Here are 3 situations from different, live, MTTs. What is your preflop play in each of these situations?

1. It's during the rebuy period. You are UTG, with about 1800 chips. The blinds are 50/100. You are dealt AKs and open the pot for 400. UTG+1 is a below-average player, slightly loose, and slightly aggressive with a hand. He flat calls. All folds to a player in the CO+1, whose style you don't know very well and who has you outchipped by about 100 chips. He re-raises to 1000. After folds back to you, what is your play?


2. It's during the freeze-out period. The blinds are 400/800, and you are in the BB with about 4700 chips before posting the blind. All folds to the button, an average player who is loose and somewhat passive, and who has about 4800 chips. He opens the pot for 1600. The SB folds to you, and you have AKs. What is your play?


3. It's during the freeze-out period. The blinds are 100/200, and you are in the BB with about 2700 chips before posting the blind. All folds to the button, an above-average player who is tight and aggressive, and who has about 1700 chips. He opens the pot for 1000. The SB folds to you, and you have AKo. What is your play?

All in baby.

1) allin

2) allin

3) 9 times out of 10 allin


These are situations where you need to see all five cards with AK to make it pay off long term.

Wheeeeee! Push chipies!

Definately all-in in each case.

On a side note that probably I only got enjoyment out of, I read beave's "all-in baby" while scotty was on his icon so i read it in scotty's voice in my head.

The same thing happened to me hankey, it was kind of cool.

1. Push
2. Push
3. This is a bad situation. He is committing himself to the pot. It looks like he wants to get all-in, but wants to get more chips out of you, thinking a straight push pre-flop may make you fold. Is KK a possiblity here? On that note, I still say you push.

Originally Posted by Marm

1)
3) Well You're screwed. You push and hes gotta call, perhaps with a pair. You call and hes goign to push on the flop. You gotta push now and hope hes playing AQ AJ.

Why are you screwed? You only have 2700 in chips anyway, who cares if he has a pair?

Thanks, guys. It sounds like the consensus is to push in each time, and that's exactly what I did. None of my pushes worked out well for me, and after several failures pushing in with AK (including some additional scenarios that I did not list where the push was clear cut), I wanted a check on whether I was playing too aggressively with this hand.

Here's how each hand worked out:

1. I pushed, causing the UTG+1 to fold. The CO+1 called with pocket 8s. I got no help from the board and was busted.

For what it's worth, my reasoning was that it cost me 600 more chips to call, leaving me with only 800 chips in a pot that would have over 2400 chips in it. Thus, I figured no matter what came on the flop, I'd probably be all in any way, and at least by pushing, I might get the re-raiser to fold. As it was, others at the table were sort of surprised that he called me and felt that it was gutsy on his part to call with the hand he had.


2. I pushed, and the button called with KQo. He spiked a Q on the flop and knocked me out of the tournament.

My reasoning was that the button raise did not show any real strength (I was thinking either two painted cards or a medium pair) and that putting him nearly all in might cause a fold. If he called with a pair, I figured that I would be in a coin flip situation, which would be ok with me. The blinds were so high in relation to my stack that I was in all-in or fold mode anyway, and so this was as good a match up as I could hope for. I was pleased when I saw his cards, but despite being a 3-1 favorite, I took the worst of it.


3. I pushed, and the button reluctantly called, showing JTo. He was trying to steal, and he thought I'd fold because of how tight I was playing. The flop came down AKQ, giving me top two-pair, but my opponent a straight. The loss crippled me, and I went out a few hands later after my AJ lost to KQs when a Q when a Q fell on the turn.

My reasoning here was that I figured that I was no worse than a coin flip. I didn't think he had KK or AA because the bet was too large. I read him as trying to discourage action, which turned out to be right. It worked out for him anyway.

Thanks for all the input.