Bad Shove for 13 BB? (2 Viewers)

TheOffalo

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Figure I'd post the tournament hand I busted on a few days ago that inspired me to make the "No Respect Club" chip below (and post in the fun/science thread), and see what people think. If what I did was roast-worthy, be gentle! ;-)

Blinds were 300/600, I had 8k in chips, probably 12th out of 13 players remaining (pays 5), in the BB. Folds around to CO who limps for 600, BTN folds, SB limps as well. I'm holding AQ suited, thinking about 3! for 1800 but figure I should try to just steal the pot and shove. CO calls me, SB folds. CO shows 55 and the flop has a 5, I'm drawing dead on the turn.

Bad shove? I was hoping anyone who limped, unless they're slow-playing a high pocket pair, would likely fold to a 12BB raise. CO had maybe 11k in chips, and I was a little surprised he'd risk over 70% of his stack to call w/55.

Was complaining to a friend last night about someone not folding to my big raise in a game, and then I referred to myself the "Rodney Dangerfield" of poker, which let me to this idea...

rodneysnorespectclub.png
 
The real problem, of course, is AQ itself. I've learned to fold it a lot when deep stacked, but it's hard to get enough information on where AQ stands when the effective stacks are so short.
 
Man, second hand in as many hours where AQ lost on a shove. Anywhere around 10BB effective, I'm shoving. Low pocket pairs like 5's, 6's, or 7's that call here are just slight favorites over AQ.
 
Thank you all! I knew my play wasn't egregious or anything, and I'm trying not to be results oriented. Just wanted to check my play with you fine folks. :)
 
I actually had two other hands in the past month where I shoved for 10-12bb and lost to utter shit. The first time it tilted me quite a bit: Had KK in BB, blinds were 250/500 I think. BTN (has me covered) raised to 1500, I shove for 11k. BTN calls, flips over 53o, flop I kid you knot was A24 in some order. This was on PokerStars and I talked to another player who knew the guy and he told me the guy was so drunk he didn't even remember playing in the game!

(Reason for my shove above even though I had 20+ bb was because a 4! to at least 4.5k would have put 40% of my stack in so I just figure I'd shove since only AA beats me preflop. I think there was another player who called the 1500 in between too... Maybe this is a hand worth more criticism but I think it's just another bad beat situation?)

The crazy thing was almost literally the same thing happened last week, I had QQ, shoved for ~10bb, got called by someone (different player) holding 53o, flops a wheel and busts me. What are the chances and WTF?!?
 
It's hard, man. Human beings like reasons for stuff. At least you're not one of these people blaming the dealer.

Last night I saw a Youtube video of a guy stacking off with quad 4s. It took a couple raise/reraise cycles to get all that money in the middle, and the whole time, Nick Schulman and Ali Nejad are commenting on the tragedy that there's literally no way that guy could possibly get away from his hand, even with a pair of 6s on the board. We all just slowly watched him realize the inevitable. And you know, I bet that even though he knows on an intellectual level that he couldn't have done differently, it's going to eat at him for a while.

So for a few days I'll be safe from self-recrimination. Sometimes, you just go broke, and there's nothing to be done.
 
The pot before it gets to you Iis more than 25% of your stack. There is no play other than to jam here. Don't be scared. When stacks are short, jamming most of the time is generally correct. Especially against people that call too wide.

And note... You aren't 3 betting here, you are just open raising after the limps. 3! means raising a player that has open raised. May seem like a technicality, but it mattera when making strategy posts.
 
I actually had two other hands in the past month where I shoved for 10-12bb and lost to utter shit. The first time it tilted me quite a bit: Had KK in BB, blinds were 250/500 I think. BTN (has me covered) raised to 1500, I shove for 11k. BTN calls, flips over 53o, flop I kid you knot was A24 in some order. This was on PokerStars and I talked to another player who knew the guy and he told me the guy was so drunk he didn't even remember playing in the game!

(Reason for my shove above even though I had 20+ bb was because a 4! to at least 4.5k would have put 40% of my stack in so I just figure I'd shove since only AA beats me preflop. I think there was another player who called the 1500 in between too... Maybe this is a hand worth more criticism but I think it's just another bad beat situation?)

The crazy thing was almost literally the same thing happened last week, I had QQ, shoved for ~10bb, got called by someone (different player) holding 53o, flops a wheel and busts me. What are the chances and WTF?!?
53o has 16% chance to win that hand, which is in perspective greater than the odds of cashing most tourneys (usually those pay 10-15%)
 
I actually had two other hands in the past month where I shoved for 10-12bb and lost to utter shit. The first time it tilted me quite a bit: Had KK in BB, blinds were 250/500 I think. BTN (has me covered) raised to 1500, I shove for 11k. BTN calls, flips over 53o, flop I kid you knot was A24 in some order. This was on PokerStars and I talked to another player who knew the guy and he told me the guy was so drunk he didn't even remember playing in the game!
You should consider this a huge win and congratulate yourself for playing well. You correctly determined that Villain might call with worse, and boy did he ever! That calls for celebration, not tilting.

Results don’t matter. Losing big pots to bad hands now and then is the price you pay for winning big pots the rest of the time. You lost the hand, but you crushed this idiot where it mattered.
 
I'm holding AQ suited, thinking about 3! for 1800 but figure I should try to just steal the pot and shove. CO calls me, SB folds. CO shows 55 and the flop has a 5, I'm drawing dead on the turn.

My problem with the shove here is that you will rarely be in a favorable position when called. It will usually be AK or a high pair where you are worse than a flip. I would probably just limp along there and be ready to go if I flop top pair or a flush draw.

But if you do decide to raise over two limpers, I do agree shoving is the only choice versus a 3x open. If you get called by both limpers, you are probably going with the hand on most flops anyway.

But in retrospect, these opponents aren't making big laydowns if you got looked up by 55 here. If you knew that would happen before, you would have been better off with a limp and see.
 
Sounds like a good shove in my books. With only 13bb it's hard to sit around and wait for a better opportunity.
 
This is an easy shove and not even close.

Someone mentioned flatting here. This is terrible....there is a ton of money in the middle and two people that have told you that their cards are not premiums. Sure, every now and then you will run into a complete donkey limping aces, but the other 99 times out of 100 you are in great shape.

Also, think about the ranges here with two limps....AK is not in there ranges, neither (almost always of course) are AA, KK, QQ. Any other pair, you are flipping with. EVEN IF you KNOW one player will definitely call, you have direct pot odds to any pair, you dominate any other A or Q, and are 65% against any other two live cards. People bitch about AQ, but in this case with capped ranges, AQ is an absolute monster.

Don't forget you also have fold equity.
 
Also, think about the ranges here with two limps....AK is not in there ranges, neither (almost always of course) are AA, KK, QQ. Any other pair, you are flipping with. EVEN IF you KNOW one player will definitely call, you have direct pot odds to any pair, you dominate any other A or Q, and are 65% against any other two live cards. People bitch about AQ, but in this case with capped ranges, AQ is an absolute monster.

This is actually a pretty compelling argument and may change my mind. It's true their ranges are capped. Neither limper probably has a pair higher than 88, nor do they have AK which is the only unpaired hand to fear with AQ. There's always the chance someone yet to act has something, but that's always a factor.

My preference for the flat, and it's possible it is results oriented, is that with two bigger stacks, we may be over-estimating the fold equity here, especially seeing that 55 was in one villain's calling range. And I certainly got fixated on the idea that most pairs WILL call and most of the non pairs WILL fold. But the more I think about it, 22-88 doesn't represent a ton of the limping range of the villain limpers given these players have bigger stacks. Probably plenty of Broadway or even mid connector hands in their ranges as well, and there is merit in winning this pot with the extra limps without a fight at this stage, and AQ is far from the worst thing if 55 looks us up as hero.

So maybe it's closer than I think, and I do agree, shove is better than any other sizing (so long as hero we are consistent with the sizing when we have a monster) if choosing to raise. And I don't know the full structure, but I would assume the stack will soon shrink to 5-6BB in two levels or so, meaning maybe two orbits worth of hands, AQs probably is a pretty good line in the sand to draw over what one could expect to be dealt in the next 18 hands or so.
 
Bad shove? I was hoping anyone who limped, unless they're slow-playing a high pocket pair, would likely fold to a 12BB raise. CO had maybe 11k in chips, and I was a little surprised he'd risk over 70% of his stack to call w/55.

I've also thought about this from villain's perspective and I don't know if his call is that bad either. If 12BB represents 70% of his stack, then villain only has like 17BB himself and he's probably 3 orbits from getting forced into a spot himself. Hero presents villain the opportunity to take on one of the few stacks that cannot bust him and knows there's a chance hero's shove may be somewhat wide because our hero has an even shorter stack.

Certainly hero is the player in this hand that has an uncapped range and can have everything up to AA, but I guess it's a similar evaluation from villain's perspective, the pot is laying him a little better than 2-1 (EDIT correction, the pot has 15 big blinds and it is 11 BB for villain to call, so pot odds a little worse than 3-2 ), how much of hero's range in paired versus unpaired given hero is in a higher pressure spot? It might be a good time for villain to flip. With 3 orbits before getting forced, sometimes a flip is the best chance.
 
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I don't know if villain understands this, but some players just do on instinct without the ability to explain. To call villain would have to put hero on a range against which his hand has about 42% equity given the pot odds. So that might look like hero has 99+, AK-AT, and KQ, by my rough math that's about 42%. Remembering villain blocks no Broadway cards that's 80 combos of unpaired hands (against which 55 is about a 52% favorite or so) and 36 combos of paired hands (against which 55 is about an 80/20 dog or so).

So the decision from villain I think hinges on whether or not AT and KQ are really in hero's shoving range or if those are limping hands, and if this villain is feeling some stack pressure, he knows hero is feeling even more stack pressure. But villain should probably fold to a shove if he thinks hero only has AJ+ and 99+ here.

If villain is going to put hero on any ace, then it's a clear call, now there are combos where villain is a 2-1 favorite in addition to all the 50-50 ones.
 
Thanks for the additional analysis everyone. Would this hand have been a good candidate for a stop-and-go? Obviously, in this specific case, villain hit the flop hard with a set of 5s, but otherwise I'd think he might have folded w/55 to a flat/shove if his hand didn't improve on the flop. The chances of all three cards on the board being higher than 5 is probably decent.

Edit: Only thing that'd make me hesitate on a stop-and-go is the fact that flatting would have left two other players in the hand, not just heads up against the 55. Who knows what SB was holding...
 
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Thanks for the additional analysis everyone. Would this hand have been a good candidate for a stop-and-go? Obviously, in this specific case, villain hit the flop hard with a set of 5s, but otherwise I'd think he might have folded w/55 to a flat/shove if his hand didn't improve on the flop. The chances of all three cards on the board being higher than 5 is probably decent.
That's interesting. A stop-and-go may have given more flexibility. You probably wouldn't shove 11BB in on a 3BB pot. You could have checked the BB pre, and planned to bet 2-3BB on most flops and still be able to fold to resistance on bad boards. On this line in this situation, you probably escape with 8BB (given cutoff will surely continue with a set), which still means you are probably picking a hand in the next orbit to shove, especially if the blinds are due to go up.

The one consideration I see is the SB acts before you on the flop, so he may take that initiative from you. But again, if it's a bad board, you escape unharmed.

But this would have been a lower variance line, the downside is if you flop well, you will usually get paid less than if you tried to play for stacks pre. The cards that help AQ tend to scare the hands in the villains ranges.
 
Thanks for the additional analysis everyone. Would this hand have been a good candidate for a stop-and-go? Obviously, in this specific case, villain hit the flop hard with a set of 5s, but otherwise I'd think he might have folded w/55 to a flat/shove if his hand didn't improve on the flop. The chances of all three cards on the board being higher than 5 is probably decent.

Edit: Only thing that'd make me hesitate on a stop-and-go is the fact that flatting would have left two other players in the hand, not just heads up against the 55. Who knows what SB was holding..
You have 13 BB's....you do not have playability here. The guy limping with 55 is straight up a fish for limping first in (terrible play). This hand....and really ANY Ace at this point in the tournament is a shove. If you double up, you have something to play with. Until then, you are looking for places to shove and pick up dead money, or have at least 35% equity if you are called. AQ is a goddamn monster with your stack. Put it in and be ok with the results. It's a tournament, not cash. Part of being in a tournament is being ok with losing. It would be a MASSIVE mistake to not shove here....it is such a profitable spot.
 
The guy limping with 55 is straight up a fish for limping first in (terrible play)
Agreed the cutoff is a clear pump-it-or-dump-it spot. 55 is more than good enough to open from the cutoff in a 6-handed game, limping is scared poker.

All the money probably gets in pre anyway if villain takes this line in this spot.
 

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