Late stage tournament- calling a shove with AK (1 Viewer)

[Chris Flynn]

My standing theory is that AK is great to shove with but bad to call a shove.

Recent game - I’m down to the final 3 of a 3 table tournament. I seem to recall being chip leader. Player shoves and I have AK offsuit. I hate this but call - can cover if I lose - but a lot of fuel out of the tank.

I make the call and villain has pocket deuces. They hold and I lose the hand - still alive but hobbled.

Ultimately I finish 3rd.

Was it a good call?

 

[Rhodeman77]

Auto-call. They will be shoving with any Ace as well if shoving with 22. Which means you will be calling and have the player dominated a lot of the time. Rest of the time you are in a coin flip. I’ll take those chances.

 

[Beakertwang]

Already in the money, 3 handed, and assuming relatively short stacks (~20BB or fewer), I couldn't get my chips in the middle fast enough.

 

[MrCatPants]

You are favored against his shoving range and it's an insta call. Against his pocket pairs you are still a flip.

 

[MichaelBubly]

If I'm on the bubble it is tough between a call and fold. After the bubble I don't think I'm every folding AK. You are either dominating a lower ace / king or flipping with a lot of outs to any pocket pair. If you run into Aces then it's just a cooler.

 

[Legend5555]

If the villain is shoving any pair and never anything else, then you are 43%.

If they can have any pair and AK, then still 43%.

If you add AQ, then 47%.

If you add AJ, then sightly over 50%.

Basically if your opponent can ever have stuff other than pairs, you are ahead of the shoving range and have to call.

And a decent player will be shoving MUCH wider than this at 15bb or less.

Basically folding AK pre in all but the strangest of circumstances, especially when you can't go bust, is a huge mistake.

 

[Easylife]

Would already be cursing my bad luck as I pushed my chips forward.

 

[Frogzilla]

How many bb shove and what is ante situation

 

[grebe]

3 handed? Not a thought in my head, chips go in, cards go on their backs. Folding here would get you king of the nits award and I would raise you every hand from then on.

 

[glynn]

Would you have made this thread if you had won?

 

[JustinInMN]

My standing theory is that AK is great to shove with but bad to call a shove.

I don't agree with with the second part of this. Yes if you are calling instead of shoving you do lose the possibility of villain folding hands that may be slight favorites. But AK is really only "dominated" by two hands AA or KK. (And even against KK, AK is only about a 2-1 underdog) Against anything else you aren't much worse than 50-50 (and presumably the pot is laying that much), and if your villain can have other a-hi holdings, you can find yourself a 3-1 favorite.

In short, yes in general it's better to be shoving than calling a shove, that's the bit of truth here. But as calling hands go, AK is still pretty good in most situations unless the villain is unusually tight. (Like you would only ever expect a shove from JJ+ and no A-hi hands worse than AK.) @Legend5555 spelled this out pretty well with his figures above .

 

[Chris Flynn]

Would you have made this thread if you had won?

Maybe not - but I have lost more hands calling with AK than I care to remember…

 

[chipmastah]

Assuming shallow stack sizes only 3 handed pretty standard call even though you wound up losing the hand you made the right call.

 

[Chris Flynn]

Assuming shallow stack sizes only 3 handed pretty standard call even though you wound up losing the hand you made the right call.

Thanks, at the end of the day my goal is always to make the right decision and expect over the long haul that will be rewarded. Stacks rise and fall in the short term but right decisions should pay off in the long game- I guess I could put in a cliche statement that the game is an allegory for life but I digress…