I suck at AK preflop because I don't know how to plan it

[Guruman]

live 1/2 at ye ol indian casino.

I've been pretty active and have been taking down pots with aggressive play - though I've been caught bluffing the river a couple of times. Up overall and running ok though. I'm sitting on about $400.

I'm UTG with AKo and raise it up to the general table standard of $12.

A tight player with around $200 behind makes the call from middle position. I don't really have a grasp on what his coldcalling range is, but my guess is that it he'll make the 'calls in spots he should be raising' mistake more often than the 'calls in spots he should be folding' one.

A short stacked late position player who's down to his last $80 pops it up to $50 - essentially a push. He's been playing weaktight, so I expect him to have a moderately tighter than demolition tilt range. Probably pocket 44+ and maybe some suited connectors plus ATs+.

It folds around to me with about $60 in the pot after rake.

What considerations should I be making here?
How should I weigh risk vs reward on pushing out the tight player in a transparent isolation play of the short stack?
what effective stacksize would MP and I need for this to be an autopush?
what effective stacksize would MP and I need for this to be an autocall?

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?

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)

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.

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

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

thx. can't get my head around this one.

[meep_42]

Min raise to $90 to see if you can push the cold-caller off a small/mid pair (you're committed to the $80 of the small stack anyway). I'd fold to a push by him and have no idea what to do if he calls and I don't hit the flop.

-d

[Man of Means]

I think the MP's stack makes this close to an auto-push. With $125 behind, heck yes. The more time you take to think, however, the more likely he is to call your push with a hand like QQ-88.

Reraising smaller and then folding is a disaster. If you make it $120 and both players come in you'll put the pot at $320 3-handed with $80 left to bet.

This is rare but: if you think MP is super-tight, has JJ+ and won't fold for $200, then make a fold.

Another option you allude to is to smooth call and then make a bet on the flop which is either for value with TP+ or a big draw, or if you "miss", acts as a squeeze. With 1 or 2 paint cards out there, MP may fold and you'll be headsup with shortie for $30 more. Sucks if MP calls here, because now you're pretty much committed! (And btw with an SPR of 1:1 you'll be happily committed if you flop a pair)

so

push > call >>> fold pre >>>>> re-raise and then think about bailing

[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:

[ QUOTE ]
What considerations should I be making here?

[/ QUOTE ]
- 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.

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

[/ QUOTE ]
- 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.

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

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

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

[/ QUOTE ]
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.

[ QUOTE ]
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?

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

[ QUOTE ]
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)

[/ QUOTE ]
pretty much and happily. Question is how you get it in.

[ QUOTE ]

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.

[/ QUOTE ]
ah, the sweet complexities of NL.

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

[/ QUOTE ]
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.

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

[/ QUOTE ]
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.

[Guruman]

I think all of this is making sense.

As the hand was going down I waffled a bit when the action came back to me because I was considering all of these factors. I didnt express anything outwardly really, but I did heistate for a moment.

My thoughts kind of rapidly did this:

1)I have LP crushed and I want to get hu with him
2)lots of $$ in the pot and still some FE vs mp
3)this hand will be impossible to play postflop if MP calls
4)Mp may fold without me reraising
5)I don't want to fold because I think I'm crushing LP
6)I can't raise some smaller amount because it'll end up committing me postflop or causing an UGLY fold
7)F it, "all in"

MP didnt like that. Nope not one bit.

I've learned in NL to just fold my hands together and rest my nose on them while looking at the middle of the pot when I'm in a hand. I'd been doing that consistently and did that again here as MP was in the tank.

He checked his stack. He counted the pot. He checked his cards. He prodded me for info and got nothing. He checked his hand again. He really didn't want to let this go, and I had taken a big line - especially considering my position. He thought some more and was clearly teetering between folding and calling.

finally he reluctantly called.

lp instacalled.

I flipped up the AK. MP sighed and flipped up QQ. LP showed AQ.

of course the case Q came out. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


In the end I think this villain actually can make that fold at least some of the time. He probably didnt trust me because I'd been splashing around a bit, but he REALLY hated his situation and I can tell that he's made big pf folds before. Pete - yeah, i'd call him weaktight. I think he still makes the fold with JJ. If he does then the shove is probably right. I'm also a little surprised that he didnt repop me pf, but I guess that sits right there in the weaktight mindset so there you go. I handn't seen him have a hand that big yet.

thx all.

[Peter Harris]

nearly had him fold that. Shame.