Play a Hand With the Masters #2 Pre-Flop

[AtticusFinch]

[ QUOTE ]
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 48.2503 % 40.06% 08.19% { AKo }
Hand 2: 51.7497 % 43.56% 08.19% { 88+, AQs+, AQo+ }



That's about right for a bit stack push, and you dont need 11% of dead money, theres 1.5 BB in there, your 3BB raise, villains 3BB call, then 23BB more... so 23 to win 30.5 BB, thats enough to take a 55/45 (not to mention a 51/49), i think.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that's the range, then I call. I honestly don't know the range for a typical $109 player. I'd guess it would include pockets down to 22, and AQ less often, but that's just a guess. I might count just AQs as a proxy for the notion that the player is less likely to push AQ in general.

My prior post was not so much a statement of his range as a reason why you might fold to a push: i.e. you suspect you're up against a pocket. Obviously this requires a bit more of a read.

I'm calling most of the time here. I only said I'd consider folding to a push.

[A_PLUS]

By default line is to raise to 2.5-3xBB.

at 26xBB, and no antes, I keep my raises in this range.If I win the blinds, great. If not am perfectly happy playing this 2-3 way. I am out of postion, but I stand to win a nice pot it the flop comes right from AJ, AQ, KJ, KQ.

I will occasionally limp here hoping for a late position / Blind pwn attempt, which I can either come back over the top of, or Stop and Go. I only will do this if I there are is an aggressive player in CO-BB or I was in the 10-12BB range, and I was looking to take a riskier line, pretty sure I was going to be putting all of my chips in at some point in this hand.

With no reads, I am raising. to 275$.

Forgot...

If I am reraised, I am not folding. We dont have a read, so I wont be coming up with any ranges that tight.

LP, if they have enough chips to fold, and my remaining stack is a reasonable % of the pot, I will probably Stop and Go. Sure I let AQ off the hook, but I will take survival and a nice pot there.

EP raise, I will jam if I think they still have enough chips to fold, and the raise is to 1100+. If the raise, commits the SB/BB, I will call and let them stop and go (hopefully with a worse hand)

Min-raise, I will call and play the flop accordingly.

[AtticusFinch]

[ QUOTE ]
11% dead money sounds too much but i may be wrong. i know u made the "i can lay down AK more now" thread but i think to win these tournies u have to take the risks and this has the potential to be one of those spots

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, this started to sound fishy to me, too, and I realized that I had forgotten to factor in the initial raise! With 275 from our raise, and 300 from the blinds, there's enough in the pot to justify a call even against a pair. (Except for aces or kings, of course.)

The 11% figure is only for an open push in front.

1st, I'm happy that the only real bigstack has folded already. (I've been at too many tables where the loose, aggressive lucky big stack was directly to my left...or 4 bigstacks were to my left.)

With a standard table with standard players where I've been playing my standard game, I'd raise whatever I'd been raising to steal blinds with - 250 or 275 probably. If stacks behind me had seemed willing to call those small raises, I'd raise more to encourage them to not have position on me in a pot where I'm probably going to play for my stack on the flop. The goal here is to play this hand shorthanded if I don't steal the blinds.

If raised from any of the short stacks, I feel compelled to call, unless I have been raising a lot and that shorty seems like he wouldn't push with any pair/AQ/KQ/QJs...but would only be pushing with AA/KK/AK, which I find highly unlikely. Of course, this point is moot, because if this was a raise, get reraised all in by a shortstack, it wouldn't make for much interesting conversation on what to do on the flop/turn/river.

Occasions where I'd limp? My goal is to win a mildly contested pot here, so I'd limp if I was 1)Hoping to limp reraise an aggressive loose raiser who'd likely fold to my reraise uncontested when he has a pocket pair or hand worth seeing 5 cards against my hand or 2) The table was playing very tight and transparent, perhaps with the exception of the blinds, who are loose and transparent. Here, people will fold most hands and I don't have to worry about a multiway pot anyways. Also, the only hands that would have called my raise are hands that are better than mine and know where they stand on most flops. In addition, I can outplay them after the flop and since we've made the pot smaller and our stacks larger relative to that, flop play will become more important and I have more of an advantage. This is especially the case if everyone is likely to fold and the blinds come along with you, and you can let them bet their middle pair or top pair crappy kicker and call them down knowing your TPTK is good.

Dennis

[A_PLUS]

Read through the posts...

It makes me sad that people want to fold AK pf in this spot to anything other than at least 2 reraises, or push-call.

I cant imagine, having enough information on anyone online to give them an AA-KK range.

Against a good tight opponent: They are aware that my range is wider than QQ+, AK. I think someone would be correct, to reraise me with AQ, 99+

Against a mediocre player: They are only playing their cards
They will reraise with AJ, maybe ATs, 66+. maybe KQ

Against a bad player: ATo+, 22+. KJs+

None of which make me want to fold.

We dont have 50xBB here, we cant play like we do. I wouldn't hate to take an CEV neutral coin flip here, and I love anything better than that. Variance like this is a good thing in large fields.

[McMelchior]

Allow me (before reading any other posters' reply) to be as un-sofisticated at possible:

I'm raising to 300.

Unless I feel very certain that a limp will be raised there's no way I'm allowing the blinds to see this flop for free or half a bet.

The other potentially involved players stack are far from deep - between 13 and 30 times BB - and I want to optimize my chances that my hand is the best should I hit the flop.

I dont want no micro pair limping in and hitting set against me, and I want the suited connector type hands to pay to see the flop.

If I knew that someone most likely would raise I'd consider limping, with the plan of coming over the top.

If I'm re-raised by one of the small stacks I'm putting them all in, hoping worst case to find myself in a coin-flip.

If I'm re-raised by one of the stack that more or less has me covered I'll have to look at the size of the re-raise.

But honestly, holding an A and a K I have a hard time putting one out of 7 remaining players on AA or KK, so chances are I'll push no matter what.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

I go for a standard raise of 300 as well. With Gigabet's table iamge I would never limp. With his table image I would not be scared to go all in preflop, especially with no clear reads. Only in a particular read would I not do this.

[the shadow]

This is a great series.

I'm playing as me, rather than as gigabet. That means that I'm willing to play edges that are narrower than gigabet's advantage over the field. In particular, I'm willing to make or break my tourney on this hand. That also means that the table is not treating me as they might if they knew that it was gigabet.

I generally would raise AKo 3xBB, but here UTG+1 I'll limp. I'm calling to maximize the amount of money in the pot PF. By calling, I also kinda "buy the button" for this 1st round of betting.

If there's a raise, I'll call if the other players fold the action back to me. Otherwise, I'll reraise whatever amount I think necessary to isolate the hand to a single villian.

If there's a push and a call, I'm out of here. If there's a raise and a reraise, I'm out of here. If there's a raise and two calls, maybe I'm out of here, maybe I push.

If there's a raise and a call, it depends on how much dead money is in the pot and whether I think that I can drive one player out if I reraise or push.

The Shadow

[Exitonly]

I really dont think theres going to be much of an edge that Gigabet's skill would have him pass up that we commonfolk wouldn't...

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
Against a good tight opponent: They are aware that my range is wider than QQ+, AK. I think someone would be correct, to reraise me with AQ, 99+


[/ QUOTE ]

I won't speak for Gigabet, but if somebody who knows who I am is reraising my UTG+1 raise with 99 or to a lesser extent AQ [in this particular situation], they are making a very big mistake.