Hand from recent $1.5 million guarantee main event
Want to get opinions on this one.
1,800 entries in a $1200 NL main event with $1.7 million in the prize pool.
Approximately 300 came back in day 2. Money hit with 189 left and we are well past this with 70 left when this hand occurred.
Blinds 15,000/30,000 and hero has 450,000 in stack. Folds to 1 off button who makes it 65k. He has been raising pretty often and seems to know what he is doing. Has over $1m stack and doubled up 15-20 hands ago and has been active since. Looked up his Hendon later and has $1.7 mil in cashes. I look down at A8 diamonds on button. SB is short stacked and very tight. BB is young kid who just got moved to the table and has around 700k. Thoughts on what you would do?
6 Replies
Suited aces are some of the preferred hands to continue with in high ICM spots. You have an ace blocker which is key against tight continuing ranges. The suitedness gives you a few extra percent. I think A8s is likely strong enough to jam vs the late position CO open.
If you were slightly deeper I might go for a non all-in three bet, then fold to a jam. However, at this stack depth even a 5 bb raise commits 1/3 of your stack and is close to committing. It would be a shame to put in that much of your stack and then fold to a jam. I think I just jam.
Yeah, I think as wide as CO is / should be opening from your description, I think jam is fine.
There is a very specific and strange world where you could flat here as a kind of pseudo-trap (since you shouldn't really be flatting outside of traps) and just take the pot away later with less risk (if CO thinks you're sharp enough to trap AA here) or maybe even double up if you keep his worse Ax opens in and both flop an ace. However, the BB seems like the type of player who might squeeze, and in any case you don't want to risk it going three ways when you don't actually have AA. And it's really better with hands that can flop straight and flush draws, something like KTs, I think. And now that I've said all that, I think jam is on balance the best play, and also probably one you want to take even with those more connected suited-broadway hands. So now that you've read this paragraph, you probably can just ignore it.
Thanks for the replies. I also thought he could be raising light and ripped it in. SB folded quickly but BB tanked for like 5 minutes before folding. Initial raiser snapped with AK and held. BB said he had AJ so getting a fold there would have been a win if original raiser didn't actually have it.
Its a tough spot. If you jam and win you increase your stack size by 33% which is very important. The BB tank fold is interesting but I think they would have called if you were first in and jammed.
I will jam against players who open wide and mostly fold against players who don't. Here you described Villain as someone who raises often so I get why you jammed and I likely would have as well.
I recently jammed ATs after UTG limped on Day 2 of the Borgota $400 Million Guarantee. He had limped before and I had literally 15 blinds (he had 16). He called with QQ and aside from the flop coming TT8 there was a Q on the turn and I bounced in a similar type of position (30% chances of winning after the preflop all in and the payout increases were still fairly small). Finishing 137 out of 4, 100.
All I can say is I’ve busted in this exact situation too many times to count—medium ace, sliding to below average/shortish stack, late position or in the blinds, big stack seems to be raising wide & frequent, players behind seem unlikely to call, let’s pick up some chips, make something happen!
Making it even worse, if you fold, Kid Jagoff The Tank likely finds a shove with AJ (lololol) and gets busted.
But if the charts say it’s a shove, it’s a shove. I s’pose. Maybe these big stacks are raising a lot because they’re catching cards?
It's happened to me too -- probably all of us. But I know for a fact that this is also a situation I have often used to chip up in this spot, and doing so has allowed me to ladder. I think my shoves in similar sports have historically been +$eV, and I think this one is too -- despite the results of the hand, and that we know we will be running into a better A (or pair) sometimes. (And we sometimes get to suck out too).
I think its a push. With 70 left and you having a below average stack the icm tax isn't too severe and it's a nice hand. I would probably push as wide as every suited ace. Against a non reg I would be tighter as they tend to call off a slightly wider percentage of their opening range. I would probably have flats against a rec in the a2s-7s suited broadway low pp region.
