Reraised with AK - Call or commit? Advice please

[mauisupaman]

50 NL. In this particular game I caught a couple of big A's, made it $5 to go and got no callers several times. I pick up AKo in EP and make it $5 again. It's folded to the BB who reraises to $20. I've got about $55 and BB has me covered more than two times over. And I haven't got a read on his play. Now I'm assuming this is similar to danuts' thread with his QQ in the SB.

So, in this case should I call the extra $15 to see the flop? If I miss fold to a bet, and if I hit put the rest of my stack in?

In this case I felt BB's range of hands in this situation would usually be AK, AA, KK, QQ, and possibly JJ. Now if he had AA, or KK's and I hit the flop I'd be loosing some money. If he had AK and we caught the flop we'd tie - If we missed the flop I'd probably fold to a bet because I felt it more likely he held a pocket. If he had Q's or J's and an A or K came on the flop I probably wouldn't have gotten any more money out of him.

So, I pushed the rest of my stack in. Bad play? Comments please, result to follow. Thanks

[sam h]

You did the analysis already. Calling is definitely the worst option here. Folding or pushing in is really a question of what range of hands you put him on. The other advantage to pushing in is that he might (unlikely given the small stacks) fold a hand like JJ or TT.

[Jon Matthews]

I think you should only push your stack in here with AK if there is a chance you can take the pot right there (small-medium pair?), so here you probably shouldn't unless you have AA or KK which you would definitely want callers with.

AA is the worst possible hand for you to be up against if you call, as it is as likely as ever you will hit a K and end up losing the rest, there is only 1 A out there and it's unlikely you'll hit that. All in and called preflop you are in very bad shape.

Against KK you are in much much better shape if you call. If you are going to hit anything you are going to hit an A, and with these stacks you may still be able to get KK to put it all in there even with that. But, all in and called preflop you are in bad shape with your 3 outer.

So, call and see a flop. Play passively if you miss, cautiously if it is K high, and try and get an all in called if it is A high.

Jon

[crockpot]

Now I'm assuming this is similar to danuts' thread with his QQ in the SB.

wrong. first of all, there is a big difference between a $15 raise when it is folded to the button and a $15 reraise when someone has made it $5. the first raise could be an outright steal, while the reraise is a big power move.

second, there is a huge difference between AK and QQ here. it is virtually certain that your opponent does not have AQ or worse here (unless you forgot to mention that he was a maniac), so your AK will be the favorite exactly 0% of the time. why put in all your chips when you can't possibly be the favorite?

we're not done yet. consider your opponent's possible hands. obviously if he has a pair smaller than queens, you are waaaaay better off with QQ than AK. if he has aces, you have a much better chance of winning with the queens than the AK. if he has QQ, AK or AKs you again prefer the queens. the only hand where you prefer the AKo to the queens is against kings, and even in this scenario, AKo is only about 12% more likely to win than QQ.

adjusting for the $3 rake if you go all in, your approximate EVs here:

0 if you fold
+$3.75 if you go all in and he has AKo x 7 ways he can hold AKo = $26.25
+$1.25 if you go all in and he has AKs x 2 ways he can hold AKs = $2.50
-$3.50 if you go all in and he has QQ x 6 ways he can hold QQ = -$21
-$38 if you go all in and he has AA x 3 ways he can hold AA = -$114
-$16 if you go all in and he has KK x 3 ways he can hold KK = -$48

total average EV = -$154/21 hands = -$7.33 by pushing all-in.

even this analysis does not do your negative EV justice, because it is much more likely that your opponent will make this play with AA or KK than with the lesser hands. with no read on the player, i would weight the AA and KK possibilities much more heavily than i did here.

while adding jacks or tens does improve the average EV slightly, you still have negative EV against them all-in, so that does not help the argument for pushing in.

as for the chance that your opponent will fold, go find me a player who will reraise to $20 and fold for $35 more. it will take you a long time.

unless your opponent is a lot more aggressive than you paint him out to be, your only move here is to fold. pushing in is reasonable only if he will make this play with AQ and AJ in addition to the hands you listed, which is a rarity on this betting sequence.

[Ignatius]

> BB's range of hands in this situation would usually be AK, AA, KK, QQ, and possibly JJ.
.
If this is your read, then you have an easy fold. You're either tied or beaten, so moving in is clearly -EV. If you call with 1/3 of your stack in, you'll do even worse, as you give him a chance to get away from 2nd pair if an A or K flops (it's easy to put you on AK after your preflop call), will lose all pots where he has AK (his single most likely hand) and you both miss and still pay him off when your toppair is not good.

[Zag]

You've obviously been in the game for quite a while; did the BB just sit down? If not, why don't you have a read on him?

You then go on to read him as fairly tight for a Party Poker $50 player. (I'm just assuming Party Poker, here.) And by your read, you are saying, "I'm either tied or way behind," so you go on to push in your stack? Either you didn't really make this read, or you don't understand the significance of it.

Pushing in here is a strong tournament move in the late stages, for two reasons. First, because you are in the late stages, you can expect that you are up against players good enough to lay down JJ or TT. Second, the chips are more precious, and people are more interested in survival, so they are more likely to lay them down.

In a ring game, however, where players can just reload when they want, you are a lot less likely to get the laydown here, especially because you aren't even making a pot-sized raise. AK is clearly a dog overall against the set of hands you have put him on, if you can't get him to fold the lowest ones.

Conclusion: You should have folded, given your read. However, for the average Party $50 player who just sat down, I would put him on a lot more hands than you did (including AQs, AJs, and even KQs), and I would probably have made the same play. (Note that a lot of players, including me, sometimes play very aggressively when they have just sat down, to establish an image.) If the player didn't just sit down, you should have some sort of read on him by now.

[mauisupaman]

Shoot, sorry Zag. I was doing some reading on Pediatric volvulus and wasn't paying attention all to well to the players in the game. I know, I should have been watching other players for tendencies. Promise I'll have a read on the next post.

OK, so do you really think he would've reraised me that much with [ QUOTE ]
AQs, AJs, and even KQs

[/ QUOTE ]? If so then I think moving my stack in would've been a good play. But after reading everyone's post it was probably a bad play given my differential of hands he may have had.

Do you really think it's a fold though? Would a call in your opinion be a viable option?
Thanks

[mauisupaman]

Ignatius,
So I guess an acurate differential of hands on this opponent was more important than I had realized. Do you think calling is that much worse than folding here?

[mauisupaman]

crock,
Thanks very much for breaking down the numbers for me. How do you calculate those numbers by the way? OK, so I'm becoming quite convinced that a fold was the approriate move here and not a call and definitely not an all in. Seeing the math behind it was very helpful. Thanks very much.

[mauisupaman]

Results:
He held QQ, the flop gods took pity on my ignorance, threw me a K on the flop and I doubled up. But next time its a fold - Unless I have a better read.