blonde poker forum

So you're sat in a live MTT at DTD with a few hundred runners and a good structure. 30k starting stack on a 40 minute clock. It's an early level, blinds are 75/150 and no ante. Utg +3 makes it 350 and two seats later it's raised to 800. You are in the cut off with AK off suit.

We don't have any great reads on our opponents as it's still quite early, but they have been reasonably active without getting badly out of line. All stacks are close to starting stack.
What do you do and why?

Folding

Million

Very likely calling

At Dtd given action I'd fold. Obviously depends on who villains are

If you were an artist given a blank canvas what would you paint?

Call some, raise some and fold some. It's impossible to give a good answer without knowing certain things, or having a much better idea on our opponents base strategy.

Reasons to fold: Both our opponents have a reasonably strong ranges
Our hand has poor visibility- when we flop an ace or a king we rarely get paid off by QQ.

Reasons to Call: Our opponents both have reasonably strong ranges and we have a good hand that has the potential of dominating some portion of our opponents ranges.

Reasons to 4b: We have a hand that blocks the top of our opponents value betting range and this means he is more weighted to bluffs. We look very strong and have the potential to win the pot preflop.

I would generally 4bet here just because the size does look like it is too valuey and more like an iso vs a weaker player so I would expect our opponents range to be too wide and we can take advantage of this by putting pressure on him immediately, whereas if we call we can become a bit lost. This would change vs some players. For example, if CambridgeAlex 3b to this size vs a weaker opponent, I might just call, because I feel like this would encourage the mark to come along and our hand does pretty well vs weak opponents here. I wouldn't want to isolate the good player when there is a bad player in the pot.

I nearly left this as a snarky one liner as the question is just unanswerable imo. Too much is situational and not clarified. I guess I'm giving you slightly too little credit as a decent amount was included but buyin level, opponents familiarity with cards/chips/casino and age/appearance would all be useful. My answer would change depending on the above.

Definitely fold as standard. If there's a reason to do something differently then do so. The answer to the question in the way you wrote it is fold though.. Imo

Good answer to an unanswerable question.

Ok thanks for comments and obviously I could have worded this a bit differently. The situation was purely hypothetical and a few of us were discussing the merits of the various options over a few pints last night.

Anyway, cheers for the input.

I think you can keep having that discussion for quite a long time. Didn't mean to be a downer.

So I'm playing a presumably <£300 buyin comp, I have 30k chips and it's 800 chips for me to call with AK and I have position on both players? Never folding.

Weren't you the 3 better? 

Sounds like great drinking conversation!

You would make a great poker coach.

I would have expected this to be a fold, my logic for this might well be flawed though. To begin with as we don't have any real reads I am using population tendencies to make some decisions and it is possible this is wrong.

When we get a random open from EP I give him some sort of credit for having a hand but still expect my AK to be in front and I am going to have position post flop, I am therefore planning a 3-bet as I am going to be able to control the size of the pot quite well post flop and can flop a dominant hand against his range. This changes a bit when there is a 3-bet in front of me, I expect the player to be using the same sort of logic as myself (in some way) and his range to therefore be a bit tighter. I would not expect AJ to be in his 3-bet range here for example. Therefore the only hand I really expect to dominate a lot of the time is AQ. I may well be flipping against some pairs like TT, JJ and QQ. I don't think you get too many people 3-betting early in this sort of comp with suited cards like 67 or A4 for example especially not Vs an EP raiser with a number of people still to act behind. I therefore do not see the value of a 4-bet. A call might be OK but we will kind of have to fold whenever we miss the flop and even when we hit it we can still be behind as AA and KK are in the range of the 3 bettor. Also we do not close the action here and we could end up getting raised again and having to fold, this is only a small loss I admit but I do wonder if it is worth it. If we do flat call and on the flop and turn the 3 bettor suddenly wants to pile chips into the pot are we going with it? Hands like QQ or AQ are surely not getting too excited on an ace high or king high flop? Does not sound we win much when we are ahead. AA probably is pretty happy on a King high flop and whilst AA and KK are less likely hands due to our blockers when money starts to fly into the pot on the flop and turn it has to be considered. Feels like a lot of the time we hit we will get maybe one more bet and that will be it and it is more likely we end up losing a big pot than winning one?

Not sure how well I have explained that there but that is what I was thinking anyway. Out of interest do people think this decision changes if the starting stack is changed? What if it was say 15K instead of 30K or 10K even? I would have thought that would make it more of a fold but wondering if I am using floored logic here?

People seem to be making a lot of assumptions about ranges that i certainly would not be making based on sizings and positions. Given OP is basically readless in this spot, I wouldnt say the average DTD player is opening to 2.3x UTG+3 with a strong range, nor is a very small 3bet from the HJ going to be massively strong either. Assuming this isnt a very old HH from a DTD comp that's £1k+ buy-in i'm going to assume 2 randoms are going to make plenty of mistakes pre and post-flop such that I certainly wouldn't be folding AK IP vs their ranges. I'd just call without reads, but 4-betting would be OK.