$260 NLHE MTT Deep Stacked: ISO Shove with AQ in the Big Blind

[Jacki Burkhart]

This is a 192 player live MTT. We are down to about 80 players remaining, 21 paid. I have about 45,000 and the average stack is about 34,000.

blinds are 400/800 with a 100 ante so starting pot is 2,100.

UTG+1 opens for 2,000 off a stack of 35,000. I've played with this player a lot and I know that KQo is in his UTG opening range at a full table. I also know that he is tight aggressive and capable of raise/folding hands like AQ to pressure preflop. I've seen him do BOTH of those actions today. He also shows me his hands quite a bit (we are friendly) so I have some pretty good insight into his game. I'd estimate his range right here to be 88+, AK, AQ, AJs?, KQo

MP2 jams for 11,300. This is a good, aggressive player who has gotten short. He knows to jam wide and re-steal with his stack size, but he will also have SOME kind of a hand here since he can expect to be called frequently by the opening raiser. I'd estimate his range to be 66+, AK, AQ, KQs and possibly some other suited connector type hands; but his range is weighted toward value hands here.

so, it folds to my BB and I look down at and without hardly even thinking about it I jam it in. I just feel really strongly that UTG+1 will fold, but I wonder if it is a good shove or not?

 

[horizon12]

You have 21M , its big stack what shove AQo vs range UTG+1 and 3bet MP2.. Most of the time we will be far behind and here we have no fold equity...

 

[toots babos]

personally i'd fold for a few reasons here

firstly you say you've put the shortstack shover on a range of 66+, AK, AQ, KQs and some other suited connectors.... well your hand is really only stacking up well against is the KQs, the rest you are either flipping against or are dominated.

secondly you have an above average stack as it is so you could probably afford to wait for much better spots to accumulate some chips.

and thirdly why i'd choose fold is to put the utg+1 in a tough spot as to whether or not to call a further 9000 with their hand which may lose + also give more info to you and the rest of the table on how lightly they may call certain shove raises.

just my thoughts on it

how did the hand progress?

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

personally i'd fold for a few reasons here

firstly you say you've put the shortstack shover on a range of 66+, AK, AQ, KQs and some other suited connectors.... well your hand is really only stacking up well against is the KQs, the rest you are either flipping against or are dominated.

secondly you have an above average stack as it is so you could probably afford to wait for much better spots to accumulate some chips.

and thirdly why i'd choose fold is to put the utg+1 in a tough spot as to whether or not to call a further 9000 with their hand which may lose + also give more info to you and the rest of the table on how lightly they may call certain shove raises.

just my thoughts on it

how did the hand progress?

Yeah, at the time although I didn't really think it through I thought it was a good move...I don't know why but I just felt really strongly that UTG+1 was going to fold and then I'd be flipping for about 1/4 my stack with some dead money. I thought it was a good opportunity to isolate and accumulate.

As it turns out I was more or less right in my assessment of the situation and I basically got what I wanted, the original raiser folded and the shover turned over JJ which was near the top of his range there, but still a decent result....I was expecting to flip or be 60/40 at best. I bricked out and lost 1/4 my stack putting me right around an average stack....no big change really to the playability of my stack.

But as time wore on I began to suspect this was a bad play and here's why:

#1- even if UTG+1 folds, he is most likely folding some of my outs so my "flip" is not really a flip at all since some of my outs are dead.

#2- in the off chance the UTG+1 has a monster I lose most my chips.

So, I think I should have just folded right here...

 

[duggs]

Yeah, at the time although I didn't really think it through I thought it was a good move...I don't know why but I just felt really strongly that UTG+1 was going to fold and then I'd be flipping for about 1/4 my stack with some dead money. I thought it was a good opportunity to isolate and accumulate.

As it turns out I was more or less right in my assessment of the situation and I basically got what I wanted, the original raiser folded and the shover turned over JJ which was near the top of his range there, but still a decent result....I was expecting to flip or be 60/40 at best. I bricked out and lost 1/4 my stack putting me right around an average stack....no big change really to the playability of my stack.

But as time wore on I began to suspect this was a bad play and here's why:

#1- even if UTG+1 folds, he is most likely folding some of my outs so my "flip" is not really a flip at all since some of my outs are dead.

#2- in the off chance the UTG+1 has a monster I lose most my chips.

So, I think I should have just folded right here...

this sums it up imo, we don't have enough of an equity edge in the main pot v the 3bet shover to make up for being a substantial dog when called in both pots, given ranges we just don't get folds often at all. and were relatively lucky to get folds this time.

also i don't think MP is shoving as many small pairs as you have included, but its kinda trivial to our decision, more likely its 99+ given he has very little fold equity with stack sizes, and relative positions etc

 

[Everybodylovesdeuces]

The more I play them the more I feel the real power of AQ or AK in an aipf situation is having some sort of fold equity which we don't have here. The FE jamming these hands is what makes it a positive ev play rather than simply a 50/50 (the flips and then general assumption half the time they have KQ or AK).

Another thing I really hate to do is give up my chip lead when I loose the flip. Don't you think we can put our chips to better use in a better spot?

 

[Jacki Burkhart]

The more I play them the more I feel the real power of AQ or AK in an aipf situation is having some sort of fold equity which we don't have here. The FE jamming these hands is what makes it a positive ev play rather than simply a 50/50 (the flips and then general assumption half the time they have KQ or AK).

Another thing I really hate to do is give up my chip lead when I loose the flip. Don't you think we can put our chips to better use in a better spot?

agree.

 

[Aces2w1n]

What type of hands should we be challenging them with in this spot??

 

[duggs]

AK JJ+