Fun with AKs

[anotherFliplost]

Sorry, no hand history (I'm at work!). Here's the gist:

Late in a low buy-in MTT, I've been playing a very effective pushbot strategy since about the 100/200/a blind levels, keeping my stack between 10-15 BB's. People at the three tables I've played at since 100/200/a were all very frustrated with my donkey pushbotting, but hardly ever calling.

On to the hand:

Blinds 1500/3000, ante 150
Hero (38000)
UTG1 (30000)
MP (8000)
MP1 (108000)
CO (50000)
BU (18000)
SB (11000) posts 1500
BB (48000) posts 3000

Hero has A [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and raises to ??? (pot is 5700)

Should I just push here with ~13 BBs? Should I raise to 9,000 and try a go-and-go? My feeling is that I should continue with the play that brought me this deep and just push. Is this a no-brainer?

[coatsie]

push

[FishyMcFish]

Push. Since you've created this image you should play all hands the same to induce mistakes. If youn suddenly revert to a 3x raise it'll scream that you're looking for action. There are enough smaller stacks out there that will look you up with hands you have dominated.

[sapsuckah]

I disagree with this, Fishy... at least part of it. The point of pushbotting is to get yourself out of pushbot mode. Optimally, obviously, you'd like to build your stack to the point where you can get back to standard raising without having to push.

That said, the line between pushbotting and not pushbotting is different for different people. With 13 BBs and a raise-worthy hand, I tend toward standard raises but will often push depending on the situation.

In this case, given that you've been pushing a lot and wouldn't mind a call here, I agree that pushing may be the right play. But if you think that any of the players behind you would be likely to resteal over a standard raise, then I'd put in 8k or so and insta-call a push. I see this spot as very read- and table-dependent.

Anyway, I just disagree that reverting to a normal raise size once you get back to 13 BBs is "screamining for action."

Matt

[FishyMcFish]

Agreed. Although I wasn't suggesting the players would try and re-steal, more that they may fold given the deviation from his betting pattern to this point which would be bad.

I suppose 'Raising flags' sounds better than 'screaming for action' but if you can;t exagerate it's not worth saying [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[sapsuckah]

Yeah, but you're gonna have to deviate at some point. You're not gonna be open-shoving at 18 or 22 BBs. Anyway, looking at the stacks again, there are two stacks that are great candidates for restealing. If I had any kind of a read theat they were decent players and aware that they had good resteal stacks, I'd standard raise. Otherwise I'd probably open-push and hope someone's finally sick of me.

[MJBuddy]

Push...because people will call with with Ace anything. You don't need to worry about "tricking" anyone. The trick lies in playing unexploitaly.

And of course, this is a low buy-in MTT