What are the different ways of playing this hand?

[shozboy1]

I don"t want to indicate the final result of this hand at all, to avoid it influencing responses...
please don"t assume I lost it!

10 of a 90 man online tourney/SNG (depending on your definition of a tourney and SNG)
5 players per table, so its the final table bubble.
Opponent is 2nd to act with a stack of about 75000. Blinds are 375-750 with antes. He"s accumulated the stack through some decent play along with lots of luck (always a useful combo) Has stats of 44/15 over probably 70 hands or so.
I"m in the SB and have AJ spades. I have 30 BBs. My numbers are about 21/15. The other 3 players have 10-13BBs and all fold. I flat call from the SB and take a flop (BB folds).
Flop comes A-9-2 all diamonds. I check, he shoves all in. I think for 10ish secs and...

(The only other time I saw him shove all in was over top of someone;s river bet. He had a flopped straight the other guy had 2 pair. This however, had developed into a big pot and the money was always going in from both players. Thats how he doubled up to over 70k. Obviously this hand is slightly different to that one in the fact I"ve shown no interest so far.) The money pays top 12 so bubbles already burst, as there"s 10 left now. He has defo become more aggressive since doubling up and was alittle tighter pre his double up, so his pfr raise stat of 15% is probably alittle conservative if you only take the 30-40 hands since doubling up. He prob is closer to 25% pfr since then. I"ve only smooth called him once or twice before, and prob won one of those pots, he took the other without showdown. The only other slightly sneaky thing i did was sm call another players raise with KK about 50 hands earlier and double up. I dont know if he recalls this or not...

[JamieCarra]

decent play

44/15

I highly doubt that someone playing a 44/15 style is capable of decent play.

Pretty sure it"s a fold once you"ve got to that spot,  I prob 3x it preflop though

[LongshanksED]

Fold flop although I"d have probably bet 1/2 to 2/3rds of the pot to try and take a stab at it. Thing is with the litle info you have, he seems to like to bet big with string hands so wait until you have an equally strong hand and you can check call/raise him all the way

[shozboy1]

thanks. I folded but wanted to know specifics about this hand. I went out alittle later to the same guy but got outdrawn. Then I started to wonder whether this was a bad fold (he called my all in with K10 when I had AK at a higher blind level) given some of his play. My thinking at the time was why risk (at best) a race with top pair vs his maybe flush draw with my healthy stack.

Just another thing most people have repopped him from the BB or taken the flop as I did. I didnt repopp because I thought I"d start getting into the realms of committing myself to the hand esp if I cbet the flop. Also I had seen him call some all ins of 15ish BBs with as low as A8 so felt a repopp wouldn"t have taken the pot right there anyhow

[Swinebag]

Not sure I"d be using tracking software in such a short game. 70 hands is not really enough to give you a good interpretation of how a player is playing. However there is a big difference between 44 and 15 so I"d assume he is weak.

This is tricky because you dont really want to tangle with the only player who can bust you, but you have hand that plays well against his range, but you are OOP. If he"s raising 25% of late then re popping is probably better than flatting. The only trouble is that any repop commits you to the hand if he calls or raises, so repop allin for me.

as played, I think you have to fold even though there is a decent chance you are winning and villain is reading your check as weakness.

[AMRN]

44% of hands is pretty damned loose, particularly this late in a tourney - therefore I would have to assume that AJs is well ahead of his range, and would certainly not be flatting out of position preflop.... gotta raise here and either take the pot, or at least get a better idea of where you are.

As played, fold to the shove.

[deanp27]

just post the HH as i can"t work out what happened, what was his raise size pre???

sounds like you should just fold preflop

[Marty719]

p/f is a raise>fold>>>call imo

Hate playing these hands oop against ppl tht have us covered and r not afraid to put us in awkward spots.

[noble1]

44/15 over probably 70 hands

u got this right shoz? just about plays 1 folds 1 and with decent play? for 8 orbits?
As swine says dump tracker for these types of games.
Posting history along with reads will help those answering.. [in your tracker folder?]

from what i can work out 5 handed 10 left itm, reraise pre std and make your std cbet , you dont give his raise size pre but if the rr is going to commit u then either shove it all in or do a go+go , this deep itm 5 handed AJ against the type u describe then its worth trying to double up [even if its a race/flip]  put on the long term spectacles for these same situations..

[shozboy1]

ok thanks. Things are alot clearer. His raise size pre flop was 2250 (3BBs) with 70k behind. My stack was about 24k, roughly just over 30BBs. So the raise is about 10% of my stack.

I think to sum up the general consensus is a reraise preflop and then a cbet on the flop (I guess those who favour that also would then feel pot committed and call an all in reraise by the villain on the flop).

I personally have to say I still favour a flat call preflop due to my deepish stack. Perhaps I should"ve then made a feeler bet postflop and folded to a reraise all in. Then I can easily fold as I haven"t committed too much to the pot with a preflop reraise. I guess another not to terrible option is to fold and avoid playing the big stack with a reasonable hand but oop. Perhaps focus on pressurizing those with less chips then me. Besides, my mindset does tend to switch to a Single table SNG as I"m approaching/on the final table so generally that means playing tightish early on and opening up once 3-4 players have busted themselves (which you can almost guarantee at low stakes)

[noble1]

ok i thought about writing my views on resteals,the situations,how fold equity imo increases in certain points against whatever player type/style etc etc but that would be another long post..
So instead lets apply some reasoning to your situation with AJo after u called oop in the sb [which btw is weaker than folding]..
You hit top pair versus the big stack who is getting over active, a 1 suit flop [ooo scary ] Having seen him take a made str8 from the flop to the river is it logical to assume he has flopped the nuts here and suddenly goes bezerk to a check?

The only other time I saw him shove all in was over top of someone;s river bet. He had a flopped straight the other guy had 2 pair.

Why the shove? any sort of hand even 2 pair or a set i"d expect here reacting to a check to bet rather than shove, ok at low buy ins u get the odd herbert who will do this but the way u describe him plus the str8 hand makes me think AX or KQ KJ with the king of diamonds etc type of range that fits in with the raise frequency , even the odd total bluff cannot be discounted or he has turned QQ KK with a diamond into spew etc etc Say if he had AK or AQ with a diamond kicker the shove still makes no sense..So all we are worried about is him playing AK AQ no diamond like this?? To me doubtful , he has no worries about getting busted by u so i"d favour a normal type cbet by him.. SO at worst your in a flip with AxTd etc or a 6/4 fav over the rest of his range i"d put him on here... So call and double up........The check induced a spew move...........

[Swinebag]

I personally have to say I still favour a flat call preflop due to my deepish stack.

when 5 handed, 30BBs is not really that deep a stack

[noble1]

Ok i"ll write this out on the laptop whilst i hope [pray] Leeds hang on to there 1 goal lead lol  
What Rob is pointing out to u shoz is that your strategy should change according to your stack size, popular thoughts on a stack of >30bb is that u can 3bet rr but is wrong to fold if then u are 4betted. A 13bb to 22bb stack is a ideal 3bet shove/steal stack to a raise...All this strategy stuff on stack sizes is something you should be trying to incorporate into your overall mtt game [it"ll be beneficial to u as u move up in buy ins]
Essentially u adjust how u play according to the size of the blinds relating to your chip stack and not just yours but to your opponents stack sizes and if they are or not stack size aware themselves..[do they comprehend anything gauge there ability]
If u get to the point where u start to think out the box a bit more and u have 20bb and a loose player to your right raised then most would say the optimal strategy was to 3 bet all in - WRONG - u can still 3bet rr and leave 12bb behind and still fold if u wish to a 4bet or give up if called and the flop hits your opponents range and u whiff.Everything in poker is IT DEPENDS and there are no hard set rules , but with a 12bb stack all that happens now is that your strategy changes.
Like with your 30bb stack u can utilise fold equity and still fold if u wish to, it just means your strategy changes..
Calling oop at this stack size with antes in play to simply check fold when u hit the flop is not the best strategy imho and i"m sure with a few tweaks in your strategy u could put those chips to better use...

[shozboy1]

Thanks for the views. I do understand stack size/effective stack sizes. The only reason I flat call here is because of his deep stack. Against a raise from a short stack with 10-13BBs, I am very happy to simply reraise all in here (given the effective stack of 10-13BBs) providing he"s not an extreme nit.
Ultimately a (in my opinion) much more favourable opportunity for a double up presented itself afew hands later when again the villain raised, all folded and I reraised all in with AK and got insta called with K10 - obviously the result is irrelevant, but I atleast got my money in ahead which has got to be the ultimate goal

[kinboshi]

Personally, I hate the call with AJ.

What flop are you wanting to see?  Surely Axx?  If you do, with your stack size you"re hoping to put the lot in?  If not and you think you"re behind a bigger ace then what are you calling for?

As played, you can"t be worried that he"s flopped the flush.  Possibly a K-high flush draw, but even then you"re favourite. 

I don"t understand the call if you"re going to fold to a very favourable flop.  Why were you calling?

If he"s played that many hands, I re-raise him pre-flop and try to get it all in the middle as I"m a mile ahead of his range.  But maybe that"s why I play cash rather than tournaments?