Live-Event: 100$/30, AJo in MP, LAG reraises all-in

[Tackleberry]

Another hand from my last live 100$-tournament, 30 players, 6 are paid.

Table is basically aggressive, most pots go away w/o showdown. Raises are often called by loose players, but normally they give up on the flop. I think to be one of the better players, able to outplay the others on the flop.

I pick up AJo which I think is a perfect hand for my purposes. I raise it from UTG+2, making it 600 to go (blinds 80/160), knowing that only one of the loose guys will certainly call me.

What happens instead is that I get one caller and the loosest (and worst guy) at the table went all-in with about 3.200 (which was nearly exactly the same stack as mine - so it was "him or me").

I saw him making a decent reraise before with AA, any other hand he only called - no matter what the raise was. The hands I saw from him where mainly trash (K5o, K2s, Q5o, Jx etc.). Knowing this I set his range on a lower to medium pocket pair (maybe 44 - TT), to a lesser degree JJ or QQ. I did not put him on KK/AA, as he would have simply reraised me.

So what to do? Are the pot odds of about 1.5 to 1 enough to call this - based on my reads?

[lemming]

If you're able to outplay the guy easily on every other occasion, I'm finding a fold here, knowing that I can get his chips on a better spot later on... As you said, at best he has 44-TT, so it's a coinflip at best, I personally do not like to put my tournament life on such a thing, when I know I'm the better player...

[J.A.K.]

[ QUOTE ]
I saw him making a decent reraise before with AA, any other hand he only called - no matter what the raise was.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fold.

What position is he shoving from? I would not rule out a big PP: 1)He will increase his stack by 40% by picking up the pot now 2)A std (3x-4x) raise is well over 1/2 of his stack, hence the shove.

You are behind on PO against 88+/AQ+. Your range of 44-TT is optimistic- or one that simply makes your play correct from a PO perspective.

[Rocco]

Is the raise to 600 table standard? I'd raise less (450-500), it usually accomplishes the same. I try not to invest 20% of my stack in a raise if I intend to fold to an all-in.

[Tackleberry]

Yes, the raise was fairly table-standard. With a smaller raise of about 3-4x BB you could get three to four callers. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

My reads on Villain where that he surely would have been able to push even 44 in this situation (actually it was even worse!!). So my range really went from 44-TT/JJ, AQs+). Just have no stove on my company pc. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Rocco]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, the raise was fairly table-standard. With a smaller raise of about 3-4x BB you could get three to four callers. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok. I absolutely hate having to fold after raising a big portion of my stack, so I avoid situations like this one. You have to plan ahead before you raise, like, do I really want to see a re-raise here? If the answer is no, and at the same time the chips you've already invested is of significant importance, you shouldn't have raised at all.

In your case, with these stack sizes, I'd probably fold AJo from early position and save my chips to maintain FE for future moves. Your stack is excellent for re-stealing with, so I'd try not to spew chips on moves that may fail. I don't mind a raise though, but I'd raise less. If that raise bring the loose donks along, it may happen. Then I just re-evaluate on the flop.

[Tackleberry]

Thanks for this very helpful comment! You´re right, at least did my pf-raise oop bring me in an awful situation.

Much more awful was that my opponent (who was a really worse player!) showed me 34s after my fold (I nearly went about one minute into the tank before folding). [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

But I don´t want to judge my decision by the results. Just wanted to know if my fold was too weak, based on my reads of him. So thanks again for your answer.

[Jiggymike]

Folding here is fine, you forgot to include AA-QQ in his range, which are really bad news for you. With a player to act behind you, you are being squeezed out and there is nothing you can do about it, since you can find yourself up against something like AQ and 99, giving you pretty poor equity when the guy behind calls. This is either a pretty sick squeeze by the 'bad' player or just a donk 'making a stand' move...with your reads I'm leaning towards the latter (in my personal live experience of only a few tournaments, I've seen SO many people decide to make a stand with weak suited connectors in really strange spots, so this is what I'm basing that on).

[Tackleberry]

Ok, but this means, when the active player behind me did "not exist" - say, two limpers before me folded after the all-in from Villain and I´m last-to-act - this would have been a call? While you lean towardas a 'making a stand' move?

BTW, I did not forget about QQ-KK, I just did not set him on such a big PP (like KK/AA) because I´d seen him slowplaying AA before (limp-min-reraising). QQ was in my range but with a low probability ...

[LSgambler]

I agree with Rocco raise less preflop and fold to the all in.