Wednesday, February 17, 2010

AKo Question

Here is the situation. 6 players remaining in a single table $3.40 sng regular speed. There are two big stacks and the rest of us are hovering around 1500 chips still. We have played 37 hands. I've limped a few pocket pairs and folded on the flop. And I completed from the sb once with suited connectors, bet the flop and turn after hitting a straight and won the pot without a showdown. In other words, I haven't raised pf a single hand yet. Now, the blinds are at 25/50 but going up in a minute. The action folds to me in midposition and I look down to see AKo. I raise to 150 and it folds around to the bb. He seems as tight as me and hasn't raised a hand yet either. Our stacks are about equal. He reraises to 400.

I'm pretty confident that he does have a premium hand and is not bluffing. I put him on a 1010+ range (top 5%). I have about 1250 chips. There is 625 in the pot and it will cost me 250 to call. Pokerstove puts AKo vs top 5% at 49/51 in his favor, but there is already 625 in the pot.

What is the best line here: fold, call or shove?

Thanks for any input
Roland

4 comments:

  1. My inclination would be to shove based on the following factors: (1) there are still six players left, two with big stacks, so you're not at the stage yet of just trying to squeak into the money; (2) the blinds are about to go up, leaving you with an awkward stack size if you fold; (3) you're probably right about his hand range but it is an inexact science, especially at low buy-ins and after only 37 hands (and maybe he wasn't paying attention to your table image), so his hand could be weaker than you think; (4) even if his range is AK and TT+, you have 40% equity (if I'm reading PokerStove correctly), which is exactly the pot odds you're getting if you go all-in (risking your last 1250 to win 1875); (5) he's more likely to have AK, QQ, JJ or TT than AA or KK and even against KK you have 30% equity (if he has AA it's just not your day, although we've all seen trip kings and the nut straight flop in this situation). You have position so calling is theoretically an option but I don't really like putting in 400 out of my 1400 chips, creating a huge pot almost as large as my remaining stack, when I'm going to miss the flop 2/3 of the time -- normally I want to see all five cards with AK if my stack size permits. I don't think you can fold unless you "know" he's so tight he would only make this move with AA or KK.

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  2. I want to see all 5 cards since I'm missing the flop 2/3 of the time............shove.

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  3. I just realized I was wrong about the pot odds because he only has 1000 chips behind after his reraise so you're risking 1250 to win 1625. But my gut still says shove....

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  4. Thanks guys, I follow the same line of thought as you both laid out. The chances of him having KK or AA are actually lowered a bit since Im holding one of the three As and Ks myself. In MTTs the need to accumulate chips is so important that I'll gladly reraise all in in these situations. The same goes for turbos where you need to be decisive with the few good hands you get. However, I wanted to check that this was still true for single table regular speed.

    If you are curious about the result. I shoved and he called with AA stacking me - LOL.

    Thanks for the input!

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