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AQ facing 2 shoves
Hi everyone,
Been with SkyPoker a couple of months (alias Horsh) and liking the site and range of tournaments. I played a fair bit of online poker about 6 years ago but when I bought my house had to give up the game as mortgage took away a lot of my “fun” money. Enjoying getting back into poker and enjoying being here on Sky.
Wanted to share a hand with you see what thoughts are and if I should have played it differently as I do keep going over it in my head!
It’s the final table of the turbo Tuesday main event a few weeks ago. Down to the final 4 players and blinds are 10k/20k.
First to act has 250k chips, button is the small stack with 75k, myself in small blind with 210k and the big blind has the big stack with 500k+
The actions goes
First position shove for 250k (this player has played very few pots on final table)
Second position shove for 75k
I look down and have AQ offsuit.
Thoughts were along lines of - Given the player in first position has played pretty tight he has to hold something most likely a big ace or pair in the 99 – QQ bracket as they are committing their chips against the big blind who has them covered.
The small stack has been fairly patient and not shoved as soon as they were short so given they have no chips in the pot already and chance of a ladder if they do nothing, in my mind they had to at least have a bit of something but could be anything, likely to be any pair (22 – AA) or at least an ace.
I chose to fold with my logic that AQ offsuit doesn’t play too well multi handed when you are not the aggressor, I thought in most likelihood against 2 opponents I would be entering pot behind and the likelihood was that at least 1 of my outs would be in an opponents hand. So given no immediate blind pressure chose to wait for a spot where I was more likely in better shape.
To the rest of the hand, big blind also folded. First position turns over AJ and the button J10! Plus to rub it in flop comes Queen high with an ace on the river.
For the record, got my chips in good against the big stack shortly after - they didn’t hold up, but that’s poker. So went out 3rd and I did walk away with my highest poker win ever, but feels like it could have been more especially given the sizeable ladder steps. Any thoughts / advice would be appreciated.
Please note - I would have shoved first had I had the chance and would have called either in a heads up situation.
This is my first forum post so apologies if it’s in the wrong thread.
Cheers
Andy (aka Horsh)
Comments
We are 4handed so hand values increase, and we're only 10xBB deep. Even a tight player will still be shoving pretty much any Ax, any PP, and things like KQ, KJ etc when we're 4 handed and only 10xBB effective.
Not worried about the caller, he has <4xBB and will be taking a chance to double up with loads of hands (like JT), and not too worried abuot the shover because he's first into the pot and will be doing it much wider than AQ.
Unlucky though, very well played to get to the FT of a ME, and welcome to the forum
Cheers all
Congrats on ft ans as i see your thinking was fine but may have cut your nose off to spite your face as it were. Looking back you can see the reason for the shovesby each player. AJ is legit and JT is short and sees it as probably having two live cards at this stage and 4 hdd does not have time to wait. It'd take courage to bite the bullet and better players than myself will be telling you to shove but i appreciate yourthinking here. AQ is an easy shove first here but calling with the big steack behind takes more thought which you gave. Just hard lines really ...welcome fella
I agree with what has been said above.
When you're 4-handed, hands improve dramatically in strength. When you're playing short stacks, hands increase dramatically in strength. When you're 4-handed AND short stacked... you can see where this is going.
One thing to add is that the fact that the UTG/Cut-off player is shoving on the big stack in the big blind shouldn't strengthen his range. In fact, it's likely that he's shoving a somewhat wider range against this big stack than he would against a short stack in the big blind. If the 4BB stack was in the Big Blind, he's likely to call with a very wide range because so much of his stack is already in the middle, whereas the 25BB stack is going to fold alot of hands. The big stack doesn't need to risk doubling you or the other middling stack up with a weak hand. - This effect is not so great when everyone is playing 10BBeff at most but it's still something to be aware of. It's more apparent if the table is a little deeper.