Interesting situation with a shortstack pushing the river....

[boondockst]

I had a feeling i was splitting this with the shortstack so am i better off just calling and hope the villain "overcalls" or raising and hope he calls anyway? The flop was checked, the turn was underbet and he again underbets the river but I feel he has AK/AQ

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/6246/split6jk.jpg

[unlucky513]

this isn't interesting. easy push.

[boondockst]

easy push because the original bettor will automatically call any bet? I don't see how it's anywhere near an "easy push"

He has underbet the pot and sees two go all in after him and you think he'll call? nevermind if the replies are this thoughtless Maybe you're not familiar with overcalls in limit poker....

Maybe you just thought this was a post about whether or not I thought i was winning the hand?

[djoyce003]

this is highly read dependent but i'd just call hoping for the overcall.

[unlucky513]

anyone else think that just calling says "i've got the nuts" louder than pushing does?

well.. maybe not in this situation because of the shortstack. but in general, would you agree?

[jtr]

[ QUOTE ]
anyone else think that just calling says "i've got the nuts" louder than pushing does?

[/ QUOTE ]

I see your argument, but we're dealing with a guy who bets $3 into a $12 pot. I don't believe he is likely to be thinking on a particularly high level.

If we put him on AK or similar, I think I'd go for the overcall as the pot odds will make it too tempting for him. Whereas to this guy the push will indeed look like the nuts as it's what he'd do with the nuts.

[kongo_totte]

Call, and wait for original aggressor to bluff into the empty side pot, which I see alot in these stakes /images/graemlins/laugh.gif.

[chumsferd]

[ QUOTE ]
I had a feeling i was splitting this with the shortstack so am i better off just calling and hope the villain "overcalls" or raising and hope he calls anyway? The flop was checked, the turn was underbet and he again underbets the river but I feel he has AK/AQ

[/ QUOTE ]

The short answer, assuming...

...you are sure you are splitting with the shortstack...
...you are sure the villian will call everytime if you overcall (just to keep things practical)...

...then you have to have your push called about 25% of the time by the villian to make the push more profitable than the overcall.

With some stats / reads on the villian, I could probably give you a concrete answer. I have no idea about the general characteristics of players in the $25 games, though, so I'd just be guessing if I gave you a call / raise answer. What's his hand range? and what's the 25% of those hands that will call a push? That's the question you need to be asking yourself...

[Niwa]

Just call and hope to get some more by the other player calling or going all-in himself. Worst option imo is to push all-in which could make him fold. Pot seems to be pretty swollen so a call or a bluff all-in is likely. If he has got a hand the money will go in anyways.

[chumsferd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
anyone else think that just calling says "i've got the nuts" louder than pushing does?

[/ QUOTE ]

I see your argument, but we're dealing with a guy who bets $3 into a $12 pot. I don't believe he is likely to be thinking on a particularly high level.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true. The question of levels if quite interesting. The OP puts the villian on AK or AQ. If the OP is indeed splitting with the short stack, that means there are 6 ways the OP can have AK and 9 ways he can have AQ. If the villian is not thinking on a very high level, is there a chance he could get married to AQ here? He doesn't even have to get married to it every time... in fact if he only calls with AQ a little more than half the times he has it, you'd be +EV on a push.

If he's thinking on a low level, then top two pair might be hard for him to get away from... on that kind of level he's just thinking that he has top two pair, and top two pair is a HUGE hand compared to what he's been folding for the last hour... Even though, I agree, a push screams nuts, it could be too much of a fold with AQ for a typical $25 player... I dunno, just a thought, I have no idea about these guys really...

[boondockst]

based on how the table had been playing, it seemed obvious that the shortstack had KJ and I thought that just calling the raise would look more like "I want to get to a showdown" more than anything

There's been many times a shortstack go all in for ~$3 at the table preflop and sometimes 4 people coldcall it whereas if it's a larger stack raising to $3, the same people would not call. The oringal bettor did indeed have AQ and I still feel that given how timid he played the hand (checked flop, underbet turn/river) an all-in raise and all-in reraise would probably have pushed him off the hand.