[DoubleDeuce]

I have a question about this play from my past Friday night game (see other thread). Here is the situation:

6 players left out of 16 total. Payout is top 4. The blinds are 4000/8000. Even the big stacks aren't over 80K chips.

1st and 2nd position fold. Smallest stack goes all-in with 12k. I go all-in for a total of 16k. Small blind folds.

Big blind has a good size stack but that is still around 45k. He calls the extra 8k.
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So before I reveal the hands, what type of hand do you think the BB is holding?




Ready?


1st all-in = ATs

Me = QQ

BB = 79o


Flop comes 79x and his two pair holds up.

Now this is not supposed to be a bad beat story. I'm just curious as to why the BB made the call and how viable a play it is. Granted the pot odds are great, 5-1, but still to risk about 20% of his stack to call two all-ins seems a bit of a gamble. Any ideas about this type of play?

[vrecksler]

I would call from the BB in this position with those pot odds with pretty much anything. It costs me just 8k to take a shot at busting two players and getting in the money.

Not only were the pot odds favourable, but in the BB I would think that the short stack would make this move with much less than what he actually had. If I put myself in the position of the BB, I have seen the first two players fold and the short stack move all-in. This is not necessarily an indication of a solid hand because the small stack is in the dead zone with an M of 1, and with a chance to be the first to enter the pot I would expect them to make the same move with garbage.

Then another small stack moves all-in trying to isolate the short stack. From my point of view, the small stack has come to the same conclusion that I have about the short stack making the right play regardless of their cards. I would then think that this small stack has some kind of hand, and given my 79o I would have to think the best situation would likely be overcards, with the worst being an overpair.

But with 5-1 pot odds and the chance to bust 2 players at once, the call is an easy one for me. It may be 20% of my stack but the blinds are big and even the biggest stacks only have M's of around 6 so they are almost in the red zone and have to be more aggressive even though they have big stacks.

Tough break though, you played it correctly in my mind but you were outdrawn.

[SpeakEasy]

BB against two other hands, one of which is an overpair, needs about 6 to 1 odds to get the right price. Against two random unpaired hands, its a bit closer but he still needs slightly better pot odds to call. Still, 5 to 1 is a very good price, and BB is guaranteed to see all 5 cards without putting any more money into the pot. I would probably call, also.

[coyote]

As other's have said, he was getting a very good price on his call and more importantly he was getting all 5 cards for the 8k, no chance of anymore bets. Also, I'm sure he was figuring that both his cards were live. Didn't have to worry too much about conterfeited cards.

I think it's a relatively easy call.

[Limit Breaker]

Yea, if he had something like K-5, he might have folded thinking he would get outkicked by at least one of the players. But with 7-9, 20% of his stack against overcards is a 60/40 call. He had to think his cards were live to gamble. It's not a terrible damage to his stack if he loses.

[Niagara_All_In]

Depending on how the other players were playing that night I might have made the call myself.

If I had 8K in already and it was only another 8K to maybe win 32k plus my blind and call back and bust 2 players I might have done it.

What was the BB total stack?

Are teh other Players just making a move to try and catch a flop (like the BB was doing)

When were the blinds going up? 4k/8k now what would they have been if they made it back around? By then he might have had to put 16K in (not sure if you just double them) and be forced to go all in cause of it.

there are so many factors to this and so many mind sets that could have been in play that its really hard to tell what one would do in this spot.

[SpaceMonkey]

I'd push/call with all three hands in all three positions in this situation.

[CaptLego]

In the BB, I fold that hand. That's probably why I suck.
With the two small stacks all-in, basically one of them doubles up, and the other one is out. So I advance one position for sure if I fold, and then have to deal with the guy that has doubled-up. I'd still have almost a 2:1 chip advantage on him.

If I call, then there's an 80 to 85% chance that one of those guys will triple up, and will have a bigger stack than mine.

To me, I'd rather fold this hand, and look for a race situation against the winner of this hand. Then I'd have a 50% chance to win all the chips, instead of taking the 15% chance on this hand.

In other words, why go against 4 cards when I have a crappy hand when I could wait and go against 2 cards when I have a better hand?

[DoubleDeuce]

During the game when he flipped over 79o I was saying to myself, "WTF?!" but afterwards the pot odds made some sense.

Still I think it is interesting because his stack was around 40-45k, maybe a bit more. He was shortstacked earlier and had doubled up a couple of times recently. So preflop his M was about 4.5 with an adjusted M of 2.7. This is preflop before he posted the BB. By calling the bet he does get great odds but that does leave his stack down to 37k.

Before the hand he was probably 3rd out of six. One big stack in SB, another stack a little bit bigger behind him and then one other stack a little bit less. If he loses to me then I willl have 48k in chips and jump in front of him. He would slip to 4th out of 5 at the table.

If the 1st raiser wins out then the BB would get back about 12k assuming that he wins the sidepot with me.

So this is what the BB should see preflop:

An all-in push from a shortstack. Could be playing any two cards. Against 79 probably at least 1 overcard, possibly 2.

That all-in is immediately called and raised by another small stack. For another short stack to go all-in must have a decent hand. Most likely 2 overcards maybe even a pair. He had seen me bluff all-in earlier at the other table when I was short stacked and I lucked out on the river. This time though I'm calling a bet and not doing the 1st in vig.

So in all he is probably playing against 2 to 3 overcards, maybe 4 total. There might be an overlap if both shortstacks are playing Ax, Kx, etc. Some of his cards may be counterfeited as well if someone is playig A9, A7, K9, K7, etc. So what would be his overall win % against most hands?

[vrecksler]

I think it is really tough because your table image may have allowed the BB to consider a looser call.

Case in point, in the last home game I played in we were down to the final 7 players after a couple hours of play. I was the shortest stack at the table with about 500 in chips, and the blinds were at 75/150. The next smallest stack had about 900 and the biggest stack had 2500.

I moved all-in UTG with AQ and took the blinds but I showed my cards. Two hands later the pot is raised in front of me, it is folded around and I move all-in with AQs and the pot is split when a straight hits us both. The very next hand I move all in after a single caller with TT and I pick up the blinds, and show my cards again. Three hands later I move all-in UTG with AKs and get called by the SB with KQs AND the BB with JT, and lose when a T hits on the river.

So I was showing everyone I was only moving in with solid hands, and I was surprised to get two calls from the medium stacks in the hand that busted me. The fact is not everyone at the table was paying attention to what cards I was showing, and the two callers did not even give a thought to what cards I might have. They just noticed I was moving in a lot and thought they were calling with good hands.

Sometimes it will be the case where the people you are playing with are basically looking at their cards and playing on whims, no amount of analysis is going to help in these cases.