Over-shoving with AA and KK

Well, while I was actually playing before the US shut down, I started to employ a deceptive tactic as a way to induce a light call and double up in SNGs. I have passed this on to a few players that I am coaching and it has been working well for them, so I figured I would post a thread about it to see if others have done this with success.

It's pretty straight-forward as you can probably tell from the title of this thread. But in the early stages of a SNG, most players expect you to make a standard, or even min 3-bet with premium pockets in order to extract value from weaker hands. As a general rule, it is good to be deceptive so that your opponent has a hard time putting you on a hand. I figured, what better way to be deceptive than to do the opposite of what people expect you to do with AA and KK.

So if someone makes it 3x or 4x when the BB is 30 and 40, I will over shove 3-bet all in rather than make your normal 3 bet. From what I have seen, most players view this as a donk or weak play that someone tries to pull with mid pockets and hands like AJ. Accordingly, when I make this play, I get called with some pretty awful hands to play all in at the early stage of a SNG, like AJ, KQ, 99, etc...If I just make a normal 3 bet and the villain actually calls, often times I do not get much value unless they hit top pair on the flop. Of course with the over-shove, I risk not getting that smaller value from the 3-bet if he folds. But on the flip side, you are most likely going to double up when you do get called, and I have found that overall, I have been getting more value from this play vs the smaller 3-bet.

If you are not doing this, give it a try and see what you come up with. GL

I would agree with the tactic as it has worked for me as well . I would say that doing it early in the tournament can't be stressed enough as it loses it's value after a bit of play.

Works well in fishy games, personally didn't work too well for me (played the majority of games in the 9 man turbos), but i can see this working in a lot of MT SNG formats.

I don't think this is about being deceptive as much as it is about letting villians make bad calls preflop. Villians can't seem to let their A9s go when faced with an all in. But when they miss postflop it's much easier for them to let their hand go. But yeah, they may just think we are full of shit and decide to call off with decent aces/pairs.

I mean, if you are playing under $30, most games are fishy. Sure, this typically works well against the not-so-savvy player, but they populate most games anyway, especially the 18 man+.

I call it deceptive, because you just see so many people now min raising with their premium hands trying to bleed chips from their opponent. So whether you call it deceptive or just capitalizing on a fish's mistakes, the villain will typically not put you on AA or KK when you 3-bet shove in the first level of a SNG, because that is not what you are "supposed" to do.

When I started doing this, I was kind of amazed about how lightly I got called. This may only work once or twice against the same player since, if they are even slightly observant, they will make a note on you. Now, this means you have to revert back to normal 3 bet sizing rather than polarize your range.

True, for the most part the 9 man turbos have quite a few regulars. even from the $6.50 games and above (mainly pokerstars i'm talking about here, tilt and other sites they can be ridiculously soft). So they won't be 'good' regulars, but they still won't call off light in the early game, even with AQ-AK. So getting to postflop against those guys and letting them make mistakes there is probably better. I'd also expect the level of competition to be a whole lot better in 9 mans compared to 18+man games.

But yeah against bad random unknown players, probably limpy type players, this may be a good play to employ.

I might give this a go in my 6max games i'm playing now, they are generally filled with bad/limpy aggro type players so it may be worth while giving it a go.

The flipside of this play is something i do a lot of, raising small with absolute junk against loose decent players to rep monsters.

You know at the levels I play, I can see this working. If I can the good hands early on tonight, I'll definitely do this. I'm registered for a $5.50 tourney on Bodog in a bit so we'll see what happens...

Yeah this definetly seems like the right play early on in SnG's especially turbos. IDK how many time I've been called my junk hands like KQ in these scenarios.

Imo this is a tactic best used in mtts or larger field sngs since the 9 man games allow us to reach the money more frequently...and this means we need to win chips more frequently rather than win more chips all at once.

The Simplicity of it is Priceless.

I do enjoy the simplicity, but most of all the effectiveness has been enjoyable as well. I agree with Bwammo that it is probably more effective in the larger field SnGs. However, some of my 9 man SnG players have been doing it more frequently and seeing some real value from it.
Remember though, do not do this every time. If anyone plays with you a few times and is even remotely paying attention, they will take note of this. So be sure to mix it up a bit. A good time to make this play is when someone makes it 4x preflop. You see this commonly with poorer players who like their hand, which is not quite a premium hand, but are reluctant to toss it away (ie AQ, 1010).

so if ur first into the pot, u just raise 3xBB like usual? or do u open shove?

First in, make your normal 2.5x or 3x raise. Personally, I pretty much stick to 2.5x preflop for the majority of the SNG. The over shove applies to the 3-bet

Would you really want to ship your chips so early anyway even if a massive favorite?

Of course in an ideal world you get shipped on i early rounds and you pick up Aces or Kings you call it off happily. If you re-raise enough and you still get this caller or even a second caller and shove the flop if it's dangerous then 9times out of 10 you get called anyway, especially if someone hits top pair.

I can't see it being profitable though as much as if you have 1 or two people in the pot who are getting bad odds yet still call it down with their draws. I'm sure you get more value long term than just open shoving no?

I know people will often just call shoves with A,x etc in the micros but really at such an early stage I don't like doing it and from what I've seen it's not all "that" often, well not as often as you believe. I've seen people will call you off so you stand to get 30 in blinds in early stages as opposed to donkeys who will be happy if they hit top pair on the flop and often stack of with it. There is more value there, most don't think of in terms of kickers or what you opened with anyway, they just see their hand and their hand only.

All this added into the equation, a double up when blinds are at 30 is not as much different as having your starting stack.

I am not saying that this is 100% my strategy. But as I was saying before, the reason that this has worked more frequently that you think is because players expect you to make this over shove with hands like 88 or AJ, not AA and KK. Accordingly, they stack off light.
Also, this is done against the not-so-savvy player (which there are plenty of), since a reg will not be calling all ins without a premium hand themselves.
I mean if you have a note on a guy that he will call down 3 streets with draws and bottom pair, sure, make your normal 3 bet and move forward from there. But there are times when you are able to get max value from an all in rather than a normal sized 3 bet, since the villain typically has to hit his top pair to proceed in the hand. So if you notice that a player has been known to call off his stack with 1010 or AJ early in the game, these are ideal players to use this play against, since 2/3 of the time they will miss the flop and fold.
And if you ask me whether I would rather have 1700 chips or 3k chips, I'll take the 3k. I know your equity doesn't double with your chips, but for the opportunity to double up when you typically have at least 75% equity, I'll take that too.

I've tried it a couple times without good results but was not discouraged as it was a good try no matter , and a change up of normal play . on the same line , I have shoved post flop when the board hits three suited and gives me the nut flush too , hoping players think I couldn't have it or I wouldn't be trying to force them out , or just over betting shoves period with the nuts sometimes works for me . when people do it to me I think , they don't want to value bet , they want to get you out because they have crap .
anyway thanks for the tip

Well, I disagree with that part highlighted. You say this works against the not so savy players. The thing is, a not so savy player would never think of what cards you would be doing this, they only think of their cards alone. Most definitely do not think "Hmm, he has open shoved, he is weak here, I put his range on 8'8s and A,x" I'm going to call because I think my A,Q or A,J, A,10 is good here. This would be a better than the average player who actually thought about it first. Not so savy players will ever put a range of hands someone could be open shoving with, let alone go in to detail.

The way I see it, if you have those types of players at the table who are going to stack off with anything you will find they will shove in to you more often which is fine holding Aces of course, so a standard raise will induce a shove more times than your shoves getting called. They don't think "Ok open raised standard 3bet, he has Aces" I think you will find more of these players are happy shoving into YOU but not so happy calling shoves.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm sure and I've seen it myself people will shove A,x etc I just personally think if you have "one" of those sort of players at the table and they like their hand they will shove in to you after your raise. If you shove in to them first, they might actually fold. As for that, if they like their hand and hit the flop, the chips can go in no problem or you can extract a lot of his chips anyway being a donkey.

As for having 3000 chips early on rather than 1500 I agree obviously a double up isn't to be sniffed at. I was just pointing out that I think you get more value long term with just raising rather than shoving this early in the tournament. As soon as someone hits that flop, quite often they will shove it and not think about what you could be holding.


I've never tried it to be honest, obviously I've been shipped on but I haven't open shoved ever with blinds that low. I think it's like slow playing/limping Aces, you don't get anywhere near as much value long term.

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Like I said, from my experience, this strategy has its place and can be used effectively.
In the last few months of playing (like 3k+ games), I have put this play into use and seen some good results.

Do you take position into account when you make this play? If UTG goes 3 or 4x do you want to shove from pos 2 or 3?