Ever in a position not to reraise with AK?

[mike28]

Just got done with this hand, and it got me to thinking. I know Slansky writes that you should always re-raise with AK. This, however, sparked some thoughts:

***** Hand History for Game 2436505249 *****
NL Texas Hold'em $20 Buy-in + $2 Entry Fee Trny:14324849 Level:2 Blinds(15/30) - Thursday, July 28, 04:11:38 EDT 2005
Table Table 13812 (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Total number of players : 9
Seat 1: Hero ( $775 )
Seat 2: fishboots ( $615 )
Seat 4: scclin ( $530 )
Seat 5: MBCaper12 ( $1005 )
Seat 6: wackus ( $1660 )
Seat 7: TowneyG ( $775 )
Seat 8: BumbleBe1298 ( $760 )
Seat 9: msbmsb111 ( $1155 )
Seat 10: stizzle19 ( $725 )
Trny:14324849 Level:2
Blinds(15/30)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ Ac Kd ]
wackus folds.
TowneyG raises [125].
BumbleBe1298 folds.
msbmsb111 folds.
stizzle19 folds.
Hero...

A raise like that UTG signals two things to me: AK or big pair. Here are the options that went through my head.

Pooooosh. I doubt villan is going to flip AJ/AQ, but it would be nice. More than likely I'm getting into a race with JJ/QQ, fighting against KK and praying against AA. Why risk it all this early? Taking down the raise would be fine but once again this strong from UTG hints to me that he likes his hand.

Call. Gives me t650 to work with. If I hit the ace, I can safely take the pot from JJ-KK without any problems. If he has AA then well, he has AA. Missing the flop allows me to get away fairly cheap (as opposed to re-raising or pushing)

Re-Raise. Popping this to t300-400 doesn't make sense to me. He's likely to jam his hand back at me for my remaining chips, then I'm forced to call. Missing the flop would be a nightmare too, leaving me with one leg to fight on the rest of the tournament.

Thoughts?

[AlphaN3rd]

I'm a newbie so don't take my advice too seriously.

I think folding is a very reasonable option as well. The only possible hand you're a big favorite too is AQ/AJ or some other crap. If he does have JJ or QQ, and you do flop a pair he's not likely to pay you off.

I'd probably play it safe and fold. It's not very likely that you'll double up, and I hate to lose that many chips early on.

[tshort]

There's has been a ton of discussion on this. I think Citanul had a post about it suggesting a call to the raise. There was lots of discussion, I would search for his post (a few weeks ago).

[jon462]

I could be wrong here, but isnt Sklansky referring to limit HE, where reraising would only cost you one BB?

[ChrisV]

I generally like calling raises with AK early, but I play in 1000-chip tourneys. Here you're a bit too shallow-stacked and I would just move allin. You're being pessimistic with the hands you're expecting to encounter. Villain will fold hands like 88, etc, and you're rarely in horrible shape.

[curtains]

Sklansky is talking about limit holdem! Never extrapolate advice from limit holdem to no limit. They are completely different games. I just flat call raises with AKo routinely early on in sit and gos.

[curtains]

btw I agree with ChrisV that moving allin is correct here. You dont want to call off 1/6th of your chips with AKo and then fold later in the hand. However if the blinds were 10-15, and someone raises to somehting like 45 UTG it's perfectly fine to flat call with AK in mid position or from the blinds.

PS - I also don't think it's terrible to fold.

[Thoth]

As he's on $775 it looks like he's very tight (just paid blinds and folded every hand) and not some donk that raises any two facecards. I'll just call and see the flop.

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
There's has been a ton of discussion on this. I think Citanul had a post about it suggesting a call to the raise. There was lots of discussion, I would search for his post (a few weeks ago).

[/ QUOTE ]

I highly suspect that citanul was referring to a situation that was SLIGHTLY different, but different enough so that he'd never recommend calling here. The difference may have been that the raise was to 90-100, and both players had deeper stacks. Although this doesn't seem important it's actually a very signifigant difference.

Note that I don't even know of the hand in question, but I highly doubt citanul wants to call off 1/6th of his stack hoping to hit the flop.

Attention to precise detail is very important.

[bawcerelli]

tough decision against a tight opponent. against a weaker opponent i'd flat call then call his flop all in, or push if he checks or min bets. that's just me though. you may get him to fold AK on the flop. i'm new to nl though

[rvg72]

If he was a known good player I'd probably call - otherwise I'd put him on a middle pair due to the size of the raise (it seems like he wants to take the pot right there) and push to either scare him out of the pot, have a huge edge if he shows AQ or AJ or a small dog if he plays his pocket pair.

Does this seem like a reasonable way to play this in a $20? I find I'm able to double up on some ridiculous calls both before and after the flop in the first 2 levels of these things.

rvg

[ QUOTE ]
If he was a known good player I'd probably call - otherwise I'd put him on a middle pair due to the size of the raise (it seems like he wants to take the pot right there) and push to either scare him out of the pot, have a huge edge if he shows AQ or AJ or a small dog if he plays his pocket pair.

Does this seem like a reasonable way to play this in a $20? I find I'm able to double up on some ridiculous calls both before and after the flop in the first 2 levels of these things.

rvg

[/ QUOTE ]

I always do this play in the $20's, but it's not uncommon for someone with 44-99 to call. Had a situation the other day where UTG (complete donk) with blinds at 25/50 and 7 players left raised to 250. It screamed mid pp, or AK. But I had AKs, and pushed him for the rest of his stack (he had 800 behind) hoping he would fold. He called with 88, I lost.

Then he laughed at me for pushing with a drawing hand. I don't push AK in these situations to race, I push so a decent player who's not desperate will fold mid pp's, and a bad player will call with Ax and other hands I dominate. But at the $20's, you will be racing with mid pp's a decent amount of time because people don't like laying these down to one all in (or even 2-3 all-ins sometimes).

[citanul]

curtains,

good god i hope you're right. this is a very clear all in.

citanul