NLTH tourney capped at 70 players, payouts for the first 8, roughly 30 left. blinds are at 2000/1000 with a big blind ante of 2000 making the pot 5000 to start with. average stack is about 60-70k at this point. table is very loose, people love to limp and see flops, with some playing up to 80% of their hands, but the blinds have risen a lot slowing down the game - all-ins have generally been respected so far. I just shoved my 24k stack with JJ two hands before and collected the blinds, now I wake up with AKs utg+1 and consider shoving or raising with my 29k stack. I decide to shove, since the blinds are about to come up which would push me down to 24k again, just below an M of 5, where (according to harrington) we'd be back to shove territory anyway. I'm not sure in hindsight since my poker book knowledge might be outdated - what do you think?

We have less than 15bbs and counting the BBA we have more like 13-14bbs. We’re also in EP so this is just a shove imo. If we were in LP I would like a min open since our range should be wider and we can dominate the holdings of bb defense (or snap call a shove from either blind). With KK and AA I prefer a min open in this spot but AK let’s just maximize our fold equity with the jam. We can get called by a dominated hand or by a pair for a flip (which is a good result).

Shoving isn’t bad, but I’d prefer to raise. We can call a jam and consider folding if there are multiple raises/jams behind.

Hmmm. I don't mid the raise, but not sure about the r/f. I think I going with it with AKs no matter what happens behind me .... can triple up vs two pais. (Unless I have a very, very strong read that one of the stacks is always AA or KK).

I think r/c and shove are pretty equal in this spot. I lean towards r/c trying to build as big a stack as possible for a deep run.

I would do the same thing with under 15 blinds.

The problem with min raising here is that you can get called by one or more players in position and you will miss the flop 67% of the time. Even if the BB is the only caller there is a decent chance you will lose if you miss (especially if the flop favors the BB range).

By shoving you will win the 2.5 bb's most of the time and if you are called you will either have a 70% chance (vs AQ/AJ) or close to 50% against a PP. The other advantage is that hands like 22-66 will not likely call the shove and 77-99 may not either a large % of the time. I prefer to win the blinds than risk getting bounced on a flip (like say you min raise and 99 re-raises all in or pot committed vs you alone).

There are no circumstances with AKs and 14 blinds that I would ever fold to two or more raises if I min raised to open but then I never min raise to open in this spot.

If someone 3-bets and an OMC 4-bets then we can fold. Agreed that there are very few situations where I would raise/fold.

With AKs you flop a pair 30% of the time and a flush draw 11% of the time.

I think you're deep enough and your hand is strong enough that you can minraise here and just get it in to any further preflop action. Could have minraised the JJ too. But I never hate jamming unpaired hands preflop on <15BB.

Kinda depends on how your table is playing. Jamming is better if you're going to be flatted with a bunch of speculative hands by in-position players. If someone is likely to put in a 3-bet to test how strong you are, then opening and preparing to 4-bet shove is better.

I do struggle in these spots postflop when I miss, though, so advice on how to handle that may be better coming from someone who doesn't.

I’m fine with a shove if it’s the type of table where 3-4 players are going to call a min open and make your life miserable but even in that case, you can just check fold most flops with no A or K. Also easy to bet small and just set up a jam if you do flop an A or K.

I like min open as an induce. I think AK is too strong to jam and we should have hands like AA KK QQ AK AQ and maybe some small suited aces as min opens to balance. More a fan of jamming suited Broadway (not kq per se- would min open), and mid to low pps that are Nash approved + ev jams on stack depth.

Idk I like min open. We face a 3!, we stick our stack in. We get 2 calls, it’s easy to play AK. I prolly wouldn’t cbet bluff unless it’s like a mp Vs bb situation where we can bet 1bb and let bb fold their trash on a board that favors us- example maybe Q73.

Maybe limp.

raise>limp>shove

For the record I played in several NL tournies at the Venetian recently. In the $1600 Day 1C there were 6 pre-flop limpers at my table (2 got moved, 2 got knocked out one of whom was knocked out twice from the same seat to my right, and 2 who lasted longer than me one of whom was the table chip leader). I have never seen such a weak field in a $1,600 tournament. Similarly in two $600 tourney there were a number of limpers.

And the $600 tournament I won had limpers at the final table. Including when I was HU. He limped from the BTN a number of times and I was happy to play small pots OOP and bigger pots in position.

In my opinion limping is horrible preflop. It puts you OOP more often than not, it allows people to jam with hands like 55 that they would ordinarily fold to your jam with AKs. Why go for it in a 50% flip spot when you can win the 2.5 bb's by jamming and not limping?

It's horrible in general, but if everyone is limping and you have AK, you are more likely to get to shove than if you minraise. Minraising against loose-passives and getting 3 callers in not great.

Limping the button heads up is a thing. If you have a BB ante, there is too much money in the pot to fold preflop. It is a mistake (I believe) to raise your entire range. Others with more experience can comment here...

It's not 'great' but it's not terrible either. You will just have to make a hand, but when you do, they will have a lot of dominated Kx and Ax, and you will have a very low SPR, so you can just jam flops.

I think jamming here for this stack is fine, but I'd lean towards just min raising, and playing poker...

I like minraise at a tough table. At this table, you are likely to get callers and play poker. So maybe best to shove. I still think limping is better than raising as you gii preflop a lot more that way and it is easier to play if you don't get raised.

The OP mentioned that the table is limp happy. Limping, going 5 ways to a flop, and having three low cards come out is a disaster for our hand.

I see the arguments for min raising, but I personally jam the broadways here. It's very hard to play against loose players when the flop comes undercards. Against good players who can find folds I may be more likely to min raise.

Also, no one has discussed the fact that we went all in and won without showdown only two hands ago! That's a great argument for jamming as someone may decide to play sheriff.

Super obvious jam.
Any non all in raise likely leaves us facing a multi-way pot OOP.
I’m no GTO Wizard though, so maybe someone who is will pop round to confirm or correct that view.

thanks for all those opinions posted! I guess poker doesn't always give one only one right path to go, but your answers give me some things to think about next time. I can see why min-raising holds some advantages also, I would probably prefer it at a table with not so many limpers

This is a very important concept. While we are 'close' to solving heads up spots in NLHE, there aren't ever going to be true solvers for multi pots, because there can be no single equilibrium. Machine intelligence might be able to make a good strategy, but, we are unlikely to be able to solve for players who have terrible ranges, or have lots of limping.

Therefore, we will 'always' be in exploit territory. When we see a limp happy table, we just need to make the best adjustments to that environment that we can. Smart minds will disagree. They both can be 'right' based on their player pools.

As to the actual hand, IMO, we shouldn't be that afraid to take AK to a flop multi way. Sure, when the flop comes T98, we are just going to check fold. But, we will be compensated for the times when it comes K74 or A83 and we flop top pair, and get it in vs a dominated top pair.