Laying down AK in a tournament from a Poker Pro Magazine Article

[Chesskid1]

I think I may be overplaying AK but i'm not sure. In the a recent article in Poker Pro Magazine called "When to race" by David Apostolico he gives the following situation where AK is a easy laydown.

MTT (he doesn't state buyin), 65 players left, 45 cash, your fourth in chips with 24,000, blinds 400-800 with avg stack 7,000. New table, on the button, UTG moves allin for 14,000 and you have A-K.



His reply "This is a very easy fold in my opinion, I am most likely against a mid-pair hand or up against a hand like A-Q but i'm not really to bet on it. I am in excellent shape and there is no reason to be taking a stab in the dark here just to get in a race. I did fold here" He also states he would call if it was like a 6,000 UTG shove (still have plenty of chips), or if he only had like 6,000 chips (need to gamble)


so what do you think? i've faced this situations many times and I don't know what to think, but i'm leanings towards bad? I don't know I think I might fold in tougher fields $100 FO? i'm not sure. thanks.

[easyrider0]

Taking account your stacksize, M and Q is imo a great guideline on how to play AK.. but this doesn't say anything about OOP raises..which is more a problem i think then calling a shove with AK, which is imho a trivial play.

But i would for any reason definetly call AK for 50% my stack in a 10min lvl $10 donkament shovefest. because you're so huge ahead in most shove ranges because everybody is playing so shallow.

In higher buyins you should play solely on reads, there's so much more metagame involved here.

[binions]

[ QUOTE ]
I think I may be overplaying AK but i'm not sure. In the a recent article in Poker Pro Magazine called "When to race" by David Apostolico he gives the following situation where AK is a easy laydown.

MTT (he doesn't state buyin), 65 players left, 45 cash, your fourth in chips with 24,000, blinds 400-800 with avg stack 7,000. New table, on the button, UTG moves allin for 14,000 and you have A-K.



His reply "This is a very easy fold in my opinion, I am most likely against a mid-pair hand or up against a hand like A-Q but i'm not really to bet on it. I am in excellent shape and there is no reason to be taking a stab in the dark here just to get in a race. I did fold here" He also states he would call if it was like a 6,000 UTG shove (still have plenty of chips), or if he only had like 6,000 chips (need to gamble)


so what do you think? i've faced this situations many times and I don't know what to think, but i'm leanings towards bad? I don't know I think I might fold in tougher fields $100 FO? i'm not sure. thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

You aren't gettting an overlay with AK offsuit vs. pocket pairs. QQ-TT you are 43%. 99-55 you are 45%. In the example above, you are calling 14000 to win 15200 (no antes mentioned) and need 48% equity. Of course, AA-KK are in his distribution. And the example does not say how many are left to act after you either, which would be an important factor.

I might make this call with AK suited, but AK offsuit its a routine fold given the circumstances.

However, if UTG was 4000 and the average was 7000 and you had 14000, it might be a different story. AQ-AT and KQ are far more likely to be in his distribution.

[gvegas]

Without a good read its a fold. Period. An extra 3% equity from the hand being suited shouldn't change your play.

[Dave D]

This is an awful fold.

You only have 30 bbs. That's not "in good shape". It's not bad, but to make the FT you've got a way to go. The pusher could also have AJ/AQ/AT/KQ/KJ, or below 99. The pusher is pretty short himself, it would make sense that these hands, and some others like suited connectors are in his range.

Easy call. The advice is weak tight at best.

[hamnegger]

id have to agree w folding in the situation described

[binions]

[ QUOTE ]
This is an awful fold.

You only have 30 bbs. That's not "in good shape". It's not bad, but to make the FT you've got a way to go. The pusher could also have AJ/AQ/AT/KQ/KJ, or below 99. The pusher is pretty short himself, it would make sense that these hands, and some others like suited connectors are in his range.

Easy call. The advice is weak tight at best.

[/ QUOTE ]

?? You are 4th in chips. It's an UTG push near bubble from a guy that would knock you down to average if you lose.

As the big stack, you have a huge weapon over the next 50-100 hands on the bubble. If your table is typically tight, you can steal blinds at will. Why risk that extremely profitable situation with AK offsuit on what you hope is a race?

[Dave D]

Beacause if you win this hand, you all but lock up the FT, and possibly 1-5.

You're not gonna be stealing that many blinds if the average stack is 9 blinds. There's gonna be lots of shorties pushing, and pretty soon you're gonna be an average stack.

The overlay alone with the blinds (and probably, although it doesnt say, antes) makes a coinflip +EV. But often it's not a coinflip...

[ChipSpeak]

[ QUOTE ]
Beacause if you win this hand, you all but lock up the FT, and possibly 1-5.

You're not gonna be stealing that many blinds if the average stack is 9 blinds. There's gonna be lots of shorties pushing, and pretty soon you're gonna be an average stack.

The overlay alone with the blinds (and probably, although it doesnt say, antes) makes a coinflip +EV. But often it's not a coinflip...

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an odd situation, with a Q this high and M low in proportion... I am interested on your perspective on when is M's importance challenged by a high or low Q ?

The more I read the above quote, the more I like it. Many tourneys are lost in the 30 BB range, this is a decent spot to get us to the FT. I would have originally said snap fold, based on Q, but this is swaying me, interesting perspective. Antes change things considerably as well, I think it's a much easier call with.

[Dave D]

The OP is a great illustration of why numbers like average stack and chip leader/rank are pretty useless. More average stack really.

All that matters is how many BBs you have, and to a lesser extent how many everyone else has.