A $600 overbet can mean he thinks he's probably chopping, and assumes he might as well just put it all in. Or it can mean he isn't thinking, he just sees that he has top boat, and he might as well just put it all in. Or it can mean that he assumes that if he's beat (against Q8 or whatever) that you're going to put it all in, so instead of calling it off, he figures he'll just put it all in himself.... Or (rarely) you might even be ahead. It might mean that he has a hand like 88 and doesn't realize he's beat. Or it could mean that he's trying to pull off a really bad bluff.

Against the population of "passive nit" mid 50s white guy poker players, this really isn't a huge indicator that he has top boat beat, unless you have a lot of history to tell you it does.

One more way to look at this... IF you fold here, you are playing tremendously exploitable. The correct (GTO) move is basically guaranteed to be to call it off - I just can't imagine that it isn't... So even if this particular villain "always" has you beat, don't sweat it, because you're simply not going to get to this spot and be beat often enough for it to make a tremendous impact on your winrate. I mean, you're *supposed* to lose a lot of money in cooler situations... I'm not against making huge folds to exploit villain tendencies, but I just don't think this is the spot to do so.

C-mon guys,
This is not a fold. Why even debating the fold option?
For God sake,.. this is not a fold if you call yourself a poker player. Jeez, you didn't get this one that hero got to go to showdown with all chips in the middle?

If he's going down, so what? - He's got to lose to quads-33, .. so be it.., you know..
I lost to quads only once in the last 3-4 years playing every goddamned day. Not a big deal.., wtf...

Regardless of whether you're right or not, it's still important to think about spots like this - especially when all the money is going in - and do the analysis to determine why it is or isn't a fold (i.e., guessing likelihoods for villain to shove with other top boat hands vs likeliness of villain to show up with Q8 or 33). It will make you a better poker player.

A great flaw among many poker players is that they get into a habit of telling themselves, "I had XX. I had to call. It was a cooler. Nothing I could do." It's the same type of habit as just blindly shoving with the nuts or whatever, without actually taking the time to think about correct bet sizes. Poker players have a tendency to create rules that are much too simplistic.

Analyze every situation and every option. It will improve your game.

Let's take a look at Villain's range and what hands he would call/call/raise with IP, as I believe his range is pretty narrowed down at this point.

88's, 33's, combos of AQ/QJ, maybe even Q10.
I'm not sure what the equity is vs this range, but I'm betting it comes down to how many weaker Q's would he call PF raises with and how much of his range is leveraged to 88's and 33's.

Can someone run this through Poker Stove for me?
Pot odds of 600/1053 or 57%.
Gotta be pretty close to a River call still with so much money in the pot right?

Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Your pot odds calc isn't right because a lot of times we're chopping, we don't take down the whole pot. If we were calling to win the whole pot, our pot odds would be 600/1653. When calling to win the whole pot your pot odds can never be worse than 50%.

So you're saying I'm starting a troll thread for attention? You're one to talk. Half your posts are trolling and your join date and picture make the story check out. Aren't you the guy who was advocating GTO at 1/2?

Once again for anyone in the "folding top FH .. Puff! Puff! Puff! , wow .., :doh" camp, think about the number of combos in his range that would do this vs the number that would bet a standard size. It's probably close. Or maybe it's not and I could be wrong, but it's not as trivial as you think.

^Truth^

It's always good to think in depth about decisions and spots just like this one. The more you think/analyze away from the table, the more prepared you are at the table when it all goes down. It's like a mental warmup.

Thank you Pocketzeroes for making some really intelligent contributions to this thread.

That's nothing to analyze here. It's a snap decision of auto shove and have a showdown. What to analyze with top FH?

If you need to analyze how to play FH, what about when you got TP? - What's gonna happen in that case? -Gen into the tank and stay there for a month?

The funny part is that analyzing how to play FH doesn't improve your game at all. That's nothing to improve on FH play strategy for God sake .. wrf is to improve there?

100% agree. This isn't close at all.

No one would fold top boat here. If youre on the good/bad end of a cooler like this its just irrelevant to long run poker, but folding even if you only win 1/2 pot is very very bad.

really tough one. shoving 600 with quads is not a move that nits are likley to make. EXCEPT, nit knows you have a Q. so he might do that .

I would call. and if nit hit quads on the river, try and remember the movement of his eyes when the three hit the river and how much at ease he seemed to be.

What's to analyze? Counting combos that you beat, combos that beat you, and combos that chop; and the likelihood that villain plays each of these combos in such a way that we get to where we're at on the river. Furthermore, we should all understand the pot odds we're likely to get (win $225 to chop by calling $600), and how much equity we need to make the call.

While I agree that we should call $600, I believe there is some amount of money we should be willing to fold for. Is it $900, $1200, $2000?

I think it is good practice to do this for pretty much any hand where we put in or face a decision for over 100BBs. If you're well practiced at doing this stuff away from the table, you will make much better decisions at the table. This is so we *don't* have to tank on every hand to make the best decision.

Trying to figure out the EV of calling and I'm a bit rusty. Someone please correct my math if I'm wrong.

Assumptions

Hands we lose to: Q8hh,33

Hands we chop with: AQ(4),KQ(2)

Hands we beat: none

It costs us $600 to chop the pot($1665) 75% of the time.

$832.5 x .75 = $624.4

So given these assumptions, the EV of calling the shove is $24.40.

Okay, not saying this is a fold here, but why are people calling this spot "top boat"? We most certainty do not have top boat, that would be Q8. Yes it's unlikely that a nit V has Q8 here, but the fact remains that we do not have "top boat". Our only chance of winning this pot outright is if our V is a drooler and has overplayed 88. His range is Qx, 33, and ever so often Q8, 88.

He's not betting to get called by non-boats, and it appears no ones folds boats, so he's anticipating a call.

It seems like there's three possibilities. A nit's range is very pocket pair heavy.

1. You're beat by 33.
2. His 88 was counterfeited, he's lost his mind in anger, and he's hoping you'll fold a boat.
3. He has a naked queen and he's hoping to fold you off a chop, he's hoping you'll fold a boat.

Reading the comments it doesn't sound like anyone folds boats, so how realistic are scenarios 2 & 3?

Given that I'm not sure I'd actually fold. Thanks for posting this interesting spot. I'll be thinking about it for a while.

I'll add the comment I often do to threads I post in. If he has 33, he's not disguising his hand.

there's a few more options:

4. he has a Q and he's a nit who doesn't play many hands. His boat is the nuts in his mind an he is going for fat value on the river without giving much thought to what kinds of hands hero can actually call with.

5. He has 88 and didn't recognize the board double pairing on the river counterfeits his hand.


anyway, it's not even 1.5x pot. It has to be a call. If he was shoving like $2k, or if the pot was way smaller than $435, we could consider hero-folding here, but this is a snap call.

Grunch

You rule out Q8. So what are you losing to? Only quad 3s, right? This smells like 88 or Qx chopping a lot more than quads. Call.

OP, how much history do you have with this guy? The only characterization is Nit and if Nit means plays 10% of his hands then if you've played 3 hours (-100 hands) then he's played 10 hands and I'd guess well less than half make it to showdown. I don't believe all nits play the same post flop It's hard to have a good read on how this Nit plays at show down when a bad card (top trips or 888QQ turns to less than nuts.)

What has he shown up with in river showdowns when he's shoved before?

Non-fish/whale at 2/5 generally have some basic poker smarts and like I said generally think more on level 2 as opposed to level 1. They CERTAINLY would recognize 88 getting counterfeited if they're bringing $500 to $1000 to the table unless they are big fish/whales. It's 2/5 people generally know how to read boards almost everyone at even 1/2 does.

He hasn't shown up to many showdowns before. Not in big pots. I'm sure he was in some showdowns in small pots but those are irrelevant and although I'm sure it's a leak I don't really pay super close attention to small and especially limped pots. He certainly hasn't shoved before.