Villain has been solid, tight aggressive and is CL of the tourney currently..I, on the other hand, have had a few slip ups that he has witnessed..

We are 5 handed here and have been at the bubble for a bit of time..Is this a standard fold? Calling isn't an option IMO..What do you think?



PokerStars Game #6476025679: Tournament #32865911, $20+$2 Hold'em No
Limit - Level XIII (1000/2000) - 2006/09/30 - 16:06:34 (ET)
Table '32865911 1' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: spudb0y (33102 in chips)
Seat 2: Chatsworth69 (24824 in chips)
Seat 4: throwemaway (30586 in chips)
Seat 5: QMKDOG (41364 in chips)
Seat 9: nickj7777 (50973 in chips)

spudb0y: posts small blind 1000
Chatsworth69: posts big blind 2000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to throwemaway [As Qs]
throwemaway: raises 4000 to 6000
1 fold
nickj7777: raises 10000 to 16000
2 folds
throwemaway: is just beside himself w/ confusion

It's not an easy fold by any means - 5 handed, AQs is strong. However, all of the available information tells you that it's a fold. Villain is TAG, for one; and you raised UTG, so he should put you on a fairly strong holding.

If you were on the button and he in the blinds, it'd be a push. As is, I fold.

Theres no way Im folding this getting 2.5:1 odds. the only question is whether or not to push back since half your stack is committed anyway.

Unless there is a very strong read that he is only reraising with AK,AA,KK and QQ Im pushing back. FE + Race Equity looks good to me here.

I think we have very little fold equity here..Hes getting 3.4: 1 on the call if I push now, if my math is correct...I know that stop n gos usually are done w/ pairs, but does anyone like one here?

I'm confused.

5 handed on a Bubble ?

is this a SH MTT ?

My guess is a 180 man on Stars.

with 18 paying, why are there 5 on a table at bubble time?

Final table bubble...There is 10 left, 5 on each table...And top 5/6 are at my table, which was pretty infuriating

I think I push here, then.

tough spot; but assume the payouts spiral up in the top 3, so lets maximize our chance to get there with a solid hand here.

I think I push, too. There's hardly a difference between 10th place and 9th place in these events. Although with 24000 chips you can probably squeak/steal into 6th-7th, that's hardly inspiring. With a 60000 stack, you will very often get to the final 3. AQs is the bottom end of my range, though, as villain probably has 99+, AK. Gambooool.

This is close. We have no fold equity, so we are basically calling allin, and if there are no antes we have effective odds of 1.6:1. I prefer folding.

It's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTED

Umm, I'd really go either way on this one. If you're playing to win and the rest of the field have appeared to be compotent players, then I'd lean towards pushing. You're on the bubble. The villain knows people play scared on the bubble and he's putting you to the test. You can always be surprised to find that you indeed have fold equity, but I obviously wouldn't count on it.

Also, if the villain is aggressive enough, he can make this play with AJ, KQ and certainly with pairs JJ and below. The odds are that he has one of those hands, as opposed to the AK (which would probably just push to take it down preflop) or AA, KK and QQ, which are more likely than AK.

After talking through this myself, I think you should just push. You're playing to win and you'd become the chip leader if you win the hand. I think the odds are higher than you might think that you actually hold the dominating hand. If I were to break this down, based on the info you gave me, I'd say

15% of the time we're dominated by AA, KK, AK or QQ
40% of the time we're dominating a weaker A or 2 undercards
45% of the time we're facing a pair JJ or smaller.

Unless it's a random hand that he chose to reraise with, you probably have no FE against that range. Still, I like a push. You'll have a ton of chips and be in a great position at the final table if you win.

I thought about this hand for most of my time bank, and against my better judgement, I pushed..Of course he has AK...

Flop A10x
Turn: Q..Yayyyyy!
River: J

I went ballistic..I had to go outside to calm myself down lol

?

no, it was a fine play.

Meh this guy was pretty tight, I hadn't seen him show down anything but very solid hands...I just kept telling myself..he can't really have AK here, were 5 handed!

I always go out with AQ.

Not sure if that helps.

I don't ever lay this down, but I bet AQ is my most frequent bust hand.

me too.

I was thinking about that the other day.
AQ vs AK.
Not against each other; but in terms of how much stronger AK is to have than AQ.

AK is dominated by:
AA 3 ways
KK 3 ways

AK races
QQ 6 ways

AK dominates
AQ 12 ways

AQ is dominated by:
AA 3 ways
KK 6 ways
QQ 3 ways


So AQ is dominated by 6 more pair hands + 12 combos of AK
That's 18 hands.

And I think there are about 87 hands from 88+ and AJ+
So AQ is killed 20% more often than AK against that range.

In my head I always go "Well, coin flip vs small pair, vs AA/KK/QQ..gg me. Hope he doesnt have AK. Man he has AK again!"

Five handed I push this all day and all night long against a CL who can afford to be aggressive, especially at the bubble. Easy push.

The problem with stop n gos with big cards (instead of pairs) is that its very difficult to pick up fold equity...you either flop a hand or you dont. The reason is that villain is almost always going to include overcards in your range pre-flop, and when the flop comes up lows he is going to look at numbers of hands and conclude that youre more likely to be on overcards than overpairs (there are so many more of them), that pot odds will usually justify a call.

There is a 2+2 magazine article with a math analysis of the stop n go from last month. Ive only skimmed it and not really thought about the authors assumptions yet, but the conclusion is that the SnG with pairs is -EV compared to pushing upfront unless there is a very large chip disparity..or something like that!

Once Ive abosrbed it I'll start a new thread on it.