AK hand (for Fossilman)

[thehazyone]

Hi Greg,

I (along with a number of others that play at Poker School Online) have often read your posts/advice with interest. Recently, a hand came up in a NLHE tourney that sparked some debate, and we decided to see what you would have to say about it.

Here is the situation. It is a qualifying tournament for PSO's Big One II - the player in question (me) currently has a C qualification level, meaning the only way they can improve their qualification is by winning the tournament. It is 8 handed with the blinds at 3,000/6,000 and antes 1,000. I am dealt AK off on the button. I have 47,000 in tourney chips and am the second shortest stack at the table. Avg stack size is about 150,000. Action is passed to the smallest stack who is 2 seats to my right. He goes all in for 41,000. I am prepared to go all in myself as I think the short stack would make this move with any ace, two face or small pair, when the extremely tight player to my immediate right flat calls the 41,000. This is over half of this persons stack (they have around 70,000). I don't put this player on AA or KK (they would reraise all in if they did), but know they would only make this call with a range of hands of 99-QQ.

Call or fold here? The debate swung widely in either direction, with about half of the people advocating a fold based upon the read I had, and the other half advocating a call because of my relatively short stack and the opportunity to triple up.

I'll post the results and my reasoning for what I did after you have responded.

Thanks in advance for your time (I wish Mark and Tina would try and talk you into being an instructor there, they lack big bet HE instruction).

Aaron (thehazyone)

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Since you're trying to win, all that matters to you is chip equity. So, do you have +EV with this call (in terms of chip count), or not? Given your read, I would say you do. Unless the short stack or tight player also have AK, you are the money favorite here. While you won't win over half the time against their likely ranges of hands, you will win more than 1/3 of the time, I believe.

So raise all-in for that last T6000, just as an added incentive for everyone else to get out of the way, and hope you're not up against AA or KK. I mean, even though the short stack doesn't have to have such a strong hand doesn't mean he doesn't have it.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[thehazyone]

Thanks Greg,

I folded and still won, but the argument was made that my play here was incorrect, and you confirmed what they said. My reasoning for folding was because I was against two opponents rather than one, so I was probably a slight dog (I figured about a 60-40 dog in this case). But I can see the point being made that you might want to take a chance as a slight dog with the chance to triple up, especially with a win being my only incentive.

For the record, the short stack all in had ace six suited and the tight player who flat called had QQ (which won).

Again, thanks for your response, I'll post it in our forum.

Aaron