This is my second hand of NL 1/2.
I came in during the AM while the night game was still going on. I got into the only open seat. Hero is on the button with AK and $200 stack.
UTG Raises to 25.
This is an extremely large raise for my game. I don't know this player but he has $800 in front of him.
MP calls for 25. He is a known wild player and has done very well with a $1600 stack.
Hijack calls 25 with $700. I've never seen him before.
Hero calls. I didn't want to get blown off the hand so I flatted. Was this a mistake? I was happy to see a flop for 25. Is that wrong?
The blinds fold. Pot is 103
The Flop comes A104
I'm happy about the flop but UTG bets $75. Both the Hijack and Cutoff call. Hero????? What's best practice here? I have $175 left.

Shove both times bud

Shove pre. The only person who could conceivably be ahead of you is UTG. If you take down $75 without a flop that's great, if you get called by a worse unpaired hand that's great and if you flip with a pocket pair with dead money that's fine. With dead money you're almost getting odds if UTG has KK in any event so really only worried about AA. You're not deep enough to play post flop.

I wouldn't read too much into the $25 open sizing. Given stack sizes and that they've been playing all night dynamics are probably that this game is playing like 2/5 and you're short stacking.

As played shove flop. You can't ever fold having called pre and flopped TPTK with an SPR of less than 2:1.

You know some places have AK up there with QQ but I sort of think of it being behind JJ or 10/10. So many times I've come up empty with it in the past i am reluctant to shove. They always say "tournament hand" and i think i'm starting to undervalue it.

sound advice i would have won big

^

I'm not fist pumping on the flop though given how relatively dry it is, two pair and sets will often slow play. But given how deep they are there are more hands that can call here. The upside of the dry texture is that there aren't that many two pair combos out there. I think we are in good shape vs UTG who is going to have a lot of AQ/AK/AJ and some bluffs but two calls worries me. We aren't deep enough to fold here though.

There is way too much dead money out there too just call. If we jam there will still be giving them a great price to call. There will be 500 in the pot and it will only be 100 more for them to call. If we fold out hands like JT that's actually an awesome result for us since JT actually has enough equity to call here.

Was this at Hammond by any chance?

Ship it pre, ship it now. Just not deep enough to do anything else, especially with how big the game appears to be playing.

This. Especially preflop. $75 all yours for the taking

easy ship pre. easier ship flop.

you don't have enough money behind to get blown off of the hand. if you raise to 100 pre and he comes over, you can't fold but since you don't have much room to play post flop, just squeeze now and if they all fold it's pure profit.

majestic star, i was at horseshoe wednesday though

200 is my buy in though do you consider that shallow though at 1/2? Most guys buy in for between 100 and 200 in my game with 50 min and 300 max

yeah i have to consider fold equity more but none of these guys were folding. about 30 minutes in two of them were in the SB and BB and made a deal that if it got to them to go all in blind, both did so, one won with Jack high. Total degen!

If you are going to play the hand then shoving is better than calling regardless of whether they call or fold. By the time the action gets to you the pot is too big to do anything else. Putting in 12% of your stack and giving your opponents the opportunity to draw against you or worse make you fold is just not good. It's perfectly fine if everyone else is 200 and the game is playing normal but obviously those guys have much bigger stacks and are playing as if the game was bigger. They are so deep relative to each other they don't care about your 200 stack.

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$200 is an OK buy in, but sounds like this game was effectively playing like 2/5, so if you buy in for $200 you have to recognize that you're effectively shortstacking and play accordingly. That means jamming AK when there's $75 of dead money in the middle

i don't think of it that way but need to change my thinking thanks for the advice

I'm really glad we have this forum because i learn a ton off of you guys thanks. I'm sorry for being so remedial.

Haven't been to Majestic yet. Any reason to go there over Hammond?

I would buy in for 300 or 50.

With so much money already in the pot and you got only $200 and AK .. wtf? -- You shove! .., bro

shove preflop
shove flop and do it fast.- just shove!

The hand plays by itself on autopilot from this point on. We don't care about ranges or equity or some fancy math things ... etc .., now nothing matters but brute force like a killer. Shove! - and let them draw to 3 outs if they also have TP. They got only 3 or 2 outs to come after you.

This, end thread. Why so many other words?

Agreed. ...on a side note, if you don't feel comfortable and want to play in a lower variance game, get a table change.

Well, its 2 bucks an hour comps which is great but the amenities at MJ are terrible and one feels very unsafe there compared to the shoe. Generally there are no games in the am until 10 am and then its very OMCs. However, they are running a magic seat promo now from 8 am to 12 pm every hour for 100. I went to these several times but if i didn't win a piece i felt stupid because the games were so bad

OK but AK so often whiffs on the flops I feel like they aren't as valuable as JJ or 10s. Am i wrong about that? Some charts have AKs above JJ and 10s but I see them lose so often. I will do that in the future though.

I can adapt to these games better than i used to be able to but was pretty shocked when that this was the second hand. Thanks for all the advice.