Short stack preflop 3! shove
½ NL, played about 3 rounds at table, UTG + 2 seems to raise and call raises frequently. SB has not been real active, but lost a pot recently to get short. I raise UTG+1 to 12 with a strong hand. UTG+2 calls and SB shoves for 110. I have about 250 and UTG+2 covers. What hands would you call or shove with?
8 Replies
½ NL, played about 3 rounds at table, UTG + 2 seems to raise and call raises frequently. SB has not been real active, but lost a pot recently to get short. I raise UTG+1 to 12 with a strong hand. UTG+2 calls and SB shoves for 110. I have about 250 and UTG+2 covers. What hands would you call or shove with?
Calling AA, KK. If stacks were big enough to get away from on flop or later against SB, I might have some weaker range in there like TT, but calling at this stack size basically commits us to our stack if SB calls or shoves.
Shoving AQo+, AKo+ JJ,QQ
I actually folded AQo. Would have pushed JJ-KK/AK. Called with AA, although it is unbalanced.
One question is whether you believe SB was tilted after losing a large pot. Even relatively disciplined players can say "what the hell" sometimes and shove a bunch of Ax, low pocket-pairs, broadways etc. So, if this is the case, you could widen your shoving range to 99+/AJ+. Folding AQo seems too conservative.
I made the fold partly based on reads on how SB was playing and his demeanor when shoving. Ordinarily, I agree AQo is a call.
Yeah that makes sense. Sometimes players in these circumstances take advantage of being perceived as tilted.
I was worried about AK with that sort of play. That is what SB had. UTG+2 tanked, said he had two live cards, and called with T8s. T8s made a pair, and SB walked off.
The bad beat jackpot was really high, so maybe part of the reason for the two calls with T8s. UTG+2 may have thought SB had a pp, so a bad beat set up. Obviously, also loose donks will see a flop at all costs, even allin.
These shoves almost always get called in these games, unless you shove like 100 into a limped pot. I buyin for the minimum and sometimes try it, but may do it more with JJ+/AK rather than like 99 or AQ, because you don't get many folds.
Think I'm calling with JJ+/AK.
I haven't done Janda math in so long, so thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole...
If my calcs are correct (big if), we need to defend a little over 21% of our range, so assuming a 14% opening range, it's ~3% of hands. Probably somewhere between 3-4% as a little more of the onus is on us to defend than the other villain since we're the one who actually has QQ+/AK in our range, but not too much more because other villain has position and gets to close out the action, which is important given we still have remaining stacks to duke out.
TT+/AK is 3%, and we can round out the range with AQs and/or 99, with AQs perhaps getting the nod because of the fact that we're multiway with a potential bigger stack.
