AQo bubble facing habitual pusher
 

Couple of nights ago my friend and I (who are both NL cashgame players at the 2-4$ level yet are green to tourneys) played in the Pokerroom $50 daily. We've been doing this for several weeks now as a sort of relaxation therapy and finish ITM more often than not but have yet to cash anywhere near 4 digits. We've set a up a shared bankroll for these purposes and try to be as TA as possible.

Anyway, last night a situation arose that had us on the outs, which rarely happens. It's bubble time (31 players left; 30 get paid). Person two spots to our left has been disconnecting a lot and whenever she (female nick) can retain connection for some time it seems that 65% of the time she folds. The other 35% she pushes. She has pushed in her stack 4 times already in the space of 4 orbits and has prospered from lack of callers. Our stack is 8500 and she covers with 11,5k.

Blinds 300/600. We're UTG+1 and raise to 2k holding AQo. Immediately she pushes it all in. A veto is cast by my friend and he folds the hand before any more can be argued about it. Now, as much as I hate calling off the rest of my chips with AQ, in my mind this was a clear call.

My friend countered with the observation that although she had been dipping her stack in quite liberally, he had not yet seen her doing it as a reraise. A good criticism and one which i couldn't defuse. Now, my friend has always been more of a survivalist whereas I feel, especially since lurking here and reading the Anthologized posts, a stronger pull to the accumulation side. Which is probably why I don't finish ITM nearly as much on my own as when I'm playing together with my friend.

Long story short. What percentage of time would you call/fold here? My own position was pretty adamant afterwards, in the bar, licking our wounds after finishing 26th, that I would call there 90% of the time, given the same information.

Re: AQo bubble facing habitual pusher
 

Getting just under 2-1 pot odds and being on the bubble, I would have to give my opponent a wide range of hands in order to call. If they could easily have hands like A8, then I call. Otherwise I probably fold. In this spot, I probably fold, and your friends observation is the reason. I would probably need AK or QQ+ to call.

Note: At this stage, I am assuming AQ is amongst the worse of your range in this spot. If your image is much looser, I would probably call against this player.

Re: AQo bubble facing habitual pusher
 

Unfortunately, you may have already committed yourself to this hand. With only T8500 left in your stack, you can't really raise then fold to a reraise. Doing so would leave you with T6500 with T900 in blinds right behind you. I think that if you are going to play this hand, you have to commit yourself. I also don't think that folding this hand preflop from EP is bad at all in this situation. If she hasn't shown down any strong hands yet, I think that you're are at best in a race (against a small/med PP), and you don't want her to turn over AK. Raising then folding (to a reraise) here is your worst play IMO.

Re: AQo bubble facing habitual pusher
 

I'm pretty sure the image we projected was tight, although I left this out because villain had been disconnected more often than not during the time we were at the table. FWIW, other players at the table noticed her uncouth raising habits too, and half expected, nay encouraged us to call. Although this might have been due to the desire to end the pesky Hand for Hand play that accompanies bubble play...

Thanks for your insight! Maybe AQo in this situation was (as it would be in most of my full ring games) an easy (limp/)fold.

Re: AQo bubble facing habitual pusher
 

Yeah, I completely agree. It was just an awkard situation in which you wish you had mucked the hand in that position. We've never seen her showdown anything so I guess my read of her range would be as broad as top 35%, i.e. any pair, ace, suited K7, Q9s; that sort of thing. Rather academic here. I think we may have just fallen victim to a highly aggressive player who preys on tight nits like us. Next time.. well next time I still think I would advocate a call in this spot, although I might not be so eager to play AQo in this position/situation.