I play mostly tournaments, and have recently been playing more cash games. This is a much easier decision (to me) in tournament, but wasn't so sure what the best move is in the cash environment. Interested in thoughts.


I raise UTG to $20 with A K. I have about $1300 stack size.

It folds around to button who reraises to $150. He has about $170 behind.

Folds back to me.

I've been playing loose and aggressive, however, I haven't shown many hands down, and the ones I have shown down typically have been winners. My impression of villian is that he'd only make this raise with a big pocket pair (likely JJ, QQ)... there's an infintesimal chance he's do this with something like AQ suited and is playing back at me... but I don't really consider that's a possibility. Up to this point, he seems a little scared and overplays his big hands. I feel there's little chance he's not putting the rest of his stack on just about any flop.

What do I do?
(1) Fold
(2) Call and push any flop
(3) Call and re-evaluate on flop
(4) Push pre-flop

Thanks,
-G

i would stick it in

If your saying the worst he has here is qq ak jj......then I fold. You can't just call here, and a shove seems a little spewy givin the range you have him on according to what you said.

you can prolly fold but I call cuz AK is the nutz

Villian is obviously comitted in this hand. If he puts in almost half his stack and isn't, lucky you! A shove seems spewy, a call is meh as well, I think I like a fold in this spot. His range is JJ-AA it seems like...maybe even as low as TT if he is playing back at you. I don't think he'd do think with AQ, but might do it w/ AK. I'm too lazy to do the math, but I say fold. He's almost a SS, and there is no way he is getting away from this hand if you shove. Call and shove any flop might work.

you have the 4th nuts imo

weird shortstacked decision... i wouldn't fold because then your asking to be bluffed... plus your suited so that helps you out a little bit

I thought about it for a little while... I wasn't too interested in flipping for $300 (thought I could pick better spots)... however, I convinced myself there might be enough gained from an image standpoint... so I called. I wouldn't say I had been bullying the table, but I was stealing a lot of pots and raising a lot in position. I didn't really want the table to start feeling like they could play back at me so I gambled. He had pocket 10's. I got lucky. Not sure if it was the correct decision necessarily, so was interested in thoughts.

Thanks,
-G

So you called and shipped it in on a A/K high flop, or did you let him do it?

My last post I meant to say there is now way he is laying it down pf if you ship it in after he commits almost half his stack. If he would in this case, I think it's a leak and he shouldn't be trying to steal/raise w/ whatever he had.

Ugh... I mispoke... I didn't "call"... I re-raised him all in... and he expectedly called. I didn't see much reason in just calling and putting him all in on any flop... either one of my cards hitting the flop may give him some small reason to fold which I would not want him to do... and I certainly didn't see him folding on a flop absent of an Ace or King... my thinking was if I'm going to gamble I might as well get it all in preflop and see all 5 cards. I got lucky

Here are my thoughts, I would appreciate if someone could comment on where I'm right or wrong.

Given the range you put him on, and his image, I think a fold is perfectly fine. Understandably, you can choose not to fold to save your image.

Between calling and shoving, I don't quite see why shoving is better. Is it too weak/tight to call with the intent of only putting chips in if an A/K flops?

You said that he's extremely likely to put all his chips in and after putting in half his stack preflop. Since he's ahead of you almost always here, you check/fold if the flop is rags, but check/push if an A or K flops.

Unless I'm mistaken, you're roughly 2-to-1 to flop a pair or better, and with the implied odds (expecting him to stack off), you're getting better than 2-to-1 to call preflop.

Not sure how shoving preflop can be better than calling.

what if he has aq... flop whiffs and you fold to his push

you just lost a shiz load of value, going all in would solve that problem

i'd call and push a misssed flop, and check a hit flop (because he'll be pushing)

akishore, you are definitely wrong.

If your opponent has TT, he will definitely fold to a shove on the flop if you call and shove an A-high flop with no set. He will usually fold to a shove on the flop if you call and shove a K-high flop with no set as well. So, on the off-chance that you do flop TPTK, you are unlikely to get action by calling to shove an A/K flop.

If you miss the flop and your opponent has TT, you should be calling with overcards anyway for pot odds as long as you have a 3-flush draw (backdoor flush draw). With AKs, you will end up flopping a 4-flush draw 10.9% of the time and flopping a 3-flush (backdoor) draw 41.6% of the time. For example, assuming you have AsKs and he has TT, you have 28% equity against him on a 9s6h2d flop (9s gives you a 3-flush draw). Given that the pot on the flop would be $300 with $170 left for him to shove, you would be calling $170 to win $470, giving you pot odds of 2.76:1. With 28% equity, you are only a 2.57:1 dog to win the pot. So, it would be a mandatory +EV call against his shove.

So, we know two things:

#1: We will probably not get the rest of his $170 if we happen to hit an A/K flop. This only happens about 33% of the time anyway.

#2: We actually have the pot odds to call his shove on over 50% of the non A/K flops anyway because we will flop either a 3-flush (backdoor) draw or a 4-flush draw over 50% of the time.

What's the point of just calling before the flop if we're +EV to go all the way to the river even if we miss TPTK on the flop anyway?

If you want to make your life easy, I would just push all in with AKs in this spot because it makes you look like a gambler. You should probably say something like "Gamble, gamble, let's go!" and slam your chips into the pot. Even though you're in a coin-flip situation, "gambling" like this will give you more action in the future...which is definitely +EV.

There is only ONE reason to not shove preflop here with AKs. Stop and Go.

If you know that you are commited to going all-in preflop here, but you would prefer that your opponent folds, then you might try to call his reraise here with the intention of pushing all-in on ANY FLOP (no matter how bad or good it is for you). This is called a Stop and Go. By doing this, you might cause your opponent to make a horrible fold on a Q-high or even J-high flop. If you happen to hit an A/K flop, you will probably lose action though. On a raggedy flop, you are commited to go all the way to the river anyway. Just be sure to pause 2 seconds before pushing all in.

From the OP, AQ is not any significant part of opponent's range. Not a good reason at all to push preflop, opponent has AQ almost never.

dchan, they're good points. I just wanted to clarify that I would not be shoving a flop that had an A/K. I specifically said check/push. If I were to call preflop, my flop play is always either check/fold or check/push.

I can see the value in a stop-and-go, but I don't like it given the OP's read that it's very likely villian stacks off given how much he raised preflop. So that's why I'm pretty certain we don't lose action on the flop even if an A or K comes.

Your other points are good points for reraising preflop as opposed to calling.

Heh... after thinking about it for a little bit I did say, "Well I came here to gamble." and stuck it in.

Nice analysis dchan

I play mostly live poker. In my opinion this is an easy fold. Unless you like to flip coins for hundreds of dollars.

Their is very little chance that any live players (unless they are a drunk, idiot, or maniac) would do this with anything less than a big pp.

Just my opinion.

When people make ridiculously big raises or reraise PF, I would usually put them on a range of AK/TT-JJ and occasionally 99 or QQ. This is rarely AA-KK unless the Villain is extremely tight and only reraises QQ+ (yes, there are live players like this, and I would fold everything except KK+ against them unless I was set mining). Usually the reasoning is that AK/TT-JJ are hard to play after the flop is AK misses or TT-JJ faces 1 or more overs. Therefore, a lot of players will overbet with AK/TT-JJ preflop to eliminate a tough flop decision.

Let's put our Villain here on a tight range of AK/TT-QQ here. Against that range, AKs has 47.88% equity. Therefore, we need 1.088:1 odds to call. Assuming a $5 rake here, shoving here would be risking $300 more to win $342 (the UTG raise of $20 is already dead money). We are getting exactly 1.14:1 pot odds to call here, so shoving AKs versus a range of AK/TT-QQ here is slightly +EV. Of course, if we have a read that Villain might have AA or KK here, then this is a fold.

We don't have to take a slightly +EV gamble here if we don't want to do it. Folding is definitely the safest decision. Nevertheless, I do prefer shoving here as long as the Villain isn't a tight nit because it's +EV for our table image.

Good post (I was scrolling down waiting for someone to pull out PokerStove but it wasn't happening... luckily you made me happy).

I disagree though that this isn't KK or AA, live players suck and overbet them pretty frequently. I think you have to put them in villains range in which case I think we move to a fold.

i mean if your not fully rolled i guess fold... but i wouldn;t fold a slightly +EV situation... especially sincee i like my image of i'm ready to gamble

I actually think its slightly -EV.

If you flat call AK UTG, you're gonna miss the flop 2/3 of the time. What then?

If you really think that villain only moves in with JJ+, then this is a fold out of position.

I AM!