$10 NLHE MTT Deep Stacked: A4 suited from Small Blind

[washalot]

Hello All,

My first post.

I have A4s in the small Blind in a Full Ring Tourney and facing 1Raiser + 4 callers.

I typically call with this hand in the hope of hitting a flush and gaining chips. The idea is that situations are hard to come by in Tourneys and I try to play suited aces from any position facing a min-raise.

However, I tried this software and it shows me that thi is a -EV play and the right thing to do is to fold. Image attached.

Is my current thinking a leak in my game ??

Would love your inputs.

 

[Veritas]

not sure how pokersnowie is working but from what I remember those Programms have better decisions vs 1 Opponent and not against 4. also you are not last to act so BB could 3bet.


I would call aswell with a Hand where we could flop strong but also get away easily if we miss. just like A4s


also the -0.04 Shows that a call isn't that bad according to the Programm.
Pot odds are not bad either: calling 45 to win 300. we Need 15% Chance to win
I ran 3 Scenarios:
1) raiser 15% range, both caller 20% calling range, bb 35% calling range; gives us 16.5% equity
2) raiser 15% range, both caller 20% calling range, bb folding; gives us 18.5% Equity
3) raiser 10% range, both caller 15% calling range, bb folds; 17.4% Equity


so it's Closer than I thought, but even with the tighter ranges in #3 your call is +EV
I hope this helps and my Maths is Right

 

[washalot]

Thank you.

Great observation on the fact that
1. calling is a marginal -ev play
2. software is not good at analysing multiple opponents.

Great scenario calculations too...what software do you use to calculate this.

not sure how pokersnowie is working but from what I remember those Programms have better decisions vs 1 Opponent and not against 4. also you are not last to act so BB could 3bet.


I would call aswell with a Hand where we could flop strong but also get away easily if we miss. just like A4s


also the -0.04 Shows that a call isn't that bad according to the Programm.
Pot odds are not bad either: calling 45 to win 300. we Need 15% Chance to win
I ran 3 Scenarios:
1) raiser 15% range, both caller 20% calling range, bb 35% calling range; gives us 16.5% Equity
2) raiser 15% range, both caller 20% calling range, bb folding; gives us 18.5% Equity
3) raiser 10% range, both caller 15% calling range, bb folds; 17.4% Equity


so it's Closer than I thought, but even with the tighter ranges in #3 your call is +EV
I hope this helps and my Maths is Right

 

[Veritas]

Thank you.

Great observation on the fact that
1. calling is a marginal -ev play
2. software is not good at analysing multiple opponents.

Great scenario calculations too...what software do you use to calculate this.

thank you.


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[fundiver199]

Suited wheel aces typically need to be played with aggression or not at all. If stacks were shorter, you could jam here as a bluff, but with 30BB I prefer to just fold. The problem with calling is, that you are going to be out of position against 3 or more likely 4 players, if BB comes along, and you stack is not really deep enough to play drawing hands. Pot will be 300, and you have less than 900 behind. You will also get into sticky spots on A high boards, when someone has you outkicked or flopped a set, and you might feel obliged to pay at least one bet.

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[Collin Moshman]

Flatting is reasonable with deeper stacks, based on the risk/reward here though I’d often shove so long as the opener isn’t tight. A good rule of thumb is:

Outside of the big blind, if you have 5x or less the current pot size, shove most hands you play.

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[VovanBaron]

Flatting is best ev line for this hand in this situation.in this situation with raiser and four callers your 3bet doesnt work 100% ...you can use such hands as a6s-a2s for squeezing but you need to consider the style of opponents and ther position.most of time we do squeeze vs mp lp but not fishy cause it s a trouble to play vs fish oop. You should have reasonable ev vs caller range.

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[mara2259]

A suited ace with a small card from 2 to 5 is a good hand that brings huge profits when it increases to a straight or flush and leads to ruin when an ace appears on the board, since so many people forget why they entered the game with this hand. The losses are especially noticeable in those cases when the opponents are in no hurry to play their ace with a stronger kicker. Few manage to stop in time with a pair of aces against opponents who showed fake weakness. Be careful and do not forget about the strength of your kicker!

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[Jon Poker]

These are the hands where I tend to play a little outside if the norm. If I have about 25bb+ here I am getting amazing pot odds to see the flop plus my implied odds are pretty great if I were to smash said flop. This all being said we need a plan if we are going to attempt to play this hand because the BB can still squeeze us and so on.

Before I get started here I also completely agree that we should generally be playing suited Aces like this aggressively - the problem here is we are too short to do so and thus it ends up being a jam or fold spot typically. Anyhow, onward with option C!

I would put in the call here and risk 2 bb to win a potential 12bb - as I said odds are way too good. Now - I have a very strict strategy/plan when I do take this line. I will break it down as follows:

-Fold to any 3bet preflop
-Check/fold all flops where I do not flop 2 pair or better - yes this means x/f top pair A as well.
-look to check/shove with the nut flush draw or made hands 2pr+

This makes it super easy for us to play this hand post flop. I'd snap fold top pair on a flop here just because it's a high probability that someone else has the A and my kicker is no good - if you cant bring yourself to do that then just fold to begin with. Anyhow, point is we have a hand that can flop the nuts and when it does very multi way we make aloooot of $$. Othertimes we basically pay 2bb, we fold when we miss the flop and we move on losing the minimum.

That for me is the key point here, if we take this line the idea is to flop really well and get it all in or fold and lose the minimum. Hope this makes sense to some of you and hope it helps!

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[fundiver199]

When equities in PokerSnowie run very close, it tend to not matter all that much, what we do. So the conclusion from running this scenario is mostly, that 3-betting is almost certainly bad. Calling or folding however wont really matter in the long run.

It should be noted, that Snowie is not a tournament program, so it does not take ICM or antes into account. It also assumes, everyone play perfect, which is sometimes clearly wrong. But in this particular spot the ranges, Snowie assign to all opponents, are probably fairly accurate.

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