I have been thinking this one over for most of the week and I think that there is no correct answer here, just a risk tolerance test. But in case I am thinking about this wrong, I would like to hear what others think.

Setting: 3 am, table has been six-handed for a while and everyone has gone into a very passive, limpy, small pot mode. No large stacks and not a lot of action. To be honest, I should have left an hour ago but I figured that getting some short-handed live experience and knowing that I could take down more than my share of small pots made up for the fact that the house is the only long-term winner in this type of game.

Villain ($70): 50 year old white male. Semi-regular, nothing special about his game. Not a fish, not a shark. Stack has slowly melted from $200 to $50 over the course of three hours at the table and when it hit $50, he went into tournament mode. For the last hour, he has limp/called pre (with an occasional raise) and then either folded or shoved on the flop. Basically, it is clear that he has decided that he will either double up or go bust. Nobody has called any of his all-ins so we have no info on his shoving range. I don't think, however, that he is ever bluff-shoving.

Hero (covers): I have been playing along with the limpiness but making sure to open-raise a wider range than everyone else to take down more than my fair share of pots. But I am by no means running the table over. Most importantly, perhaps, my image will really not matter much in the hand, as you will see.

The Hand
Hero is dealt A2 in MP.
UTG calls, Hero calls, SB calls, V calls in BB.

Flop ($7): K53
SB checks, BB goes all-in for $68, UTG folds, Hero?

So...I have somewhere between 7 outs (if V flopped flush) and 15 outs (if my flush draw, inside straight draw, and A are all live) to make a call that is essentially even money (fwiw, $4 out of the $7 in the pot are coming out for rake if I call). I seriously doubt that V is doing this with just a FD since I have the nut draw and he has not been reckless. An open-ended SD is possible since he has ATC as the BB in a checked pot.

If this is a ldo call or fold and I am totally missing the boat here, I am open to that being pointed out. But my core question is not so much what to do but rather, is the decision here based entirely (or at least mostly) on risk tolerance?

Fold pre or raise.

Flop is a sigh fold to me. I just think you can get it in better.

You don't have nearly that many outs if he has a flush already.

fold pre ainec, as played, fold

No, it's based on ranging, pot odds and metagame. This is not enough money to affect anyone's bankroll.

Showmanship call, liven up this limpfest, live a little.

(Plus we've got great equity against his range).

One of the worst preflop calls in poker history, however. Win this hand and start folding and raising more preflop. Mainly folding.

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I think in general it is a good idea to get a game to liven up. If we can get the other players in the mood to gamble, or get them thinking you are really gambly, but we can remain calm in the storm when the pots get big, then it can work greatly in our favour. What we really want to do is to get our opponents to make emotional poker decisions for the big bets.

I am sorry for the way I attacked your PF call. It was completely unnecessary. I'd like to retract that sentence. Although it's a good hand to start folding for sure - maybe a leak.

I never overlimp A9o-; these hands suck in multiway pots. *If* I'm going to play them, I'm coming in with a raise to try and take down the pot immediately or get it HU where I can take it down on the flop. Fold >>>> raise >>>>>>>>>>>>>> limp preflop, imo.

I probably call because it just seems so unlikely that BB would shove a great made hand (due to not wanting to scare off customers) plus he's been shovey recently (and he can't be flopping the nuts every other hand). If all our outs are clean, we're a favourite. Even if we're up against a strong hand that is protecting (such as a set), we're not doing too bad with our flush / straight outs.

ETA: As C/R says above, and is also stated in HOC, if it's close between calling vs folding (which I'm guessing this spot probably is), then we should side with calling in order to give us a more gambooley/action image (which will help get us paid off when we flop the nuts).

GcluelessNLnoobG

for 70 bucks its a no brainer. even if it was 680 to call in a 10/20 game I'd prolly still call to degen it.

but pre is a joke.

Fold pre obviously

Pokerstove flop

*Cue Poker Sax Music* - Grunch

Right or Wrong, this board will NEVER lack for opinions. :-)

It's 3am I must be lonely?

Just kidding. Sounds like everyone is tired, just trying to coast into a good hand hoping that someone else will be bored/tired enough to call them. Alot of live pros say that starting at 11pm or midnight lets you take advantage of these people who should have left hours ago, but couldnt.

But I digress.

Gotcha. He's playing a short stack as a "Love it or Leave it" style.

If everyone is just limping along, try to increase your raise size consistentely. This will have the added effect of getting limpers to fold to increase dead money, your odds, and your image, as well as taking down moderate pots without a fight when they miss the flop and you cbet. You'll have to decide when to do this and with what hands to do it with, but try to make sure you spread it out between good and specultative hands. You don't want to get predictable.

I would have preferred some kind of a raise pre flop here, even with the limp style the table is playing. An ace short handed shouldn't be ignored, not with the passive style this table is playing. But hey, When in Roma right?

So this looks like a K or two pair, but really this comes down to your stack size and if you are willing to gamble:

Best Case Scenario: If he has a naked K with no redraw, then you have alot of outs: Three Aces, 9 Spades, and 3 Fours for a total of 15 outs. The "Always Reliable Rule of Four" states that you have 15x4=60% chance of winning this hand at the river.

Worst case scenario: He flopped a flush and we're drawing to a higher flush. This leaves us 7 outs. The "Always Reliable Rule of Four" states that we have a 7x4=28% chance of winning on the river.

(Actually the worst case scenario is that he hit a straight flush draw with 4s6s, which leaves you at a 20% chance of winning. But that's 1 combination in thousands and it's not something you should worry about. If he hit that, then kudos to him)

So can your stack size take a $68 hit and keep going effectively? Thats up to you at this point. If my stack size was around $200+, I'd make this call. If it was between $100-$200, I'd think about if I'm ready to go home if this fails. If it was Sub $100, I'm probably calling here.

Good Luck!

I'd prefer a raise pre. Especially late in the night with everyone in passive mode, just keep raising until someone starts playing back.

On the flop I'm beating him into the middle with the call. You've got a good amount of equity with the A and the FD, and it's worth it if it'll help liven up the table a little bit.

Deciding whether or not to call postflop isn't that important. You probably only have a couple dollars worth of EV between the correct and incorrect decision. It's close.

What is important is that you are leaking a lot of money by limping A2o in a 6-handed game. I promise you that correcting this leak will earn you much more money than figuring out whether to call or fold to this push.

1. This hand is way worse than you think it is. A2o has terrible reverse implied odds. Hard to get value from worse when you're ahead, easy to pay off a better hand, and you miss really often.

2. The pot is getting raped by rake. You just can't make enough profit from this hand in a limped pot to overcome the fact that 20-40% (guesstimating, dont know your rake structure) of the limped pot will get raked away. Doesn't matter if you play A+ super-god-mode post flop poker, it can't be done.

So, either raise or fold pre. I would recommend that you fold this particular hand. The fact that you are still making the mistake of limping this pre indicates that your postflop edge may not be big enough to show a profit by raising. A2o is such a poor hand that it will require a very large postflop edge to be able to play this hand even by raising.

Remember that you should be applying this same logic to other hands that you may be playing the same way. K9o, 97s, etc.

In general, limping will hardly ever be correct 6-handed with any holding unless: you're on the button, everyone in front of you limps, and some of the limpers can have strong hands in their limping ranges. That's a lot of "if's." It won't happen too much. Also completing small blind sometimes is probably fine but remember your immediate odds aren't as good as you think they are because of rake and your position sucks.

(Immediately above, I list as a requirement that "limpers should have strong limping ranges" if you want to limp behind on the button. This is because raising will likely be the most profitable choice with your entire range if the limpers all have weak limping ranges. This assumes a postflop edge and the ability to exploit opponents.)

Hope this helps you. GL.

i'm folding this pre.

on flop i'm snap calling for $70..... but than again - $70 is not much to me. He is most likely not snap going all in with a flopped flush - i'd say like a king + flush draw so most of ur outs are good.

depends if u want more money on the table or not.

not the best reason to call imo

"Always Reliable Rule of Four" is not always reliable. Always reliable Pokerstove shows only 47% chance winning against a Kx non-2pair hand. Harrington goes over the modification necessary when there are a lot of outs to get a better estimate of the true odds.

I was certain that people would get my emphasis on the "Always Reliable Rule of Four" and see it for what it was: A joke on the quick and dirty method to determine outs, which we all know has its minor flaws. It was not my intent to promote or reinforce a belief that the "Rule of Four" is precise in every manner. Anyone who has visited the Rule of Two and Four know that is is not as precise as we would wish it, but simply a quick and dirty way to estimate your percentages.

My Apologies for the confusion.

This situation happens more often that you think.

To me its a clear and easy fold.

The main reason is that sb (presumably with a reasonable sized stack) is still in the hand and yet to act. It would really suck for that player to wake up with a hand and we end up being put to a decision for our stack.

As for the metagame thing, if we were last to act, we might consider calling. For me personally, I will have usually decided in advance whether I'm looking to take flips. This is part of tilt management.

That's cool. With a forum like this though, some people might actually think that they were ahead on the flop.

Not really something to stress about, since this is a unique situation which rarely if ever occurs. It's not often you're going to flop a combo draw and be faced with a 10x-pot-size shove. It's pretty close either way IMO, I'd lean towards folding since there is a chance he'd do this with a set or flopped flush (severely reducing your outs) and the pot will be reduced by $5 or $6 due to rake/tips, further damaging your equity.

What is sb's stack size?

Is no-one bothered by the fact that sb is still in the hand and yet to act?

Not horribly so.

In a weak-passive situation like this I don't expect the SB to have a hand very often. It's also usually pretty easy to get a telegraph tell at this point in the night.

If his stack is on the order of the original shove, then I don't mind if he tags along anyway. I'd only be worried if he was very deep.