blonde poker forum

6 handed on my table. 11 left and top 9 are paid.

Blinds 800/1600 + 200

I've got about 40k and I'm CL on table

utg sat with about 35k raises to 4k. He's reasonably active so no reason to put him on a monster because he's utg.

I've got AK and have to assume I'm at least ahead. Oppo doesn't often raise to pass unless he's faced with an all in so I'm thinking of extracting value.

I re raise to 10k hoping to induce a shove but happy to see a flop and maybe extract a few extra chips.

Question is should i just jam pre or am I right to try to play the hand and hopefully maximise. Am I deep enough to get creative with AK and possibly be faced with a decision when I don't hit the flop?

edit: I'm on the button btw.

Do you mention the bubble in the title because it affects your play?  Or because you think it will affect his?

Good question. Now you mention it I'm not really sure.

I guess it would be more relevant with a weaker holding if I wanted to use my FE right?

tbh I don't think either of us were affected by the bubble. Both there for the win. A couple had already locked up but this guy's always happy to get his stack in if he thinks he's winning or can get you to pass.

I wouldn't jam here as he never calls with worse than AK and you still have too many bigs.

Raise is fine, I may make it a touch more than you did though.

Interesting one.

A jam and he folds everything but QQ+ you would imagine.

So the only probs with a jam is you're only getting called by a hand that beats you, and it's quite high risk for an 8k pot.

But he's obviously calling with a lot more hands if you only raise, and I assume you fold if he jams?. So this could get you in trouble.

Still, I think a raise in position is the right play. Maybe make it 11-12k though.

I disagree with that MC, I dont think its that high risk at all. how often does he have QQ+ here, at a 6-handed table if he's been previously active?  And the 8k adds 20% to your stack.  He folds 90%-95% of the time here.

Not saying the shove is the optimal move, but its certainly a profitable move.

Raising to fold here has to be a mistake, especially with the bubble dynamic meaning he might jam fairly wide. Raising is fine as long as you're calling a jam imo. I still think jamming pre here is better with a chance to increase your stack by 20%.

A raise can induce a shove from worse hands though whereas shoving allows him to get away from tricky hands like AQ AJ.


I don't think we should be considering folding here

Yeah I don't hate a shove. Perhaps high risk wasn't the best way to describe it. It's not high risk in terms of the amount of times he calls. But it is kinda high in terms of what you lose when he has AA or KK (assuming you lose obv). Chip leader to 3 big blinds when we're currently in good stead in the tournament...

My answer is solely discussing the shove, not the optimal move.

imo if you think he has AA/KK here after an opening raise, your playing scared.

Actually what am I thinking, we'd be getting just over 2 to 1 on a call even with this small raise to 10k

Snap any shove and pretend I didn't write that please...

I'm not suggesting for a second that this is all I'm putting him on!!!!! That would be insane...

This was my thinking. Should I just be happy to take the 8k? It not only gives me a nice 48k stack but also gives me a very dominant position on this table as the next stack is down to 31k.

A 17k advantage over the table at this stage would be very useful.

I'm 100% not scared of him having me beat. If he shoves to my raise I snap him off and if I'm losing it's a cooler and no problem whatsoever.

I'm interested that people think I should raise more. I don't want to scare him off and 6k isn't exactly insignificant. It's 20% of his current stack and increases his total investment to 30% of his stack at the start of the hand. Surely much more is going to scare him off? I don't mind giving pot odds to call, that's exactly what I want but I also want him to think he has FE if he shoves.

I would flat call mate and play a pot in position, how often are you gona get a hand as strong as this with the current set up  (stack sizes, payout structure, position at table). You have all other Ax  and Kx crushed that he could be raising with, aswell as that he is not going to know what you have if you flat, you could also induce a squeeze/bluff from one of the blinds aswell.

I don't mind a re-raise but i think you stand to win a lot more by flat calling.

It all seems a bit shallow to be raising here. I think the jam is perfectly ok. It's 6-handed around the bubble so your push wont necessarily look like a premium hand. It will look like the bully CL pushing other people around, so you might still get a call anyway. Raising 10k? Does this guy put 10k in out of 35k?? If he does call the pot is like 22k..you have 30k..and he has 25k..so there's no room to play at all..position or no position..one of you will just jam the flop..and he has 1st option to do this vs a hand that misses more times than it hits.

I don't like flatting, we are going to have to play really well postflop to make this profitable.

1) We are inviting multiway action and therefore will have to give up on whiffed flops.

2) When our hand hits it is super obvious. Therefore he will fold all pps

3) If we miss, we are going have to soul read his cbetting range.

I would shove and pick up the dead money in the pot. I don't hate 3betting to 10-12k but once you have done this be prepared to felt any flop.

I flat in position. We might hit and stack a dominated holding. Happy to outplay him after too as it puts him a tough position.

[quote author=Longy link=topic=40329.msg906549#msg906549 date=123540516

I don't like flatting, we are going to have to play really well postflop to make this profitable.

1) We are inviting multiway action and therefore will have to give up on whiffed flops.

2) When our hand hits it is super obvious. Therefore he will fold all pps

3) If we miss, we are going have to soul read his cbetting range.

I would shove and pick up the dead money in the pot. I don't hate 3betting to 10-12k but once you have done this be prepared to felt any flop.
[/quote]



I think this is solid advice man but in my experience of playing smaller live buy in tournies £20-£30 freezeouts a lot of ur edge is going to be from playing post flop poker, pre-flop is the easiest street to play and any1 can just just jam the top % of their hands preflop and take flips, 60/40 for their tournie.

I think with the set up described by evil pie the guy will be playing pretty straight up post flop because he is oop, evil pie has him covered- has a solid image-rep and also tht the bubble in the tournament is approaching. Guys live seem to respect the bubble.

I dont hate jamming with the ak just think it is a lot more profitable to flat and see a flop. Interested to see how this turn out.

Thanks for all the interesting responses guys.

As it played out I had put myself in to a tricky spot.

He flatted as expected, the flop came 5 9 Q and he used his position and shoved.

His range in this spot includes 66+, as well as 9T, TJ, JQ, QK type hands. There's only TJ and possibly AJ/KJ that I'm beating, both of which are well within his range here.

I secretly kicked myself under the table and reluctantly passed what could well have been the winning hand.

Thinking afterwards I realised that I had gifted him the perfect opportunity to play this as a stop and go. I'm thinking maybe Longy's idea of committing no matter what the flop and just snap calling would've been a better plan.

The fact that he shoved the Q high flop suggests that I may well have got paid if I'd hit the K. He knows that I can easily have AQ here but obviously wasn't bothered so unless he's hit the Q he seems to have decided pre that he's shoving any flop.

At the time it wasn't a difficult pass but thinking it through maybe I should be calling.

Either that or shove pre to remove any poker playing problems that might occur  :)

I flat or shove.

Like Alex says, you can win a big pot disguising your hand this way- also a stack behind may decide to squeeze

Shoving sends a message and doesn't always get worse hands to fold. If villian has been very active he may call you with a wider range than usual

You got like 25bb... Pretty sure this is a an easy shove!

whoa really didnt see how short he was. sorry, yeah this is a v easy shove. Thought u were like 35/40 deep.

Just shove and the calling range of QQ+ is just ridic, unless you have a super tight image,

There is no room to reraise here with your stack size at all as you can just get owned on flops that you dont hit if he shoves into you like what happened.  With approx 20BBs in this spot you should be jamming every time.