$5 NL AK vs shortie ep raise

[halpgr]

I always 3bet AK in position over a standard 3x or 4x pfr. In this case UTG+1 is short with only 38 BB.

UTG+1 hasn't done anything remarkable to this point. He bought in short and has lost some of that. He's passive and calls preflop and this is his first preflop raise. So he's not to this point making spaz preflop raises with KJ or such.

I think he has some kind of a real hand here because he's been passive. Although I don't think his range is limited to KK-AA. Given it's $5 NL and he's short I can't give him too much credit here. I'd guess his opening range consists of JJ-AA, AQ-AK. Although sometimes shorties at this level seem to 'snap' after a while and just pick some weird hand to toss off the last of their short stack.

If I 3bet him to $0.60 then I feel I have to call if he shoves. Also if he just calls the 3bet then he's pot committed and I feel I have to either call an all in on the flop or put him all in.

I guess my question is should I want to play for shortie's stack with AK. Any preflop play better than 3betting.


PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.05 BB (9 handed) Poker Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

UTG+1 ($1.90)
MP1 ($10.52)
MP2 ($13.64)
Hero ($5.62)
CO ($5.21)
Button ($14.71)
SB ($4.42)
BB ($8.56)
UTG ($4.95)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, <font color="#CC3333">UTG+1 raises to $0.20</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero ...</font>