Ok, first, before you get to the hand, think about why you are posting here. As I see it, there are three options (1 and 2 overlap significantly):

1/ To teach
2/ To learn
3/ I got lost looking for off-topic, where am I?

If 1, you need to explain the reasons for what you do. This isn't monkey see monkey do.
If 2, you need to say why you would make a certain move. Making an unsuccessful play is fine as long as it's for the right reasons, and making the right play for the wrong reasons is bad.
If 3, you are in the tournament strategy forum. Don't panic. Just click HERE and your world will return to normal.







Last 2 tables of the $24+$2 $7k gtd on FullTilt. No reads on the players involved. I've been pretty tight because the play is terrible overall.

Full Tilt Poker
No Limit Holdem Tournament
Blinds: t1500/t3000
(Ante: t400)
8 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: t54502
UTG+1: t125620
MP1: t55300
MP2: t77336
CO: t72916
Button: t215706
Hero: t58676
BB: t42525

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is SB with A K
UTG raises to t6000, 3 folds, CO raises to t9000, Button folds

Hero??

Smooth calls and looks at a flop.

Answers like ^^that^^ are not what I'm after here. I think it's the best option, but why (I have my reasons, but what are yours)?

I want you to consider the options available, and analyse their problems and merits. Why is a shove good? Why is a shove bad? Why is a min-re-re-raise good (you may need to be a little creative with this one)?

Or just say "Shovel AINEC" to annoy me.

Shovel AINEC










Sooooo tempting to just say that. I guess personally my M is so low here (about 7) that I'm never folding AK suited, and I'd like to get the hand heads up and hopefully get some dead money in the pot at the same time in case I am in a race. I'm not too worried about huge hands here b/c as you said the play is generally terrible and the pots are all significant enough at this point that there is a decent chance either player has a weak or medium-strength hand. Flat-calling puts us in a super weird spot when we miss the flop, we lose a lot of chips if we have to fold, and we're not closing out action.

What a weird hand.

With an m of 7. You need to shove here. You don't have much time to accumulate and it is a permium hand. Put it all in and try to get some chips for an FT run.

I'll tackle the min-re-raise aspect of this hand, first.

Disclaimer: I'm justifying CO's actions, no way in a million years do I actually even giggle while *thinking* of making this play, much less actually do it.

This is dependent upon the image of UTG: Is he stealing a lot from UTG? Is he an active player? If the answer to either of these is yes, the CO may be repping a big pocket pair, inducing the cheapest possible way for UTG to let go of the hand, plus he has post-flop position.

The power of the min-raise, in the CO's eyes, is it's rarely going to get re-shoved, because of the "likeliehood" of AA/KK/QQ of the min-raise. It's the Bill Parcells "time-of-possession" ball control move. He's not looking for a knockout, he wants a cheap fold from UTG, or he at least has post-flop position and can bet if it is checked to him, or come over the top if the board supports "big pocket pair is good here" lines of thinking. The power of the min-raise here is he gets checked to *a lot* on the flop, and it a. ) is rarely reraised PF by original min-raiser and b. ) discourages hitchhikers behind him, especially in the blinds. No one wants to be OOP against a hand that could be *that* huge.

If UTG does shove, CO gets away as cheaply as humanly possible.

-------------------------------------
As for the rest of the hand, you may have to shove here. You will be OOP going into the flop with a drawing hand. You have no guarantee UTG is going to smooth call behind your smooth call. You either shove, or you fold. There is *no* call. Calling does not even guarantee we see a flop.

Flip a coin to see if you want to flip a coin, maybe? This is pretty close between a shove and a fold. I actually want to see some other responses on this, I'd be pretty lost in this spot, myself.

3. I got lost in off topic, where am I?

Antes+blinds = 7500ish, your M = what, like 8? I suck at math, whatever, but basically you're not exactly deepstacked. I think you have a good amount of fold equity, and there's a lot in the pot already (22,500). If somebody calls you with a pair, that's fine and you'll be getting good odds with the extra money in the pot. Also, you want to see 5 cards, not 3. It's not very likely that somebody has you dominated because of card removal.

I think calling is ultra lame, unless you're trying to induce a squeeze out of UTG or something sneaky and underhanded like that. I don't see why you would try to play a pot OOP vs 2 players with AK, just seems like you're gonna lose value. Anyways, you'll probably get called by AQ.

Shove.

I think our FE is pretty high with the squeeze play here.

However if we do shove, is UTG going to be forced to call because of his M?

And if UTG does call, doesn't the CO call if he does having a raising hand?

Against a raiser and a reraiser I don't think our hand is strong enough to warrant a flat call with our low M. If we have a much larger M, then yea smooth calling could work.

But if we smooth call now, miss the flop, and are forced to fold, our M goes down to 6ish.

If we fold AKsuited with an M of 7-8 I think we should just get blinded out.

Therefore, shoving is the only thing left. Which is what we should do because it hopefully either picks up the pot right away, or we hopefully end up heads up.

FYP. I can't imagine the CO making this play with anything but AA/KK, unless UTG has been playing like an absolute maniac. How could you pop for the minimum with 3 players to act behind you plus the original raiser? He's either holding ivory soap, or making the greatest EV donk play of all time, because, honestly.. what *else* can you put him on besides AA/KK? I'd say one in twenty times he holds AK, too... but hell.. You have to figure some strength from UTG, and that min-raise of the min-raise has to set some alarm bells off.. Factoring in antes, these guys have Ms of ten or less. Neither is playing their hands rationally, generally a sign of incredible strength, or... suited connectors.

Let's ask another question. We almost *have* to put someone on Kings or Aces here.. If so, should we call (bleh!) or shove, what exactly *are* we hoping for here? I'm pretty fatalistic in these spots, I know, but we want to put on rose-colored glasses and hope CO has some form of drawing hand, why the *hell* did he min-raise instead of flat-call? He's asking to be raised out of the pot. It's far more likely that he wants to be "raised out of the pot" so he can instacall with his AA/KK.

I just do not like this spot. If CO is making some really, really weird play, kudos to him, because it's about the cheapest way one could scare the living hell out of the rest of the table.

CO is begging for a call and is trying to a build a pot. Unless you have a read that he is an absolutely horrible player, I can't see this move without AA/KK. I fold without more info.

You're about to have the button with two shorties to your left. Take their blinds.

Well, there appears to be two schools of thought. One is that with <20bb we shouldn't be looking to fold AK suited, and we have fold equity over some of our opponents ranges (or we are in a coinflip with some dead money) so shoving is good. We can potentially take down a $20k pot preflop which is extremely useful.

That is true. But, how much fold equity do we really have, and how often are we going to be crushed? A coinflip is roughly 0EV for all intents and purposes, so we need to assume that we win this pot preflop often enough to cover the times someone has AA or KK. Do we take it preflop that often? I'm not really convinced.

The other is that the re-minraise is incredibly strong (almost exclusively AA/KK), so we should fold.

This HH is from a $4.40 180man:

Dealt to simo_8ball [7d 5c]
MickMCDi: raises 20 to 40
homer535: folds
RonnieO 1980: folds
STREWO: folds
PokerPoaAAA: folds
Magic Bochum: raises 20 to 60
ingo126: folds
simo_8ball: folds
Catostroph: folds
MickMCDi: raises 1300 to 1360 and is all-in
Magic Bochum: calls 1180 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Ks Kd Ts]
*** TURN *** [Ks Kd Ts] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [Ks Kd Ts 2d] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MickMCDi: shows [5d Ac] (a pair of Kings)
Magic Bochum: shows [Jh Kh] (three of a kind, Kings)
Magic Bochum collected 2510 from pot


Ok, this differs from our problem in that the buyin is 6xsmaller so play will be generally worse, the blinds are lower so these moves are less significant to stack sizes, and we are in the late stages as opposed to the early stages here (means villain is more likely to know what he's doing). I post this mostly to illustrate that a re-minraise can be something other than a huge hand.

I don't think we can narrow CO's range to simply AA or KK. I think there is a chance he makes this move with QQ, or AQ, or some other hand. He could be looking for info from UTG, or he could be a random idiot. There is a non zero possibility that he misclicked raise instead of call as well.



I can make arguments either way. Shovel because the pot is big and we may have fold equity. Fold because CO's range is likely to be a big favourite over our hand. Both pretty convincing.


This is why I like the seemingly ugly play of calling to see a flop. If CO's range really is just KK+, I'm usually going to miss the flop with two of my outs being dead (anyway, if CO has KK, I'm only going broke 1/4 of the times I hit because the ace is live). I also encourage UTG to come along with a hand that is dominated by mine, and makes it more likely that I can get paid if I hit. I also can get away preflop if (say) UTG shoves and CO calls.

Thoughts?

The problem with calling is post flop play. What if we hit our A or our K? We have to come out firing and we don't know where we are at. ~$27k pot at the flop, so any real bet commits us and thus the best play is to push. We could check the flop, but where are we at when UTG minraises and CO re-minraises again?

I'm still down with saving our chips for a better spot. We have a full circuit to pick up some blinds against 5 players with similiar sized stacks.

IMO Pushing =/> Folding >>>> Calling

If you think calling is good because you could be dominated with AA or KK, why would you call?

If we hit our A or K (or even two spades) it's instashove-city. If they still have us beaten, oh well. If we whiff, we'll get away from the hand "cheap" and still be in the tourney.

I'm probably checking most flops I pair on. I'm going broke (or doubling) if I hit any part of the flop. I probably shove if I flop a flush draw.

So, assuming neither of the other two are not duplicating our aces or kings, 56% of the time we are going to fold after to the flop and have thrown away 1/5 of our stack. 44% of the time when we hit the flop with either AK or 2 spades we are getting it all-in possibly way behind.

And if we do push a flop we hit...who's calling us? Very few hands we beat.

Obv flush draw or flopped flush is our best hope...but we need 8-1 to do that. We only get odds if we know our AK is not duplicated...and that they are live outs.

If the table is loose, then I can see it. If it's tight, then we use our whole stack to take chips after this hand.

If we flop a flush draw then we are at least even money against anything but a set or AA. Which is good.

If we hit an A or a K, then UTG could definitely have AQ/AJ/KQ (assuming he doesn't shove preflop).

Remember that I hit the flop a lot more often when CO has QQ than when he has AA/KK.

I agree a FD is a great outcome for us. But that only happens 12% of the time on the flop assuming neither of the other two have a spade. We don't have odds to play based on that alone.

I also agree that we can be ahead if we hit our A/K. But the other side to what you said about QQ is that when he is holding AA/KK we hit the flop a lot less often and thus are spewing chips PF an even greater % of the time. It really comes down to how often our AK are good outs coupled with how many of those outs we have. We can still get odds with one card duplicated, but not two. And I think the implied odds are weak here...We only double with the FD or against AQ on an A flop.

If you really feel that villains holdings could be that weak, then we should push PF to get the extra 2 cards.

The way I see it is:

If CO's range is AA/KK only:

Shoving is horrendous, folding is good, calling is in between and relatively -EV, but not hugely so.


If CO's range is wider than AA/KK:

Shoving is good (even against [QQ+,AK] we are 42%), folding is bad, and calling is very reasonable.



Basically, if you're folding or shoving, you're either very right or very wrong depending on what his range is. Calling cannot really be a big mistake.

I'm torn on the thought of calling here. Arguments against:

1. ) We don't close the action: calling does not guarantee we even see the flop.

2. ) This is a good *hand* that we have. This is *not* a great situation we are in.

3. ) What exactly are we hoping to flop? QJT rainbow? 3 spades?

4. ) Does flopping a naked ace or king help us here or not?

5. ) I know we overrate FIV at times, but being first into a pot with a marginal holding is still far, far greater than being 3rd into a pot (*snicker* calling) behind two people that have shown both strength *and* the notion that they want action.

Without even being able to close the action, I cannot justify throwing less than all of my chips into this pot, and I do not want to do that in this spot. Poker isn't about winning the most pots, it is about making good decisions. I think tossing AK into the muck here may be the best position. We only are ahead of Ax and Kx, and flipping a rough coin with just about anything else. Yeah, it's a strong hand to have, but even getting involved in this nonsense is probably -EV unless you've got "worst NLHE player ever, ATC" in both their note boxes.

One more point:

I'd rather have a small pocket pair here.

Assuming we can call these BS raises and even see a flop (!), what are we hoping for?

3 spades or QJT. If we get this miracle, are we getting paid off? Not certain.

If we have 55, and the flop comes 57J, the only question is if we stack 1 player, or 2 players.

We're taking a risk here, we're not sure what we hope to achieve on the flop, or even if there is a reward if we do hit the flop hard. Any pocket pair isn't paying off an ace-hi flop w/ multiway action. Any pair QQ and down isn't paying off a King high flop. And I can't think of a hand that is paying off a QJT flop without flopping a set themselves and getting 2 pulls at a redraw (their absolute worst case scenario).

Fold. Preflop. I've finally talking myself into my decision.

1/ We only usually get pushed off when we are against a huge hand from both UTG AND CO. Basically if we get pushed off here then we know we were crushed preflop and we got away for $9k rather than all of our stack.

2/ If UTG has a marginal hand and CO has AQ then this is a fantastic situation. We just don't know what CO's range is. This could be a bad situation, it could be a good situation.

3/ Either of those would be good, yes. Generally I'm hoping to flop the ace because then we beat everything but AA. Two spades is a good result as well, and a king likely isn't terrible. I don't mind hitting nothing and potentially escapng for just 9k.

4/ An ace almost certainly gives us the best hand (unless it's a flop like AQJ). A king is less good, but still means we beat (or tie with) everything but AA and KK.



They have minraised and re-minraised. I don't think they are great players.

We're looking to play 1/6th of our stack with AK OOP against 3 players *assuming* UTG smooth calls behind us. The majority of the time, we don't get an Ace, a king, or spades on that flop and we still have no real information to work with. Huge -EV.

Two big ifs. And both those hands have position on us if we miss the flop with our drawing hand. AQ is interesting, because it's one of the few hands that can pay us off when an ace flops. AQ may be the only hand that makes this a happy scenario if UTG smooth calls. And AQ *still* has position on us post-flop.



This may be so, but that brings on the even more frustrating dilemma: If we don't fear AA/KK here, why give them a chance to flop something with garbage? Shoving is a double edged sword: There is *not* a lot of extra chips in the pot because of the min-raising fiasco, and neither probably has much of a grasp of fold equity. Shoving risks it all to add roughly 20% to your stack, with the likelihood of a call.

I might be going insane here, but I hate calling AK oop against 2 unknown loco players with one left to act behind you (plus the big blind, who's getting a monster price as well now). I hate shoving here because I think we are at best in a coinflip and the pot is miraculously laying us pretty weak odds, considering the action we've endured.

This was a great topic. This hand is a whole mess of ugly all the way around. In some sick way, I hope you don't actually post results, because they are completely unimportant to the thought process of the hand.

I still think folding > shoving > calling. Being the third person into any pot with AK is rarely a good idea.

I just have a lot of trouble with the idea of folding AKs to two minraises.

Actually, we aren't too worried about UTG - he can minraise with a huge range. I have trouble folding such a good hand to a minreraise considering we have no idea what the cutoff's range is.

Think about if CO raises to $12k instead of minrasing. Is it then an easy shove? Where is the difference?

1) I would probably shove in this situation. Here's my thinking: You are short stacked and need to pick up chips to make the FT. The minraisers probably have mediocre holdings. IMO the play in these FT $24 is pretty bad and you can't just go assigning AA or KK to your opponent because they minraise. To me that is just as likely to be AQ and 77 than AA or KK.

If you had a bigger stack, I would say fold. But, to me, you don't have the chips to even make 9th (and even if you did, I'd still shove unless you were deep stacked against another deep stack). There is too much money in the pot to decide you're up against AA.

2) If you don't shove you have to fold. I see basically no value in calling. About the only hand that pays you off is AQ if you flop an A and two small cards. Even then, you aren't sure your hand is good as one possible holding we think your opponent(s) have is a pair and they might have hit a set.

Ok, so what if you flop a straight or flush? You aren't getting paid off (unless maybe someone flops a set.) I really don't see calling here.

Therefore, in this situation, shove.

And I have a lot of trouble finding *any* excuse to get into a pot that has two people already in it. The amusing part of this scenario is there is a O8B quality to it: AK is a hand a lot of donks like to min-raise as well. We could be looking at *fighting* for half the pot out of position. It is more likely to be up against another AK than AA or KK. No matter what the outcome, you are almost hoping for a coinflip, and you have no money invested.

If these two guys have been acting this silly for the last 4 orbits, then yeah, shove on 'em. But without reads, I just don't go nuts here in a pot I'm not already involved in. It's a very tight fold, but we don't have to win every pot. If the CO raises to 12k, then we actually have some information to make a decision. As it stands we have little to none.

We should not be calling here, and we should only be folding if we hate money. AKs is a monster....it's like the 4th best hand, and the 3rd best (queens) doesn't exactly crush us. Both of our opponents have miniraised - yes maybe CO is slowplaying the nutz...or maybe we can read his weakness as weakness? I don't think there's any reason to think he has to have a monster, and I would say his range is like 88+, AJ+.


Reasons we are shoving:


1. We have, in my opinion, massive fold equity here, and can potentially add 40% to our stack without seeing a flop. This is good, this is how you chip up. I cannot emphasize enough how much I want my opponents to fold here, although another great option (which is also quite likely) is getting called by AQ or even worse. I think that if CO has AQ here it is likely that he will call us.

2. We are not afraid of a monster. CO's minraise is retarded, so we give him credit for being a retard, not for having aces. Also, card removal. What I mean by this is that since we hold an ace and a king there are fewer possible combinations of AA or KK for our opponents to have.

3. If we are against a hand like QQ or JJ or something that's not gonna get folded preflop, we want to see all 5 cards to get our 46% equity. You guys are talking about seeing a flop and folding if we miss - we're 46% (or w/e, I don't know the exact %) before the flop against a strong pair, but we're what, like 32% to hit on the flop? So instead of winning almost half the time we're gonna win about a third of the time. Also related to this is point #4.

4. Let's say CO raised with tens or queens, we call and utg calls. Flop A82. Okay we nailed it! Checks to CO who bets 1/2 the pot, we call. Done, pot over, he's check-folding his tens. The 1/3 of the time that we do hit the flop we won't get paid by a big pair, and we're letting them win the pot the other 2/3 of the time.

It is still the case though that shoving or folding is either very good or very bad against CO's range, and calling is the ugly middle ground.

Basically if CO has AA/KK only then Folding>Calling>Shoving.
If CO has a wide range then Shoving>Calling>Folding.

We just can't be sure what his range is.

Another fact to consider is that shoving into AA is a huge mistake whereas folding to JJ isn't really much of a mistake.

I the end I shoved, UTG folded, and CO had AA. I think I may be overly biased by the results. We also can't draw any conclusions as to what his range is from the results.

Thanks guys.

That would be a great outcome. We call $7500 preflop, and win a pot of $45k on the flop.

Yes but my point was that we can expect this maybe 1/3 of the time, and we lose the pot 2/3 of the time even if we're against AQ or another AK or whatever.

An even better outcome is just getting everybody to fold preflop.