Pushing with 27xBB left to protect hand.

[maddo]

Hi.

$10 3 Table MTT on PS
Blinds 50/100

Hero ~3000
Villain ~3300 (no reads)

Hero open raises to 300 in LP with AQs.
All fold to Villain in BB, who calls.

Pot=650

Flop is A85 rainbow.

Villain bets out 500 (pot=1150)

Hero thinks: why would Villain bet out over 2/3 pot here? Looks like he wants to take it down right now. If he had a hand that is beating AQ then wouldn't he wait to check-raise Hero? Hero believes he's best right now and pushes his remaining 2700.

Is this a fair move to protect Hero's hand? Taking down the pot represents a ~40% increase in chips.

Cheers.

[thesharpie]

You don't really have much to protect against, if you're ahead villian likely has 3 to 5 outs against you.

Even though it might encourage the 3 outer to draw out on you I just mini raise the flop and push on the turn. I want him to pay to see the river with those odds.

I am a newbie to tournaments though.

If the board was coordinated I definitely push.

[AlwaysWrong]

Think about how easy you just made this hand for your opponent. You took away the bluff, and made it clear that they need to be able to beat an ace to call. It's very hard for them to make a mistake now.

If you feel that you're ahead with AQ, it means on this board you're way ahead. Don't let your opponent off the hook by pushing. Milk them. Make a small raise, or just call. It could be right to just continue to call all the way to the river here, letting your opponent overplay their hand.

Finally, I think you're reading too much into a 2/3 pot bet. That could easily be their standard bet size, it's not unreasonable.

[schwza]

generally people (correctly) think of post-flop bets in terms of the pot, not in terms of bb's. a pot-size raise would be to raise by 1650 (your 500, his 500, the 650 in the pot), making it 2150 to go. you made it 2700 to go, so it's a slight overbet of the pot.

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Hero believes he's best right now

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i agree with that.

[ QUOTE ]
and pushes his remaining 2700.


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but that doesn't follow. you're committed to going broke against a hand like AK or 55. now the question is how to extract the most from a hand like TT or A9. if you call here, you'll have 2200 left in a pot of 1650. if villain bets again on the turn, you can push and he'll have a hard time getting away. if he doesn't you can bet 900 and get it all-in on the installment plan.

your line would make more sense if the flop were AT9 with a 2-flush. here, 67 is the only good draw. you don't need to be so worried about protecting your hand. i'd hem and haw and call.

[maddo]

Yes, I realise now that my push didn't have much value. I guess this is the type of hand where I'm way ahead or way behind. Extracting chips is something I have to work on. I always get concerned that I'll let someone catch a card that beats me.

Incidentally, Villain called my push and showed AJs - he didn't catch a Jack, and I doubled up. I guess that in a $10 tournament this will happen.

Cheers.

[sdplayerb]

in bigger tourneys good players are going to slow down there anyway with a hand you have beat, unless they catch their card on the turn.
so pushing is fine.
people like to assume that players with inferior hands will keep betting, not really true. if they are bad enough to call with a worse hand preflop, they are bad enough to call your push anyway.
and good players will find a call more suspicious.

[PrayingMantis]

A read could really mean a lot in such a hand. Anyway, I don't think that pushing is necessarily a mistake. In a $10 SNG people will certainly call here with at least a few Ax you beat, and OTOH, some people might slow down if you only call the flop and not pay you too much. Calling the flop makes sense too of course. Generally - against aggressive but not very observant opponents you probably better just call, against big callers there's good value in pushing (especially if you've been active prior to this hand and people think you are aggressive enough to push crap).

Thinking about it a bit more, calling and getting the money in on the turn, no matter how and what turn, is probably the best default move here without any more information.

[nightlyraver]

I like making a raise here to about t1,100-t1,500. It's safe to say that he likely has an A. At a $10 MTT, you'll get plently of players who will automatically call such a raise with many A's. When you get to the turn, the pot will have over t3,000 and you'll each have less than t2,000. Whether he bets of checks, he'll have a hard time getting away from the hand. If he called the raise on the flop, he will probably call a bet on the turn.

The push is not a bad play as you will get called often by hands that you can beat by bad players. The only problem is scaring people away. A bad player with a hand like A9 may call a reasonable raise, but may lay it down to a push. You are then accidentally causing villian to make the correct laydown. Also, a really bad player may call the raise with something like A4 and bet this flop but will not call the push.