Pokerstars $22 Bubble-Ok to push this?

[nhsir]

We were 4-handed at the 100/200/25 level. Stacks were as follows:

CO - 700
Butt - 8900
SB - 1100
Hero - 2800

CO folds, button raises to 600, SB folds, hero pushes with AKo.

We had been on the bubble for more than 20 minutes. The two short stacks were trying to outlast one another. Not suprisingly the bubble was raising a lot, although not as much as I would have given the circumstances. He had also made some pretty loose calls. I thought this was ok to push, but wasn't sure with the two short stacks.

[VielGeld]

if it was me i'd push. but i'm by no means an expert so i'd like to hear what other ppl wil say. button, being the table captain i assume, will raise with a wide variety of hands and u very likely will have him dominated

[bdiddy12]

I like the push. You're definately far ahead of most of his range, plus you have a good deal of fold equity. This seems like a classic 'Play to win or play for the money' type deal, where most would agree, playing to win (cooresponding with your play) is right.

[tigerite]

I don't like it, UTG is basically on fumes. Just call, take a flop, and see how it goes from there. You do not want a call here to your push. It would be a disaster. I just don't think your FE is anywhere near as good as you think it is, the guy has 9k, even if he loses to you, he still has 6k. Risk/reward is just not there.

[tigerite]

[ QUOTE ]
I like the push. You're definately far ahead of most of his range, plus you have a good deal of fold equity. This seems like a classic 'Play to win or play for the money' type deal, where most would agree, playing to win (cooresponding with your play) is right.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am getting fed up of this kind of garbage. You play to maximise your equity. That is all. There is no 'playing for the money' or 'playing to win'.

[Wolfram]

This is a toughie. If we treat the 600 as an all in by button then this is an obvious fold. But if we think we have some FE here then this becomes a push.

But there is a third option: call.

We have 24BB and some room to maneuver, and we close the action by calling. Then we can push if the flop hits us, or check and re-evaluate based on buttons action. If the flop is a miss, and button raises like he means it then we fold and still hold 21BB (still way ahead of 2 short stacks).

Edit: Jeez, you keep beating me to the punch tiger.

[oyvindgee]

I don't think pushing is good either. He has made loose calls and being called even by smaller live cards would be awful. Call and proceed if you hit your A/K.

[nhsir]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't like it, UTG is basically on fumes. Just call, take a flop, and see how it goes from there. You do not want a call here to your push. It would be a disaster. I just don't think your FE is anywhere near as good as you think it is, the guy has 9k, even if he loses to you, he still has 6k. Risk/reward is just not there.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're exactly right about my FE not being as big as I thought it was. I was shocked when he instacalled with A4o. I won the hand, but I had visions of being knocked out by 33. I would have dumped his A4o in a hearbeat, but that's irrelevant.

I really didn't consider calling because I hate calling big stacks raises. In this case, that may have been the best alternative.

I'm glad I posted this. Gotta keep that mind open.

[Indiana]

tiger is 100% correct. There are only a few hands out there that would make it correct to get it all in against the orig. raiser. These would be AQ, AJ type hands and when you look at all the other possible hands out there that he could have its going to be a slightly -EV to push here because ur getting called too often.

Indy