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This Is Awkward
Live mid-stakes MTT.
14 players left with 8 getting paid. Two tables playing 7-handed.
Hero has 18.9 BB in HJ with A♠︎K♥︎. UTG and LJ have hero covered and limp.
Hero calls. BTN and BB also call/check.
Flop is Q83 rainbow. Everybody checks.
Turn is an Ax. UTG bets 5K into pot of 32.5K. LJ folds. Hero shoves.
Could I have played this hand more optimally?
Pre-flop, is the better play to raise or reshove instead of calling? If UTG or LJ had raised, I would have reshoved. Conversely, if UTG or LJ had folded, I would have raised to 2 BB. As it was, my situation felt awkward in every way. I wouldn’t normally call with a non-speculative hand, but given all of the above, including the effective stack (mine), that’s what I did.
On the flop, I considered shoving, but I couldn’t summon up the reasons why that would be right move.
When the A came on the turn, should I ever consider just calling?
Thanks!
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6 Replies
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I ran this spot as best I could. It really depends on what we think about the early position limpers. But let’s say we go with a standard kind of limper in these spots: they’re not that strong of players and are doing this passively and loosely. Something like AJs-A2s, AQo-A2o, K9s+, Q9s+, KJo+, TT-22, JTs (maybe around 20-22% of hands without much of the very top of range).
We have a legit and strong hand here that hates going multiway, but loves seeing all 5 cards. We should never overlimp this hand for those reasons. We need to raise, but now the question is do we just raise to something like 5-6bb or go all in? This somewhat depends on the players behind me. If these were opens, I’m jamming all day long, but against limpers, I think we can potentially make an exploitive play and raise smaller.
If we’re right about the limping range, there are a ton of dominated Aces in our opponents range. I don’t mind approaching this as a raise with the intention of jamming most flops. We’ll often see passive limpers call with their entire limping range when we do that. If we raise to 5bb and get both limpers to call, this pot is now ~17bb and we have 14bb back. Sometimes they’ll suck out, but for every time the flop comes 872 and our opponent has A8 that they called with, there will be far more times that they fold or we just have the better hand and we’ll double up. Not to mention the times the flop comes with an Ace on it where we can more than double up.
If this makes you queasy, I do understand, and I do think the more standard play would be to jam.
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It’s weird, if I had AQ, AJ, AT, KQ, KJ, QJ, or just about any pair, I may have jammed pre-flop. But, when I looked down and saw AK, I kind of froze and called – the worst play (besides folding…maybe).
UTG had A3o, so by the time I finally shoved, he knew he had two pair (still, he tanked for a little).
I would rather lose by a bad beat than bad play, but hopefully it’s a lesson learned. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.
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Here’s how I look at the situation. Facing any sort of open raise (typically 2bb to 3bbs), my default play would be to shove an 19bb stack with AK. Now instead of an open raise, we have 2 players that have limped. The pot is same if there is a single min raise opener, or if there are 2 limpers. I would shove.
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I ran this as a sit n go because that is what I was set up for and I didn’t have the correct payouts anyway. Even multi-way, you have 52% equity when shoving, you may get some pocket pairs and suited aces to fold, and you get to see all 5 cards.
I would only consider limping behind as a trap. JJ+, MAYBE AKs. Offsuit hands don’t flop well enough to limp/call, especially in ICM situations. I would only limp other hands if I was 96% sure I could see a flop, and be willing to fold if squeezed.
If you think they are trapping, you can raise to 3BB and wait for the 3bet shove and do what? Fold? Against 2 Old Man Coffee’s, that may be an option.
Calling does not have any fold equity. If you are going to call the shove, it is always better to shove yourself.
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