($20) Early AKs

PP $40k...
UTG had a bad beat get him to his current chips. No read on MP2.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (10 handed) converter

Button (t1040)
SB (t705)
BB (t60)
UTG (t245)
UTG+1 (t1285)
UTG+2 (t1280)
MP1 (t2030)
MP2 (t975)
Hero (t955)
CO (t1425)

Preflop: Hero is MP3 with K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666"></font> UTG raises t245 and is all in, 4 folds, MP2 calls t245, Hero...

What do you do?

gl,
Mike.

[betgo]

Allin.

super-push. you aint folding and calling leaves you with 1/4 your stack.

hey this is my first post! look mom, im a poker.

[Blindcurve]

AKs doesn't mind playing multiway. I'd say call. You can get away from an unfavorable flop, and if you hit you will make more from the the speculators behind you.

That being said, I don't think you have much to lose by going all-in here. I just think calling is the better play, in case one (or both) of your aces in in the short stack's hand and MP2 has a pair.

-D.

Looks like an easy push to me. You can lose against the short stack and still come out ahead if you get called by MP and you have a solid starting hand.

With a MP call you are essentially heads up with him in a bigger side pot, with MP fold, you are heads up with UTG. That's what you want with AK.

[nath]

[ QUOTE ]
AKs doesn't mind playing multiway. I'd say call. You can get away from an unfavorable flop, and if you hit you will make more from the the speculators behind you.

That being said, I don't think you have much to lose by going all-in here. I just think calling is the better play, in case one (or both) of your aces in in the short stack's hand and MP2 has a pair.

-D.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if you go all in there's a decent chance MP2 folds. Going up against a dominated hand with a little dead money in the pot is great. The problem with calling is that you are reducing your chances of winning the pot, and losing 1/4 of your stack would be a very bad result and a waste of AK.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
AKs doesn't mind playing multiway. I'd say call. You can get away from an unfavorable flop, and if you hit you will make more from the the speculators behind you.

That being said, I don't think you have much to lose by going all-in here. I just think calling is the better play, in case one (or both) of your aces in in the short stack's hand and MP2 has a pair.

-D.

[/ QUOTE ]

But if you go all in there's a decent chance MP2 folds. Going up against a dominated hand with a little dead money in the pot is great. The problem with calling is that you are reducing your chances of winning the pot, and losing 1/4 of your stack would be a very bad result and a waste of AK.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry, but IMHO this is really really bad advice. The only proper play is to call, for several reasons.

1) AKs is a premium hand, but it is a premium drawing hand. At best you are a little ahead preflop. At worst, you are pretty far behind. Is this a situation in which you want to totally commit yourself, with 5/7'ths of the hand yet to come? With two players already in the pot, and your overcall, you are likely to inherit the button. So you will already have position.

2) (as suggested by the earlier poster, with whom I agree)Whether limit or no limit, bigger suited connectors do play well against more than one player. Yes, of course they also do play ok head-up. But in this scenario, there is nothing to gain by trying to force the third player out of the hand, and potentially a lot to gain by keeping him in (with very little added risk to yourself). In this scenario, you have the potential to have the best of both world, to be multiway for one stack, and be head-up for another stack.

3) Going all in to try to isolate the all-in short stack and make dead money of the MP's original cold call, is a bad play for many reasons. The larger stacked player in the middle will only call if he is already ahead of you (or even worse, has you dominated). Unless he is a complete idiot, he is going to toss mediocre hands like AQo, AJo, and middle pairs.

The short stacked UTG player is already all in. You aren't going to win any more chips from him if he loses. You aren't going to give him any more chips if he wins.

What you want to do is extract as many chips as possible from the guy in the middle, when you hit your hand and he doesn't, and donate as few chips as possible to MP when the flop misses you and/or it becomes clear that this player has you beat.

If you catch a couple of hearts, or King and/or Ace, then you are likely to be in a very strong position to bet out your hand, whether a raise if MP bets out or a value bet if MP checks. If MP has stayed in with AQo or AQs and the flop brings an Ace, then you in great shape to get most of his stack. However, if he has something like AQo or AJo and you push him off the pot pre-flop, then you have no chance at any of his remaining chips (this time around).

There is no benefit to putting all your chips at risk pre-flop. It is an unnecessary risk.

If and when you catch a piece of the flop, there will be more than enough time to get your stuff in there, and if you play your hand right, hopefully you will drag MP along for the ride.

However, if you simply call and the flop completely misses you, then you can escape with only minor damage and more than enough chips (relative to the blinds) to re-build your stack.

[Melchiades]

[ QUOTE ]

1) AKs is a premium hand, but it is a premium drawing hand. At best you are a little ahead preflop. At worst, you are pretty far behind. Is this a situation in which you want to totally commit yourself, with 5/7'ths of the hand yet to come? With two players already in the pot, and your overcall, you are likely to inherit the button. So you will already have position.

.....

There is no benefit to putting all your chips at risk pre-flop. It is an unnecessary risk.


[/ QUOTE ]

Can people please stop referring to AKs or any hand thats not a pocket pair a "drawing hand"? It doesn't make any sense at all. "At best you are a little ahead preflop"?

And that last comment is just painfull to read.

[jcm4ccc]

[ QUOTE ]
The only proper play is to call, for several reasons.

1) AKs is a premium hand, but it is a premium drawing hand. At best you are a little ahead preflop. At worst, you are pretty far behind. Is this a situation in which you want to totally commit yourself, with 5/7'ths of the hand yet to come? With two players already in the pot, and your overcall, you are likely to inherit the button. So you will already have position.

2) (as suggested by the earlier poster, with whom I agree)Whether limit or no limit, bigger suited connectors do play well against more than one player. Yes, of course they also do play ok head-up. But in this scenario, there is nothing to gain by trying to force the third player out of the hand, and potentially a lot to gain by keeping him in (with very little added risk to yourself). In this scenario, you have the potential to have the best of both world, to be multiway for one stack, and be head-up for another stack.

3) Going all in to try to isolate the all-in short stack and make dead money of the MP's original cold call, is a bad play for many reasons. The larger stacked player in the middle will only call if he is already ahead of you (or even worse, has you dominated). Unless he is a complete idiot, he is going to toss mediocre hands like AQo, AJo, and middle pairs.

The short stacked UTG player is already all in. You aren't going to win any more chips from him if he loses. You aren't going to give him any more chips if he wins.

What you want to do is extract as many chips as possible from the guy in the middle, when you hit your hand and he doesn't, and donate as few chips as possible to MP when the flop misses you and/or it becomes clear that this player has you beat.

If you catch a couple of hearts, or King and/or Ace, then you are likely to be in a very strong position to bet out your hand, whether a raise if MP bets out or a value bet if MP checks. If MP has stayed in with AQo or AQs and the flop brings an Ace, then you in great shape to get most of his stack. However, if he has something like AQo or AJo and you push him off the pot pre-flop, then you have no chance at any of his remaining chips (this time around).

There is no benefit to putting all your chips at risk pre-flop. It is an unnecessary risk.

If and when you catch a piece of the flop, there will be more than enough time to get your stuff in there, and if you play your hand right, hopefully you will drag MP along for the ride.

However, if you simply call and the flop completely misses you, then you can escape with only minor damage and more than enough chips (relative to the blinds) to re-build your stack.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is such a well-written post. Well-argued. Reasonable. Logical. Wrong.

[play2win]

AKs is a drawing hand. Winning hands Ace high is not too common. So you need to hit an Ace, King or a couple hearts, preferably on the flop.

The all-in after a bad beat might be a tilt, but more likely I put him on a mid PP. His mentality might be "these hold up or I am done". Many players seem to do this. Even if this is the case he has a slight edge on you. He might be a good player and be thinking that you know he had a bad beat and he just picked up Aces or Kings hoping for a call with big bet.

Now you have one caller ahead of you. He has decent position, but not great. There are two things to consider here. He is a donk and wants to see if he can spike a ace with some type of Ax. Or he has just picked up a real monster and is hoping by making the flat call he can entice some other callers. Or he too has a decent PP or AK/AQ and wants to see the flop.

Now you also have to consider the people left to act. There could be someone back there licking his chops loving all the action unfolding. You aren't the last one to act here. There are 3 people left to act. One has more chips than you, the SB will probably fold unless he has a monster. But if I had to speculate the BB is going to go all-in here as well regardless of what he is holding. Because he only has 60 left he won't effect your side pot but he will reduce the chances of sole ownership of the pot in a showdown.

Pushing all-in here is the wrong move. Your hand definitely warrants the call though. Take a look at the texture of the flop, see if you hit your "draw". With top pair and top kicker you can open up on the flop. If you miss completely than you can get away from it without crippling your stack and you chances to win. If you hit, now hopefully donk with the Ax is going to pay you off too. So you want the opportunity to get his chips while decreasing the chances of loosing yours.

Bottom line is that I feel it is always wrong to push in with AK preflop when:

1. someone has already shown strength
2. someone has called the strong bet
3. there are people yet to act

You won't "out play" anyone preflop in these types of tourneys in the early stages. At this point it is the wild west and everyone is doing stupid moves to see if they can double up so they push on PP preflop and other things like Q10s to see if they can double up, if not they just go watch TV. If you don't go watch TV.....flat call.
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]