The move of honor: an extra bonus (low content)

[jtr]

Hi, all.

Wayfare, I've really enjoyed your discussions (and the recent magazine article) on the utility of immediately pushing with AA and KK in small stakes NL games.

This is a move I stumbled onto myself a while back when I first played NL online , although I eventually stopped doing it due to a feeling (probably wrong) that I was winning only the blinds too often. But recently I've started doing it again and PokerTracker tells me it works very well thank you: I've seen something like a 30-40% call rate. And of course it works even better if someone if someone has put in even the smallest of PF raises, as they assume you're trying to make a monkey out of them. (Which I guess you are, just not in the way they suspect.)

An unanticipated bonus for me are the fantastically enjoyable lectures I get from the table coaches about why I'm such a fool for grossly overbetting the pot. It usually goes something like this:

A few limpers, maybe a min-raiser.
Me in MP with AA: push.
All fold. (Oh well, next time.)

Well-meaning table coach: That's crazy.
Me: Huh?
WMTC: If you bet that much, only aces and kings will call.
Me: OK, good point.
WMTC: No one's going to call unless they beat you.
Me: You're right, I'm an idiot.
Other player: Shut up dude, let him keep doing it.
Other other player: Yeah, and we'll get all his money.
WMTC: Just trying to help the guy.


Even funnier is when they lecture you while deciding whether to call, and perhaps exchange some discussion about who's got a good enough hand to punish the all-in idiot, and then one of them calls for their stack with 99. Hours of family fun.

On a slightly more sensible note: is there anyone out there playing Party $100, $50 or $25 NL who never uses this move? If you don't mind sharing, I'd love to know what your average PTBB score is for AA. One of the reasons I went back to the move of honor was the realization that AA and KK didn't have such monstrous average wins per hand anyway, and so if you could get a 4:1 shot at someone's stack about a third of the time, and just pick up limps and blinds the other two-thirds of the time, that was actually a very good deal. (Sorry, not at my poker computer right now or I'd post my own AA numbers. Will do so in follow-up.)

[joyride]

It's weird, every time I see this being employed(immediate stack push), it's never with AA. It's normally with mid-pp. I wish I had my PT notes on this, but I'm at work right now. I do know my numbers on win percentage not employing this strategy with AA are high enough as is, but I don't have the breakdown to see which method is better.

I normally find that if there's a min raiser, and you reraise them a large enough amount(not your whole stack), they think you're trying to pull a move on them just the same. I'd be interested in different numbers, too.