Play a Hand With the Masters #2 Pre-Flop

[freehat]

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Raise to 300 and I'm calling all-in/pushing versus a raise.

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So if an uber-tight player pushes you're calling?

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I don't think there is a player on party in the early stages of a 100 who fits that description.

Obviously, if I somehow knew the guys range was AA-KK then I would fold.

[rockythecat99]

If I have been raising a lot I raise again say to 300-400 range hoping shorties push and call. If people perceive me as playing tight(I know its giga but we haven't been given any info on how he is playing this tourney if he is playing tighter than usual) I limp and hope shorty pushes and don't mind calling an all in from the as usually i have the dominated. If I get reraised by anyone other than shorty stacks depends on the size of the raise but I probably push anyway.

[KramerTM]

I think it's worth noting that I am much more likely to limp with AKs as opposed to AKo simply because I don't hate it when it gets limped around with my AKs as this hand still plays well multi-way and can win a monster pot. That said, I still will occasionally limp with AKo, but again, only with a strong read that a LAG will raise it up greater than 50% of the time to my left.

[kuro]

Standard open for 300. If raised, I'm probably getting it all-in, because stacks just aren't that deep and doubling up lets Gigabet bully the table more effectively. Gigabet's a lag with a pretty big opening range even from early position right?

I very seldom limp with AK, you end up losing your stack with top pair to a crazy two pair, flush made by some low suited connector, etc. The only time I like limping AK is when I think there's a decent chance that I can limp-reraise over an aggressive player yet to act and have significant preflop folding equity. Stacks aren't deep enough for that here and there's no mention of reads.

[runout_mick]

The approach I've been taking with AK utg (as a smallish-medium stack) is to limp re-raise, or limp push. I've reverted to this line for a few reasons:

Obviously a big one is to disguise my hand strength (I'm notorious for limping medium suited connectors in early/mid position).

If I was to 3x or so raise, and get more than one caller, I'm not gonna like many flops enough to continuation bet with my stack so shallow. Not being able to cont. bet with AK seems a tragic waste to me.

By just limping, the continuation bet (whether or not I hit) is going to build a nice medium sized pot that I don't mind playing for on the turn and river.

I usually only raise this on exceptionally tight, or, exceptionally loose tables. Barring reads, I luv da limp.

Please (more experienced posters especially) rip apart my line as it has become my default as of late, and am seeing some success with it (just variance perhaps)...

Good hand Lloyd

[schwza]

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Raise to 300 and I'm calling all-in/pushing versus a raise.

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So if an uber-tight player pushes you're calling?

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I don't think there is a player on party in the early stages of a 100 who fits that description.

Obviously, if I somehow knew the guys range was AA-KK then I would fold.

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small correction: there's no one that i'm confident enough is that tight. i'm sure there are players out there who only reraise KK/AA there (and maybe just AA), but i dunno who they are.

[schwza]

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I make it 275, if I get re-raised, I'm pushing. I pretty much never fold AK in Party 100 tourneys especially with only 26BB.

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this is good to read. that's how i play too and i was surprised to see all these people talking about folding.

part of it (for me, at least) is that i open raise a lot of pots, so others' reraising range are loose enough that i won't fold AK.

[SossMan]

One thing that should be noted throughout is the fact that people likely play differently against Gigabet than they do against JoeParty123. While I'm sure that Gigabet, from what I know, plays tighter than your average bear at this stage in the tournament when OOP, I think that his reputation might make people believe that he is insanely-super aggro at all times. Therefore, we should keep that in mind when thinking about the analysis.
*Giga, feel free to chime in on this assumption

So, Shania aside, things to consider:
Chip position: 26x stack. Likely average or maybe a little bit above. Certainly not desperate, but he can't exactly fold to the final table. 20-30x stacks can sometimes take away some postflop creativity, so they require a careful attention to how big the pot will be given option A, B, C and also given opponent's stack size. In short, we need to keep aware of the PC'ness of the situation as we proceed.

I would guess that the standard play here would be to raise to 3x. It's perfectly reasonable. If you get one caller outside the blinds, the pot would be 750 and Giga's stack would be 2300. Certainly enough to get away if you fire a contbet of 400 on a ragged flop and you feel that you are behind (and the player that plays with you has you covered).

I might consider limping in this spot (with the intention of LRR'ing) if there had been a particularly active player who was frequently raising limpers or if the table in general had been aggro. This wasn't noted in the setup, so I assume that this isn't the case.

If I raise to 300 and a SS pushes, I'm calling. If I raise to 300 and a big stack makes it like 800-1000, I have the option to push now, or do a SnG. I like the SnG line in that spot since it might be enough to get them off something like 88 on a QJx board.
If I raise to 300 and get a flat caller then another raise, I'm just pushing now to squeeze the caller and get the dead money in the pot.

If I raise to 300 and a big stack pushes, that's where the fun begins.

Let's say the button pushes and the blinds fold.

The pot would be (2670+300+150) 3120 and it's 2370 to call. About 1.3:1. It's a little better than even money vs. something like TT. If you discount AA/KK a bit since they would usually make a smaller raise, and throw in the fact that Giga's rep makes it that unpaired hands can certainly be in the button's range, I think that we would be forced to call in that spot.

We are not deep enough to get away from AK preflop, IMO.

In short, my play is to raise to 300 and play from there.

[johnnybeef]

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Do you call or raise? If you raise, to what?

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standard line is to raise to 250-275 depending upon how the table is playing.

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Since most players usually raise with AK in this spot, under what scenarios would you just limp and why?

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the only time i think about limping here is to disguise the strength of my hand. since we have no reads, no one has played with us, and there really is no reason to mix it up yet. furthermore, stacks are not extremely deep once the utg folds, and limping does not able you to take the blinds down without a showdown.


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if you raise and get re-raised, what's your plan (which obviously could depend on which player re-raises you)?

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standard line against your average player is to call, but this is where the fun will begin.

[pooh74]

here, given Hero's stack, I would value raise this to 3 or 3.5 BBs. I choose this because Hero seems like a very average stack at this table, and there are no real short stacks. If someone was on a short stack and to act after me, I might just limp in hoping for a push and even a call from someone after the shortie so I could pop it again all in...dead money...but that is nnot the case here really.

I also might be inclined to limp in if there were an obvious lag behind me, especially in the blinds.

But here, I see nothing to deter me from just raising preflop. If I am reraised, I will think about what I have seen from this player, from what position they are reraising and then decide whether to push, call or fold. (not necessarily in that order).

On a RR, I know I am going to be OOP on the flop most likely, so if its from a lAG I might just push. If its from an unknown, I will see how much (ie whether its a minraise or a PotComittinging raise).

pooh