Hello All,

First time poster here. Please forgive if this has been beaten to death, but I tried to search for it and couldn't find an answer.

I wonder what most of you think about the following situation. I was playing a sng and I had AK in late position. UTG raised all-in, and a middle seat player called him. It was fairly early in the tournament so if I had called it would have put me very close to all-in myself.

I elected to pass on the hand. UTG flipped over QQ, while the middle position player flipped an A9o. The flop brought an Ace, and the pair of aces held up.

After seeing this, I wondered if I should have pushed my chips in or not? I didn't feel good about pushing them on a drawing hand.

Thanks for your input.

Cypher

AK all in plays better HU.

When there's already a call, odds are that some of your outs could be taken, which greatly decreases it's odds of winning.

hi.

- don't think about results, tthink about decisions
- don't post results

being early on, I'll assume you had a decent sized stack.
And we are in a 9-10 Man tourney that pays top 3.

Fold is good, unless you have a good read on the all in players and can give them a wide enough range. Copernicus can tell you what that range is.

I prefer being agggressive with AK, not calling.
If you had a shrter stack, callnig would make sense.

Say ther were a Raise and a Call, then you push with AK.
Then you may get 66-JJ to fold, and AJs-AQoff to call ( or fold)

anyway, I'm rambling.

welcome.

Post in Tourney Strategy for Tourney questions

what if the cards come out 284J6? will you still wonder if you should ahve pushed or not?

Doesn't matter.

Thanks for the feedback.

Sparing the details I've been on a wicked cold snap, and I'm just worried that I'm starting to second guess myself.

yeah, I don't care what the cards on board actually were. When you make the decision you have to do so without knowledge of the cards.

Not sure I said it well, but I meant if they raised but not all in, AK works well as a pushing hand ( a raisng hand, and even a calling hand, depending on chip stax, prior action, prize structure.... ). It works well as a hand that YOU Push to make THEM decide what to do. For one reason, someone with 88-JJ has to worry about being dominated

Almost always right, unless you have a chronic raiser.

Early on, I'm not taking the risk.

Later in a tourny I'd totally do it. Although, many here probably wouldn't like my tourny style since it's borderline wreckless once the field is narrowed to 15-25%.

In what sense?

I guess concidering that hand values go up when in a HU situation.

Or that AK pwns HU.. (sw)

pick me! pick me!

Every hand is more likely to win when it's heads up.

Aces win more heads up, but we would still prefer two people calling our all ins when we have aces as opposed to one.

AK against 1 random hand is about 65% and you get paid 1:1
65% chance of winning 1, 35% chance of losing 1.
You win about 30 cents on the dollar.

AK against 2 random hands is about 50% and you get paid 2:1
50% chance of winning 2, 50% chance of losing 1.
You win about 50 cents on the dollar.

*The pokerstove numbers might be off because i didnt give it time to enumerate all outcomes.

Depending on what range you assign them, it can both play better or worse by having multiple opponents.

Abba,

in tourneys though, one should consider the risk of busting.
I thin kin 10 Man, that we are close enough to Bubble from the get go, such that we can give up some +EV.

so, I"d be more inclined to play muliway all ins in Cash than Tourney.

I didnt say to call or fold.

Personally, I think you were right in laying the hand down. You were early in the tournament and more than likely playing people you have not faced before. The chances are then, that you do not have an adaquate read on the players you are up against.

You are also early in the tournament so your chip stacks are likely to be similar in size and if you lose you are going to be in a bad position. Against two players you will probably be dominating one ace, but the second could be two live cards resulting in a multi-way race. I'm not sure that's where you want to be that early in the tournament.

If you are in a quick SNG to make some cash quick or move on, then you might go ahead and call and hope to be the big stack or move on to your next SNG. There are a few variables missing to this equation.

welcome.

ps. I'd be more inclined to call in a big MTT than an STT.

My point had nothing to do with the original post, for what it's worth.

Thanks for the welcome.

I would agree with you on th MTT vs STT depending on the buy-in. If I were in a $20 limit I would agree, however when I shoot into a $1 +.25 sng (I usually only invest $50 at a site so I start with $1 and work my way up slowly getting to know the players as I move up) I expect the action to be looser in the STT and I would more likely call in that spot.

From reading around the forums, we could play variable games all day though. I think for the most part we agree on the play.

my boss is gone all week.

I'm hoping to have an interview somewhere to tell him about when he returns. Well, perhaps I should wait until I"m actually hired.