[Peter Harris]

you've got the thrust of the matter right - you are in a horrible spot postflop when you don't catch. You won't catch 2/3 of the time. So preflop is where it matters.

How tight is tight? I mean, I would bet even a tightie re-raises AA PF and KK say 50% of the time. Are they weaktight, or tight? Because if you reraise big he could persuade himself to lay down JJ, maybe QQ...which would be nice.

I think my standard response there given that i'd be in a tricky spot postflop is one of the following:

If you call or only 4b a small amount to commit shorty and the tighty comes along you are in a pot where tighty has $100 left in a $220+ pot. Unless villain is (again) weaktight and will fold TT, JJ on a Qxx flop you are likely to be called whether you hit or not (and again you aren't gonna hit 2/3 of the time). So it looks like either betting out or checking and being trapped by the betting are horrible.
so:

1) push. Villain if weaktight will muck JJ, TT <. May be silly and race AQs, might be up vs AK also. If villain calls you are probably flipping, although if the shorty is in with a K/A you're not so happy. Pushing is really more about FE vs tighty and racing vs shorty, which is why the hand is tricky, you want one fold and expect another call.

Funny thing about NL live is that you make tighty worried when he sees you "commit" $400, even though only $200 of it is in play.

2) fold. You aren't committed at present. you can avoid the harassment of being in a sticky spot. There's no shame in mucking AK PF. The hand would actually be harder with JJ/QQ.

3) reraise to $100, hope tighty folds. If he calls you're "in a tight spot".

I think the key consideration is whether villain is weaktight or not. The more hands i think he'll fold to a push, the more i will.

blab blab blab. I'll answer your questions as best i can:

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What considerations should I be making here?

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- how much tighty is a thinking player
- how strong/weak he is
- how he feels about committing his stack, how he reacts to big stacks.
- what reaction people will have to you pushing AK after if shown down.

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How should I weigh risk vs reward on pushing out the tight player in a transparent isolation play of the short stack?

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- it may not be "transparent isolation play". It could be a standard 4b with a strong hand. Logical fallacy, they don't think just like you. And thank gods or all our games would be tougher.

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what effective stacksize would MP and I need for this to be an autopush?

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I think maybe $120-140ish and it's tougher. At $200 it's slightly easier to fold. Slightly.

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what effective stacksize would MP and I need for this to be an autocall?

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like $500? Really you need to be pretty deep, and even then just calling is horrible in your position leaving $30 in shorty's stack, being exposed behind to more preflop action and playing the whole hand OOP.

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If I call and mp calls, should I donk into safe looking flops in an attempt to get hu? should I ever look to checkraise isolate vs the shortie in late p?

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the former, probably not. the latter, pretty much never as the pot is well protected and risk >> reward.

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If I call and mp calls and I catch a pr, am I committed vs mp? (there would be $150 in the pot and an inevitable $30 more from late p shortie, but villain would still be around $150 behind)

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pretty much and happily. Question is how you get it in.

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If I call and mp calls and I whiff, I'm generally in a bad spot - especially when the action goes check/check/shove. This is primarily because I'm still up against LPshortie's entire range and getting great odds, but i'm oop vs a tight ep who's invested 1/4 of his stack already. I have no idea if he'll just check/fold to the late P bet, so therefore I have no idea if I should raise or not.

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ah, the sweet complexities of NL.

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How much does it suck to reraise up to $120 pf and then check/fold the flop if I'm threehanded and whiffed?

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why $120? pot would be $300 after rake and villain has $80 left in a protected pot. It would suck getting 4.5-1 or 5-1 and having to c/f, but you are looking at less than 6 outs x 2 to catch a winning pair...not pretty. That's why getting to flop action is not nice for this hand.

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If I reraise to $120 preflop can I fold to an mp shove?

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stove it buddy. If you put in $120, plus $80 shorty's stack, plus $200 from mp, you're looking at about $375 after rake. So you're getting $375 to $80 or 4.6-1ish. So you need to be better than 18% to call, right?

Let's say for tight MP to shove, he needs AA, KK, AKs all combos and QQ 1/3 combos (he's tight, but sometimes he'll shove QQ, just not always).

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 69.492% 60.90% 08.60% 11470168 1618948.00 { KK+, QcQh, QcQs, QdQs, AKs }
Hand 1: 30.508% 21.91% 08.60% 4127280 1618948.00 { AcKd }


Take out QQ:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 74.268% 62.53% 11.74% 8565400 1608108.50 { KK+, AKs }
Hand 1: 25.732% 13.99% 11.74% 1916815 1608108.50 { AcKd }

(vs tighty it's fine for most of the chips - remember, $110ish of the stack shorty can't play for)


Now factor in shorty. Say he'll push 66+, AK-AJo and ATs+, but only KQs, QJs, JTs in SCs:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 57.448% 51.80% 05.64% 431734671 47044766.83 { KK+, AKs }
Hand 1: 16.853% 10.94% 05.92% 91135749 49320547.33 { AcKd }
Hand 2: 25.699% 24.81% 00.89% 206791664 7391033.83 { 66+, ATs+, KQs, QJs, JTs, AJo+ }

(this is a call since you are playing for 16% of the first $220ish then as 75%-25% for the $110ish shorty isn't playing for)


Add in the 1/2 combo of QQ in tighty:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 54.730% 50.56% 04.17% 588387281 48539450.00 { KK+, QcQh, QcQs, QdQs, AKs }
Hand 1: 21.290% 16.48% 04.81% 191768639 56000535.50 { AcKd }
Hand 2: 23.980% 22.68% 01.30% 263904763 15169477.50 { 66+, ATs+, KQs, QJs, JTs, AJo+ }

(call)

Quite difficult, eh? solution, of course, is don't pop it to $120 exactly. Better if you choose to go down that route is minreraise to $90ish. Then it's easier to fold to tighty's push.

So, after all that waffle, here is what it boils down to:

push OR fold (depending on tighty's weakness/thinkingness) >>> smaller reraise >>>>>>>>> call.

push > fold where villain is weaker, fold > push where villain is more solid.


Sorry if this doesn't make sense, it's late here. PM/mail me if you want to talk it through.