AK in Small Blind

dvdfan

Full Tilt Poker $20 stt
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t25/t50
6 players

Stack sizes:
UTG: t1380
UTG+1: t1575
CO: t1690
Button: t2785
dvdfan: t2790
BB: t3280

Pre-flop: (6 players) dvdfan is SB with Ac Ks
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls t50 (pot was t75), 2 folds, dvdfan raises to t150, BB raises to t500, dvdfan???

Villain has been very tight up to now but i havent seen a hand shown down.

What range do you put villain on and whats my next move, fold or all in?

Dearg81

I would fold for 2 reasons
1 - Its early in the tournament and you dont need to commit with a marginal hand( AK is marginal in this case given the strong reraise)
2 - Youre a better player than them and can outplay them in the long run rather than rely on a 50/50 race(jj QQ), u may even be a big underdog if he has AA or KK.

phantom_lord

raise more pf. I dunno, shove?

Captain Tom

your p/f raises always seem to be too small.

Macspower

I'm sure that there are those that will tell you about tourney life and all that but I'm pushing here. If i win I'm in with a great chance to take it down. I would imagine he has a pp or some sort and your racing. you'd be unlucky to find AA or KK here... he could have a worse A than you as well but it's unlikely

Mr.Plough

some people may shove if youve a loose table image but its a fold for me.

can't see him doing this with AJ or AQ. at best your 50/50 to qq jj, maybe even 1010


no need to race this early on when youve ~75 bigblinds.

Mr.Plough

Macspower wrote:

I'm sure that there are those that will tell you about tourney life and all that but I'm pushing here. If i win I'm in with a great chance to take it down. I would imagine he has a pp or some sort and your racing.

why would you want to race? i hate getting my stack in at 50/50 when im not being forced to.

thats all well and good if your post flop play sucks and you want to rely on winning races to win tournys

as whoever said you can outplay most of them postflop so no need to play ugly poker now


oh and coupled with the fact he has aa or kk alot

Iago

Dearg81 wrote:

I would fold for 2 reasons
1 - Its early in the tournament and you dont need to commit with a marginal hand( AK is marginal in this case given the strong reraise)

no it's not, see below

Dearg81 wrote:

2 - Youre a better player than them and can outplay them in the long run rather than rely on a 50/50 race(jj QQ), u may even be a big underdog if he has AA or KK.

this isn't nessecerily (can never spell that word) true.


Ok so villians range could include (imo obviously)

Ak-ATs/AK-AQo/AA-99/maybe (unlikely) KQs

You've raised from the SB which could well be seen as a steal attempt given it's 6-max and everyone's folded except 1 limper. If it was a steal attempt then you didn't bet enough, but generally speaking (see my point about you being a better player above) a lot of players at this level don't get past the whole "my hand is pretty" stage of thinking.

I don't think I ever even consider folding here, you've to call 350 to win 1,050. (700 without your 350) you could just call and see a flop. It's not that big a portion of your stack and you'll still have 40 odd bb's left, so you're hardly in push or fold territory.

I think I push here though and my reasons are threefold

1. he folds some of the hands that he raises with to a push here

2. a lot of the time when he calls we are ahead or will outdraw him

3. if we win here then we have at least twice the chips anyone else has and can bully the table and so we are very likely to finish ITM. If we lose then we haven't invested a huge amount of time in the tournament so we can start another one.

In general in STTs I'm happy to double up early or get knocked out, I look at STTs in terms of time invested as opposed to how I finish in an individual game. If I fold here and finish 3rd/4th when I have to take a stand with a much worse holding at a later point then I've wasted time I could have been investing in another game.

So in summary push

Dearg81

I think ur hand range is a bit optimistic Iago given the fact that the villian has been playing very tight.
Id wait for a better situation to get my chips in given thats its early days but if ur willing to gamble that early then fair enough ,its prob close to 50-50 so nothing wrong with that either. just depends on the players style i suppose

Iago

Dearg81 wrote:

I think ur hand range is a bit optimistic Iago given the fact that the villian has been playing very tight.
Id wait for a better situation to get my chips in given thats its early days but if ur willing to gamble that early then fair enough ,its prob close to 50-50 so nothing wrong with that either. just depends on the players style i suppose

I think saying the villian is very tight is a bit of a misnomer. He hasn't seen him show down a hand and it's only the 2nd level so there's been maybe 15-20 hands before this one.

Unless he has information from previous games I wouldn't read a lot into it, it just means that he's not playing with muck.

Outside of that, you said that you would fold, I agree that playing styles dictate here, but surely a call should be your first thought if you don't want to push rather than a fold?

phantom_lord

edit, wrong thread.

Dearg81

Yea callings ok too. dvdfan wasnt considering it as an option tho.

p.s if it really was me in that tournament tho i would have just checked what cards the villian has cos i work for FTP

sikes

call/fold. Your raise wasn't great.

He usually has TT+,sometimes 88,99, AK. rarely anything else and rarely folding imo.

Hitman Actual

If he has TT+/AK, then pushing is around neutral EV, depending on how many of the pairs < KK he'll fold.

I think Iagos range is very wide here as well, and think Sikes is closer. But if you had any reason to believe his range is wide, then push is fine.

jacQues

Would a stop 'n go be an option in such situation?

newbie2

jacQues wrote:

Would a stop 'n go be an option in such situation?

Is that where yoou call the raise with the intention of pushing after the flop, no matter what comes?

Hitman Actual

newbie2 wrote:

Is that where yoou call the raise with the intention of pushing after the flop, no matter what comes?

Yes.

I don't see the benefit of it here, tbh. If you had a mid pair then it would make more sense.

charlesanto

The BB has ATC here, he sees a weak raise from the SB decides to reraise 500 with the expectation of taking the pot !
Shove, and type in the chat as he folds "respect my raises"

RasTa

dvdfan in a 6 handed stt it's an auto shove with AK. Don't think to much.

gerry87

It doesn't really look like that strong a pair, only 3 people left in he'd more than likely slowplay a big pair and hope UTG comes along for the ride. I'd say AT-AK is more likely and he wants UTG out so he has position. I think it's definitely worth seeing a flop and if you hit you're probably good. You're 2/1 to flop an A or a K and you're getting 1.9/1 plus whatever his c-bet is.

And 6 handed you still have plenty of chips left if you miss.

TheRock

Firstly as said already raise more with your initial raise, with one caller ahead of me, I'm making it 200-250. Usually 3 or 4 BB raise, plus 1BB for each limper in ahead of me.

Saying the player is tight up to now means little, as this is pretty standard play to rock it up early in a 6PAC. The one bit of info I'd like is how DVD has been playing up to now?

Shoving here without a second thought is the move for me almost everytime in a 6PAC . Folding here is just plain bad IMO. Your ahead far too often. But then again I go out of most tournaments with AK:rolleyes: . Your getting 2/1 on the call with AK, folding is not an option.

However I don't like calling here, as most of the time you'll miss the flop and being the preflop aggressor most of the time he is going to lead out, then what do you do?

IMO, AK is a hand for pushing with not calling with, and especially in a 6PAC I push everytime. Deepstacked I just might take a flop occassionaly depending on the player.

dvdfan

Well the majority said push, i taught it would be at least divided on push/fold. btw i was actually the Villain with TT and he had KK not AK but i just wanted to see what ye taught from the villains point of view, put him on a wide range making a steal but for the sake of this hand i put him on AK as if i said hed KK everyone would have said auto push. I posted this hand a while back here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=53088782#post53088782

And i taught that this RR would smell of AA-KK here and get alot of hands like AK-AJ and mid pocket pairs to fold. Guess going by the reactions that it was at best getting me in a 50/50 situation, just taught it would be interesting to see what range people would put me on as i taught it would smell of AA-KK but people here have me on a much wider range and if thats the case then this move was defo -EV.

And maybe people will lay off me about not raising enough:D Although i have to be pair there was an AA hand i posted where i min raised because i was about to time out and hadnt time to do anything else and i think thats stuck with me now:p

Iago

dvdfan wrote:

Well the majority said push, i taught it would be at least divided on push/fold.

I think anyone folding AK here is making a huge mistake, I still think pushing is better than calling but folding is crazy.

dvdfan wrote:

And i taught that this RR would smell of AA-KK here and get alot of hands like AK-AJ and mid pocket pairs to fold.

At best you should be getting called by any of those hands, at worst they push and you have to fold. Your range here is a lot wider than AA-KK and especially at the $10 level STTs (you said $20 initially but your linked post says a $10)

dvdfan wrote:

Guess going by the reactions that it was at best getting me in a 50/50 situation, just taught it would be interesting to see what range people would put me on as i taught it would smell of AA-KK but people here have me on a much wider range and if thats the case then this move was defo -EV.

You have position, you can just call and see a cheap flop. If you're determined to raise, (which I wouldn't be) you should be raising more say to 800 or so. Then he might fold some hands that are 50/50 with you, but you're still getting looked up by AA-JJ;AKs(o)

So you shouldn't raise as you're going to lose far more in the times you're called or re-raised than you'll make when you force him to fold a 50/50 hands.



You've priced him into the call with your raise, and I'm not sure what your reasoning was? From your thoughts you wanted him to fold preflop, but the only hands he's folding preflop are hands that you are ahead of. Conversely anything you're behind re-raises and you have to fold or make a bad call. Sometimes he'll re-raise with a hand you're 50/50 against but even then you have to fold and give him credit for a stronger hand.

Even if he just calls there are a huge number of flops that you're worried about/could cause you problems. Although you have position you've no idea where you stand and that will only lead to you making more mistakes.

Flat call the 150 and re-evaluate after the flop.

dvdfan

Iago wrote:

I think anyone folding AK here is making a huge mistake, I still think pushing is better than calling but folding is crazy.



At best you should be getting called by any of those hands, at worst they push and you have to fold. Your range here is a lot wider than AA-KK and especially at the $10 level STTs (you said $20 initially but your linked post says a $10)



You have position, you can just call and see a cheap flop. If you're determined to raise, (which I wouldn't be) you should be raising more say to 800 or so. Then he might fold some hands that are 50/50 with you, but you're still getting looked up by AA-JJ;AKs(o)

So you shouldn't raise as you're going to lose far more in the times you're called or re-raised than you'll make when you force him to fold a 50/50 hands.



You've priced him into the call with your raise, and I'm not sure what your reasoning was? From your thoughts you wanted him to fold preflop, but the only hands he's folding preflop are hands that you are ahead of. Conversely anything you're behind re-raises and you have to fold or make a bad call. Sometimes he'll re-raise with a hand you're 50/50 against but even then you have to fold and give him credit for a stronger hand.

Even if he just calls there are a huge number of flops that you're worried about/could cause you problems. Although you have position you've no idea where you stand and that will only lead to you making more mistakes.

Flat call the 150 and re-evaluate after the flop.

ignore...

I cabnt be sure but i thuin==k its an excellent reply

Iago

dvdfan wrote:

ignore...

I cabnt be sure but i thuin==k its an excellent reply

huh? lost me there I'm afraid...

if you're saying you think I'm a genius then I completely agree though

dvdfan

Iago wrote:

huh? lost me there I'm afraid...

if you're saying you think I'm a genius then I completely agree though

I was under the influence and vagely remember replying disagreeing with what you said or something and then copped on when i re-read it that what you said made sense. I done well only to spell 2 words wrong:D God knows what i said in the OP but im sure it made no sense and had about 50 spelling mistakes:o