$3.32 NLHE STT: AK all in? (Early tournament)

OzExorcist

OzExorcist

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Idk. Maybe im thinking to hard here. I honestly dont find a reason to open shove with AK in late position. Shoving here , IMO, is a reckless play and highly unprofitable. The reason I say this is, the chance of us earning max value when shoving here is unlikely, but making the bet smaller makes the pot bigger and gives our opponents very little fold equity making it much easier to play PF.

While I agree that open shoving probably doesn't get us maximum value every time it's still a highly profitable play. Most of the time we pick up the blinds, we get called by worse hands fairly often and occasionally we'll be called by hands that have us crushed. That's a long, long way from "highly unprofitable"

Your examples also ignore the times when raising small preflop gets us paid less. What about the times when villain does something dumb like flats with AJ or 99 then check-folds on a Kxx flop? There's a good chance AJ or 99 would have called us preflop and lost their whole stack to us, now they only lose the minimum.

Lastly, if making our hand "easier to play postflop" is one of the criteria then I put it to you that a hand that's been shoved preflop is the easiest one of all to play postflop.
 
InTheMoney198

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Lol...i wrote that half awake and a bit intoxicated.
 
luciusyg

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hmmm so what if this situation happens when you're in your second hand in the tournament?

Would you guys call?
 
InTheMoney198

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you cant fold..u invest 25% of ur chips.. your usually ahead or in a coin flip. rarely are u dominated...snap call.
 
cjatud2012

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hmmm so what if this situation happens when you're in your second hand in the tournament?

Would you guys call?

Too vague of a question unfortunately :eek: what did you raise to? What was your stack size? Did he 3-bet or shove? Do you have any reads?
 
OzExorcist

OzExorcist

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hmmm so what if this situation happens when you're in your second hand in the tournament?

Would you guys call?

As in it's the second hand in, everyone's around 50BB deep, we've made it 3x from late position and one of the blinds has shoved their full stack?

I probably call but that's a very different situation to this one. In that case I figure the villain in the blinds almost never has AA-QQ because they would have raised smaller hoping for value. I figure villain is much more likely to have something like AQ-AT or a medium pair and I'm happy enough to gambool it up to either get myself a big stack early or just start another game.

FWIW I'm never open shoving AK in that situation though because stacks are way too deep, we fold out pretty much every worse hand and we still get called every time by AA or KK. Making it about 2.5-3x in that spot is the right play because it gets us more value from worse hands and when we've still got a deep stack we do want the opportunity to get away cheap if we miss and villain bets.
 
cardriverx

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tbh AK is one of my favorite hands to get in pre-flop. I'm open-shoving.
 
ben_rhyno

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Stop n go isn't really an option since we have position. You would flat a raise then shove any flop OOP. Stop n go would work well with the button stealing the BB though since there is little FE.
I didn't read it properly, but when in MP vs the SB's 3b shove its an easy call. If the original 3bettor flat called our raise, its an automatic shove on 95% of flops when we are checked to
 
jbbb

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hmmm so what if this situation happens when you're in your second hand in the tournament?

Would you guys call?

First hand, you raise 3x and someone shoves, it's a fold.
 
jbbb

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It depends on buy-in and player but you're not ahead of much really and a shove indicates the play doesn't want to see a flop but is condifent about his hand pre flop so probably a mid PP.
For that I put the range at 77+ AK+ AQ+

Hand 0: 51.424% { 77+, AQs+, AQo+ }
Hand 1: 48.576% { AKs, AKo }

Any objections to the range for villian? Maybe even a bit looser and it's still a fold:

Hand 0: 47.372% { 77+, AQs+, KQs, AQo+, KQo }
Hand 1: 52.628% { AKs, AKo }
 
OzExorcist

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Hand 0: 51.424% { 77+, AQs+, AQo+ }
Hand 1: 48.576% { AKs, AKo }

Any objections to the range for villian? Maybe even a bit looser and it's still a fold:

Hand 0: 47.372% { 77+, AQs+, KQs, AQo+, KQo }
Hand 1: 52.628% { AKs, AKo }

One problem with the range: it should almost never include QQ+. Plus I think we're likely to see hands like AJ/AT some of the time but even if we ignore that...

Hand 0: 43.900% { JJ-77, AQs+, KQs, AQo+, KQo }
Hand 1: 56.100% { AcKd }
 
Hand 0: 48.038% { JJ-77, AQs+, AQo+ }
Hand 1: 51.962% { AcKd }

They're small edges but unless I'm remembering wrong the ICM tax at the start of the game is negligible. Maybe it just depends what your attitude towards risk is?

FWIW I expect to be up against a range more like this:

Hand 0: 40.822% { JJ-99, ATs+, AJo+ }
Hand 1: 59.178% { AcKd }

With 88 or lower I think most villains (even most of the stupid ones) set mine.
 
Pascal-lf

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Couldve showed more EXs etc. just wanted to be done
lol

Opening with AK then check folding after investing 3bb of your 12bb stack is horrible. The example you gave shows you hitting the board - if you miss and check fold it's an extremely unprofitable play and akin to burning money IMO
 
jbbb

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One problem with the range: it should almost never include QQ+. Plus I think we're likely to see hands like AJ/AT some of the time but even if we ignore that...

Hand 0: 43.900% { JJ-77, AQs+, KQs, AQo+, KQo }
Hand 1: 56.100% { AcKd }
 
Hand 0: 48.038% { JJ-77, AQs+, AQo+ }
Hand 1: 51.962% { AcKd }

They're small edges but unless I'm remembering wrong the ICM tax at the start of the game is negligible. Maybe it just depends what your attitude towards risk is?

FWIW I expect to be up against a range more like this:

Hand 0: 40.822% { JJ-99, ATs+, AJo+ }
Hand 1: 59.178% { AcKd }

With 88 or lower I think most villains (even most of the stupid ones) set mine.

It all depends on range. We're usually flipping though. Even shit villians don't shove AJ (really? lol).
Go on this site:
http://www.reviewpokerrooms.com/poker-games/general/tournament-equity.html
Put in 9 stacks of 2500 see our equity is $11.11. We double to 5000 chips are equity is $20.28. So we've lost $2 equity by doubling up. I can't do the exact math but I think we need to be like 57% ahead or something to justtify calling pre on the first hand?
P.S I know you know this shit, just thought i'd post my ideas so you can correct my if im wrong.
 
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The way the hand was played was fine. I agree 3xBB is not a good standard bet all the time. In mid to late stages I mix 2x-3x as anything over you are asking for everyone to fold and only raise monsters. you should mix it up as betting the same amount all the time also intices re-raises. So by mixing it up and keeping raises managable in terms of BB I think lots of benifits

On open shoving AK here I think it is a good move too. I would do that depending on the table and villians. If I thought I would get called open shoving I would do it... If I thought villans would fold A with lower kicker then no.

If AK in early part of game you 3xBB and they go all in I think this is a judgment call on buy in level, previous history, your thoughts on table strength, ect. I would call a few but would like to think I would mostly fold... but might be other way around in real life :)
 
OzExorcist

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It all depends on range. We're usually flipping though. Even shit villians don't shove AJ (really? lol).

By default if villain is making this play on the second hand of the game then they're terrible so yeah, I've absolutely seen AJ and maybe even worse in some of these spots. They think it's a good hand but they're worried they won't know what to do if they miss the flop so they shove.

Even if we need 57% equity we're there or thereabouts with all the situations above other than the one where they're shoving all the way down to 77 but nothing worse than AQ on the unpaired side (which I still think is way, way too tight for a player that's obviously a drooler). Plus if we double up we're in a good position to cash and it makes playing the rest of the game a lot easier for us. If we bust we can just start another game.

WiZ will probably turn up in a minute and destroy my entire line of reasoning in one line but basically I figure this is never AA/KK, almost never QQ and the villain is always an idiot whose range we're beating.
 
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Generally I make assumptions on players based on bet sizing. A "normal" looking 3bet size i'm likely to just fold the AK, but when someone jams all in, they are kind of telling me that they have no idea what they are doing.

For me it depends on how much of an edge you think you have over the table. Generally if you know you are a bad player or perhaps you are in a game where you think you are facing a lot of regs or seomthing, then go ahead and call. If the opposite, you think you have a big edge over the field, then just fold it. We know we usually cash in like 38-40% of tournaments, and doubling up doesn't guarantee that we even finish ITM. Whats more, doubling up early doesn't guarantee that we finish 1st anymore than we would if we just folded. Other questions to ask yourself are

Can you play a big stack well?
That's a pretty huge question. A lot of players will actually start playing super loose and try to knock players out as soon as they get a stack, when it's not really neccessary or justified to do so. They make plays that they normally wouldn't have, just becuase they now have the chips to waste. If this sounds like you, then you should probably think twice about doubling up early.

I wouldn't say never, i'd just say it's way less likely to be a strong hand. ANd i think most bad villians actually overplay their PP's and would raise them a ton, instead of set- mining.
 
OzExorcist

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^ LOL, I totally predicted that post, huh...
 
jbbb

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^ LOL, I totally predicted that post, huh...
That post kinda justifies both our arguements...I think the point about edge is key. If you flip on your first hand in every tourny, 50% of the time you won't make it to the 2nd hand, which means the times you do win you have to cash 80% to make it 40% ITM.
Tough spot, but i'd still be inclined to fold.
 
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That post kinda justifies both our arguements...I think the point about edge is key. If you flip on your first hand in every tourny, 50% of the time you won't make it to the 2nd hand, which means the times you do win you have to cash 80% to make it 40% ITM.
Tough spot, but i'd still be inclined to fold.

Well if we call, it's based on the assumption he has a ton of Ax type hands in his range, so we're more likely winning 60-70% of the time. If it is a 50/50, then we should be just folding.
 
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losched16

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I have to admit, I did not read every response, but I open shove this all day.
There is no raise/fold. There is no more post flop play. I am happy to open shove AK with <= 15BB to either steal the blinds or even get calls from worse hands. Playing a hand like AK, AQ or 1010 post flop at this stage can get sticky. And, you are very rarely folding these hands preflop to a 3bet anyway when the BB gets to this level anyway. So I am just going all in myself.
If you run into a big hand like QQ+, so be it. Like I said, you're not folding preflop anyway.
 
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losched16

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As far as playing AK in the early game, there was a good discussion on it here: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/how-play-ak-196479/

Generally, not the best idea to call a shove in the early stages with AK since you need to be getting at least 55% equity against the opponent's shoving range, and more times than not, you will not be.

Also, Wizzim, you said, "A "normal" looking 3bet size i'm likely to just fold the AK, but when someone jams all in, they are kind of telling me that they have no idea what they are doing." I agree with you. This is exactly why I started that thread (https://www.cardschat.com/forum/tournament-poker-59/over-shoving-aa-kk-196717/) on over shoving AA and KK to make it look like I am the fish and get all in calls when normally I would not. Money in the bank. Ha.
 
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