AK in a tough spot

[bozlax]

Table is middling-loose, pretty passive.

Been at the table with Villans for about 60 hands. UTG is very short-stacked, starting the hand with about 2 1/2BB. MP2 has never raised preflop, and only shown down one hand in that time; his VPIP is just under 20.

Party Poker 1/2 Hold'em (9 handed) converter

Preflop: Hero is CO with K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
<font color="#CC3333">UTG raises</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 3-bets</font>, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero ?

I'll give my thoughts after I read some of yours.

[Str8Fish]

I think with UTG with so little, MP2 might be trying to isolate himself with the UTG raiser with anything that would be good. I say cap it. Then on the flop, re-evaluate your situation.

Cap. Fold if you don't turn anything good on the flop.

Hi Bozlax,

it sounds read-dependent--what do you put MP2 on? ie. how tight? JJ and up, and maybe AK, AKs, AQs? Could MP2 just be isolating UTG since UTG is shortstacked?

Since we have a drawing hand, do we call and hope UTG calls, or do we assume if we cap that UTG is coming along too? I guess capping is better than calling since it gives us position on the flop and we can re-evaluate then?

If it were AKs is that a much clearer cap than AKo? This is a situation I don't really "understand" myself so I'm getting rhetorical.

BBB

[shant]

[ QUOTE ]
Since we have a drawing hand

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[ZenMusician]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Since we have a drawing hand

[/ QUOTE ]
[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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I'm [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] about almost every reply here!

The guy who said fold...I can't even speak now...

-ZEN

Hi Shant, Zen,

when I said "drawing hand" what I meant was if we assume the other guy has a high pock pair (although we're not sure how tight he is or what his range is exactly) then some of our outs could be gone and we might not have good odds if we don't hit the flop. I guess I am reading too much into the read of this guy as "tight." Tight doesn't mean AA or KK only, plus it could be an isolation raise so I think a cap is good, then see what the flop brings.

And this is why I came to this forum, to learn stuff--let me ask you a question in return--if you had QQ instead of AK would you have fewer doubts about capping or are they both auto-caps? What about TT or JJ?

Thanks
BBB

[shant]

I didn't say I'd cap here, and I'm actually confused about the right play. 60 hands is little so this read is tought to judge on. That's why I mine so I know more about players when I get into a situation like this. QQ is a no brainer cap here, and TT is close too. If this read was over, say 300 hands, I'd say you could fold AKo pretty easily here, as well as TT.

*grunch*

I would definately raise.

If you think that MP is a thinking player who would raise to isolate the short stack with a wide range of hands, then I see no problem capping pre-flop.