Q&A #51: Short Stack Ace-King in the Blinds

Why not minraise or make a very small raise?

I can see the argument that a minreraise would get a call from AQ[s], which you obviously very much want. It also might more likely get a call from 77 or 88, which you don’t particularly want, but don’t mind terribly much.

Heads-up against the raiser I sometimes experiment with smaller reraises. In this case it looks like you’re fishing for action with AA or KK, which wouldn’t really be such a bad thing if you miss (especially if QQ- thinks it’s calling the reraise for set value alone yet still wrongly calls).

With the cold-call, I think this a small reraise is much more dubious. A minreraise to 12 is going to give the raiser 27:5 (gross) or about 5:1, and the cold-caller 30:5 = 6:1. 5:1 is great odds for AQ (or an inferior ace, as long as the kicker figures to beat the cold-caller) to call if your opponent knows your hand. That’s somewhat made up for by the implied odds situation if you both flop aces, but with only 18 behind your ability to profit from that situation is limited.

So a minreraise makes a call by the raiser “too correct,” and at this stack size a sensible raise size like 20 is going to leave you micro-stacked on the flop. It really boils down to whether you want the FE or not, and with no pair you probably do, just slightly. 100% of the dead money beats a coin flip, unless it’s guaranteed that the coin flip pays 2:1.

The long-term problem is, if you always push AK for 30 here and reraise KK to 20 then observant opponents can read your hand easily. But as Ed and Sklansky point out in NLHE:TAP, you can corrupt the information sufficiently without mixing your play up fully. Usually reraising QQ-AA to 20 here and usually pushing TT, JJ, AK has something to be said for it.

Hehe, I’m still hoping for a reply from Ed on why mixing up the reraise sizes is wrong. It’s certainly unconventional; most everyone would just push if they’re going to reraise at these bet sizes.

Usually when Ed tells me I’m out in left field, I learn a great deal in the process.

I see this as an auto push as well. Would this be considered a squeeze play? And couldn’t you justify doing this with a much wider range of hands? I don’t play a lot of NL cash games but that $15 pot looks good enough to attempt to steal and with AK you are in great shape if called.

Nice post. I had a question very similar to this one so I will post it here instead of a new thread.

Couple nights ago I was in a wild and wooly no-limit game. 3 very loose players, some average, couple TA’s. The loosest player at the table is my immediate right. We both have 80 bb’s at the time ( I just got hammered 2 pots earlier – I’m not on tilt ).

He rasies to 8 bb’s ( in MP1). I KNOW he is light, I reraise to 17 bb’s with AKo to isolate. The bb is a woman who is very aggressive pre-flop and flop, and then slows way down after that. She reraises to 34 bb’s. Now a raise and a reraise to her, AA or KK very possible, but she is one of 3 people at table I would think not necessarily. ( She had us both easily covered ).

Original raiser calls. After I match it that puts 102 bb’s in pot and I have 66 bb’s left. Shorter I shove without pause, deep stack I call I think, here I wasn’t sure. Think I should have shoved but I knew with these 2 no fold equity to speak of.

I called, flop came J99 rainbow. BB checks, original rasier goes all in. What shoud I do considering the amounts involved. He would have shoved pre-flop with Q’s , I know that. AJ, AQ KJ, KQ, QJs, ATs, he would also play 10′s this way. pocket J’s too, but HE would have slowplayed that.

There is also a 10-15% this guy would put them in middle with nothing like KQ or AQ, especially with a sign of weakness . Comments please ? Not quite 3-1 here(approx.2.6) with 2 to come. I know not enough for 2 overcards straight up, but between chance I’m reverse dominated, chance I’m ahead, chance I have 2 good outs, chance crazy lady will call with her big stack? My gut feeling this should have gone in preflop but with no fold equity? , if it was checked to me I was gonna shove on the flop, no matter what.

If this sounds rambling, sorry. Anyway, now that I’m in this spot, what do you think?

The BB lady checked the flop, you know she is overly aggressive pre-flop and flop.

So you are wrong, there was fold equity there. When you called you had over 30% of your stack in there, so you are committed. You’re action pre-flop should have been all-in (to generate some fold equity) or you should have folded.

Against BB who is overly aggressive pre-flop and against the loose player I would have pushed all in pre-flop. There was a 66% chance you were not going to hit your flop… what did you think was going to happen????

If you are afraid of committing to the flop at this point then you should have folded pre-flop to the re-raise… you knew you weren’t going o hit your flop. The aggressive BB lady pushed you to your commitment threshold and at that point your entire stack was at risk.

It is very unlikely she has AA or KK, maybe she has AQ or QQ or even TT?

I think the best play preflop was an all-in after the re-raise, to generate some fold equity.

With this flop… and after letting them see it without putting the pressure back on them now you are going to have to fold. Any PP has you dominated, any J or any 9. You may have 24% chance of catching your A or K on the turn or river, but I have a feeling that the potential that some of your outs are dead is there.

Pre-flop push all-in.

Flop you need to fold. (you wasted money with your call)