Too aggressive?

[durron597]

Both my opponent and I have been playing EXTREMELY aggressively (I started my aggression at 5 handed, he's been aggressive all tourney). We've been chasing steal raises post flop with nothing (at least I have), its been pretty brutal. Though the other two players are letting us get away with it, so we've had some swings between us but mostly we are taking the other two player's money. I began 4 handed with 2100 or so, Villian began it with 5500 or so.

Seat 2: UTG ($3,155 in chips)
Seat 5: Button ($1,910 in chips)
Seat 6: durron597 [A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, 5/images/graemlins/spade.gif] ($3,865 in chips)
Seat 9: BB (Villian) ($6,070 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
durron597 posts blind ($50), Villian posts blind ($100).

PRE-FLOP
UTG folds, Button folds, durron597 bets $200, Villian calls $150.

FLOP [board cards 8/images/graemlins/club.gif,9/images/graemlins/spade.gif,8/images/graemlins/heart.gif ]
durron597 bets $500, skipka bets $2,000, durron597 bets $3,115 and is all-in, skipka calls $1,615.

Results and my thought processes to come.

[slogger]

Yes. Doesn't matter if you know this guy will reraise your flop bet with 23o. The fact is that your tangling with the only stack who can break you and you don't even have a hand or a reasonable draw (and even if the 8 was a spade, I'd disagree with the push).

Why aren't you content to build your stack by stealing from the weak-passive smaller stacks and meanwhile avoid the risk of busting?

[Sam T.]

Is there some sort of typo in your post? I look at the flop and you have gone all-in with Ace high, five kicker, and a backdoor flush draw. What exactly do you see as your outs here? Or do you think you're ahead?

TPFAP notes that in tournament play (especially on the bubble if memory serves), you should not [censored] with the big stacks unless you are sure you can take down the pot. You have taken on the one guy who can bust you, and done so with terrible cards. Win or lose, this was not a +EV play.

[TheDrone]

I don't see how the min pf raise does you any good. Complete the SB if you want to see a cheap flop, or make a legitimate raise if there is a good chance the villain will fold. The only exception is if you are sure that the villain would read your min pfr as a huge hand.

[durron597]

Firstly, the only "typo" is that I didn't minraise, I raised to 2.5xBB... perhaps the blinds arent big enough yet for that to be a valid raise amount?

Anyway, are you saying that there is no level of aggressiveness where this is the right play? I was sure that this guy would not play it the same way if he had an 8 or a 9; he would have raised preflop with a small pocket pair (the fact that he called the raise was very unusual, I had only seen him do that with total crap before). Also if he had an 8 or a 9 I am sure he would not have bet such a large amount that I would be very likely to fold. So I played it as I did because I felt my Ace high was good.

TURN [board cards 8/images/graemlins/club.gif,9/images/graemlins/spade.gif,8/images/graemlins/heart.gif,10/images/graemlins/heart.gif ]


RIVER [board cards 8/images/graemlins/club.gif,9/images/graemlins/spade.gif,8/images/graemlins/heart.gif,10/images/graemlins/heart.gif,A/images/graemlins/club.gif ]


SHOWDOWN
durron597 shows [ A/images/graemlins/spade.gif,5/images/graemlins/spade.gif ]
Villian shows [ 6/images/graemlins/spade.gif,4/images/graemlins/spade.gif ]
durron597 wins $7,730.

I just felt like his raise without a preflop raise smelled so much like a bluff that this was the right play; really want I want to know, even given my correct read, is this still a situation where I want to fold?

[Jason Strasser]

You have to trust your gut in poker. This play looks mighty strange on paper, because you have virtually no folding equity coming over the top of his raise, and because you are on the bubble and don't need to take an unneccessary risk like this. I would tend to say that against an opponent like this, you could probably wait for a better spot and a better time. Tangling with a marginal hand against a big stack with the second stack is not something you want to find yourself doing often.

That said, you played this as if you had the best hand. Ace high is not a great hand, but if you really felt that confident that you had the best hand, your line is acceptable. It is very shaky though, but no one can tell you that you played this hand wrong. You certainly took a huge risk, maybe what could be considered an unnecessary risk, but it is not wrong. This just has to be a move you only use against a very, very specific opponent, and if you have a very specific read. (IE, he will make huge reraises like this with nothing, or that he is far too protective of his blinds).

You won't find very helpful tips about this hand by reading responses on 2+2. This hand is all about you: What you felt, what your read was. Some very good players, including Tommy Angelo, believe that tells and reads are everything in poker. This hand is in that zone, where sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

I often find out that if I went with my gut in every spot like this, I'd be a better player. If you were 95% sure your opponent didn't have a pair, and didn't have your ace beat, then you make this move every time.

Granted, I'm not sure on the bubble I have the cajones to do something like this. It may be one of those spots where I know I'm ahead, but am not close to 100% sure I am. You have to be so, so certain to do something like this, which is a very hard thing to be in online poker.

I have to say good play, although as an observer of the hand I would be thinking to myself, "Wow, what a game I've found!" It borders on the fine line between brilliance and stupidity. And boy is that line fine. And boy you had to be pretty damn sure he had nothing.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
This just has to be a move you only use against a very, very specific opponent, and if you have a very specific read. (IE, he will make huge reraises like this with nothing, or that he is far too protective of his blinds).


[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly what I felt; I hope those that read this thread think of a move like this as typical of my play... I'm not nearly this fishy normally /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

[ QUOTE ]

Granted, I'm not sure on the bubble I have the cajones to do something like this. It may be one of those spots where I know I'm ahead, but am not close to 100% sure I am. You have to be so, so certain to do something like this, which is a very hard thing to be in online poker.

I have to say good play, although as an observer of the hand I would be thinking to myself, "Wow, what a game I've found!" It borders on the fine line between brilliance and stupidity. And boy is that line fine. And boy you had to be pretty damn sure he had nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's that fine line that is the reason I posted this hand in the first place. From all the previous hands I had played with the guy, I was very sure of myself. But this wasn't a 200+15 /images/graemlins/grin.gif. He was playing SO predictably that I felt that this was the right play... but even with that I felt the play was hard to make because of the bubble. Even so, even after seeing the results that my read was right, I still cannot tell if this was brilliance or stupidity, and thus I posted the thread.

Thanks for the reply Jason. As to whether I would do this again.... almost certainly not anytime soon. This hand was like, top 3 strongest reads I've EVER had on a player in all the poker I've ever played. Which, while I haven't played nearly as much poker as all the rest of you, is pretty strong in my book. Would I make this play in a 200+15 SnG? Almost certainly not; probably would have bet slightly less on the flop and folded to any raise.

[Jman28]

Another question, beyond the read on your behalf, is:

If you could see his hand, is this still a good call?

I would say it is, but not entirely clear cut. He still has 6 outs plus the backdoor straight draw. I don't like doing exact math while posting so lets say you are a 6:1 favorite? (maybe closer to 5:1)?

CLEARLY that would make this correct in a ring game, but that 1 time in 7, you are gone with no prize money.

The other 6 times, you are virtually guarenteed 2nd, and have a very good shot at 1st.

If you fold here, you would have enough chips to work with, and, according to the way your two tight opponents were playing (allowing you to steal from them), you should easily place ITM, you would have an extremely good shot at 2nd place, and from there, a fair shot at first (also depending slightly on your ability compared to the other heads up player).

I still think that knowing his hand, it's a good play, but I'm just putting this out there for discussion. Any thoughts?

[ddubois]

What I don't dunerstand is why your opponent called your all-in with 6-high and basically no draws.

PS: I think showing his response to your all-in tainted the responses you got.

[durron597]

He has to call. He is getting 7:1 on the call, and he has me covered. Though for all the claims of stupidity I got in this post, maybe he has to assume that I have a 9 or an 8, and the backdoor draws don't even give a 7:1 call enough odds (and he doesn't know I have two spades too).

My opponent was a pretty poor player that got lucky in his aggression against good hands and also lucky in that the table was playing pretty tight to let him accumulate such a huge stack. That fact makes this play even worse /images/graemlins/confused.gif since I was sure I could outplay him... but maybe he felt that I was playing aggressive enough that I would make that play without an 8 or a 9 myself. If I don't have an 8 or a 9 I'm pretty sure he has pot odds to his 6 outs + backdoor draws, no?

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
Another question, beyond the read on your behalf, is:

If you could see his hand, is this still a good call?

I would say it is, but not entirely clear cut. He still has 6 outs plus the backdoor straight draw. I don't like doing exact math while posting so lets say you are a 6:1 favorite? (maybe closer to 5:1)?

CLEARLY that would make this correct in a ring game, but that 1 time in 7, you are gone with no prize money.

The other 6 times, you are virtually guarenteed 2nd, and have a very good shot at 1st.

If you fold here, you would have enough chips to work with, and, according to the way your two tight opponents were playing (allowing you to steal from them), you should easily place ITM, you would have an extremely good shot at 2nd place, and from there, a fair shot at first (also depending slightly on your ability compared to the other heads up player).

I still think that knowing his hand, it's a good play, but I'm just putting this out there for discussion. Any thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is actually the reason I posted the hand in the first place; but the replies I got were about trusting my read, so my replies were more geared in that direction. I'm not sure how close chip EV is to $EV here, except that I do know that I hate being HU against an aggressive player (no matter how stupid) shortstacked. There just isn't enough of a skill factor anymore at that point - it's all about the cards. So basically I would say that a fold here puts me at like ... 25% shot for 1st, 65% shot for second, 8% shot for third, and 2% shot for 4th. So thats an EV of 1.25 + 1.95 + .16 = 3.36xBuyin. Winning a call I would say puts me at 70% shot for first, 20% shot for second and 10% for third (these guys were poor enough and I consider myself good enough that if I have more than half the chips on the table I wouldn't bust out on the bubble), for an EV of 3.5 + .6 + .1 = 4.2xBuyin, so I need to be at least 3.36/4.2 = 80% confident to make that call (which I was - if not moreso).

Do people actually make such calculations in game? My gut was that I was confident to make the call, but I didn't work out the numbers in game. It took me long enough to make it that I would have timed out, but I did it in my head /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

[Jman28]

[ QUOTE ]
So basically I would say that a fold here puts me at like ... 25% shot for 1st, 65% shot for second, 8% shot for third, and 2% shot for 4th. So thats an EV of 1.25 + 1.95 + .16 = 3.36xBuyin. Winning a call I would say puts me at 70% shot for first, 20% shot for second and 10% for third (these guys were poor enough and I consider myself good enough that if I have more than half the chips on the table I wouldn't bust out on the bubble), for an EV of 3.5 + .6 + .1 = 4.2xBuyin, so I need to be at least 3.36/4.2 = 80% confident to make that call (which I was - if not moreso).

Do people actually make such calculations in game? My gut was that I was confident to make the call, but I didn't work out the numbers in game. It took me long enough to make it that I would have timed out, but I did it in my head /images/graemlins/grin.gif.

[/ QUOTE ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this calculation doesn't include the small but not impossible chance of you calling and losing. This would have to make you much more certain about his hand to move in. He does have outs.