Since my online career shut down I've had to make adjustments at the boat (midwest game) when playing live NL 1/2. I now often reraise a raiser all in with AK. I've done well with this in the past. I have lost twice to AA and once to KK though over the past 2 years, but, for the most part, it's been +EV and good advertising.

I've been doing this for 3 reasons:

a. my rep would be a Middle aged Man Coffee nit without it and it makes me seem like i have more gamble than i do have (very little).

b. I have gotten calls from guys all-in when i actually had AA or KK. They thought I had AK due to my past history with AK all ins

c. at the boat there are guys who love gambling and their eyes twitch with glee when money is put in the center. I've been called with QJ off, KQ off, suited connectors and even 3/6 junk (seriously).

My question is, is this a bad adaptation? Am I wrong to do this?

Should I only do it below 50 BBs or so?

Should I only do it based on the player alone?

Or should I get rid of the tactic altogether? Is it a huge leak long-term? It hasn't been yet but the sample size is not huge.

I'm not here to argue. I'm here to listen. Thank you in advance.

So I'm a little confused. You're 3! shipping AK? But you're also 3! shipping AA/KK? How many times with each?

How big is the ship with respect to the pot?

great question, the last time it was raised to 10, one guy called for 10 and there were two 2 buck limpers so i reraised the 27 or so pot to 100 with AA and the guy called. He said, "I thought you had AK."

Ok, so you're short stacking and doing this then? Yeah, I have no problem with it then. Eventually people may stop paying you off though. Also not really optimal if you have 100bb, because you're going to lose a lot of value when people fold.

Well, I've been trying to buy in more for the full 200, but really i'm buying in around 140. I like to have another 4 greens to put on the table if I'm stacked. I should go to the boat with 400 but I don't. I'm mostly in stocks and mutual funds. I'm not a cash guy.

Honestly, I think 100 is a solid sweet spot for what you're doing, maybe 120. 140+ starts to get too big and you're really not going to get paid off as much. The value you lose from shoving AA/KK this deep isn't going to be made up from the value you get by shoving AK and getting called. At least I don't think it would be. I could be persuaded if I saw the math behind it, but I'm not going to do it

+1. Unless your opponents are nits 4 bet shoving AK when short can't be bad.

At some point the value you lose when people fold to your AA/KK preflop isn't worth what you gain from from people folding or playing against your AK. Where that point is depends on your opponents. The math is entirely situational because opponents range from nits tight enough that raising anything but AA/KK is -EV to gamblers maniac and bluffy enough that getting it in preflop for any amount of money is +EV.

you know for about 2 years i've thought this shove was a very Dwannian cool idea, and now i think i'm just chumping out making me question a lot of things. I feel like TAG doesn't really work at the 1/2 game on the boat. All the folding makes you a pariah there.

There are 16 combos of AK (4 suited/12 unsuited), 6 combos of AA, 6 combos of KK. If you shove them all, 4 out of every 7 times you shove, you'll have AK. It might serve you better to choose certain opponents or situations where you would be out of position post-flop for your AK shoves. That way you are shipping AA & KK more often than AK (but your opponents won't know it).

They have these things called banks and ATMs

Only bringing two buy-ins to a cash game is a leak, IMO. Gotta be able to ride out some negative variance.

excellent analysis i should have fleshed that out for myself but i thank you

I think you're right. You know, the boat have those 10% ATMs and I only get money out at the bank itself (it's free). I just sort of feel like if i get stacked twice i play worse so why bother, but I know Trooper and Poker Kraut have 3 buy ins with them so maybe i need to adjust, thank you

stoped reading here.
Please buy in full if you want to play serious poker.

What an unlucky day for you, OP. To think that you've lost the critical contributions of a poster creative enough to transform the tired conventions of modern English. Oh how you will rue the day you admitted to sitting with just 70 big blinds!

As for your question: I don't mind the idea in general, but I think an interesting twist might be to 3bet to half of your stack with the plan to shove/call shove on just about any flop (since you'll end up getting at least 3:1 on a call and will often have the 24% equity with two overcards). You may end up getting more pots in which players put in 35bb with 88 and fold on queen high flops, thus increasing your EV as you now fold out hands you would have been flipping against. And you should be able to push out small pocket pairs since the 3bet is still big enough to deny them implied odds on their call.

One thing I want to ask that might be helpful for the discussion: In what way do you think it might be a long-term leak? Are you worried that players will catch on to your range and thus start making exploitative raise/folds with hands like AQ/AJ/KQ? If that is a concern, maybe once every 250 hours we make this play with JTs just to put some doubt in their minds.

The one other concern I would have: Are you making non-shove 3bets? If so, are you taking all or a significant amount of AA/KK/AK out of your range for that play? Will your opponents notice that?

As an alternative, what if we just added in all QQ combos so that hero's range now consists of 16 AK + 18 QQ+? We then go from having AK 4/7 of the time to 8/17 of the time (since I know everyone loves to think in terms of seventeenths).

I guess I think it's a leak because I don't want to be in races for my stack. I try not to get it all in unless it's more than a pair in principle. In practice I never mind KK/AA all in before the flop. I have gone all-in with AK, JJ, QQ but I would rather not do so. The problem is the other players. I've called all-ins on the boat and seen guys turn over AQ or AJ or even KQ quite often. It's an active part of their ranges.

Often times with queens and they reraise I just call. So if I raise to 14 and they reraise to 40 I just call it. That's a very interesting suggestion. Thank you.

I think what you guys have said about pocket pairs and suited aces losing value with the short stack has really influenced me the last 2 weeks. I'll buy in for 200 tonight.

No, you have to be able to play your A game. And if OP is only comfortable with a $400 loss on any given night, then that's what he should bring to the poker room and be ready to lose.

Not everyone who posts here is a professional.

OP, ignore this troll. Buy in for what you want. I have been experimenting buying in for $120 since Jan. 1.

You should not be calling a 3-bet unless you are trapping or playing a stop-and-go if you are shortstacked. You aren't deep enough to 'setmine.' If you have 60-70 BBs, either rip it in or fold pre.

thanks for the kind words! I am definitely not a professional but I want to do poker as a side hustle for the rest of my life. Most of my hands were logged between 2004 and 2006. I made about 20k back in the day and was a total set mining nit. I need to improve to handle some of the wild games i'm in now.