aj from bb to a butt raise

[ed cooper]

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, 6.5 Tournament, 25/50 Blinds (8 handed) - Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (BB) (t1605)
UTG (t1420)
UTG+1 (t1370)
MP1 (t1425)
MP2 (t1635)
CO (t1610)
Button (t2970)
SB (t1465)

Hero's M: 21.40

Preflop: Hero is BB with ,
5 folds, Button bets t150

in light of the very interesting thread on aj in the mtt section a few weeks ago, what would you do with it in this spot?

as mentioned in another post by me, villain here had limped a lot, and was starting to raise quite a few.

[BrassLacquer]

If the action folded to the button, I'd imagine this raise could be more based on position with a weaker hand, maybe something like A8s+ or two other broadways. I'd flat call and probably do something like check/fold if you miss the flop, bet ~200/call if it's A-high or J-high.

[taipan168]

Maybe I'm over-aggressive, but I would tend to shove my stack in Button's face at this point given your read that opp has started to raise quite a lot and the fact that he's open raising from the button. If blinds were 75/150 I would consider flat calling a 3x raise and then shoving AI on any flop, but in this case stacks are too deep for that.

I don't like flat calling in this spot because we lose a chance to pick off what is very possibly a steal and we act OOP postflop.

[drmcboy]

I think 3 bet/shove flop is much better than open shove.

Call is OK too. You do lose the chance to pick off a steal but you gain the chance to pick off a c bet and you may catch a flop that gets him off an under pair.

[Zorkion]

would it be bad in this position to 3bet button, and then cbet flop?

[taipan168]

I think 3 bet/shove flop is much better than open shove.

Why do you say this?

[Da GOAT]

note i prob 4get sng play but..

ur too deep to be shoving this imo. it allows oop to play perfectly vs u.

3betting/shove flop has less risk and more reward than shoving preflop.

Between 3betting and shoving allin, shoving has the most risk. we are too deep. 3betting will be same job.

[Alpine021]

I've reading hands such as this on here for a while now and just can't get my head around them.

It's like we want to completely nullify our advantage of being decent players and being able to pick our spots and avoid trouble with what just seem to me like kamikaze plays.

We have all 3 optios:

a) Fold - seems good to me. A little weak I admit but - OOP, he might actually have a hand. it's early and my edge is in later stages, and AJ really isn't that good a hand.
b) Call - got to be the worst of all 3. Hate this due to position, dominance, missing the flop, check folding to a c-bet, not got the initiative etc etc..
c) Raise. Shove seems to be the only option with this hand as if he calls a standard 3-bet we have spewed a lots of chips should we lose / give up on the hand. But do we really want to risk running into something for all our equity? He might call with pairs 99+ and the bad outcome of AQ+ and also factor in the fact that he has 3K and might be willing to gamble a bit more especially as he will still have almost 1400 left should he lose and could also like the prospect of being massive chip leader should he win with an extra man down.

So then CR-AI in on any flop? Why? To say to ourselves "oops" if he flips over an overpair, top pair, set, 2 pair etc...

I admit it might get through but if he's loosening up a bit recently I'd prefer to go to value town on him with something a bit more solid than AJ.

It's interesting your views guys views but I just can't see that it's worth the risk / reward ratio or is it just me that thinks this?

[dneureiter]

Alpine,

While I think you make some valid points we are facing a raise from someone who is presumably opening wide and they are on the button. If a tighter player opened in mp or anyone who wasn't crazy opened in early then i think a fold is reasonable.

regarding the crai on flop and the "oops" if he has a hand. well that's going to happen some portion of the time.. LDO. But if that's your reasoning for c/f to cbets from a raiser with a wide range on the button I don't like that thinking.

@general discussion:

I really hate stack setups here. we can't play hit/miss vs villain if we call (bad option)
if we 3bet we're pretty much commited. and if we shove we (read dependant) often don't get called by worse. With reads that button will call like A8s+ A9o and maybe a King or 2 I really don't mind a plain shove. It'd be nicer if stacks were shorter but there's not much we can do. I think we get alot of folds / some races / and are dominated by a relatively small portion of his opening range.
so I think it's usually shove (or 3bet to a reasonable size looking to stack it)>fold>call
vs a reasonably aggressive player.

edit: I put this into sng wiz and it suggests shoving 77++,AQ+,AJs,KQs
vs a button open of 30% and callings 8% (66++,ATs+,AJo+)
It actually suggests almost the same shvoing range if he calls 44,A8s,AT,KQs
either way your hand is actually plus .20 edge, it's just less than the suggested .25 which it defaults to.
However with a calling range of 88++, AQ+, ATs wiz actually suggests we shove a very wide range to resteal and AJ is +.35.

I guess it's pretty close and with reads you could argue for any action. At a 6.50 I think we can go for a shove. He may also be opening more than 30% (which doesn't include QTo, J9s and the like)

[drmcboy]

Why do you say this?

what hands is shoving better against? the only ones I can come up with are ones he would fold to a jam but will 4 bet shove, I don't really think they exist. maybe like 22-55 which is a very small % of his range and he might call with those anyway. If he has anything better he's never folding, and raising small lets him make a bunch of mistakes like 4 betting worse or flatting and then folding the flop.