($20) Early AKs

[fnurt]

Your thinking is fuzzy. You assume that they're probably calling no matter what, but then you assume that it's most likely they'll call with a pair. Let's rewind this and reason in the correct order, because otherwise we just fall into the trap of putting the other guy on a pair when we have AK and putting him on AK when we have a pair.

What hands would he be flat-calling the all-in with? Well, if he's a reasonable player, it's either (1) a big hand looking for more customers, or (2) a hand he wants to be able to get away from if necessary. Since this is a low buy-in event we can't be so sure and we have to throw in some other possibilities. Bad players take each decision as it comes; they don't call with the intention of folding, or call with the intention of calling, they just call.

Most of the time he will have a hand worse than AKs when he flat calls. If you push and he incorrectly calls with a hand like AQ, you're happy about his bad play obviously. And if you push and he folds AQ, you're not exactly upset, because you have dead money in the pot now, and you didn't rate to extract more anyway.

Sure, he could have a pair, but that's all the more reason you should want to put pressure on him. If you call and see a flop, you can't continue unless you flop a pair, and you may not get any more money if you do. And if you let him bet you off the hand then you lose your chance to beat the all-in player as well.

I didn't say you should always push with AK no matter what, but the presence of an all-in player who rates to have a worse hand makes it an easy decision here.

[JustPlayingSmart]

I haven't read the responses yet. I'm assuming most people are deciding between folding and calling. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think I'll side with the people that say PUSH.

That way we get our "drawing hand" heads up against something we dominate, so we only have to draw to all the cards in the deck that aren't the all-in's kicker.

[betgo]

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That way we get our "drawing hand" heads up against something we dominate, so we only have to draw to all the cards in the deck that aren't the all-in's kicker.

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Funny

[Exitonly]

i hate when people call AK a drawing hand.


hate it!

[AceofSpades]

This is really an implied odds decision, if you want to play AK like Spee suggests, (the lower variance way) you must have two conditions:

A. a deep stack situation relative to the current blinds

AND

B. Not be calling for significant portion of your stack and then folding a bad flop.

in this hand, A applies but B doesn't, if the raise was to 3xBB or 4xBB, playing it the "safer" way would be reasonable. You can't call 16xBB and then fold here 2/3 of the time, the his stack and yours doesn't give enough implied odds to make up for the times you fold.

Joe

[yabastid]

Why don't we have 45 responses saying push?

[nath]

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At least as far as my experience goes, they usually call. It would be great to see them flip an AJ or AQ, but mostly I would expect to see a mid PP. My guess is that if I kept pushing in blind every time there was some heavy action (bets of 10+ x BB being made and called) preflop with AK I would get busted out. Eventually the 50% shot will go the wrong way when someone either sucks out or their pair holds up. Do you disagree and why?

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Oh my God, you might bust out!!! Inconceivable!!!
Guess what-- you're PROBABLY BUSTING OUT OF THIS TOURNAMENT. You bust out of MOST of them. Probably somewhere in the range of 98-99% of them, which if you're on the lower end of that scale is probably fantastic.
Since you're going to bust out anyway, you may as well take a shot on what is probably the best hand with very favorable odds and which even if called by a pair is still getting a little overlay to spike an A or K.

This is the problem with the survivalist strategy: It treats busting out of the tournament as a mortal sin, unforgivable, and one that must be avoided at all costs.
Guess what: The prize isn't for surviving, it's for finishing first. You cannot "survive" your way to all of the chips. If you stop thinking of playing tournaments to stay alive as long as possible, and start thinking of playing for finishing first, and taking bustouts and lower finishes as part of the terrain, you will begin to understand this.
My experience with survivalist strategy is that you tend to finish in the top 1/3 pretty frequently. Of course, it doesn't pay until the top 10%, and by the time you finally have to make a move-- well before then-- your desperate all-in will be called and you'll be up against it or just get sucked out on. Or maybe you double up so you can hang around for the next shot at busting out.

But back to this specific hand: If you can't see how pushing AKs here is +EV, I don't know what to tell you. Stop thinking of every time you get all in as a "50-50" and start thinking of equity vs. ranges of hands.
Calling and folding if you miss the flop is giving away chips. If that's "survival" it's survival with a bleeding head wound.

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You have one of the best hands in poker.

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QQ is also one of the best hands in poker. But could you justify raising all in preflop with it if you suspected the original raiser had KK and the cold caller had AA?

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There is a benefit of putting all your chip in preflop, and it is not an unnecessary risk.

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And in this context, the benefit is .... what????

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There is no way you can ever have that kind of read in online poker. Definatly not in the 40k (maybe at hte FT or something), maybe at $100+ buy ins or better. I'm calling a push and a call with QQ every time

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It was a hypothetical question to try to develop the previous discussion, but apparently that is of no interest.

[ QUOTE ]
This is really an implied odds decision, if you want to play AK like Spee suggests, (the lower variance way) you must have two conditions:

A. a deep stack situation relative to the current blinds

AND

B. Not be calling for significant portion of your stack and then folding a bad flop.

in this hand, A applies but B doesn't, if the raise was to 3xBB or 4xBB, playing it the "safer" way would be reasonable. You can't call 16xBB and then fold here 2/3 of the time, the his stack and yours doesn't give enough implied odds to make up for the times you fold.

Joe

[/ QUOTE ]

With respect to point B:

First off, it's not the size of the bet relative to the blinds that's important. It's the size of the call (or raise) relative to the pot and the other opponents still in the hand.

Second, there seems to be some mistaken impression about how and when this hand might be folded after the flop, or played forward.

In this case, with AKs, missing the flop is not limited to just a lack of an Ace, a King, and/or two or three hearts. Missing the flop also has a lot to do with whether or not the flop also missed your opponent.

Third, after the flop, you have 3/7'ths more of the hand, with which to get a read on the opponent and also make an evaluation of your hand versus the opponent.

Finally, the whole objective here has nothing to do with the all-in guy. You have already decided to play against him and there are no further decisions to be made.

The question is how much of a side pot do you want to make with the other guy, and whether or not you think you can beat him. You might lose to the all-in guy, but the side pot may well make or break you.

I still have yet to see one question answered. UTG goes all in indicating some strength. The player to his immediate left cold calls, which indicates possibly even more strength.

Then, with it fully acknowedged that there is no way online to have a read on the cold caller, you are ready to push, push, push at all costs.

What is the benefit of that push? What do you hope to gain?

If the push makes him make the correct play and fold, then you have lost a shot at his stack.

If the push makes him make the correct play and call, then you are almost surely way behind and more than likely doomed to get busted out.

In other words, all the push does is force the opponent to make the correct play. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but isn't one of the objectives of poker to cause the opponent to make mistakes?

[ QUOTE ]
Guess what-- you're PROBABLY BUSTING OUT OF THIS TOURNAMENT. You bust out of MOST of them. Probably somewhere in the range of 98-99% of them, which if you're on the lower end of that scale is probably fantastic.

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Are you kiddin' me?

Are you seriously equating tournament departure out of the money, and tournament departure in the money, as the same thing?

I'll certainly agree that a win rate of a couple percent is pretty respectable. But final table play and strategy should not be even remotely related to play and strategy an hour or two away from the money.

It's a step by step process. In order to win, you first have to be at the FT. In order to be at the FT, you first have to get into the money. In order to get into the money, you have to get your stuff in consistently when you have the best of it, not just when you feel like taking random shots.

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This is the problem with the survivalist strategy: It treats busting out of the tournament as a mortal sin, unforgivable, and one that must be avoided at all costs.
Guess what: The prize isn't for surviving, it's for finishing first. You cannot "survive" your way to all of the chips.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all well and good. The problem is that you consider anyone with less than all out kamikaze mentality to be a survivalist.

If that's what I am then that's what I am. I have no fear of pushing my stack in as regularly as needed. No one has clearly demonstrated the need in the OP's case, not relative to the first guy, who is already all in, but relative to the second guy, who can knock you out of the tournament.

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My experience with survivalist strategy is that you tend to finish in the top 1/3 pretty frequently. Of course, it doesn't pay until the top 10%, and by the time you finally have to make a move-- well before then-- your desperate all-in will be called and you'll be up against it or just get sucked out on.

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You make it sound as if every "survivalist" as you call them, crawls his way up from the basement and is lucky to walk away with whatever table scraps are left by the "surviving" kamikazes and truly lucky players. Nothing could be further from the truth.