AK hand in a live tourney

I was playing in a live tournament with 30 players for a $100 buy-in tonight. We were down to the final 5 players, and the top 3 get paid out $600, $900, and $1500. I am the chip leader with approx 105k and the blinds are at 3k/6k with a 300 ante.

I am dealt AKo on the small blind. First two to act fold, and the button - a solid player - raises to 21k, which is about 1/4 of his stack. I am next to act, and after a long time thinking, I call his bet. I think we were both expecting the BB to fold and get out of the way, but the BB calls also, leaving him with only 16.5k behind.

The flop comes 2d3h5c. I check, BB thinks for a while and then moves all-in for 16.5k. The button very hesitantly folds after contemplating for a couple of minutes. After thinking for a while and asking a few questions to see the reaction, I decided that I was about 90% sure the villain was on a medium pair. This would make sense because he likely would have pushed preflop with anything better than JJ givin the size of his stack. Since it is only 16.5K more to call and there is already 64.5k in the pot, I call the bet.


How do you guys think I should have played this hand??

[TomHimself]

push preflop

[Miscreant]

[ QUOTE ]
push preflop

[/ QUOTE ]

not even close .. postflop I like the call getting 4 to 1, any less is a fold though.

Can anybody else offer me some advice on this hand??

[MeanGreenTT]

[ QUOTE ]
I am dealt AKo on the small blind. First two to act fold, and the button - a solid player - raises to 21k, which is about 1/4 of his stack. I am next to act, and after a long time thinking, I call his bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're 5 handed and this is a MONSTER that short! 2 players have already mucked and regardless of the read on the Button, any decent player should be trying to pick up the blinds in this spot, how can you not assume the AK isn't best hand right now, raise and put the BB, Button to test!

[Iconoclastic]

Pushing preflop IS the right play. What reasons do you have for just calling?

There were a couple of reasons I just called the bet from the button. He was second in chips at that point with just about 4/5 of my stack. If he was on a monster like AA or KK, he would have clearly called an all-in bet from me and I would have been left with the short stack at the table. His standard blind stealing raise had been between the minimum raise (12k total) and a 2.5xBB raise (15k total). Since he increased to 21k this time, I put him on a real hand. The other reason I wanted to see a flop with him is that I had a good read on him when cards came on the board. He was a textbook example of Mike Caro's tell about glancing at chips when he lands good hand on the flop. He also was sitting back in his chair for most hands until the flop came, and when he hit something he would generally sit upright as soon as it became his turn to act. With these very basic and simple tells, I thought I would have a huge advantage on him if I could see a flop.

What I didn't take into account was the possibility of the BB calling the bet as well.

[bruce]

Preflop you have two choices. Fold or reraise.

With your call big blind gets too good a price not to tag
along especially being shortstacked. You have a strong hand
so if you do play reraise to knock out the big blind.

There are arguments to be made for folding. Button has
a large stack. There are two players with smaller stacks
and why risk losing most of my chips to the only player
who can cripple me.


Bruce

[davidross]

Perfect example of position in NL hold'em. You don't have it on this hand and the only defence you have is to push and make sure you will see all 5 cards. The only hands I can see calling with here are a made hand like a pair, but then youinvite the BB to play too by giving him great odds.

Imagine for a minute that you're the guy on the button. You're raising with Ax or KQ, KJ KT etc. You just call with your AK and the flop comes J52. How are you going to play this when he follows up with a continuation bet? You are just asking to be outplayed here.

Now imagine you're on the button with 99 and you raise. Now the big stack in the SB pushes all-inb. What do you do? You're praying for a coin flip and if you lose you get nothing. You're in 2nd chip position, you may very well fold some very good hands here. Use your stack, and negate your bad position. There are only 2 hands you're afraid of here, and even KK you have a fighting chance against.

Thanks for the advice guys. Here's how things played out:

I called the all-in bet from the BB and I was right, he was sitting on 88. I had good odds to call at this point since I was about 4:1 on the extra 16.5k, but it turned out I didn't hit and that turned the villain into a slight chip leader. The guy who was on the button this hand showed his cards after the hand played out and he folded his AQs. This guy was also the next player to drop out, so that put us down to 4 players. However, at this point I had become the small stack at the table with about 50k. The remaining players at the table wanted to split the $3000 four ways, and since I was the short stack with only a little more than 6xBB, I was obliged to comply with the split and take my $750.

I think this AK hand definitely crippled me. Had I taken the hand down preflop, or even if I had folded preflop, I would have maintained a massive chip lead and a great chance at the $1500 which was scheduled to go to the winner.