All in with A-J?

Played the borgata 35k free roll and made it late in the semi final round (250 entrants) top two spots get $215 tickets to final round. It was 12 players left I was the shortest stack (20k in chips) top player 135k average stack about 35k, blinds 800 - 1600. I'm small blind with A-Jos, villian (bb) has 45k, utg folds, everyone else folds including button, I call the 800, villian shoves remaining 45k after a minute I call remaining 19,200. Flop comes 2-7-J, turn 8, river A I bust out again 12th place. Should just wait to buy in for $215 and skip this 3 hour b's every Sunday but my bankroll is very small. My question is would you shove with A-J at this point, I had about 12 bb' s left, I figured villian was playing any cards to steal blinds since he's lag. Or should I hope to catch a better starting hand pre flop with one more round before blinds hit me again (would've been 1,000 - 2,000 by then)

Streatman184 said:

Played the borgata 35k free roll and made it late in the semi final round (250 entrants) top two spots get $215 tickets to final round. It was 12 players left I was the shortest stack (20k in chips) top player 135k average stack about 35k, blinds 800 - 1600. I'm small blind with A-Jos, villian (bb) has 45k, utg folds, everyone else folds including button, I call the 800, villian shoves remaining 45k after a minute I call remaining 19,200. Flop comes 2-7-J, turn 8, river A I bust out again 12th place. Should just wait to buy in for $215 and skip this 3 hour b's every Sunday but my bankroll is very small. My question is would you shove with A-J at this point, I had about 12 bb' s left, I figured villian was playing any cards to steal blinds since he's lag. Or should I hope to catch a better starting hand pre flop with one more round before blinds hit me again (would've been 1,000 - 2,000 by then)

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Forgot to add villian had pocket 8's

Don't call just shove preflop and take advantage of your fold equity.You can pick up the blinds uncontested.If you get called your in a spot where we have plenty of equity vs villains range.But with 12bb's you have one option which is to shove and nothing good comes from limping in this spot.

Streatman184 said:

Played the borgata 35k free roll and made it late in the semi final round (250 entrants) top two spots get $215 tickets to final round. It was 12 players left I was the shortest stack (20k in chips) top player 135k average stack about 35k, blinds 800 - 1600. I'm small blind with A-Jos, villian (bb) has 45k, utg folds, everyone else folds including button, I call the 800, villian shoves remaining 45k after a minute I call remaining 19,200. Flop comes 2-7-J, turn 8, river A I bust out again 12th place. Should just wait to buy in for $215 and skip this 3 hour b's every Sunday but my bankroll is very small. My question is would you shove with A-J at this point, I had about 12 bb' s left, I figured villian was playing any cards to steal blinds since he's lag. Or should I hope to catch a better starting hand pre flop with one more round before blinds hit me again (would've been 1,000 - 2,000 by then)

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It was ok. 50-50 and he won...I suggest you to try it again. 215 dollars are quite much for a buy-in (for us).

This:

MettaGame said:

Don't call just shove preflop and take advantage of your fold equity.You can pick up the blinds uncontested.If you get called your in a spot where we have plenty of equity vs villains range.But with 12bb's you have one option which is to shove and nothing good comes from limping in this spot.

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We're not deep enough and our hand is not good enough to justify limping in and trying to let in a 100% range from the BB's seat. It's much more valuable to just shove and get him to fold tons of stuff. In practice against this exact hand, he's still calling, but the point is the rest of the time we just get him to fold stuff like T9o here (that also would beat us by the way).

If we are a lot deeper you can start incorporating a limping/completing strategy in the SB. The other time I might limp here at this stack depth though would be with a mega premium like QQ+ where I want to induce some wide shoves, but that would only be against the right level of opponent where they are capable of jamming wide there and/or might go broke with a weak top pair post if I let them in with garbage.

Normally i would say just shove, but if bb will react aggressively to your limp, then I see merit in limping. obviously we hope he shoves. You are playing for top two, so in your shoes it's more important to win chips than surviving. If big blind is more sound and will not over react to your limp, then it is just shove.

you were the short stack, that AJ was all in, I think it was the best time to push

I dont see a problem pushing with AJ short stacked. Getting a coin flip in that situation isnt all that bad.

MettaGame said:

Don't call just shove preflop and take advantage of your fold equity.You can pick up the blinds uncontested.If you get called your in a spot where we have plenty of equity vs villains range.But with 12bb's you have one option which is to shove and nothing good comes from limping in this spot.

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This is the correct answer, you can't be passive when you are that short stacked you need to be the one to make things happen. As it stands in that particular situation it was bound to end up in an all in flip preflop, but I'd rather pick up a BB than to have to play AJ out of position on a random board.

I agree with raising all in instead of limping.

HK_47 said:

This is the correct answer, you can't be passive when you are that short stacked you need to be the one to make things happen. As it stands in that particular situation it was bound to end up in an all in flip preflop, but I'd rather pick up a BB than to have to play AJ out of position on a random board.

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Thanks HI, I agree I need to make things happen in that situation whereas waiting would've had my stack eaten away by antes and if the blinds came back around I might've only had 6 bb left which no one would've folded to that. Even if I lose (which I did) A-J is good enough to have a chance

AtiFCOD said:

It was ok. 50-50 and he won...I suggest you to try it again. 215 dollars are quite much for a buy-in (for us).

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Yea it was a free roll, so that 215 prize ticket to the finals was if I made the top two out of nearly 250 players.

Scourrge said:

This:




We're not deep enough and our hand is not good enough to justify limping in and trying to let in a 100% range from the BB's seat. It's much more valuable to just shove and get him to fold tons of stuff. In practice against this exact hand, he's still calling, but the point is the rest of the time we just get him to fold stuff like T9o here (that also would beat us by the way).

If we are a lot deeper you can start incorporating a limping/completing strategy in the SB. The other time I might limp here at this stack depth though would be with a mega premium like QQ+ where I want to induce some wide shoves, but that would only be against the right level of opponent where they are capable of jamming wide there and/or might go broke with a weak top pair post if I let them in with garbage.

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Thanks for the advice Scourrge. Especially the point of shoving so the bb doesn't get 100% range or limping with 10-9os like you mentioned and I get caught. I just blew $550 in two days online and live since I I'm just got paid Friday, after everyone on here helped advise me about bankroll management and waiting two long weeks to get paid again I screw up bad and over drafted money now I'm in the negative and lost most of my money, how do guys like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negraneau, Tom dwan, Jennifer Harman, Patrick Antonious, Michael mizrachi and others budget and grow their bankroll from scratch at low levels for many years and I can't even win $100 EVER, I mean how are they so damn good?

Hello again!

Streatman184 said:

My question is would you shove with A-J at this point, I had about 12 bb' s left, I figured villian was playing any cards to steal blinds since he's lag.

I think ,i would fold AJo here!!!

Or should I hope to catch a better starting hand pre flop with one more round before blinds hit me again (would've been 1,000 - 2,000 by then)

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I have enough chips to wait for BB!

Streatman184 said:

Thanks for the advice Scourrge. Especially the point of shoving so the bb doesn't get 100% range or limping with 10-9os like you mentioned and I get caught. I just blew $550 in two days online and live since I I'm just got paid Friday, after everyone on here helped advise me about bankroll management and waiting two long weeks to get paid again I screw up bad and over drafted money now I'm in the negative and lost most of my money, how do guys like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negraneau, Tom dwan, Jennifer Harman, Patrick Antonious, Michael mizrachi and others budget and grow their bankroll from scratch at low levels for many years and I can't even win $100 EVER, I mean how are they so damn good?

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First off, you should NEVER be in a position where you're overdrafting accounts so that you can play poker. That's a horrible financial decision whether you're good or not. If you are struggling to not do this, then you need to re-examine what poker means to your life and whether you should really be playing.

Second, a lot of those guys DID go broke when starting out... but that's not recommended. We see the success stories - the guys who went broke but brought it back. We don't hear about the guys who went broke over and over but never found success. You don't want to mimic that path, because there's an above average chance you never get out of the "being broke" cycle.

As far as getting better, there was a lot of trial and error. Today, I'd recommend spending a lot of time on CardsChat participating in hand history threads, and posting your own hands for critique. You can also investigate training sites.

But again... PLEASE... be SMART about how you use your money. Poker is a game at the end of the day - don't jeopardize your finances in the pursuit of poker success.