Unorthodox move in a live game

[Ghazban]

First some background to put the move in context. Live 1/2 game in the city. There are 8 players at the table but usually only 7 in any given hand as somebody is always getting up to go for a smoke, piss, food, or whatever. There is nobody at the table who hasn't played at least two sessions before with me. I am generally unpredictable in this game, raising and betting more as a function of the situation than as a function of the strength of my hand. On this particular evening, I decided I was going to play nothing but pairs and AK outside of an unraised BB and see if this strategy would be profitable. We've been playing about 2.5 hours and I've shown down two hands, AK and JT. Oddly, both hands chopped unimproved, though I did raise the AK preflop, then raised a bet on the flop with no pair and no draw (turn and river of that hand were checked through and my opponent also had AK).

I'm talking a lot at the table and busting people's chops over silly, irrelevant things. Every time somebody pauses a long time before betting/calling, I say something along the lines of "you should just go all-in, then you won't need to make any more tough decisions". I think it gets under people's skin sometimes, but its generally lighthearted and, as I do all the time, won't be construed as unethically talking about a hand I'm not involved in.

On to the hand in question. As the cards are being dealt, I'm badgering the guy next to me who folded to a big turn bet the previous hand, saying stuff like "you should've gone all-in, he wouldnt' call", etc. Then I say, "man, nobody listens to me, maybe I should just go all-in this hand".

Its folded to me in the CO, button and both blinds have me covered. I look at my hand to see black tens and push for $80.

You like?

[Ghazban]

I should also add that the players in this game are generally rather aggressive. About 70% of pots are raised preflop and there are rarely more than 3 seeing a flop. The players at the table when this happened are decent, but with a tendency towards overaggressiveness with draws and TPGK hands postflop. There have been some pretty impressive bluff-catching calls in the past as well (earlier on this evening, a guy called a large river bet with Q-high and it was good).

[orange]

If you think you can get all the money in the middle as a large favorite, I like it. Kind've depends on the players and your (maniacal/tight) image I think. If the looser ones will call your all in with A8s, 22-88, etc., then I think its a good move.

Intrested to see the results.

[jkamowitz]

Assuming this is the game I think it is. I dont think you're going to make any more than 3 dollars on this hand. Or. . you're going to lose 80. You only have three opponents left and unless one of them wakes up with AA,KK,QQ, JJ(maybe) they're folding. The only equity here I think would be to continuously do this to the point of annoying people. Then, when you do pick up AA and move in for nth time, they'll call. I do think you can put in a big raise here and maybe get a caller but an all in I doubt it.

[Ghazban]

It is the game you think it is and the 3 players behind me were JR (button), Big John (SB), and Ken (BB)-- does that affect your answer at all?

[MLerra]

Hope you bought something nice with your $3.

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
Hope you bought something nice with your $3.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got called, but beyond that I'll save the results for later.

[Marcotte]

I don't know the players or the game but I don't see you getting called by a hand that you dominate often enough to make it worth it. Usually you will see a higher pair or at least two overs. Or do these guys just hate money?

[joecacti]

Unorthodox, but it's a tough hand to play. Why not make a standard raise to get rid of Ax and KJ, and go from there? Caveat: I'm weak-tight live.

It seems that this kind of raise might just get called by a huge stack looking for an easy gamble at 80 bucks, and AJ with a huge stack might just make that call.

I say standard raise to define your opposition, see the flop in position, and go from there.

[wtfsvi]

I push here too, after I said I would. (Only if they noticed that you said it before you looked at your cards, but as I understand it, you were chatting before the cards were dealt?)

I'm not sure it has higher EV than a standard raise, but I think it's positive. And if you don't get called you get to not show, and you have cultivated some image. (Since you are going to play with these boys again.)

Not to mention it's more fun.

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
Unorthodox, but it's a tough hand to play. Why not make a standard raise to get rid of Ax and KJ, and go from there? Caveat: I'm weak-tight live.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would I want to get rid of Ax and KJ? I'm beating both those hands.

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that this kind of raise might just get called by a huge stack looking for an easy gamble at 80 bucks, and AJ with a huge stack might just make that call.

[/ QUOTE ]
Fantastic; AJ calling here is +EV for me (slightly +EV, but the $3 in blinds doesn't give AJ the necessary overlay to take the wrong side of a 55/45 propositon).

[ QUOTE ]
I say standard raise to define your opposition, see the flop in position, and go from there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My standard with this hand would be to raise, take a flop, and play it from there. The odd all-in overbet here came just because I happened to pick up a good hand right after my comment about how I should push all-in since nobody else was willing to.

[DoomSlice]

Me no likey... play some poker.

[Ghazban]

I made this move based on the fact that my push would get significantly less respect due to my previous comment. Button and SB mucked pretty quickly and BB asked how much it was. As the dealer counted it down, I kept up the chatter with the guy who had folded the previous hand, saying stuff like "see, this is easy, you just push the chips in and then you don't have to worry anymore" and other lighthearted coffeehousing. BB is smart enough to know that my bravado could be a "don't call me" act or a reverse-reverse psychology "please call me" act. He finally said, "all right, I call". I flipped up my tens, he didn't show but, from his body language, I'm fairly sure he had a smaller pair. The board came 9724Q, he mucked, and I doubled through.

[jkkkk]

risky.

unless these players are stupid, i'm sure this is going to be -EV in the long run

but i guess you had fun doing it and that is what is important, break up the monotony /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
risky.

unless these players are stupid, i'm sure this is going to be -EV in the long run

but i guess you had fun doing it and that is what is important, break up the monotony /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

One benefit of weird off-the-wall plays is that you never see the long run /images/graemlins/tongue.gif. The nerdiest part of it all was that, as BB was deliberating, I decided I'd post the hand here no matter what the result (as all the decision-making on my part had been done by then, the results were essentially irrelevant). Obviously, if somebody woke up with AA-JJ, I'd look like a complete idiot, but the potential of getting called by a worse hand due to my table presence at the time made it an interesting situation IMO.

[jkkkk]

fair play.

[pzhon]

It's unorthodox, but not that risky since you only had 40 BB.

If everyone reacts perfectly to this push, you have about a 6% chance to lose $50 on average, and a 94% chance to win $3. That means you roughly break even if you turn your TT face up.

Since you don't show the TT as you push, you might get JJ or QQ to fold, or you might get called by a smaller pair, or someone with AK might call (you gain $8 relative to picking up the blinds).

[Ghazban]

[ QUOTE ]
It's unorthodox, but not that risky since you only had 40 BB.

If everyone reacts perfectly to this push, you have about a 6% chance to lose $50 on average, and a 94% chance to win $3. That means you roughly break even if you turn your TT face up.

Since you don't show the TT as you push, you might get JJ or QQ to fold, or you might get called by a smaller pair, or someone with AK might call (you gain $8 relative to picking up the blinds).

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for doing the math; I meant to do it but didn't get around to it at work. My at-the-table instincts felt TT was close to being +EV; if I'd had nines, I don't think I would've done it and, with a bigger pair, I would've been more comfortable.

[TheWorstPlayer]

Wait, you looked at the cards BEFORE pushing? Cheater...

[soah]

Your opponents would have to be complete morons to believe that you're going to push with any two cards simply because of anything you said prior to the hand. And even if they do happen to believe that you're pushing here with trash, they still need a pretty good hand to call you with. And you're not a favorite against that range of hands.

[boondockst]

Would you have pushed with 99? ATo?

[wtfsvi]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Svar på:</font><hr />
Would you have pushed with 99? ATo?

[/ QUOTE ]

TT is quite borderline for this, and as I stated, I think a standard raise probably would have higher EV. If the people I was playing with were idiots, I'd do it with 99-88 and AKs maybe. These guys weren't idiots though, as I understand it, so TT is probably as low as I'd go. And I wouldn't feel too comfortable=)

[TheWorstPlayer]

I'm bored so I'm going to tell my story (again) about saying that I was going all in next hand and then pushing all in next hand with AKs only to be called by AA which held up. Once at UB, I said I was going all in next hand and then I pushed all in next hand with AKs only to be called by AA which held up.

[jeccross]

I love plays like this, one of my favourites is if you get AA just after losing a pot, the all in preflop just screams of tilt