Ace King – Would you ever shove pre flop with over 100 BBs in this stake ?

[Binh Ho]

With AK preflop, would you guys ever shoved pre flop at 1/2 and 1/3 NLH ?

Recently I shoved with a deep stack (~ $700 effective) pre flop and ran into KK. Would never do it again. But i don’t know. What are your thoughts?

[Scott]

I’d three or four bet, but most likely I wouldn’t shove a $700 stack in unless for some reason I really felt I was being pushed around or bluffed….

[David Wibel]

I agree with Scott 100 BB is very different than 300 or 400BB poker, though shoving AK suited can be ok if we are doing it for the right reason.

Let’s say we have $200 playing 1/2, we open to $6 and an opponent raises to $20. 3 betting to $50-$60 is reasonable to do. If we get called there will be ~$100 in the pot and we will have ~$150 left and if we connect, are likely going to try and get the money in since even a 1/3 pot sized bet will make the pot larger than our stack.

IF we have $700 in the above example and pre flop action is the same we have a stack of $650 and the pot is still $100. Leaving plenty of extra risk if we get our remaining stack in relative to the reward of the pot.

Now, with $200 in 1/2 having a 4 bet a 4 bet shove with AK suited might be ok as a bluff, and that is what it is, a bluff. If we think our opponent might call with JJ+ and AK suited we never expect to be ahead if we are called but might be flipping and we make it less likely that our opponent has AA or KK. We can fold out some better hands our opponents might 3 bet with that we are behind such as 99 or TT. Also, some players will fold JJ and possibly even QQ but that is player dependent. But with $700 this would be something like a 5 or 6 bet all in and most players won’t go that far with with anything less than QQ or even KK.

[Paul Hewson]

My first thought is, why are you shoving?

With a hand as strong as AK I would be looking to build a pot and get as much money in as possible pre-flop from those hands that you have good equity against. Shoving 200BB is going to see all worse hands fold and better hands calling, which is not going to be winning over the long term.

I can’t recall where I read it, but good advice I read was- if you want to induce a fold your cards don’t really matter. So with strong cards we should be looking for action, not chasing it away.

I’d like to hear how the action went that got you all in. Was it just a single all in bet? Or a bet, raise, shove? Could you give an update with some more details?

Cheers
Paul

[John S]

Very table dependent. Haven’t played 1-2 in ages, but most of the 1-2 games I’ve watched are extremely nitty and big bets (or 3 or 4 bets) pre-flop means QQ+ AKs, or even just KK and AA.

Again, very table/casino dependent, but at most casinos 3-bets are usually very very strong at this level. Most 1-2 players aren’t looking to get $700 in the pot pre-flop without AA (and only AA). I’ve folded KK pre-flop on more than one occasion because some players will only reraise with AA (and of course show it when they don’t get action).

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