$1.10 NLHE MTT: AQs against AKo near bubble

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/924D1q3xM

One of the many times, when I play my suited AQ. I was near the bubble and AK appears! What would you do?

Snap call.

If we are on the stone money bubble - for 15bb - this is still a snap call. In every world, every solver, every equity program - this is a call. We are simply too high up in our range to be folding. We block other Ax combos, block AA and QQ, we are not doing the worst vs KK and vs every other underpair we are doing well flipping with. If we are folding here - then we are basically only playing around 2% of hands...that is simply too tight and we will be over folding a ton.

This is called a cooler...these are going to happen - stop thinking there is a way you can fold your AQs preflop for 16bb effective - if you do, you are making a massive equity mistake.

If this were a satellite tournament - then unless you are in the bottom 3 of the field while on the stone bubble - then you can just fold this. The difference is with satellites is the prizes are all equal (most of the time) whereas in nirmal MTTs all the big $$ is at the Final Table. So in a satty we can tighten up as if playing a FT looking to catch as many money hops as we can before busting - but under normal MTT circumstances not only do we want to make the $$ ‐ but we would like to be able to do so with a stack that allows us the potential to go deeper than a min cash. Make sense? Hope so! Hope it helps!

I would call too. Unless that player was a totally NIT.

With that amount of chips there is no way to avoid this.

I don't think you have a ton of options here. We arent folding because that would be silly to fold a hand this strong and limping also makes no sense so we are left with raising from 2-3BB or jamming. If you raise the 2-3 BB and then get jammed on, what are you doing? Folding would be nitty and depending on opponents stack size they could either just be taking advantage of the bubble or if they are a short stack then they are jamming with the typical jamming range. Both scenarios you are ahead of on average and would call the jam anyway. Since we know that, jamming is the correct play, it just sucks you ran into it in this specific spot.

With 16BB starting stack there is no way, we can ever get away from AQs. Maybe in a satallite, or if its on the stone bubble, and someone will be forced all in next hand. But any other situation this is a no-brainer get-it-in spot, and if someone happen to wake up with QQ+ or AK, then good for them.

I am not fond of your sizing though. With 16BB you can either miniraise or open jam, and probably miniraising is the most GTO type line and something, you should get used to. It leave room to fold to a jam not with this hand but with the bottom of your range. The issue with raising to 4BB with a 16BB stack is, you are kind of telling everyone, that you are never going to fold, so they can not bluff you.

But even so because of the price, you are getting, you still can not fold to a jam. So you create a situation, where you either just pick up the blinds or get it in behind, and where you almost force your opponents to play well. If on the other hand you miniraise, then you will also get it in against bluffs like their AJ, their KQ or their A4s.

Yes, there was no other option, at least most of the times in this case! Except if some intuition would "say" me not to play it!

unfortunate results, but i really like how you played the hand.

well done.

In this case, it’s good to see the statistics on the player and, taking into account his playing style, make a decision. Especially the bubble is close. But if you count in the ICMIZER program, then this is an easy push, especially since you have a short stack of 16.1 BB. The push range will be 9.25%:

About that is poker, you make good decision but lost. You must learn overcome these suckout as fast as you can. Just say "I do everything allright, on the next bubble i will win!".

Pufik said:

About that is poker, you make good decision but lost. You must learn overcome these suckout as fast as you can. Just say "I do everything allright, on the next bubble i will win!".

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Exactly. Bubbling is always annoying, but most of our long term results are determined by, how often we reach top 3-5, not how often we min-cash. Yesterday I was the bubble boy in a tournament, because my JJ got cracked by a maniac, who jammed K9o on me. But when the session was over, this was completely forgotten, because I had also won a tournament and finished in 5. place in yet another.

You played open 4bb. What do you think about opponent range?

SuzdalDEcor said:

You played open 4bb. What do you think about opponent range?

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He had a wide range and he was an aggessive player. He made a correct move.

makisaa said:

He had a wide range and he was an aggessive player. He made a correct move.

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His range will never be wide. His range will be wide only with open min raise. Exception will be only if he always playing open raise like this size.

makisaa said:

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/924D1q3xM

One of the many times, when I play my suited AQ. I was near the bubble and AK appears! What would you do?

Click to expand...

Hello,

Near the bubble I might fold. With it being suited I'd probably call. I'd lean towards a fold if the tournament was high stakes and the min cash was significant.

makisaa said:

He had a wide range and he was an aggessive player. He made a correct move.

Click to expand...

In this spot his range will not be wide. He knows he has zero fold equity vs. a 4x open coming off a 16bb stack (at least it should be a zero fold equity spot because folding would be pretty terrible (imo) )

Hmm... I have a couple of HH's that might be helpful to you but realizing now it was on GGPoker so I don't have access to them. It's from the CC games though & I do have notes on your player describing the hands. Next time I see you on the table I'll take a quick screenshot of them & post it for you
(the hands I'm referring to are a bit similar to this one here but the differences might make them a fold instead of a snap call)

SuzalDecor makes a good point regarding what do we figure Villain's range is here in this spot. (I've noticed he seems to have good results in the CC games & seems to play quite well). ... taking things beyond just Level 1 thinking ("I have AQ")... & thinking beyond this by assessing a range for our opponent given the situation.