Daily Hand Quiz

I’m putting villain on a range of AK, TT+ which I think is rather generous for an unknown. We are a 40% dog against that range.
Even if we include all pocket pairs we end up at 43,5%. It’s not until we include a bunch of broadway hands that we come up on the right side of 50.

Fold and develop a read on this player.

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This is a good quiz. I’m sure there will be plenty of different points of view. To be honest, with no read and it being early in the tourny this is a tough one. I’d feel extremely tight/weak if I folded here but wouldn’t be super excited about calling (and possibly missing the flop) or reraising all in preflop. I’d probably end up just calling and seeing what happens on the flop, although I’m sure some people would think that was weak.

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T Reply:
December 14th, 2010 at 11:24 am

It’s mainly weak if you don’t have a plan for the flop IMO. You should be able to act immediately.
Again ‘IMO’, if you call you should be prepared to insta-ship if a K or A hits, and check/fold everything else (apart maybe from an all diamond flop).

I know this seems a nice way to beat villain at his own game but I highly doubt it’s +EV, especially since you are up against AA very often.

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John Kugelman Reply:
December 14th, 2010 at 2:49 pm

Flatting AK in a 3-bet pot and playing fit/fold is not a good way to handle it. A lot of AK’s value comes from fold equity. Without fold equity you are generally only 45-55% vs. most players’ ranges, and that’s only after seeing all five cards. If we only see three we’re only going to hit 1 in 3 times. If we check/fold 2 out of 3 flops we’re going to fold the best hand a lot, and we will also let the villain get away from PPs we’ve outflopped.

Flatting is going to be -EV. Shoving or folding would both be better options IMHO. No choice we make is the nuts, but remember that when you’re torn between raising or folding it’s rarely correct to compromise and call.

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After you raised with 10 % of your stack, it doesn’t make any sense to put about 1/3 of your stack in the pot with a AKos, it seems the villain is not afraid of any confrontations. This may have been a perfect spot to hide the strength of your hand and just check and see a flop. I also don’t like a stop and go play here because of the perceived strength of villains hand. If you flatted, I believe no matter what flops he’s shoving all in. This is a $150 buy in, it’s not a $5.00 toss away game, your going to have people who will play better than average and wouldn’t risk it all early without the nuts. So very reluctantly I’m folding, cussing the bastard with a double finger salute, and pouring a we bit of single malt scotch.

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We will flop TP/TK about 1/3 of the time, but need to reduce that a bit in the unlikely case the V holds AA or KK. A call gets us a 2.3x price, so while not crazy about playing this hand oop, I’ll make the call. If we miss, still have 40+ bbs left.

RRAI is a viable option, frankly the $150 buy-in has me playing extra conservative early on (thus a call). If this were a $4 SNG I’m obviously AI. We are likely to fold-out 99- with an AI move.

Fold – hate to create an imbalance of my raising hands by folding a primo here. I’m stubborn here and willing to defend.

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Nice quiz. If Villain most likely has AA or KK, we need to run for the hills. If we’re dubious, then it’s a different story.

So the hard call is: Do we think Villain is trapping with the real deal, or do we think he’s faking us with a very well-constructed move?

We’re like a two-year-old in Japanese bookstore: we’ve got no ability to read anything here. That’s a real pity. In the end, we’re just plain going to have to guess.

I voted for a 4-bet rr (probably all-in), figuring that this is a beautiful situation for a savvy Villain to pull off a limp/reraise steal. (He’s risking 700 chips to win 250 — but he’s likely to fold out at least 98% of SB limpers and maybe 85% of our raising range.)

But I could be wrong. If so, this is a fold.

I totally agree w/ John Kugelman, “Call” is the worst choice of the bunch. That would leave us playing AK out of position, h/u, in a bloated pot, vs a Villain who has represented massive strength. That’s dodgy in the best of circumstances.

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I think this is an easy fold. Many factors make fold the best play:

- Not many players limp re-raise steal, so you’ll have to respect villain’s re-raise
- You’re OOP, which is the worst part about calling
- If you shove, you’re almost never good there, besides the rare AQ suited
- I think most importantly is that you still have a large stack, with plenty of room to maneuver so early in the tournament, so there are better spots, equity wise

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