Hi- been thinking about this one; curious to hear some thoughts. For me the key question is how much should the structure of an event enter into a decision like this?

The $500 freezeout was 25k starting stack with 30 min levels, with fairly low S points for a non (official) turbo, at 70. It's a 2-day event that saw 5,342 entries down to 238 by the end of day one.

This hand took place close to the end of level 7, with blinds at 400/800/800. After chipping up to ~40k without ever showing down a hand, I'd just moved to this table 5 hands earlier - 2 of which saw AIPF knocking people out - when this comes up:

I am UTG1 with 27,000 chips (34bb, but about to be 27bb) and raise to 1,700 with AQo.

Folds to cutoff who 3b to 5,000.

Hero?

Also -
1) 10 handed
2) CO covers me but not a huge stack

AQ is the hand that I get knocked out with the most.

I have no idea what is best here. You are new to the table and UTG so for CO to be raising it is mostly AK/KK/JJ/TT (though JJ/TT much less than KK) with some AA/QQ thrown in. And of course if he is GTO centric some A5s and maybe 54s or 65s.

I have shoved in this spot and lost to AK. I have also just called here and have had little or no success because we are OOP we hit the flop basically 33% of the time and even if we hit a Axx flop we may be behind (and I have lost to AK here more than once). On a Qxx flop I have lost to KK. I have actually folded to the 3-bet several times as well to non GTO tightish players who have shown me AK and KK as well have not shown me anything except for a smile.

With no reads I probably call as his 5000 bet is just under 3x. I will check fold if I miss and c/c if I hit. If the flop gets checked through I am still c/c.

Here was my thought process at the time:

So if I call 5k and wind up folding, I’m at 22k. Then the blinds, which could be up to level 8 (500/1000/1000) and I’m below 20bb. 30 mins later I’m at 12bb.

I think this a tough spot because AQ is a hand that can be a shove against some players and fold against others. If the player is an older player then I lean towards folding, if you think this a player that is making moves then you shove.

In the situation that you described, I am probably folding. If you decide to call and the flop comes Q high or Axx then you have to be prepared to call down or get it in. If you wiff, then it would be a c/f situation.

In theory I'd assume all of our options are reasonable:

• Call probably isn't bad, but I tend not to do much calling with offsuit Ax OOP in these sub-40BB spots - I will have some calls but probably hands like AJs-AQs, maybe some middle pair type hands.
• 4-bet all-in or even 4-bet click back has some merit, too, especially if we think we're getting stuff like 99-TT to fold.
• Folding isn't unreasonable either

In a $500 freezeout, against a player I don't know, I'm probably just folding here. I think if we were somewhere closer to 50BB I'd like peeling more, but even then I'd probably lean towards using this a click back to balance out my QQ+/AK stuff.

Call and play post. You can jam against wreckless people but most folks don’t play too wreckless. I like call. Wanna play against their 3! Fold range. If we 4!, they only
Continue with hands that are better than us.

Exploit fold against nits obviously.

I jammed.

He called TT

Flop

Turn

In theory, its a pure call. with call > fold > jam


If CO seems like a rec, then I lean fold.