, what do you all think? Should I trust the slightly favorable odds and take the risk, or should I trust my reads and get out of the way? Since the SB is all-in, I get to find out whether I was right or not either way, so there is no information incentive to call. So, your thoughts? Help me out here.

[Footballguru 0]

1.7-1 is not that good of odds. trust your read, IMO. must likely hand is obv AK...at best your prob racing.

[copernicus 0]

You dont have enough showdowns for a credible read on "Staring" vs "looking away", but the verbal tell is pretty strong. I would probably fold also.

[YBravo 0]

You dont have enough showdowns for a credible read on "Staring" vs "looking away"

Agreed.Another factor in folding is that this is a live tourney.If this were an online tourney, I would probably call considering the blind levels.

[ChrisRichey 1]

I think we can put him on TT+/AQs+, which makes us about a 60/40 dog. With this structure, our M is going to drop to 5 in 20 mins or less (which is what 5-6 hands live?). I call with these odds.

[cheetaking 0]

Just to post the results, if anyone really cares...I trusted the read and folded. Villain turned his cards up and revealed pocket Kings. When an ace failed to hit, I patted myself on the back for making a good fold. However, about 25 hands later, I still hadn't seen another decent hand. I got forced to take a risk by pushing all-in preflop with an unsuited Q/J and an M of about 5, and got caught and knocked out, so I was wondering if I should have taken the risk when I had the chance. Anyway, thanks for the help everyone. Bad luck, I suppose... or maybe just a bad tournament structure...

[ChrisRichey 1]

or maybe just a bad tournament structure...

It's a horrible structure.