What\'s worse here, the push or the call?
 

I have seen this exact same play happen in THREE SNGs in a row on PokerStars: Fairly early in the tournament with lots of chips for most players and still low blinds; no time to risk tons of chips without a good reason.

In all three cases, the hand involved people with a lot of chips - no short stacks but also nobody had like 80% of what was left.

Guy in early-middle position makes a standard raise of 3-4BB. Someone after him pushes all-in with a large stack. The initial raiser calls the bet.

All three times the initial raiser-caller had AK and the guy who pushed had pocket 7s.

Now, what made me want to post this:

When I see a situation come up where the cards are shown, the money is in and the board is filling up, I usually silently root for the person whom I felt played the hand best (when all things are equal). I realize that it might be better for me if people who play badly are my competition but it's a Karmic thing. (And not really important...)

Anyway, in this case, I said to myself, "Self, how can you push with a medium pair?" But then I thought "Wait a second there, Self; how can you call with AK?"

And it all hurt my head.

So which play is worse and why?

Re: What\'s worse here, the push or the call?
 

If they both have 100xBB, both plays are very poor. If they have 13xBB both plays can be ok.

Since we don't know why people do what they do, it is impossible to say if the plays are poor. If the guys that push with mid pair thinks the original raiser will fold a lot, it is a good play. Calling with AK often is ok based on pot odds.

Re: What\'s worse here, the push or the call?
 

I'd say the push is way worse here because of the bigger pair possiblities of the original raiser. At least AK holds its own against QQ and down, and is ahead of every non-pair hand. Still a bad call though (since the all in is proably a small pair from someone who watches too much WSOP...and is therefore behind)

Re: What\'s worse here, the push or the call?
 

The push is a lot worse IMO. The call is pretty bad as well unless the pusher is a LAG. Who has shown down weaker hands and would make this play with AQ,AJ,KQ,KJ.

Re: What\'s worse here, the push or the call?
 

Ya, this is definently all too common at the 11s and 22s. IMO i think the player with the 7's made the far worse play, simply because hes putting all his chips in praying hes at a coinflip. The AK atleast had some fold equity behind the push. I personally would never push with AK at this point in fear of being up against a monster, but the way alot of people play preflop with low blinds, his play doesn't surprise me. Usually if i only do 3x his bet, the player will simply move all-in no matter what he has (and half the time its with a similar hand to 7's) so the AK player was probably just afraid of considering a fold if he wasn't the first person to push. Any tips from experienced 22s or higher players on how to deal with this problem when you are the one with the AK would certainly be helpful to me!

-Karma