Laying AK Down Preflop
 

Am I nuts? No reads.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t100 (9 handed) converter

MP3 (t4155)
CO (t3570)
Button (t4495)
SB (t4405)
BB (t1040)
Hero (t5410)
UTG+1 (t4240)
MP1 (t1205)
MP2 (t1555)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t350</font>, <font color="#CC3333">UTG+1 raises to t1400</font>, <font color="#666666">7 folds</font>, Hero folds.

Final Pot: t1900

Edit: This is the Stars $20 MTT happening right now. Helps to know what level this tourney is.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

Negative. Bad lay down on many levels. Villain is shortstacked and is likely to push (even a re-raise) with hands you dominate or at worse coin flip. Let's assume you're against a pair lower than KK. You're a 55-45 dog and you're getting 1.6 to 1 odds. All you need is about 1.2 to 1 to make it neutral so this is a +EV call and losing will not hurt your stack much. In addition, folding leaves you open to other players coming over the top in similar situations which will take away some steal attempts.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

he wasn't short stacked; i had him covered by about 1200. why get involved in coinflip situations when you don't need to yet? his strong reraise clearly told me he had a pair. whether or not it was AA or KK, i didn't really want to get involved in such a huge pot out of position for potentially my entire stack this early in the tourney.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

Have to agree with the previous poster on this one. You're priced in to call here. Then you have to make the rest of your decisions based on the texture of the flop. If you miss you're out and if you hit it come out firing. If you get a call then you have to be careful on the turn. Calling here is a +EV so you have to call.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

it costs 1050 more to call for a 1900 pot. that's not quite 2:1. is it priced in? if you highly suspect your opponent has a pair?

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

absolutely, unless your read on this opponent tells you he would push this hard (raise 4 times your bet) with AA or KK. If he has any other pair you are almost dead even and getting almost 2 to 1 on your money. And it seems like you're getting some implied odds as well. To me he looks like he may be trying to protect pocket JJ, QQ or if he's an idiot a middle pair.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

[ QUOTE ]
he wasn't short stacked; i had him covered by about 1200. why get involved in coinflip situations when you don't need to yet? his strong reraise clearly told me he had a pair. whether or not it was AA or KK, i didn't really want to get involved in such a huge pot out of position for potentially my entire stack this early in the tourney.

[/ QUOTE ]


Villian could have AJ, AT, AQ etc. People raise with stupid hands a lot of the time. You can't assume you're going to be a coinflip, you're probably *at worst* a coinflip.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

[ QUOTE ]
he wasn't short stacked; i had him covered by about 1200. why get involved in coinflip situations when you don't need to yet? his strong reraise clearly told me he had a pair. whether or not it was AA or KK, i didn't really want to get involved in such a huge pot out of position for potentially my entire stack this early in the tourney.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd probably call his raise PF, and lead with a 2/3 pot bet on the flop pretty much on any flop. If I hit my K or A I'd probably check/raise.

Bottom line is that even if you somehow end up pushing on this hand, you leave yourself 12 BBs. That's more than enough wiggle room at this stage. If you win, you have an ~9k stack. Having that kind of stack is HUGE +ev. If you're playing for the FT (big money) you have to make this call and try to maximize these situations. You can't play scared poker with the second or third strongest hand in the game.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

[ QUOTE ]
All you need is about 1.2 to 1 to make it neutral so this is a +EV call and losing will not hurt your stack much.

[/ QUOTE ]

You do not need only 1.2:1 unless you will be able to see all 5 cards, and the fact is that in this hand you aren't likely to see all 5 cards if the other guy has a pair and you miss on the flop. He's about a 2:1 dog to flop an A or a K on the flop.

This is very similar to the AK example in HoH v.2, the second one where Harrington advises calling because you "probably" have implied odds, UNLESS you were against a very tight player. Something tells me that there are actually a lot of players who could be labeled very tight in Stars MTTs. I think this fold is correct against most tight players as a big re-raise of a UTG raise from UTG+1 which committs about 1/3 of the guys stack is showing SERIOUS strength.

Interestingly, and wrongly IMO, Harrington also advises FOLDING the AK if you are against a player who raises approximately half of his stack and is thus pot committed if you suspect he has a pair. The reason given is that you should prefer to go all in to see all 5 cards but if you do go all in and are called, which you will be, by a lower pair you are only getting a fair price and fair priced coin flips are situations that most players try to avoid for the majority of their chips.

Re: Laying AK Down Preflop
 

if you are going to fold that hand, your open raise shouldn't be 3.5x, especially from EP.

I don't mind pushing there.