$20 NL HE STT: Fold AK preflop?

[StealTheButton]

Game

Hold'em

Game Format

No Limit

Table Format

STT

Buy-in

20

Game Options

1. Turbo

Currency

$

There are not many situations to do this, and every time I do I get berated when I do.

STT tourney, 6max, turbo. 3 players left

hero (me) 3500 chips
villain 4500 chips
player 3- 1000 chips

Both players are solid, and the villain has experience at higher stakes than me. Villain loves the all-in, but does not do so without a hand. Player 3 so far seems to have not made any mistakes.

I am dealt AKo on the button. Current blinds are 100/200 with $25 ante. I raise 2.5x to $500 and the villain in the small blind insta-shoves. Now I am pretty sure that he is not making this move with a hand like AQ, AJ, or KQ and he likely has a pair 9's or better, or AK (less likely because there are now less combinations. In a larger tourney you need enter these coin flips and win them to win the large prizes, but in the 6max single table, you can bust out again and again on the button and it starts to hurt your bankroll. I actually wanted to fold, but I called (the players who are better than me usually think I'm dumb for wanting to fold). Taking into account ICM considerations, is this a snap call, or does it require pause?

 

[fundiver199]

In a situation like this, where there is a significant short stack on the bubble of a 6-man or 9-man SnG, ICM become really extreme. This mean, that if you open small, as you did here, the chip leader can rejam an extremely wide range, and you can only call with a very few hands, and possibly not even AK. This mean, that if the chip leader is good enough to know this, then raising small is a complete disaster. What you want to do instead is open shove, because he cant call anywhere near as wide, as he can rejam. Sure he has you covered, but if he call and lose, now he is in a folding war with player 3 to avoid being the bubble boy.

So even though you are 17,5BB effective, which would normally be min-raising territory, this is a situation, where you absolutely must change strategy and play a pure push-fold game. Of course this mean, that you need to play a tighter range than normal, but thats totally fine. Its better to fold and let the chip leader try to bust the short stack or chip away at him than basically donating 2,5BB to the chip leader, every time you open a hand and he shove on you. The only reason to raise small would be, if you have AA or KK and want to induce action, and you think, he will not pick up on, what you are doing.

 

[300HPGOD]

Well said above by Fundiver. This is a jam spot since jamming now turns the tides on the SB. They now have to call with an extremely tight range and in this specific hand where we have AK, we have a blocker to both AA and KK and its 3 handed to boot so the likelihood of running into AA or KK is low. Jamming here also should make villain weary of calling of all pocket pairs at least 99 and below and maybe even 1010. So jamming here will get better hands to fold. Plus BB only has 5 BBs so they should call off a little lighter assuming SB folds which is what we are looking for with a hand like AK.

As played, if villain is solid as you said then they can put a lot of pressure on you every time you min raise as Fundiver states. I would have the thought process that if I did min raise here that I have AK which are blockers to the two hands I am really worried about and they should be jamming a little looser than I would naturally think since they can mess with me here. That and that AK is very strong 3 handed is more than enough for me to call and I wouldt think about about it too long. Its not a snap call since I dont think there should be a snap call 3 handed in a 6 man SNG unless you have the nuts. Everything should be thought about at least a little but I think this should be a call as played.

 

[fundiver199]

I ran the hand in ICMizer now, and as played Hero can only open 11% of hands, and he can only call the jam with JJ+ and AKs. AKo is a raise-fold as played, which perfectly illustrate, why we do not want to raise small. It is close though since we only lose 0,16% of the price pool by calling. But this is assuming, that Villain is jamming 38% of hands, as he should. Villains jamming range is any pair, any AX, any KX, any suited QX, QJo and some suited connectors and 1-gappers. Basically anything which block Heros extremely narrow calling range of just JJ+ and AKs, and then some hands, that have decent equity against it.

OP apparently put him on a range, which was extremely much tighter. I think, this assumption is totally off, if he is a good player, but even if his range is just a little tighter, calling with AKo becomes a pretty significant mistake. But regardless of his exact range the main point is, that in these high ICM situations fold equity is everything, and whenever possible we want to be the player, who has it. We do not want to allow a good opponent to have a 38% rejamming range, when we can only call him with JJ+ and AKs.