2 table tournament 14 players left blinds at 100/200 25 Ante Im in SB with 4000T AK off. 2 limpers TAG player on the B close to 3200T raises to 500 I re-raise to 1000T. BB LAG covers and calls. Limpers fold. B calls. Flop comes AK8 rainbow. I bet 1200 BB raises 2400. B folds. Whats my action?

is this a troll?

you have 4k pre, u 3bet to 1k and bet 1.2k otf, so you have 2k left. Your action is to shove and scoop chips

Not a troll. I know this player and he is fairly new. Results of the hand is that bb had pocket 8s. He's trying to decide if there was any way to get him off that hand. Meaning should have shoved pre? Or is this just a typical cooler and there absolutely nothing he could have done.

def. shove pre.

As played there's no way you're folding there.

Yep, jam pre with the action before us and with our stack not having much manoeuvrability postflop.

It's probably a hand which is going to end up all-in anyway, but there might be the rare occasion someone folds 88 to a jam pre here (very rare, as it's super standard).

Not sure what else we should be doing flopping top two on an AK8r and getting it in, as played. Pretty sure this hand is only getting posted as it got it in bad agonist 88 - so it's really results oriented - there'll be a ton of other stuff in their range that we're super happy to see them flip over.

Yes we had a long discussion over the hand. He is trying to learn as much as possible about this game. And he is playing fairly well I have to admit. But after some discussion and debate it was decided that there isn't much else that could be done. The player with 88 is calling ore no matter a shove or not.

Given the way the board was going to run out you won't get him off that specific hand at any point. It's just what we call a "cooler". On a normal unpaired board there are 9 possible sets. Because you have the A and K you block 4 of them so there only 5 this time and those are the only ones that beat your top two pair.

If the flop had come AT3 then you most likely get him off the hand when you bet flop - which of course you don't want. That's why you're better off just getting all-in pre-flop.

We don't normally give villain advice but if you're discussing the hand with him and he's your friend then he's kind of "Hero 2" rather than Villain. Tell him he should jam pre-flop with his specific hand too.

Generally getting 2-1 odds you can (almost always) call any two cards against one opponent. Therefore if you put in more than about 30% of your stack (depending on dead money from other players) you are effectively all-in and are just giving your opponents a free tactical choice of whether they want to see flop first or put you all-in now. Don't give them a free choice by having a less than all-in range in these kinds of spots.