Had a tough hand as seen above in the 8pm $35K. With pretty short stacks at this stage I knew the two guys to my right were tough active players and I had been resteal shoving on them a couple times in the previous rounds. This to me is a great spot but I was giving myself second thoughts as the action went down. The man in the cutoffs raise is standard 2.5x and after I see that i am positive I will not fold this hand, unless one thing happens - the button player JUST raises. The reason I feel the just raise feels so strong is that he has essentially committed himself (I know that I will never make this move and fold at this stage in the tournament with less than 20bbs. I would almost prefer his 3bet shove because his range is so much wider and I can beat most of it and will be racing against about a third of it. I decide that the button knows enough about this open raise that he will obviously not fold. He issue also is he has to know from playing with me that I will realize he is committed. From this deduction I know he will not fold but the fact that he just raised means he probably has a weaker hand (being that he will attempt to get me to fold a small portion of my range that he cant beat ie AQ, AJ, 88-1010, perhaps JJ. I dont think he will expect me to fold AK but in this case he may have eliminated some of my calling hands that he cant beat. After I shove the initial raiser folds and the button tanks and I thought for a second that he may just fold and avoid almost surely being a 4.5-1 dog and save his 11 bbs for another hand. He did make the call and I was out on a K736K board. I played it well but 119 of 1618 is not what I came out for.
The reason for the title is that there were about five times tonight that people have played hands so strong against me when I have had AK that I have almost fold in what I would determine as a 'no fold AK zone' (aka 20bbs to one raise or 15bbs to one steal raise and a 3bet). In these spots people were putting me to the test where considering the situation I thought the bottom of their range was AK or QQ. In 1 occasion I did call off and the opponent had AA - that is going to happen. In two occasions I folded and one time the opposing player had Isolated with k10o to two allins after small raising utg!! He lost to one of the allin AQ - which my AK would have beat for the chip lead with 80 people left. In the other time I folded to an iso shove the other player had AQ. I called off twice successfully and beat AQ and AJ. Im not serious in that I wont ever fold AK again as its pretty routine early in tournaments but I just have to realize that people are playing more aggressively in every aspect of the game.
I was very happy with how I played tonight. One of the AK to AQ i lost was for 3rd in chips of the daily double b with 35 people left. UTG raised 2.2x with 25bbs and I rerasie to 5.2x with 25bbs from HJ. He crammed and I called with AK and lost to his rivered flush.
3/8 in tourneys tonight and a slight loss but the key is that I am giving myself chances to get deep. The luck part is there some nights and not others. If I give myself a chance every night the luck with be there eventually.
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