What Would Daniel Do? (WWDD) 8/15/08

Well, tonight I actually played poker with people that I can see. LOL. I played in our weekly home game. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I'm trying to transition to be more of a small ball player. I've read Daniel Negreanu's Small Ball chapter in his latest book to try and help with learning the style. He is probably the poster child for this style of play. Undoubtedly, there will be some growing pains coming from more of a long ball style.

Here is the situation in question.

We started with $5k stacks. The levels are 30 minutes. At this point in time, the blinds are 75/150, I have about $3600 in chips and I am the big blind. We are 8-handed. A loose passive lady(UTG+3) limps for $150, the button a solid player that hasn't been out of line makes it $550. The small blind folds. I look down at AKo. There is $925 in the pot and about 15 minutes left in this level. The limper can have a very wide range of hands. I think her range includes Ace rag, small pairs, small connectors and hands like KT, QT, JT. If she had a big broadway hand or premium pair she would raise. The button wouldn't raise with a very wide range. Something like, 88+, KJ+, AT+. Obviously, I can't fold. So my dilemma was, do I raise or do I call? If I raise, how much?

The limper had about $4k behind and the button had about $7k. The pot represented just shy of a third of my stack. After posting the blind, I had 23 big blinds remaining. If I had around 10 BBs, this would be an obvious shove. My stack size is in the tricky area for me, 15-25 BBs. Raise folding would be a horrible play, so I decided to shove to "resteal". Unfortunately, the button wasn't trying to steal the pot. He woke up with Aces and they held. GG Me.

I try not to be results oriented. Of course, if I knew he had Aces, I would have folded. My questions around this hand are in relation to my "new" style of MTT play. Since I am trying to be a small ball player, should i have just called the $400 and see what developed on the flop? Everything that I have read from Negreanu emphasizes keeping the pot small. But he also stresses playing in position. So I was faced with keeping the pot small, but having to play the hand out of position or take my usual long ball approach and try to take down the pot right there. So my question is What Would Daniel Do?