$11 NLHE STT: AQ UTG

[thunder1276]

Villian Stats (VPIP/PFR/AF): 44/26/2

Granted I didnt know his exact stats at the time and they are only over 26 hands so they arent really accurate.

full tilt poker No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30.00/t60.00 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 1173147
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: t1525.00 25.42 BBs
SB: t1640.00 27.33 BBs
BB: t2380.00 39.67 BBs
Hero (UTG): t1380.00 23 BBs
UTG+1: t1390.00 23.17 BBs
UTG+2: t805.00 13.42 BBs
MP1: t1765.00 29.42 BBs
MP2: t2070.00 34.50 BBs
CO: t545.00 9.08 BBs

Pre Flop: (t90) Hero is UTG with A ♦ Q ♠
Hero raises to t180, 6 folds, SB raises to t540, 1 fold, Hero ???

I figure that the worst thing you can do here is to call. He is pretty loose aggressive so I could have the best hand but to 3bet and UTG raise makes me think that he has me beat. This was the only hand he 3bet the whole short time I was playing with him. Should I fold here or shove it in??

 

[DetroitJimmy]

Toss it. It's too early and I'm pretty sure this is a standard and not a turbo. Even if a turbo there is plenty of time left and you should have plenty of time to get chips with less risk. Even a crazy villian has a pretty good hand most of the time he 3bets an early position raiser from SB. If you shove you have no fold equity and you will most likely be coin flip at best. Muck it and ya still got 20BBs left. Fold and it's not even close IMO.

 

[KoRnholio]

He's probably not folding after putting in 1/3 of his stack, but with stats like that (44/26 is quite loose and aggro) he could well be 3betting hands like AJ, KQs, 66. His 0% 3bet is a bit concerning, but I think there's a reasonable chance that we're far ahead or flipping. I'm only really worried about AK here.

I'd probably shove it in...

 

[DetroitJimmy]

He's probably not folding after putting in 1/3 of his stack, but with stats like that (44/26 is quite loose and aggro) he could well be 3betting hands like AJ, KQs, 66. His 0% 3bet is a bit concerning, but I think there's a reasonable chance that we're far ahead or flipping. I'm only really worried about AK here.

I'd probably shove it in...

I would agree if the blinds were higher. The only thing you would really want him to call with is a weaker ace/queen. Still much left in his range we are ahead of but he's not folding so we are risking tourney life way to early. Most of his range we are 60/40~%(in the head average) and having a 60% chance of surviving isn't worth the double up (yet). Really if it were earlier unless you play great post flop then I muck AQo from EP preflop. Might seem kinda tight but no need to risk chips any earlier than mid game without premiums pre-flop. This being a non-turbo make decision easier.

What's the all mighty Wizzum think?

 

[Rldetheflop]

I think 9 handed in low blind play we can open fold here to avoid these type of situations.

and yes flatting the 3 bet is absolutely the worst thing to do.

 

[ben_rhyno]

I think 9 handed in low blind play we can open fold here to avoid these type of situations.

and yes flatting the 3 bet is absolutely the worst thing to do.

Nit

 

[DetroitJimmy]

I think 9 handed in low blind play we can open fold here to avoid these type of situations.

and yes flatting the 3 bet is absolutely the worst thing to do.

As played do you cut your losses and fold? I say yes.

Everyone makes marginal decisions at some point in a game. Trying to cut down on these is crucial to getting better in the long run. It's not the end of the world if you make one mistake/marginal move. It's what you do after that either turns mistake into big profit or snowballs into disaster(AKA early elimination). Sometimes you make a mistake and it ends up doubling or tripling you up. Realize you have still made the mistake then put it behind you and use your monster chip stack the same way you would had you really earned it.

Now if villian flatted and you hit TPGK or similar I would bet/raise all day long against same opponent.

 

[Rldetheflop]

Nit

yea i nit it up early especially oop thats what we are suppose to do

however if it was say 8 handed or the blinds 40/80 I would consider playing it.

As played do you cut your losses and fold? I say yes.

Yep

 

[cjatud2012]

I figure that the worst thing you can do here is to call. He is pretty loose aggressive so I could have the best hand but to 3bet and UTG raise makes me think that he has me beat. This was the only hand he 3bet the whole short time I was playing with him. Should I fold here or shove it in??

I doubt a 44/26 is really positionally aware. It's more like "KTo is da nuts, arr-in"

(even if he's not actually a 44/26, there's really no way he can be a good player, so that logic is probably pretty accurate)

This sort of situation is difficult to model but I'm usually pretty happy about getting it all-in here. But I guess that's just me, judging from the responses itt.

 

[cjatud2012]

Just to confirm that I'm not a LAG donkey, I tried to manipulate SNGWiz to give us some more insight into the situation (although busting out Wiz in this situation really just confirms that I'm a donkey with no clue what he's doing). Here the preflop pot-size is t800, which is about what it is when we're facing our 3-bet decision. So here we see if he raises 10% and never folds, it's still a push. Obviously this is the part that's really fluid - maybe he's raising narrower than that, or maybe he's folding sometimes.

So I guess a fold wouldn't be awful since it's close, but I'd rather try to double up than leave myself with t1200 if it's close.

 

[DetroitJimmy]

^^^ Does the fact that this is not a turbo change your or SNG Wizz's mind? Would you raise this preflop? What about if it were first round?

Maybe in a 6 or 7way game with 40/80 blinds is when to raise this from UTG. Then you are not faced with such borderline decisions so early. No need to rush a non turbo. They last literally forever!

Edit: fix your blinds in SNG wiz and see if it is still a push. I doubt it. The blinds in OP are 30/60 not 100/200. Big difference!

 

[cjatud2012]

^^^ Does the fact that this is not a turbo change your or SNG Wizz's mind? Would you raise this preflop? What about if it were first round?

Maybe in a 6 or 7way game with 40/80 blinds is when to raise this from UTG. Then you are not faced with such borderline decisions so early. No need to rush a non turbo. They last literally forever!

Edit: fix your blinds in SNG wiz and see if it is still a push. I doubt it. The blinds in OP are 30/60 not 100/200. Big difference!

Perhaps it's not clear what I tried to do (or maybe you just didn't read what I wrote). With Wiz you can't analyze a situation in which you raised and someone 3-bet. So to get around this, I put roughly the same amount of money into the pot at the time of the 3-bet, by increasing the blinds and putting us into the BB. This allows us to consider this situation approximately, whereas it was impossible before.

Does this make sense?

As far as turbos vs non-turbos goes, I don't think that really matters here. If the spot is profitable then you should go for it. The question is whether it's profitable or not, which is the tricky part because we don't have a rock solid read. I guess that's where you get into do you wanna be more patient or not when you're unsure, because you're in a turbo or non-turbo, but if you're just afraid of variance that's not really a good reason to be patient.

 

[DetroitJimmy]

Perhaps it's not clear what I tried to do (or maybe you just didn't read what I wrote). With Wiz you can't analyze a situation in which you raised and someone 3-bet. So to get around this, I put roughly the same amount of money into the pot at the time of the 3-bet, by increasing the blinds and putting us into the BB. This allows us to consider this situation approximately, whereas it was impossible before.

Does this make sense?

As far as turbos vs non-turbos goes, I don't think that really matters here. If the spot is profitable then you should go for it. The question is whether it's profitable or not, which is the tricky part because we don't have a rock solid read. I guess that's where you get into do you wanna be more patient or not because you're in a turbo or non-turbo, but if you're just afraid of variance that's not really a good reason to be patient.

Now I get what you were trying to do but I think the model is a totally different situation. I don't even think this looks close. Don't need software to tell me the UTG raise was marginal at best and 20bbs deep this early is plenty to do some damage. This isn't being afraid of variance, it's just playing smart IMO.


Another thing you might want to remember is this is an FTP SNG and blind structure is totally different than stars. You have much more time to adjust at FT and there are never antes. The next levels will be 40/80, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 120/240, 150/300, 200/400, 300/600, well you get where this is going. I don't know Stars structure exactly but I know you need to adjust QUICKLY. Much more quickly than FT.

 

[WiZZiM]

I'd be defaulting to a fold here unless i had a better read on the guy. He looks to be loose, but still 3betting that small after an UTG Raise is suspicious. I don't have many of my tools right now, but we'd need around 48% against his range to make a call of a shove profitable. I'm treating this like a shove. Perhaps this guy makes small raises with big hands, perhaps he makes this raise all the time, we don't really know, which is why i'd just default to folding (basically treating the guy like a standard player who isn't 3betting very wide on average).

 

[KoRnholio]

I'd be defaulting to a fold here unless i had a better read on the guy. He looks to be loose, but still 3betting that small after an UTG Raise is suspicious. I don't have many of my tools right now, but we'd need around 48% against his range to make a call of a shove profitable. I'm treating this like a shove. Perhaps this guy makes small raises with big hands, perhaps he makes this raise all the time, we don't really know, which is why i'd just default to folding (basically treating the guy like a standard player who isn't 3betting very wide on average).

1- His raise isn't that small. It's 3x the size of the initial raise, and over 1/3 of the remaining effective stack size. Given his looseness and aggression, we can't really treat him like a standard player.

2- We actually only need 43% to win if he is never folding to our all in (math below)

We have 1200 left in our stack. We're wagering 1200 to win 1410 (1380 plus the 30 from the small blind). 1200:2610 = 2.3-1 odds or 43%.

Pokerstove the top 7% of hands against our AQo and we get 43% equity.

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 43.032% 36.45% 06.59% 46180208 8345884.50 { AcQd }
Hand 1: 56.968% 50.38% 06.59% 63838519 8345884.50 { 88+, ATs+, KTs+, AQo+ }

And remember this is assuming he never folds. It's entirely possible that he will fold a small pair if we shove, which is a huge gain for us. His range (3betting then calling) may also be wider than this, which also gains for us.

 

[WiZZiM]

We need to factor in ICM to those figures. Since I really can't be bothered to work it all out, i'd assume it's something like 48% give or take (You can use programs like "ICM Explorer" to get a closer approximate).

I do however agree that we can not treat this guy like a standard player, i was rushed earlier and didn't read the OP like i should have. So yeah, shoving this is probably good, however i think i'd still fold this. His stats indicate he is a bit loose, however his 3betting range may be a lot tighter (most players are). 25 hands isn't enough of a sample to actually know this guy is bad, however if we have some sort of read about a hand he showed down, it could sway my opinion to a shove. Personally, i'd probably opt to fold, i'd like to think that i can build my stack up in other areas instead of taking on marginal shoves like this vs his murky range.

And sorry, we can't include fold equity here, it just doesn't happen often enough.

 

[jbbb]

In my opinion AQo from UTG is a muck in these early stages as it will throw up problems. Say we raise AQo UTG, the three possible outcomes are:

1. We take down the blinds uncontested, which is only 90 and not going to effect your stack size or your chance of winning the SNG.
2. You get flat called. Your most likely going to be playing OOP post-flop. This is undesirable at best. Even if we hit the ace, if we were smooth called my a strong TAG, we can't rule out he's trapping with AK, and we would assume he's too good to play AJ if we bet into him. This is a marginal situation at best.
3. You get 3-bet. Like the situation here, it would put you in an awkward situation as you've suddenly turned a small 3x raise for only 180 chips into a massive decision for atleast half your stack or even possibly all of it. IMO it's better to avoid all-ins in early stages as better situations always occur later in the game.

Thats why I wouldn't play AQo from UTG.
As for the question you asked I think the advice given is good, however with the small sample size of Villian we can't be sure hes a LAG player and i'd be inclined to fold here. Even if I thought it was a coin flip, I wouldn't want to risk that for the sake of an early double up or going bust.

 

[ben_rhyno]

I seriously can't believe the suggestions of just open folding preflop. In this case I suppose TT/JJ is also just a fold. Fair enough we can sometimes fold to this 3-bet. Also, how much does ICM come into play here? 9 players left, I only really start to bother about it with <5 left. Maybe a leak for me.

 

[Rldetheflop]

I seriously can't believe the suggestions of just open folding preflop. In this case I suppose TT/JJ is also just a fold. Fair enough we can sometimes fold to this 3-bet. Also, how much does ICM come into play here? 9 players left, I only really start to bother about it with <5 left. Maybe a leak for me.

nope my early blind utg range is generally this 99+,AQs+,AKo notice that TT/JJ are in this range but AQo is not.

as far as ICM "tax" goes there is very little early but there is still some and it increases as the table gets shorter and shorter(until heads up when there is none).

 

[ben_rhyno]

Yeh I already know the ICM, but I think I prefer opening AQo than 99. My range is Aqo+, 99+, AJs+, maybe a little too loose for some but works for me