When do you stop pushing AK?

[JonLines]

MTT, £10k guaranteed, 400 runners, 155 left, top 50 places paid.

Hero (SB) 4500
BB 2980
Villain (LP) 2555


Blinds 100/200
Hero Dealt A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

Folded to Villain, who bets 600. Folded to Hero who pushes, everyone folds, Hero wins 950 pot.

Now I am assuming I played this right (please point out if I didn't).

My question is however, how big would our stacks have to be before I don’t push, but instead call to see a flop? I am assuming it’s good for me to push in this situation but there must be a point where my and I opponent have too many chips for me to push, but too little for a re-raise without committing my self. How many BB's do you think this would roughly be?


Cheers

Jon

[mrh86]

There's really no wrong way to play A-K there, at least in my opinion. You could flat call or reraise to 1,500-2,000. Pushing just screams A-K to me, but it's not a horrible option.

[betgo]

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There's really no wrong way to play A-K there, at least in my opinion. You could flat call or reraise to 1,500-2,000. Pushing just screams A-K to me, but it's not a horrible option.

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Villain has T2500 is late position and raises to 600. Raising to 1500-2000 is the same as pushing. A push will not scream AK. It could look like a resteal.

Villain is pot committed and will probably call a push or other reraise.

Flat calling is bad here. I you flat call, push any flop.

The way that you play in this situation should not be the same in all cases - and a lot is read dependent. A lot has to do with how the table has been playing since you got shorthanded - has there been a lot of undefended blind stealing, lots of open raising or has it been rather passive with lots of calls and folds? This has a big impact on how you play at this point - it's not JUST about the cards even though you have a great hand here.

In this case I'd probably not push, but rather come over the top with a raise of about 40% of my stack, or 2k. This basically states the same as a push, that you have a strong hand and you're willing to commit to the pot with it. The problem I see with a push is that you're only getting called by a hand that is willing to race - perhaps another big ace that you have dominated but also perhaps a small PP. You're limiting the hands that will call your bet to a select few that you beat badly or the hands that are ahead of you preflop. I think that a reraise is a better way to get more chips out of your opponent and might even get them to push into you thinking you're just on a resteal.

There are honestly a lot of different ways to play this hand in this situation. This is just one way that, in my opinion, has a good chance of being called and extracting more chips out of your opponent.

[Yuv]

It has more to do with your villian stack than yours at this case. You want to see 5 cards there and he'll push if checked to him, so why bother? I'd push preflop almost regardless of my stack, when my opponent is shortstacked.

(barring of course a special read on the villian. If he's extremely super-tight, I might have to re-consider)

[betgo]

[ QUOTE ]
In this case I'd probably not push, but rather come over the top with a raise of about 40% of my stack, or 2k. This basically states the same as a push, that you have a strong hand and you're willing to commit to the pot with it. The problem I see with a push is that you're only getting called by a hand that is willing to race - perhaps another big ace that you have dominated but also perhaps a small PP. You're limiting the hands that will call your bet to a select few that you beat badly or the hands that are ahead of you preflop. I think that a reraise is a better way to get more chips out of your opponent and might even get them to push into you thinking you're just on a resteal.

There are honestly a lot of different ways to play this hand in this situation. This is just one way that, in my opinion, has a good chance of being called and extracting more chips out of your opponent.

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There are only 2 players who haven't folded, the raiser with 2500 and the BB with 3000. I don't see a lot of difference between raising to 2000 and pushing. All the money is going in either way. I would just push. I guess there is some kind of psychological game to reraising all but a few chips, but I don't see the point in it.

[KramerTM]

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In this case I'd probably not push, but rather come over the top with a raise of about 40% of my stack, or 2k. This basically states the same as a push, that you have a strong hand and you're willing to commit to the pot with it. The problem I see with a push is that you're only getting called by a hand that is willing to race - perhaps another big ace that you have dominated but also perhaps a small PP. You're limiting the hands that will call your bet to a select few that you beat badly or the hands that are ahead of you preflop. I think that a reraise is a better way to get more chips out of your opponent and might even get them to push into you thinking you're just on a resteal.

There are honestly a lot of different ways to play this hand in this situation. This is just one way that, in my opinion, has a good chance of being called and extracting more chips out of your opponent.

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There are only 2 players who haven't folded, the raiser with 2500 and the BB with 3000. I don't see a lot of difference between raising to 2000 and pushing. All the money is going in either way. I would just push. I guess there is some kind of psychological game to reraising all but a few chips, but I don't see the point in it.

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The only point would be to vary your betting patterns, which probably matters very little given that this is an online tourney.

[Nordberg]

If you both have 4500 or more you can consider re-raising less than all in... but if he flat calls I think you have to push every flop. Its kind of a catch-22 because you probably get more calls from bigger aces if you just jam (looks more like a re-steal than AK imo), but you also get more calls from middle pairs. He's not going to love 88 if you re-raise to 1900 committing both of you if he decides to call or move in.

Most of the time I like re-raising smaller to appear strong to get my opponent to laydown middle pairs more often. Of course this leads to all sorts of interesting scenarios when I'm flat called [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

If you are against really bad players you can flat call more often, but really bad players also tend to call more all-ins, especially with hands that AK dominate.

[JonLines]

Wow you guys put a lot of thought into that.... I just insta-pushed, he only has 1955 left, i dont see the point of a re-raise in this situation or a flat call given I can win 950 uncontested if he folds, why extract the other. Is this really not an insta-push?! [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Anyway... back to my original question, assuming it is an insta-push, how big would our stack have to be, with the same size blinds and raises, before you consider a call to play it from the flop?

Edit - By our I mean the Raisers (Villain) and mine (Hero's).

[KramerTM]

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how big would our stack have to be, with the same size blinds and raises, before you consider a call to play it from the flop?

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Both stacks have to be more than 10xBB deep (once the action gets to you) before I even consider additional chip extraction.