Medium ace on the button facing UTG raise, nl tournament

Game type: Turbo MTT
Stage of tourney: Early
Avg stack: ~3k
Your image: Solid
Opponent’s image: No real read
Your hand: A♦9♥
The setup: You’ve built a little bit of a stack in this no limit turbo tournament when the following hand comes up. You’re dealt A9o on the button and a player you don’t have much of a read on open shoves from UTG.
The table folds around to you on the button. What’s your play?
4.25.08 / 12am
Voted raise… was actually the first to pick raise of 5 voters thus far.
Push UTG from short stack means any range of cards better than rags. Based on my stack and the shortness of the blinds, I make a reraise here large enough to put the big blind all in and hope I’m up against a JQ/KQ type hand or some sort of small connector/pair
4.25.08 / 12am
Enough to put the small blind all in**
4.25.08 / 4am
Turbo, above average. Raise and isolate.
4.25.08 / 4am
pushing all in with a short stack could mean anything, especially if you don’t have a read on the guy. Heads up with position A9o probably is in good shape but why take the risk at this stage? Furthermore both blinds are pretty short stacked as well so either one might see tremendous odds to go all-in so your Heads up advantage might easily be lost. If the villian or the blinds do get lucky and you double up one of them they live for several more hands. Better off picking a better spot to fight and let the blinds eat them up
4.25.08 / 9am
Fold, theres no reason to risk a chunk of chips here for at best a slight advantage, and at worst a dominated status. Why would utg shove rags or a weak ace? he knows anyone with a decent enough hand wont be scared off by his stack and hes got the whole table to worry about. Plus you give odds to the blinds if they have a hand, even something like suited connectors/ drawing hand…figuring they have a chance to triple up, especially the BB. In this case you had the slight advantage and the blinds folded illustrating how the “what actually happened” is misleading. If you make this play 1000 times, its -EV.
4.25.08 / 1pm
Because the short stack actually understand the concept of first in equity and he’s about to lose 20% of his stack to blinds. He’s trying to push while he can still hurt someone, albeit its not my stack.
Im not worried about the blinds calling for odds because they arent aware of what we’re thinking. They see an UTG raise and a reraise… they’re folding unless they wake up a premium. That would make your play unlucky, not wrong. Raise 80% of the time, fold 20%. This time I like raise based on the shortness of the blinds.
4.25.08 / 2pm
I was quite undecided. both raise and fold were viable options, but after much thought I opted to fold and wait, maybe because as stated I’m a solid player, or maybe I’m a “nit”.
Maybe I shudda gone the other way ![]()
4.25.08 / 9pm
im just a kill or get killed player so im really not shore most the time but i would either call or fold cause no 1 else is in i mite have a good chance of nockin the other player out?
4.26.08 / 2am
Raise to iso. UTG is desperate. Take while the taking is good.
4.26.08 / 4pm
Easy raise. They guy probably will push 9Ts+ and any pair. Quick stove tell that this is an easy isolation raise. If SB or BB wakes up with a real hand it’s just tough luck. In turbos you really have to collect chips when you have the chance.
4.26.08 / 8pm
You’re the second stack on the table. Even if the utg player gets lucky, you’re still in that position after a call/raise/fold. Even a min raise would put both of the blinds in so push it on in!!! Poker is a game of gambling sometimes. More than likely as stated, He had found something better than his 29o and his 38s that he’d been seeing, but your A9 should have a decent shot at being the best hand/winning. Plus its a turbo, and that’s a good amount of chips to put you right up there with the CL.
4.27.08 / 6am
i voted raise …. fold is fine too
calling is bad
raise is to isolate. You are probably either WAWB
4.27.08 / 6pm
I would call it because there is a chance a ace will come out and prob because i hardly ever fold, Most of the time i win anyways, but i guess thats just me:D:D:D
Go with wat u think coz in the end it could be ur win:D
4.27.08 / 7pm
he didn’t have to shove there he could’ve went thru the blinds one more time that’s why i would let it go
4.28.08 / 10pm
Turbo range is wide, due to hopes of live cards a need for chips. Shove here and pick up some dead $$.
5.2.08 / 11am
Its cheap enough. I call. With that short of stack he could be pushing with any Ace, KQ, KJ, and any underpair. Hes just as likely to have a premium hand but there are more hands that we are ahead of that he could have than hands were behind of and we could very well have him dominated if hes got a weak ace which is very likely.

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2.18.08 / 9pm
I think you’re in fine shape against the UTG raising range. The UTG shove from the short stack is a pretty standard play with a wide range, especially in a turbo. It should be hard for either of the blinds to come in behind you without a hand, and if they do, it’s not like they can really burn you for many more chips than you’re already committing to play against UTG.
I say raise to isolate and feel confident that you’ll be shown a worse ace or broadway a decent amount of the time.
What actually happened: You raised and the blinds folded. UTG showed KTo. You paired the flop and held up to win the hand.