Calling range

A lot surely depends on how good a player you are ? If I'm playing in a game where I think I'm comfortably the best player at the table ( which is most of the time )I try not to get too carried away with finding a spot to take the maniacs on all in pre. Obviously I want his chips, but I dont get too obsessed with it, and will probably only call with AK and QQ+.

If I'm playing in a tourney where there are a lot of better players than me, and I feel I will need considerable luck to go deep, such as the Championship, then I'm happy to take him on with 99+, and AK, AQ, probably even AJ and A 10 suited.

Must be a PP for me to call a lunatic who I dont have suitably covered - i would call 99 and above.

If he is table daddy and open shoving, you can wait till he has blown most of his chips before taking him on with carp.

I might add i am often tempted to call with AK but I think making an AK call when he has you covered would bad play.

If you call with 99 you must call with AK a hand that stands up really well in a showdown surely ?


Totally dominates the Ax hands the villian has been shoving with, and obviously fares better against hands he is deffo shoving like K10, KJ, KQ than 99.

I'm deffo never folding AK or AQ here.

Same range as chip for me. You have to call with AK/AQ for the reasons mentioned.

so if the chap shoves a small pair, are you prepared to flip with Ace high?

A person who ships like a maniac will usually be shipping it on a small pp or a rag ace. I much prefer to have my chips all in with a made hand.

just out of interest chip & sven,  what are your top 3 tourney results?

I dont really play that many MTT'S because of work/family committments. The dog also gets hacked off if I'm sat at the computer for more than an hour and a half at a time.

Ive won packages to both WSOPE and WSOP via frerolls on here ,the first was via the STAX promo I think, and had about 700 runners, most of whom were decent players, so finishing first there was pleasing.

I won the old $4444 MTT on Betfair and the $2222 a couple of times, but thats about it.

I should play them more often now I've got a bit of spare time.

"The dog also gets hacked off if I'm sat at the computer for more than an hour and a half at a time."

Lol, same ere Chip, my dog hates it when im playing poker online, in fact, ive only gotta tut when i get beat and she leaves the room

im with the  klup on this 1.
if he does it often enough, the medimum to high pp will come soon enough to make it the correct play.

i mainly asked as i thought you and sven were generally stt players and your calling range is typically stt. No need to put your tourney at real risk.

AK & AQ, and smaller pp's are tournament destroying hands. Last proper tournament i won (Full tilt nearly a full year ago) I folded AQ and 77 in mid/late position after table donk raised from early position. Both turned out to be good folds. Those two hands both result in table donk losing chips to someone behind me but both times i was behind to his AK and TT respectively. He ran into QQ and KK.

I know i sound like a doofus as I call with a lot of carp more often than not, but when i have my level head on and playing my best, i do try to avoid getting it all in with less than QQ at a deep stage of tourneys.

Well I did say initially :

If I'm playing in a game where I think I'm comfortably the best player at the table ( which is most of the time )I try not to get too carried away with finding a spot to take the maniacs on all in pre. Obviously I want his chips, but I dont get too obsessed with it, and will probably only call with AK and QQ+.

Looking at the hands he's shoved with ( A 10 , A 2 , 7 8, Q 9 ) I'm happy to take him on with AK, not least because hes shoving all Ax hands, and probably most Kx suited hands which you dominate. Your 99 is racing against a lot of his shoving range anyway ak,aq,aj,a10,kq,kj,k10,q10,qj,10j, and is in a bad way against 10 10, jj, and qq, all hands, you are in better shape with holding AK.

Once you have reached the stage in a massive MTT like this where the bubble has burst, you cant really turn down the opportunity to double up via the table maniac if like me you have a lower skill level than a lot of the field. Okay with the antes our hero has 29 bbs, so he isn't at desperation point, but if you throw away AK here you probably wont get many better spots, and the double up puts you in with a real handy stack to bully with.

I was up $30K last year on betfair playing MTTs and my life ROI in them is around 100%.  I actually prefer playing them to anything else. 

I just don't fancy the inevitable 3/4 losing months a year when I am playing for a living.

I called with AQs but think this was a borderline mistake. My thinking at the time was that he was shoving any ace, any two picture cards (most of which I had crushed), any king,  plus most suited cards, most connected cards and some others random hands (Looking at this pretty much any two!). If I win the pot I am in the top 10 stacks giving me a good stack to steal and be aggressive and a good chance of a very deep run.

I think at the time I may have underestimated the frequency he was shoving low-medium suited, connected and random hands – Hands which AQ isn’t that far ahead against.

If he was just shoving any ace, 2 picture cards and pairs I think I still get it in here. I have him crushed the majority of the time

The result was he had J10o and hit  - obviously!

I’m not sure it is an awful call but I was quite comfortable at that stage, there were lots of short stacks and I was stealing enough blinds to wait for a better spot. Plus, although not a huge factor, I do have to consider there are 3 players to act behind. I am an adequate MTT player with good stats and have FT’d the CC twice so felt I was one of the better players given the number of satellite donks in this tourney.

The villain moved into the top 5 and was out 30 minutes later!! Someone must have held and been gifted a nice stack!

Fergie give an exact range you think he is shoving with and we can poker stove it.  Dont forget you had AQs which is adding another couple of % to your equity than just AQ.

My guess is that AQs will be very close to having the same equity as 99. Would you have called with that?

The call is absolutely clear and fine.  From the description, you must be at least 60/40 vs his range, and his range must be something like 50% of hands.  You wait for better spots than this you are going to bleed chips long run.

Pokerstove shows AQs has 64% against a range of 50%. Funnily enough 99 is almost exactly the same.

I had every confidence in Sven getting the maths right.

Just for interest I pokerstoved him with a 40% shove range to give a bit of safety margin and allow for the possible monster behind.

I am close to 60/40 with this lot 77+,A8s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+,QJo

AQs did seem massive to me, but that goes lower than I would have thought.  Top of my head I would have gone 88+, ATo+, A9s, KQo, KJs+.  I think if you wait for TT+ and AK, someone is going to get in before and snap him with worse.

You'd have to narrow all these ranges if he was utg and you were utg+1.

A more interesting question would be what would your range be if someone had called in front.

With two all in ahead of me I'm only calling with AA or KK.

Obviously depends on the callers image but I think I'm calling here with QQ-AA + AKs.

My calling range: 99+/AJo/ATs/KQo with 3 still to act and all looking to stack off the nutter.
With someone calling in front though I'm tempted to add JJ and AKo to Fergie's range dependent on image though presume they are looking for taking these chips before being donked off.
But that's probably why I'm a low stakes player myself.

I agree with Doobs waiting for a smaller range means that someone else is likely to get 'em first.

AQ v a nutter and a decent chance to get a significant stack to go deep is what I would go with.

Interested in the comments as I'd like to get better in finding the right answer in these spots. I've just a gut feeling that I'm playing too tight at these stages with those type of stacks/blinds.

2 5 and be greek/cypriot