melaskins 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 So I'm in a $35 rebuy yesterday. I've been playing pretty good for the last couple of months....live and online. I have made the statement on here that I am trying to improve my game. One way is by playing bigger live tournaments. Some of you saw my thread on the $120 that I played in. It is a two hour trip for me to the casino to play poker. So I don't go but about once a month. However, there is a $200 big stack tourney next week that I am wanting to play but I wanted to go this past weekend and try to win my buy in for that tourney. So here's the hand.We've gone through the rebuy period. The blinds are 200/400 and I'm the big blind with 4200 in chips and AKo.UTG folds.UTG+1 has about 6500 in chips and raises to 1200. My read is that he is a pretty decent player but he has rebought 3 times mainly because he plays too many hands. He also took some bad beats from a guy that really got lucky a few times.MP foldsMP+1 has about 2000 in chips and calls. He's a really bad player that is apparently just playing suckout poker.It folds to me.What should I do? Just call or push?I thought about my play for a long time. I didn't really care what MP+1 had. If he had a strong hand, he would have already pushed. UTG+1 could be a lot of different hands. My thoughts were that it could be QQ or ATs or worse, possibly a middle pair. So I didn't feel like I was, at best, a coin flip. Link to post Share on other sites
Sick Boy 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 It doesnt really matter what anybody else has, with your stack size and the amount of money in the pot already, this is an insta shove imo, Link to post Share on other sites
river_me_this 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 deff shove...with 10bb even if they fold your still picking up 2600 which is more than half your stack and thats a huge gain in this stage of a tourney Link to post Share on other sites
SwolyswoND 1 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Shove AINEC. Link to post Share on other sites
Chet Chetterson 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 This is definitely a shove. You may still even have fold equity in the situation, this would 3/4 of the UTG's stack (people correct me if I'm wrong here). Depending on your image your push may be taken as a squeeze.I guess you could stop and go, but that's probably dumb with MP in the pot. Link to post Share on other sites
DocHoliday 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I do not think they could perceive the push as squeeze, as I do not see how could MP fold leaving himself with 2 BBs. So UTG will know you have a good hand and he might consider folding, and even if he does not and you find yourself in a race, well, with all the money in the pot and your stack, this is probably the best spot to be racing. Def. shove. And if he has Aces or Kings, well, so be it, not much you can do about that... And even then you can still suckout on him ;)But MP's play is real strange.... Now, he is either really, really terrible, or he has a monster here, with that flat call... Link to post Share on other sites
cdipierr 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 It doesn't matter if MP has a monster, we can lose that pot and still beat UTG guy. Fist pump shove. Link to post Share on other sites
melaskins 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Author Share Posted June 8, 2009 Before any betting happened, I had decided I was pushing no matter what else happened. Here is what caused me to pause. Again, MP was a really bad player. He had rebought twice because he kept chasing weak aces against bettors who had a pair or kept calling with under pairs against a severely overmatched board. When he called, I felt like he probably had one of my outs. The other thing was that the tournament had just gone from 4 tables to 3. My table had a lot of chips on it. Out of the 9 players currently at our table, there were 5 that I was pretty sure that I could out play. All things considered, it was a good time to be in push/fold. The problem was I just wasn't real crazy about pushing against UTG+1 with his early position pot committed raise. Keep in mind, he had rebought 3 times and wasn't afraid to gamble but was a solid player still. In other words, I would have rather been pushing against any of those other 5 players that I had a lot of confidence over. So if I just call, I'm down to 3K. If I hit the flop then I can push and probably get just as many chips as I would have if I pushed. But I give myself an opportunity to fold and stay in the tourney if I don't hit. Then any future plays become easy. Most of the time, I am never comfortable with calling with AK. I can be really comfortable about pushing. And yes, if there's a monster, I'm okay with that. What made calling more appealing to me was that I was going to be first to act on the flop. I understand the rules and that with just over 10bb I should insta shove. In an online tourney without being able to see my opponents, I would probably more inclined to obey that rule. Because of everything surrounding this hand, I just wasn't sure that it was the right play to make. And because I wanted to stay in the tournament to try to work on improving my post flop play, just calling was appealing. Link to post Share on other sites
DocHoliday 0 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Granted, flat call still leaves you the option to fold if you miss completely and you still have another 3k which you can shove on another occasion. However, you could wait for a big hand, and once you finally get not, not get any action with it. Considering the tourney structure and all other factors, I would want to play a big pot with a big hand. What we have here is a big pot, and a big hand. Now, what happens if flop comes down with all the small cards? You would be folding, without seeing either turn or the river, and you said it yourself that your opponent might have A10+ here, so you might still have him beat. I do not know if my reasoning is bit off here, but I still push this and hope for the best - sometimes you need to get lucky, as we all know, and this is as good time as any, I guess. Link to post Share on other sites
Tehtoe 3 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 You're not improving by flatting AK here, instashoveeee Link to post Share on other sites
Jimberry 0 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 I cannot see why this is even a question except for the fact that you probably lost the hand. Link to post Share on other sites
BeaverStyle 1 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Folding here is really bad. Link to post Share on other sites
melaskins 0 Posted June 9, 2009 Author Share Posted June 9, 2009 I cannot see why this is even a question except for the fact that you probably lost the hand.Again, I understand that the rules say I should continue with my original thought in the hand and shove without hesitation. And I never considered folding. I was most certain that neither of the other two players were going to fold to my all in. It is not the right time in the tournament to raise fold for UTG+1. Most big poker hands insist that you put some thought into them. It's like a golf swing. There is a lot of talk on poker forums about not being results oriented. For some folks, not being results oriented, comes easier than it does for other folks. If it wasn't for the results, there wouldn't be any need to post the hands on the forum. For me, what happened through the rest of this hand really wasn't why I posted it here. I posted it for the thoughts that surround the hand. If I hadn't been in the bb, I think the decision to push would have been easier. If I had been in the sb, I could have even considered folding. In fact, if I had been in sb, I don't think calling would have been an option. For me, the option to just flat call and act first on the flop was a very valid option. And one that I think warrants discussion.For the hand. I did settle on pushing. And I did lose to pocket K's that made a set on the turn. Had I called. I think I would have checked the flop. UTG+1 would have shoved but I don't know that MP, with his Q7o, would have called. If MP had called an all in after the flop, I might have folded. I have folded similar situations online. I also think that in a similar situation with 12bb, I probably would smooth call. Link to post Share on other sites
SwolyswoND 1 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Calling off >25% of your stack with AK with the intention of folding if you don't hit is beyond terrible. There is no other play than shipping it here. That's why we have bankroll management, so we can live with the results the 1 out of 5 times we run up against AA or KK here. Link to post Share on other sites
Yahkin 0 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 You want to see all 5 cards with AK...the only way that is going to happen is if you shove. Link to post Share on other sites
melaskins 0 Posted June 9, 2009 Author Share Posted June 9, 2009 You want to see all 5 cards with AK...the only way that is going to happen is if you shove.So do you agree with the rest of the posters in the thread that this is an insta shove and that any thought processes to the contrary are erroneous? Link to post Share on other sites
DonkSlayer 1 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 So do you agree with the rest of the posters in the thread that this is an insta shove and that any thought processes to the contrary are erroneous?Don't get caught up with any ego here, even if some people's comments are coming across as harsh, which not all are meant to be.You want to play a big pot with a big hand, period. The chances of you being dominated with AK are very small, period. So you are very likely no worse than a coinflip.It seems likely, also, that you're going to get somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 on your shove, which are excellent odds, even for worse holdings.Also, consider the tournament. This is obv a turbo shorstacker like most live tournaments at random casinos are, and the best way for you to win one of these things is chip accumulation, so you dont ALWAYS have to make hard decisions in thin situations. You shove, you get called, you win, you're in much, much better shape than blinding off while waiting for QQ+ or hoping to see a "cheap" (which there is no such thing at this point in this tourney) flop and hitting it hard. Doesn't that make sense? Link to post Share on other sites
Yahkin 0 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 So do you agree with the rest of the posters in the thread that this is an insta shove and that any thought processes to the contrary are erroneous?There is no right or wrong...just optimal. The optimal play in this spot is to shove. Link to post Share on other sites
TrueAce13 18 Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 You're not improving by flatting AK here, instashoveeeeThisIf you don't insta shove here, I might have to hit you with a 9 iron Link to post Share on other sites
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