AJ hand

[JasonP530]

7 players left. All between 800 and 1800 or so. Blinds are at 150/300. UTG folds, hero has 1200 and looks at AJo. His move?


As a relevent side, I feel like I am having trouble when the blinds get high and there are 6-7 people left, while I am in the middle of the pack. Can anyone give me some pointers?

[jah0550]

Pooooooosh, you only have 4xBB. You need to gamble here.

[EverettKings]

I push.

You can't fold here. With 4BBs and the blinds fast approaching you can't just sit and wait for monsters. After you post you'll have 750, and even then a double up just makes you average again.

You also can't call. If you call and get raised all in, what's your plan? If you call and noone raises, you just gave the blinds a free chance to hit and yourself a chance to miss your shot at the pot.

AJo is a very good hand. And getting your chips in first maximizes your chance to take it down uncontested. There are 450 chips up for grabs, and you need them. And you fare quite well against the hands that would call you.



As far as general strategy in this stage goes, I have just three words for you: position, position, position. OK, add cards, that makes four words.

With the blinds this big you need to shove your chips first-in from anywhere with a pretty big hand (AJ is enough), which goes almost without saying.
As for my first three points, you need to raise lots of mediocre stuff in position. This can sometimes be any two depending on the stack sizes and your opponents. Figure out about the range of hands that would call a push, figure out how often they get these hands, and figure out how your cards fare against that range. OK, thats too much math to do in your 30 second window, but you get the idea. Against average opponents push crap like QTo and Ace-medium from the button, more hands against tighter opponents, fewer hands against looser.

This is all pretty vague, but at this point your goal is too pull away from the pack by stealing some blinds and maybe doubling up. So steal against people who will wait for a hand to call you, and pick off steals from people like yourself, who will flex their position.

And try to get Aces as often as possible.

-Kings

[JasonP530]

I did push, and the BB had AK(not that it matters). Just wanted to check, as it seemed close and tournament strategy can be counterintuitive.

Thanks for your input. It seems that I run into a hand before I get to the money, as I will generally still be stealing and such, even if I have doubled through or stolen some blinds. Perhaps it is only my perception. Thanks again.

[Voltron87]

Hero goes all in.

[johnnybeef]

hopefully this is
the last haiku written here
you should surely push

[willie]

it's a push

you probably made the right move.