The last two times out at 1-2 I would get AQs of AKs in early position and raise it for my normal 12. Getting 3 or 4 callers would be the norm with this raise.
First question should I be looking to raise more?
In late position I was raised all-in by a shorter stack from late position. So lets take this as an example. Me UTG 300 AQs raise to 12. Call from UTG+1 with 200. Call in middle with 500. Call in late with 150. All in on button for 52.
I raised to $100 to isolate and was successful. Figure on range of any ace or any pair.
Second question
Should I raise after the short stack or just call?
Should I raise after the short stack or just call?
Raise or shove, if you flat call a short stack's all-in you are getting 3 calls behind every time, or 2 calls and a shove (in my experience at these stakes).
Raise or shove, if you flat call a short stack's all-in you are getting 3 calls behind every time, or 2 calls and a shove (in my experience at these stakes).
no you're not. initial raise is 12, shove is 50ish. its not THAT common for people to call 40 more at these stakes.
people are like... i wanna play hand, 12 bucks not bad.... but AWW MAN 40 more is too much.
$12 opening raise is big enough for a 1-2 game--you don't want to fall into the habits some players at these levels of opening for 10x, and getting in awkward stack/pot ratios post flop. Most of the $ in these games comes from beating them post flop, vs bloating it up too big pre.
Re-raise those situations you described, with plenty of dead money out there and a flip likely.
Any Ace, Any pair is prolly too wide. I would say ATs+ 77+ is probably more reasonable. - Just do not fold if backraised shoved by anyone if you iso-raise the ss with that stacksize.
I hate playing big outta control multi-way pots outta position. If the difference between a slightly bigger raise and our current raise is that it gets HU, then I'm cool with a bigger raise preflop, unless we're gonna get it HU against a tricky player (cuz I'd much rather play a straightforward passive player). Otherwise, I'm cool with the normal raise preflop since our hand does fair well against every one else's holdings and then playing straightforward postflop vs a large field (i.e. check/folding whiffed flops, treading carefully when we hit TP).
I like re-raising preflop in this case cuz I'd really like to get it HU. Even if we're slightly behind to a pocket pair we're still in good shape due to the dead money in the pot. I'd probably even raise more preflop to make sure this is accomplished, and with stack sizes, I'd actually probably ship it.
