Hand from TODAY'S 5k at Bellagio vs. Roothlus...

[Matt Vengrin]

Originally Posted by Daniel Negreanu

I would have folded the AK rather quickly and lost 1400 instead of 1800 on the hand. If all I can really hope for is Adam having AQ with the combination of the other guy not having a pair, or folding a pair, than I'm certain I can find a better spot to get my chips in.

The other major difference in my tournament approach is that if Adam folded, I would NOT have shoved against the button if he is calling me with his entire range. If there is no fold equity pre-flop than I think it is ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS better for a good player to see a flop first before committing his whole stack. If the flop comes really, really ugly, I can save my stack and still have 16k or so to play with. Or, I could sem-bluff a flop with two diamonds on it. Also against certain players, and I made this exact play in Foxwoods recently, I can get my opponent to fold AK.

As a general rule, if you get raised AND re-raised pre-flop then you can safely fold AK almost every time, unless you are extremely short on chips in which case you probably should have already put your whole stack in.

I was initially going to post my response before reading the rest, but for some reason I decided not to and I agree with Danial. I was talking to Annette about this awhile ago and with stacks ~25bbs and deeper in good structured tournaments I feel like its fine to fold hands like AK, JJ, and QQ.

As poker is a partial information game, you will not know the range well enough vs. these players when they 3 and 4 bet PF. Most of the time, you are going to see Roothlus with QQ+ and AKs, that's it in my opinion.

Furthermore, "He and I chatted a bit on the way out of the Fontana though and he seemed to strongly think that this was a definite call by me, especially considering that I was suited."

I know Roothlus and he is a great guy, but do you think its at all possible he was telling you this because he wants you to put it in with AK whenever he 4 bets as he is mostly showing up here with AA, KK, QQ and AKs? I am not saying Rooth is shady at all, but this game we play is about misdirection and misinformation at times.

-Matt

[Jimmy Fricke]

Originally Posted by Daniel Negreanu

I would have folded the AK rather quickly and lost 1400 instead of 1800 on the hand. If all I can really hope for is Adam having AQ with the combination of the other guy not having a pair, or folding a pair, than I'm certain I can find a better spot to get my chips in.

The other major difference in my tournament approach is that if Adam folded, I would NOT have shoved against the button if he is calling me with his entire range. If there is no fold equity pre-flop than I think it is ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS better for a good player to see a flop first before committing his whole stack. If the flop comes really, really ugly, I can save my stack and still have 16k or so to play with. Or, I could sem-bluff a flop with two diamonds on it. Also against certain players, and I made this exact play in Foxwoods recently, I can get my opponent to fold AK.

As a general rule, if you get raised AND re-raised pre-flop then you can safely fold AK almost every time, unless you are extremely short on chips in which case you probably should have already put your whole stack in.

I understand where you're coming from and I don't completely disagree with all of this, but everything in this post has to have a gigantic disclaimer on it. Most online players in this spot are trying to play not just a +EV style, but an unexploitable one. Your lines are arguably more +EV than what actually occurred, but doing things like making it 1400 from the CO and not 4betting the button's 3bet with AKs is ridiculously exploitable. I don't know what your CO opening range is in this situation, but 30% is probably around right. If the only hands you're 4betting are QQ+, you're 4betting 5% of your opening range. And if you happen to just flat those hands instead of 4betting, a good button player could profitably 3bet your CO open literally every single time. When a good player doesn't have to fear getting repopped in this situation by ANYTHING, what is the incentive to just call? You fold 2/3 the time, maybe more, and flat the other 1/3?

One of the reasons we play AK so strongly before the flop is because of metagame. It's a preflop semibluff. If there's a player who is only ever getting it in with QQ+ in a given spot, someone can fold JJ incredibly comfortably. But if you throw AK into someone's range, suddenly JJ's equity skyrockets and forces them to call most of the time when you have them crushed.

Not only that, but I know that small ball style usually dictates playing a low variance style by risking as little as possible as much as possible, but that's the exact wrong way to take a lower variance route in this hand. If you're just calling the button's reraise (had Adam not 4bet), you're putting in 5k OOP and if you happen to continue after the flop, the pot is going to be huge. Your opponent is going to bet, what, 7k postflop and your c/r in most situations is going to be to 20? More? Check/calling basically any flop has to be an error with how big the pot is, and so now if you flop an ace or king and you c/r, you get called by something worse almost none of the time. The pot on average when you call is going to be SO much bigger than when you shove, not to mention you lose the pot about 70% of the time compared to when you shove and you win the pot probably 80% of the time, if not more if his range is truly huge.

I'm all for trying to lower variance and playing maybe not absolutely unexploitable against people who will never exploit you, but sweet tap dancing christ, you have AKs in the CO and don't 4bet a loose player's button 3bet, that's the DEFINITION of being easily run over.

[Daniel Negreanu]

Getting into this discussion would require a REALLY long answer, one so long I'm not going to get into. I will say this, a stack of 20+ BB's in the hands of a good player is still a very deadly weapon. In a spot where you can possibly protect that stack and live on in a situation where you have zero chance of getting your opponent to fold pre-flop, the value of that 20+ BB stack supersedes the fact that you may be "run over" a little bit. Besides, it isn't costing 5000 to make the call, it cost him 3200 which is a significant difference.

Your choice is calling 3200 and re-evaluating after the flop while maintaining a stack of 16,000, or going all in before the flop hoping to be a smallish favorite for the whole thing.

If you were talking about a cash game then what you say makes complete sense. In a tournament, though, I disagree completely with your line of thinking because I see a lot more value in the approach that may seem "weak" because it increases the chances that we don't go broke on the hand. Sure, we might get outplayed or run over sometimes, but we won't go broke nearly as often. Since survival is the goal for the most part in marginal situations in a tournament, then the choice to protect your stack is usually the right one.

This is actually the type of flaw I see made most often in deep stacked tournaments amongst the good online players that are more accustomed to playing tournaments with shallow stacks. They often overplay hands pre-flop and risk tournament death. While the play isn't necessarily -EV, by taking a more careful approach you last longer which allows you to wait longer for lower risk/high reward situations.

I really don't mind being "run over" and players try that against me all the time. Sometimes they are successful, but often what they end up doing is betting my hand for me. The key to being successful with that approach is the ability to sniff out bluffs and make some light calls in certain spots. Not the easiest thing to do, but if you are good at it, it's a great way to build a big stack of chips without showing much aggression at all.

[Bryan Devonshire]

Originally Posted by Daniel Negreanu

If there is no fold equity pre-flop than I think it is ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS better for a good player to see a flop first before committing his whole stack.

This has to be context specific right? I mean, it cannot possibly be correct to NOT get it in with aces if he's calling with his whole range pre-flop because he's getting away from a significant portion of his range post. There has to be a certain point where you're getting good enough equity vs. his calling range that you want to get it in pre.

As played I call, if Adam folded I ship for value since he's calling AJ/AQ.

[shronk]

Jimmy and Daniel discuss the hand on video here - http://www.pokerroad.com/blogfessional/road_clips/6/