Blinds are 2k/4k. I have 42k in chips

I am in the CO with AKo. I raise to 5800 from the CO. The BB has me covered and goes all in for 60k. Do you find a fold here?

We are just in the money and 60 players are left. I don't know much anything about how villain plays.

My dilemma is that my position weakens my range and therefore weakens BB's range and folding quality hands is exploitable and am losing value. I think in earlier position I can fold this hand but considering I could easily be stealing I hate to get taken advantage of and fold in this spot. But part of me thinks I should fold and just find a better spot or is this just a standard call. Thoughts?

Will update hand in a bit

Blinds/raise - don't make sense. Is it 1k/2k or is the raise bigger? What are the pay jumps? How do your stacks compare to others?

If it's 1k/2k then pre should be smaller, but I'm calling the shove regardless of what I opened to, and I would do it from any position, unless there's some incredibly weird ICM thing going on.

If it's genuninely 2k/4k, then you should be open shoving 10.5 BB.

Woops. Yes, the blinds are 1k/2k and I raised to 5800. The money jumps are weak and unimportant to me. The final table was what I was playing for. I think i had a solidly above average stack and probably 2nd or 3rd biggest on table.


I called, he had JJ. J on the flop and I lost. Part of me just hates calling off a huge stack with that hand, because its such an overbet 3bet by him, and they always seem to have a hand when they overbet like that and best case scenario is a flip. But maybe I am just being results oriented. Being in late position I think I had to call but would be tempted to get away from it if I raised in EP.

Yes calling normally

At 21bb eff, it is not in the slightest an overbet by him.

It's hard to accumulate chips fast enough to win a tournament unless you're able to double through on one or two all-ins where both sides have legitimate equity.

In this case, Villain's range is unlikely to be any tighter than 99+, AQo+, AJs+. It might well include KQ and and a couple other hands that you crush. You're either 50/50 against the narrow range, or perhaps a little ahead.

Yes, you could walk away from such a confrontation, but in that case, you're likely to end up under-chipped as the field narrows. That will force you to shove several times with weaker hands and pray for the best. Then you're scraping by in a bid to finish 19th.

Play these sorts of tournaments enough times, and the occasions where your AK holds up will more than pay for the times that it doesn't.

Without icm you risk 36k and the pot is already 52k. You need 41%.
Against any pair of queens or below you have that. Against an ultra tight range of AQ+ 99+ you're good already! And yes, given your position villain's range should be much wider!
So unless villain is a complete nit, you call very happily in this standard spot.

CO vs BB dynamic I usually widen their shove range, to include KQ and some Ax. With 21bbs I like an open to 4400. Definitely call now.

Call all day and register for another if u miss

Snap get it in

For me, i probably initial raise a bit bigger, and its an auto-shove if he jams.. your quote that i dont understand at all is "part of me thinks i should fold and just find a better spot"... ??? what spot do you think would be better? you mean just waiting for AA or KK? not to be a dink, but surely you'll blind yourself out waiting for a better spot.........

If I'm opening the CO with AK with a 21BB stack I am internally BEGGING one of the remaining players to jam so I can snapcall.

Even moreso here, where the money bubble has just burst and payouts are flat until the final table.

I just faced a similar scenario:

2 tables left in a 100k guarantee tourny
ME UTG 1.2 mil chips
Vil CO 1 mil chips
blinds 25-50k
I raise to 125k he shoves with AQo, took me about 20 seconds to realize I should be ahead, or at worst flipping.

I lost the hand, queen came on flop, and in these situations it is so hard to not be results oriented b/c I felt like I was the best player left in the tournament, I would of had just over 20 BB had i folded, but how can I ever fold there? Is it correct to ever fold there? I don't think so ;-D

Just keep on making the correct play bro, play solid and when you run good, that combo will be lethal !!

Right, you can't fold AK there, and that would be much closer to a fold than OP's due to positions, and ICM being more important closer to the FT.

You would have had over 40 big blinds if you won the 75-25 'flip', which is great at that stage.

OP, play around with equilab. Work out the pot odds, give some realistic ranges for your opponent and see how much equity AK has. AK will be a call, but get a feel for other hands like 99/TT/AQ.

heartily chuckle. Ask for count. Wink at villain. Fist bump dealer. Call your mom. Tell her you are about to win and don't actually need your lifeline, just wanted to let her know you are champ. Call. Lose to 44.

I don't understand why you would make the initial raise size bigger? It's already too big as it is. Surely if anything it should be smaller? Not that it would've made any difference here whatsoever but in general I think 2.9x is too big and we should be looking at a raise size of 2.5BB or less.

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You are going to be trying to steal with a lot of hands here. So BB's shove can be AJ+/55+/KQ? maybe some other suited broadways and some random bluffs. You are ahead of his range and with so much already in the pot, effectively even if he has a pair other than KK/AA.

The bigger issue here is how you play hands other than AK from the CO. If you raise this much with AK then what are you doing with QT? If your raises reflect hand strength then you will be easy to read and play against. I would raise approximately to 4500 here with all hands I am raising. It makes it cheaper when you fold to a shove (not with AK...), and cheaper when you cbet on the flop and give up.