Ace-King Suited: Easy Call for 30 Big Blinds?

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Jonathan Little

Today I want to look at a hand that represents a fairly common spot that comes up in tournaments — having to make a preflop decision whether or not to play for stacks with ace-king.

In this particular tournament, the blinds were 250/500 with a 75 ante, and with close to 14,000 behind I was dealt AK under the gun and raised to 1,100.

Three players called — the next player over (UTG+1), the button, and the small blind. Then the big blind reraise-shoved all in for just about the same 14,000 stack with which I started the hand.

The action was back on me, and I had two choices — to fold, or to call the all in for a little less than 30 big blinds.

Take a look at what I chose to do and listen to the reasoning behind my decision:

I wasn't folding AK here. But while my call might well have been easy, the real question is whether or not my opponent should have pushed with KQ. As I discuss, just calling rather than going for the squeeze-shove would've been a better choice.

Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,600,000 in live tournament earnings. He writes a weekly educational blog and hosts a podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanLittle.

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