Jonathan Little's Opponent Makes a Blunder by Calling His All-In Too Wide
Today's hand comes from a European Poker Tour side event — a no-limit hold'em tournament with a €2,000 buy-in — and the focus this time is on a decision my opponent made in the hand as opposed to what I did.
We were beyond the initial levels with the blinds up to 500/1,000 with a 100 ante, and the action began with a good, tight-aggressive young player min-raising to 2,000 from second position (UTG+1) out of his 12,000-chip stack.
It folded to me a couple of seats over where I had about 22,000 and had been dealt A♥K♦. This is a spot where I'd normally shove all in, and that's exactly what I did (see the video below for some explanation of my shoving range here).
Then a recreational player in the cutoff calls my all-in reraise, effectively putting himself all in as well — he leaves just 8,000 behind. The question is with which hands should he be calling?
Take a look at the video to hear me dissect the caller's range and also determine the optimal calling range in such spot — that is, after a good player raises from early position and a competent one reshoves a 21-big blind stack.
As I mention in the video, ace-queen suited is hard hand for many recreational players to fold in this spot, even though it falls outside the very tight range of hands you should be calling with after a raise and reraise-shove.
What would you have done in this spot? Would you have called off too loosely in this situation?
Jonathan Little is a professional poker player and author with over $6,300,000 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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