blonde poker forum

Multi-Table Tournament
Table Name Hand ID Game Stakes
MTT Table 7 8255845-36 Holdem No Limit 100/200
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Hand Start.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 1 : bobodix has $2,630
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 2 : mr b bunter has $1,540
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 3 : indmix has $6,050
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 4 : CrazyMark has $1,760
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 5 : nidgeblack has $3,070
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 6 : newmanseye1 has $9,560
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 7 : betty1060 has $3,500
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 8 : tbish has $7,090
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 9 : wolfee has $10,910
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : wolfee is the dealer.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : bobodix posted small blind.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : mr b bunter posted big blind.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Game [36] started with 9 players.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Dealing Hole Cards.
[Apr 2 19:09:45] : Seat 6 : newmanseye1 has Ad Ks
[Apr 2 19:09:56] : Stakes: 100/200 Current level: 4 Level up in: 9 min. Break in: 16 min. Players : 191
[Apr 2 19:10:00] : indmix has 10 seconds to respond.
[Apr 2 19:10:00] : indmix called 200 and raised 1,600
[Apr 2 19:10:01] : CrazyMark folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:01] : nidgeblack folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:05] : newmanseye1 called 1,800 and raised 7,760 and is All-in
[Apr 2 19:10:06] : betty1060 folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:09] : tbish folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:09] : wolfee folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:11] : bobodix folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:14] : mr b bunter folded.
[Apr 2 19:10:15] : Stakes: 100/200 Current level: 4 Level up in: 8 min. Break in: 16 min. Players : 190
[Apr 2 19:10:19] : indmix called 4,250 and is All-in
[Apr 2 19:10:20] : Showdown!
[Apr 2 19:10:20] : Seat 6 : newmanseye1 has Ad Ks
[Apr 2 19:10:22] : Seat 3 : indmix has Jh Jd
[Apr 2 19:10:22] : Seat 6 : newmanseye1 has Ad Ks
[Apr 2 19:10:27] : newmanseye1 : gl
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : Board cards [Th 2h 3h 9d 9h]
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : Seat 6 : newmanseye1 has Ad Ks
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : newmanseye1 has Pair: 9s
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : Seat 3 : indmix has Jh Jd
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : indmix has Flush JT932
[Apr 2 19:10:31] : indmix wins 12,400 with Flush JT932
[Apr 2 19:10:35] : Stakes: 100/200 Current level: 4 Level up in: 8 min. Break in: 16 min. Players : 190
[Apr 2 19:10:36] : newmanseye1 : nh
[Apr 2 19:10:41] : Hand is over.
[Apr 2 19:10:41] : 
[Apr 2 19:10:41] : Stakes: 100/200 Current level: 4 Level up in: 8 min. Break in: 16 min. Players : 190


Now given the chips I had and In relation to the average stack i was 4 times the average, who would have laid it down?

You could have flat called and played a flop.

Just cos you have AK doesn't mean that every time you do get it you go all in and play 50/50 poker.

True, again I thought " bully the bugger" and pushed.  Perhaps therein lies the problem.

Ak isn't always assured of being in a 50/50 coup tho.... these big bets are rarely AA/KK, but frequntly AK/AQ/AJ or underpairs.

I dont especially mind taking AK vs the range of AK---AJ/medium pairs... the equity is pretty good.

EDIT: naturally people can and do play AA/KK this way, but its not that often, so the frequency which you see AA/KK are no-where near as high as small/medium pairs (the fact that you have an ace and a king also disuade the liklihood)

You could just call and see a flop, but you are paying a high price to do so (a raise of 8bb's) and are going to be disappointed the 66% of the time it leaves you unimproved (of which I assume you will not be proceeding past the flop)

reads help, but absent a read, jamming/folding are probably pretty close to correct, with calling being the worst choice ( imo of course)

 rotflmfao rotflmfao rotflmfao  Sorry Mate but the title of the thread. for someone that wanted to pass, you sure as hell gave it a good go. lol

I know, its a bit crazy, there was no need to go coin flipping. I should have mucked it!

Now I am the first to admit that my tourney play is not the greatest but is calling with this hand to see a flop that bad a play?


If I had been in the jj position I think I would raised less and folded to the reraise.

I think his call is much worse than your push. 

A raise to 9 x BB doesn't look like a big pair to me, so you have a coin flip at worst plus folding equity as a big stack prepared to take on another big stack.

calling with Ak isn't terrible.. but when u think of what hands he has, it goes like this:

He has AQ, flop is rags, he c/bets, what do you do..  fold? I guess so
He has JJ, flop is all rags, he c/bets, you fold? I guess so
He has AQ, and flop is A high, he c/bets, you stack him? I guess
He has JJ and the flop is A?K high, he c/bets 50% of time.. you call/raise.. he folds

(when i say JJ, I really mean medium pp's)

You lose out on a healty chunk when you miss, and you dont really win much (in general) when you hit.

EDIT: to include that you only hit on the flop about 33% of the time, and hands like this are normally played out on the flop

 You also lose out when hands like AQ/AJ cant fold preflop , but can fold or even worse bet you out of the pot, when you miss the flop. You also lose out on Fold Equity preflop when people raise and then fold (although this is scarce)

Thanks for that. I would have reraised all in and been happy if he had passed. I have mental scarring from playing AK in tourneys. Would you play this differently in a cash game?

Thanks for the feedback, keep posting fella.

Its a 2 way thing, Im happy when he passes pp's, but not happy when he passes AQ lol

I think in general, if I could garner a fold out of this situation every time, I would be content. (i guess)

The difficulty in comparing tourney situations to cash game situations is that in general, you stack depth is much greater in cash games.. so its difficult to say... but my default play is to fold AK to huge raises, for all the reasons above, and the fact that if you hit the flop with deepish stacks and still get action, you fear that u aren't ahead anyways. Thats only a blanket comment though, and as always, it depends on the scenario

Cheers, it all makes sense.

Thats exactly why cash games and tournaments are so different.  I've been in cash games where 4 out of the 6 players have 500 big blinds!  It certainly makes for some fun poker trying like hell to stack each other.

That is why I asked Chief, when I started playing poker I only played tourneys and was quite successful. I then began to play limit cash and found that my tourney play went to pieces because I had my 'limit poiker' head on.

I then graduated to no limit cash and found that I enjoyed it so much I didnt bother playing tourneys anymore. The problem I have now is when I do play tourneys I see ghosts everywhere. Something along the lines of' I he can make that bet here he must have the goods' or 'every check call indicates strength, along the lines of , he flopped a set or he is slow playing this or that.

My one poker claim to fame is that I have and entry in the Hendon mobs results database so there has been tourney ability in the past but to be honest I am so unconfident playing tourneys these days that I do not know how to get away from the fear.

Julian has a good entry on his blog regarding the way he has played online cash after playing only tourneys in the past.

Do you mix tourneys and cash or do you specialise and do you think mixing it up has an effect on how you play?

oh and by the way, apologies to newmanseye for hijacking his thread.

I can't speak for WellChief, but I personally have nevr had a problem mixing between cash and tournies. I have played at the very least a million hands of ring games, 15,000 sng's, and I cant even guess at how many MTT's I've played, so it just becomes what it is after you get enough experience.


I had real problems mixing between omaha and NL for a long time, now I just play one or the other.

I used to have a problem going between MTT's and cash but I don't any more.   Its important to get past the "seeing monsters under the bed" stage as you need to be fearless in multi-tables particularly in the later stages.

I mix tourneys and cash almost 50/50.  I don't play cash tables at the same time as i'm playing multi-s as it definitely affects my play on both tables.  Ive even done stuff like bet 400 on the cash table instead of the multi by mistake with disastrous consequences!  Im fortunate I think that I love playing cash and playing multi-tournaments, I know a lot of people can find cash tables boring.

I think the biggest problem is I play a live tourney or an MTT online and instead of the short handed cash game I play 90% of the time i go into these mtt's thinking' how many coin flips do I need to win or how much luck do I need to beat a field this size?'

So I am already beaten by my negative thoughts of how tricky this is going to be before I start. I can happily sit at a cash game and manouver my way into winning situations in pots that i feel comfy in but as I said in tourneys I am waiting for the beat as I am expecting it.

A little mind work is needed.

Your right, you will lose as a massive fav in a mtt, there are many situations that you will find urself as a 8-1 fav on the folp and all the chips will go in and every so often you will lose.

Thats why mtts are so difficult to win or even get deep in because you need to beat the odds time after time even when you are a huge fav.

Your right to expect it because the odds say it will happen, just need to hope you have enough chips to take the dmg and still continue.

It's only true if you are a rock.

Building chips up without ever getting your stack in simply by outplaying your opponents enables you to survive the odd outdraw.

Dont think it matters wheather you are a rock or not, depends who has more chips. You could be playing aggressive and building a big stack and run into the one player at the table who can bust you and you wont survive the outdraw.

But like you said if you are outplaying ur oppenents and gathering chips you give urself a better chance of surviving an outdraw, because there are less players at you table that can bust you.

Back to the hand in question..............

Calling and seeing a flop is a terrible play.
He has put in 1/3rd of his stack, so even if you hit Ace or King, you'd need him to call off all his chips for the preflop call to be even a break even play.........knowing he has JJ, with an ace or king on board he may well escape with some chips left, and that means you have lost long term, even if you win the hand.

Calling the flop to push regardless is different but the advice on this post was to call and see a flop......not good.
If you are pushing on the flop regardless it can work for or against you, you may give 2 live cards a chance to lose 2k or win 6k...........or, you may get JJ to fold if the flop is queen high, but any other flop and this move doesn't help you, if it's lower than a jack he calls anyway and if it's higher than a jack you just give him a chance to fold, which is only good if it's queen high.

All in preflop .......well he has raised 9xBB, he won't be folding, no player alive would raise 9xBB for 1/3rd of their stack and then fold to an all in...........if they did they'd run out of money pretty damn quick!  ther whole table would run over them.
So who raises 9xBB, well, I only raise big like that, well never that big but maybe 6xBB, when I have JJ or TT and I'm not in a comfortable position..........so you have to consider JJ here........it's possible you are ahead but you are most likely behind.

So folding, as hard as it is with AK, is probably best, the only possible reason to push is that if you are gonna race, you want to be the bigger stack, and in this case you are.

 :goodpost:

I am always falling into this trap when facing large raises when I am holding AK.  I almost always read it as weakness and will push in this situation.  However as clayftknight pointed out, if your opponent has put 1/3 of their stack into the pot they will most likely call an all in bet and you are then in a coinflip situation.  If you have a very large stack and this will not hurt you too much then pushing is good.  If it is going to cripple you or bust you out then fold unless you are short stacked (I will normally push if I have less than 10BB).