Would You Fold Ace-King here?

Hi guys, this hand took place during a $3.50 Sit & Go Tournament on pokerstars.


Context:
The table has been playing quite tight and I face an open from a Nit who plays a range of {AKs QQ+ maybe TT/JJ+} from this position, I elect to just flat with my offsuit Ace-King. The passive playing blinds call behind me. I decide to donk my flopped top two pair to thin the field and define the hand. The passive small blind calls and the NIT and BB both fold. The turn is the worst card imaginable giving any ragged Jack a straight and a redraw to a river flush. I check to get further information and the small blind makes it 2/3rds pot to go.


My Thought Process:

At this point I am regretting my flop donk bet. While the logic was sound in thinning the field it also bloated the pot to a difficult size (in terms of SPR). I go into the tank and start thinking about ranges.



The hands i'm considering he might have are {AA, KK, AK, AQ, QQ, JJ, JT, AT, TT, J7-AJ, 77-99, KT and maybe K9, Q8-QJ) - 189 combos given the board and my hole cards.






To start the narrowing process I immediately rule out {AA,KK,AK, QQ and JJ} as this type of player would have most likely 3Bet these hands preflop. This reduces the combos to 130 and the equity of my hand enjoys about 54% against this range on this board.






Now obviously I had none of this info during the hand but I knew it was more likely to be a borderline decision. The reason was, I could account for 2 of the Aces, two of the Kings and at least one of the Tens and Queens. I decided that this was grounds enough to rule out half of the Ace and King hands (lower range), and the pairs 77-99 (As I didn't think those mid level pocket pairs would feel comfortable enough to continue on this flop. This reduced Villain's possible range to {Q8-QJ, TT, AQ, KQ, KJs, AJs-AKs} a total of 70 combos.





I felt that most of what was leftover that he could reasonably have had me crushed. When I ran my final guess on his betting range through Mr. Flopzilla I appeared to have about 45% equity in this situation. I knew that the numbers were close.





Now please correct me if I'm wrong here:

The pot on the turn was $1000 and Villain bet $661. So I needed: [661 / (661 + 661 + 1000)] = 661 / 2322 = 27% equity to make this call. I had 45% approximately so it seems that I made a mistake by folding and should have called. But this wasn't a cash game. I was thinking about ICM and saving chips for late stages. And so I decided to make a very painful fold.



What would you have done if you were me? Would you have made this call? How would you have played this hand differently.


Thank you,


Hand Details






Hand Information
PokerStars No Limit, 30 BB (8 handed).
Hand History converter courtesy of pokerhandreplays.com

Table Information
Seat: 1 andreandr ($1485) Dealer
Seat: 2 steabb73 ($1273) Small Blind
Seat: 3 jusart ($1580) Big Blind
Seat: 4 marcosandujo ($2799)
Seat: 5 xpm-h096 ($2007)
Seat: 6 nec_korolev ($1413)
Seat: 8 hero ($1535)
Seat: 9 javor_ka81 ($1408)
Seat 1andreandr Ante: 4
Seat 2steabb73 Ante: 4
Seat 3jusart Ante: 4
Seat 4marcosandujo Ante: 4
Seat 5xpm-h096 Ante: 4
Seat 6nec_korolev Ante: 4
Seat 8hero Ante: 4
Seat 9javor_ka81 Ante: 4
Dealt to hero


Preflop (Pot:77)
marcosandujo FOLD
xpm-h096 FOLD
nec_korolev RAISE $90
hero CALL $90
javor_ka81 CALL $90
andreandr FOLD
steabb73 CALL $75
jusart CALL $60

Flop(Pot: $490)


steabb73 CHECK
jusart CHECK
nec_korolev CHECK
hero BET $255
javor_ka81 CALL $255
steabb73 FOLD
jusart FOLD
nec_korolev FOLD

Turn(Pot: $1000)


hero CHECK
javor_ka81 BET $661
hero FOLD
javor_ka81 RETURN $661
Showdown:
javor_ka81 MUCKS

javor_ka81 wins the pot: $1661

Checking gives you no information whatsoever just tells your opponent your scared of the board. You should of bet here instead his response would of given you far more info.

5pAce_C0wb0y said:

Checking gives you no information whatsoever just tells your opponent your scared of the board. You should of bet here instead his response would of given you far more info.

Click to expand...

I didn’t bet because any reasonable amount which could make this type of opponent fold, would have been pot committing. But I do think you are right.

Firstly, you should have probably just made a bet pre-flop. But you already knew that, so..

The small blind wouldn't have made the turn bet with anything else than a J. I am certain of this. There's so many combinations with a J he could have called your bet with. Folding two pair shouldn't be too painful on a board like this.

Weicester said:

Firstly, you should have probably just made a bet pre-flop. But you already knew that, so..

The small blind wouldn't have made the turn bet with anything else than a J. I am certain of this. There's so many combinations with a J he could have called your bet with. Folding two pair shouldn't be too painful on a board like this.

Click to expand...

Yeah I agree. But 3 betting a nit with AKo seemed like a bad idea in the early game of an SNG. But other side of it is that the player behind me probably would have folded their weak Jack hand. I didn’t want to get 4bet by {QQ+} and have to fold but in hindsight it would have been a nicer outcome than what happened later.

know yes... lost lot of hands and chips
against 77, 10J A4 ore other hands...

I think I would have made the call, for the full house possibility alone. But it's definitely one of those painful situations. If you miss, and check again on river, and he bets low, you may be tempted to call off more.

Snap call my friend !! If you don't risk In poker you never win a tournament or a poker hand ! But must have a good stack ..sometimes to give up it's the best solution .good luck

Pre flop I don’t hate the call if what you are saying about the initial raiser is true. Yes it allows others to get in the hand but I am willing to take that risk because if what you are saying is true then when you raise here you are getting jammed on by the nit. Some people are fine with calling AK here and going with it but if that is his true range I am not loving it and feel it is much better to see a flop and then I can pitch easy on those 10 7 3 type boards. On the flop I am on board with your bet and the sizing. I think you could go a little bigger knowing at the time you made the bet everyone else is still in the hand and their ranges should have hit this board a lot and we get a little more value now and later when we bet larger here.

The turn is obviously where this hand gets fun. There is effective stack of about the pot (forgive math if wrong) when we are going to the turn. The 10 comes which yes is not the greatest card in the world but I am not checking here. I am not sure if I am even bet folding here but would like to bet so that I have the option to do so. I am thinking with 1000 in the pot to bet something like 300 here. I am not afraid of the diamonds since I have the Ace of diamonds which not only takes away a diamond that he could have but also takes away the chance of all his Ax diamonds combos which should be a large part of the two diamond range that he gets this far with. I like betting small here and then thinking about it when he jams over me. I am leaning towards calling in that scenario because he is jamming here with worse hands than what I have. In my opinion he is not only jamming when he has the jack but is jamming all two pair combos and two diamonds if he actually has two diamonds. That leaves us with a lot we beat. I do know that a jack is possible and there are a lot of Jx combos that get this far but with the money already in the pot I think it’s a call. Plus even though they aren’t many, we do have four outs if he does have the jack. That’s only 10% or so but it is important to include when we are thinking in terms of pot odds and if we should call. As played here, knowing I beat a chunk of his betting range, have 4 outs if he is in the spectrum of his range we lose to, and given what we have put in the pot and the pot odds we are getting (roughly 2.5 to 1 with just calling which I don’t think you should just call, it’s a jam over or fold as played only) I think this is a call. Not a terrible fold though by any means.