OK seriously..

AKs suited is a very strong hand pushed into loose raiser + callers in a 6 max game. But OOP it is a bitch to play on the flop OOP into aggro players when it misses as it does 2/3 of the time. And when it hits - well it hard to get much money off an underpair when a A or K hits the flop. Also against any lower pair it has 12 outs post-flop and the pair only has 4.

The push negates the positional disadvantage, gives you free turn and river and makes sure that only the most psycho players will call with medium pairs (99 to a 100BB push? really?)

Your way encourages players to call you with position with hands that are ahead (any pair) and still forces out any hand you dominate. Also other AK may also see a flop and as they have position on you this isn't good either. You would also presumably have to fold to any 100BB push behind (which an aggro player may well make with AK or QQ/JJ as well as AA or KK esp if donk calls or pushes too and sweetens the pot)

In hand 1, with almost 1/10th of a stack already there it's fine to push here. You are way way ahead of the likely range of the 400BB guys (with a $75-$100 raise you are getting all in vs the donk no matter what if he wants it pre or post flop right?)

Let's assume the limp callers recognise a donk raise and would call with top 15% hands - I think that is a reasonable assumption. BUT they didn't pop in a pfr or a re-raise even though they knew it would likely go 4-handed if they called. Sound like AA or KK to you? Nope. I would think that 2nd/3rd hand low play is uncommon enough that you can say a normal player wouldn't play AA/KK like that more than one time in three (and that is being generous).
So the chances of one of the stacks you are worried about having AA or KK can be estimated as 6/200*2/3 = 4 times out of 200 - or 2% - and of those only AA (or 1%) is an absolute disaster for you.

So my view is that the monsters under the bed you are worried about avoiding don't justify the extra times the heavy raise lands you in more trouble. The need to make a raise of 1/4 of your stack or more OOP to force out smaller pairs means that you are putting a lot of money in to play a pot OOP..

And if you did read the AK push thread you will see that nowhere in it does anyone suggest that you will gain any significant EV from AJ callers of the push..

Sorry but I feel that your reply simply restated 'bog standard play 101' and claims other plays are 'RIDICULOUS' - they aren't - they may or may not be preferable to the standard line but the thinking on this is a little deeper than you seem willing to accept.

And whilst anyone's posts could and should be critically anaylsed that isn't to say that all posters comments have equal weight - I actually do attach more weight to the opinions of big winning pros like kenny and xast (and huge luckboxes like hard2tel) than to a poster with 10 posts who comes along, misses all the subtleties of a post and SHOUTS while he is doing it..

I dont think Devbert meant to make it personal Excession. Of course we all lead more weight to the posts of people we know and know are big winning players. I have spent most of this summer playing live with Devbert and I can attest that he is a very good winning player,he is playing smaller games than I am but his win rate is as good or better than mine. He is the only poker play I know that I am willing to stake at any time.

Yes - rhound is quite right - and welcome to the forum

And I can see that the responses might seem a bit cursory unless you viewed it in context of the AK push debate

I wasnt exploring the AK push thread. I think that was a limp reraise idea from EP right?

I was basically just pulling a squeeze play. I think it works well when there are a couple callers (who obviously dont have a great hand or they would reraised) and the original raiser is semi short bu tnot short enough that hes calling every time.

In both AK hands, the orignial raiser had 88 and called me. i won won and lost one, but one the bigger one.

In the flush hand, I only bet 1/2 pot on the flop because Ive found that anyone who calls a raise with Ax isnt folding egven to a pot bet so Ive been experimenting with smaller bets on a flopped ace whether I have the ace or not. In this case if I had the ace I wouldve bet more because of the flush draw but he doesnt know that. When he led out on the turn, I was pretty sure he had a decent ace and didnt think he would fold it so I just called. Unfortunatley fo rme, when the flush hit, I wasnt sure enough about my read to raise and I just called. He had AJ and Im pretty sure he wouldve called a raise. I think he wouldve called a min raise every time and a bigger raise alot of the time.


Last night a guy pushed all in for $45, the next guy min raised to $90 and I pushed all in with AK. The min raiser called me with KK and I flopped an ace. That guy is following me at every table now and thinks Im the biggest LAG fish in the world. He swears up and down hes the biggest winner at Full Tilt $2/$4 NL. Hes just a typical set mining weak tight ABC player. Hes a winner because the fish pay him off, but hes not great. I have a new friend

Actually Ice the same maths works for a push from SB/BB too but I figured the limp/push is a more unusual play so discussed that...


The idea of anyone putting you on their fish list is pretty funny - he really is going to get indigestion isn't he?

"AKs suited is a very strong hand pushed into loose raiser + callers in a 6 max game. But OOP it is a bitch to play on the flop OOP into aggro players when it misses as it does 2/3 of the time. And when it hits - well it hard to get much money off an underpair when a A or K hits the flop. Also against any lower pair it has 12 outs post-flop and the pair only has 4." - excession

I don't disagree with any of those points.

"The push negates the positional disadvantage, gives you free turn and river and makes sure that only the most psycho players will call with medium pairs (99 to a 100BB push? really?)" - excession

But can't you pretty much do the same thing with a strong re-raise? By pushing you are trying to scoop the dead money and force out small pockets and weaker aces, which is a reasonable play - I just think the same result can be achieved with a strong re-raise that doesn't compromise you against one of the huge stacks.

"Your way encourages players to call you with position with hands that are ahead (any pair) and still forces out any hand you dominate. Also other AK may also see a flop and as they have position on you this isn't good either. You would also presumably have to fold to any 100BB push behind (which an aggro player may well make with AK or QQ/JJ as well as AA or KK esp if donk calls or pushes too and sweetens the pot)" - excession

I don't see how my play "encourages players to call (me) with position" - the hand stated that there were 2 players with $400 who just called the raise and the original raiser had $150. By re-raising $100 you are letting everyone know you are pretty strong without compromising your stack. If you get action from the $150 stack, he'll be all in (no big deal), but if you get action from the $400 stacks, you know they have a LEGIT hand - they wouldn't call 25% of their stack off on moderate hands.

The downside of playing it my way is that if you get a caller besides the short-stack, he can possibly push you off a turn and river if you miss the flop.

But if he called you pre-flop, he probably had you beat anyways with middle pockets (88 through JJ). So you lose a turn and river but you avoid forced coin-flips with the worse half of it that you didn't want to take - all to scoop $36. That's why I prefer to re-raise very strong (or just call if you want to feel your way through the hand - it is 6 max after-all).

"In hand 1, with almost 1/10th of a stack already there it's fine to push here. You are way way ahead of the likely range of the 400BB guys (with a $75-$100 raise you are getting all in vs the donk no matter what if he wants it pre or post flop right?)" - excession

That's the whole point of raising $75-$100 - you put the short stack to the test without compromising your stack to the big guys who have you covered. If the short stack wanted to play he'd just re-raise anyways, and if the other guys chose to call you could push in over the top of them.

"So my view is that the monsters under the bed you are worried about avoiding don't justify the extra times the heavy raise lands you in more trouble. The need to make a raise of 1/4 of your stack or more OOP to force out smaller pairs means that you are putting a lot of money in to play a pot OOP.." - excession

II just don't like making it $400 to go after somebody makes it $12 and two people call: your forcing coinflips in short-handed play because people are less likely to let go of pocket pairs (especially to disgusting over-bets) and you'll have the worse side of it.

"And if you did read the AK push thread you will see that nowhere in it does anyone suggest that you will gain any significant EV from AJ callers of the push.." - excession

I never said anyone suggested that.

"Sorry but I feel that your reply simply restated 'bog standard play 101' and claims other plays are 'RIDICULOUS' - they aren't - they may or may not be preferable to the standard line but the thinking on this is a little deeper than you seem willing to accept." - excession

That's fine if you feel that way - but I never claimed any plays were ridiculous; just that assuming A-Q will call your push to $400 is ridiculous.

"And whilst anyone's posts could and should be critically anaylsed that isn't to say that all posters comments have equal weight - I actually do attach more weight to the opinions of big winning pros like kenny and xast (and huge luckboxes like hard2tel) than to a poster with 10 posts who comes along, misses all the subtleties of a post and SHOUTS while he is doing it.. " - excession

I'd attach more weight to the opinions of people I knew and who had been around longer too - though not in the case where there replies were "I like this play" and "perfect play".

Thanks for the condecsending finish though and for the welcome to the board. It's nice to know that capitalizng a word for emphasis is viewed as "SHOUTING" - I'll try to keep my future posts limited to nothing but CAPS...

Heres a hand I just played

FullTiltPoker Table Simmons (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em -

Seat 1: MakeItRain ($566)
Seat 2: kjr0024 ($78.30)
Seat 3: twobad4U ($442.30)
Seat 4: Hero ($569)
Seat 5: JD_PROFESSIONAL ($728.70)
Seat 6: Fisherking17 ($620.60)

twobad4U posts the small blind of $2
Hero posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #2

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Ac]

JD_PROFESSIONAL folds
Fisherking17 folds
MakeItRain raises to $14
kjr0024 has 15 seconds left to act
kjr0024 folds
twobad4U calls $12
Hero raises to $569, and is all in
MakeItRain folds
twobad4U: huh, feeling lucky
twobad4U calls $428.30, and is all in
Hero shows [Ac]
twobad4U shows [Ah]
Uncalled bet of $126.70 returned to Hero
*** FLOP *** [9c][5c]
*** TURN *** [9c][5c][9h]
*** RIVER *** [9c][5c][9h][6d]

Hero shows two pair, Aces and Nines
twobad4U shows a pair of Nines

Hero wins the pot ($895.60) with two pair, Aces and Nines
twobad4U is sitting out.........2 Bad for Him