A♥K♥ Facing a Preflop 3-Bet, what do you do here?
DECISION POINT: In a Tournament where blinds are 400/800 with a 800 big blind ante you raise to 2,000 from Under the Gun with A♥K♥. It folds around to the Big Blind who 3-bets to 6,000. Action is on you, what do you do here?
PRO ANSWER: We are playing in the later stages of a tournament with 400/800 blinds and an 800 chip big blind ante. We are dealt AhKh UTG and make a standard raise to 2,000. Everyone folds to the Big Blind who makes it 6,000 chips.
This is an interesting spot because in this situation the Big Blind has a narrower 3-betting range than most of the other spots at the table. The Big Blind has the option to close the action and see a flop for just 1,200 additional chips getting nearly 3.5:1 pot odds on their money.
With the great price our opponent is getting to call, many hands that might be part of a 3-betting range from other positions at the table can become calls as a part of a big blind defense strategy. Against a good, aggressive Big Blind you will be facing a range that will become quite polarized here and often include only very strong hands such as QQ+/AK with some bluffs such as A4s/A5s.
Continued below...
You will run into some players here who will include very few, if any, bluffs in their range in this spot and only raise a more linear hand range such as JJ+/AK. Against these specific players there is a lot of merit to just calling and playing a pot in position.
In this case, with no player knowledge we are assuming that our opponent is a reasonably competent player who will include bluffs in their range here and our hand has far too much preflop equity to pass up a spot to move all-in here.
Moving all-in is the best play.
How would you play it?
Share your answer in the comments below!
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