AJ from the Hijack Deep in the 5050

[Dr Fill Good]

An interesting hand came up in the 5050 tonight. Lappin was cruising along, had a couple sick beats which prevented him from having a massive stack to run over the field with. He bounced back from a small stack to having around 142 000 with the blinds at 5000/10 000, with antes around 1000 at the final two tables.

So he wakes up from the hijack position with AJ. Pretty decent hand, the sb and bb are relatively big stacked with between 240 000 and 320 000. It is folded to Lappin what is your play.

-----Added 28 Apr 2009 at 06:44:56-----

Really like to hear everyone's thought process on this, its a tricky spot. (And I mis-spelled awkward in the poll)

[Chipless Wonder]

Good thread, and I think this is an interesting spot that will generate some good discussion.

Make a standardish raise to 2.4x the bb

This is what I think LAPPIN would do, however I would just push here.

[pegboy1]

Standardish raise........should be an easy steal. This late the blinds arent going to care about a steal unless they are sitting big. This way its an easy fold should one of them wake up with a real hand.

[ThrillCory90]

This is what I think LAPPIN would do, however I would just push here.

I am completely clueless on what to do here. Just out of couriosity, what is the worst hand that you would push in this spot or is AJ the worst hand. Are you pushing small pps here too?

[Quirmbach]

I do the standard raise to stay consistant. If it is me sitting in Lappins seat, I have been stealing a decent amount, so I am likely to get 3 bet by something that shouldn't be 3 betting.

[Dr Fill Good]

Here I am to shake stuff up. Raising 5x the big blind is imo the best option.

If you make the hypothetical raise to 2.4x what do you do if someone three-bets you? Late in a tournament the range for three-betting from solid players is any pocket pair, any ace, decent kings and suited connectors. Also it gives the relative big stacks in the sb and bb the option to flat call and have you in a very tough spot. You are left with around 12bb, and the if either blinds calls then fires on the flop that missed you, then you are left in a super tough spot.

The raise to 5X the big blind accomplishes a few things, its basically an all in play but has several advantages over the all in shove. Most likely you take down the pot preflop, you eliminate the option for players to 3-bet you light. There range tightens to 99+(maybe as low as 88 or 77 depending on the player) and AQ+. Also a ton of hands that would 3-bet you if you made the standard raise might flat call, giving you the chance to fire on the flop and take down a significant pot. This is basically a funky stop and go play capable of drastically increasing your stack. This gives a much higher % of steal success.

Rebuttals anyone?

[Vestvik7]

Open shoving is unexploitable +EV both for cEV and $EV. And thats what ill do.

Do not now why, but I dont like taking a flopp here. If my opponents defend they're blinds by flatting I would hate betting 1/5 of my stack then folding to Kd8s7c donk bet on flopp. Since sb and bb are bigstacks I see this happen farely often.

If my opponents 3-bets alot I would open they're range with a 2,4/3 bbs raise and fistpumpsnappcall a shove.

[peroxide_stings]

folding in this spot screams -ev imo...so fold is out. My philosophy is that I never change the bet amount pre unless these situations arise....raise in front of me, my stack is small enough a shove is needed to protect my hand, or I feel a larger raise will induce a weak sb/bb player to play back at me with weak holdings. Thus I see a standard 2.4 raise here and reevalute based obv on reads and such to further action preflop.

[pulpfunction]

This is a really tuff spot with many right answers. I would make what ever raise I have been making in this spot (most likely 2.5x). I should have been stealing alot of pots from late pos so if i get repopped I can think about calling or folding depending on how often i have been getting 3 bet in the past. I don't hate the all in shove i think it is +ev and unexplotiable. The thing i like most about make a standard riase is so often you get a call and a check fold. If the board comes to coordinited you can always check behind and think about a steal on the turn. If you get donk bet into i can fold here even if i have 20% of my stack in.

[Vestvik7]

The raise to 5X the big blind accomplishes a few things, its basically an all in play but has several advantages over the all in shove. Most likely you take down the pot preflop, you eliminate the option for players to 3-bet you light. There range tightens to 99+(maybe as low as 88 or 77 depending on the player) and AQ+. Also a ton of hands that would 3-bet you if you made the standard raise might flat call, giving you the chance to fire on the flop and take down a significant pot. This is basically a funky stop and go play capable of drastically increasing your stack. This gives a much higher % of steal success.

Rebuttals anyone?

We got AJ. You wanna tighten they're playable range to AQ+ if we feels it is a spot were we could get 3-bett by A-rag? We got AJ. Why would we want to limit theyre range to hands that got us beat?

I look at it like this:

5x/shove: All hands which got AJ beat are going to play against us.

contra you raise 2,4x/3x and is afraid to call a 3-bett? The hands that got AJ beat is dead sertain not going anywhere anyway. So as stated in my opion we need to open his range here.

I want the chips in the middel here. And I dont like seeing a flopp, but I think openshoving and 2,4/3 if there has been a lot of three betting is very close EV like.

Bet/fold is bad in my opinion.