I have responded to a few posts, but haven't started too many of my own. Also not positive if this is the right forum for the question, so my apologies in advance.

Here goes:

I play at MD Horseshoe, which some of you readers might know from past questions is pretty loose. They are going to have a high hand promotion in October where on Tuesday, every 30 minutes, high hand gets $700. In addition, the table which hit high hand (as well as two random tables) gets a $100 splash pot. With only around 25 tables in the room and 6 splash pots an hour, I am sure my table will be selected once in a while.

Assuming the field plays pretty loose, that everyone has $300 equivalent and that at least someone will be in for $100+ pre-flop (honestly only second is a stretch, first and third are near guarantees):

What is the minimum starting hand you will need to open for $100+? (from EP, MP, LP)

What is the minimum starting hand you would need to call a $100+ open? (from EP, MP, LP)

I don't want to flush money here and be ultra aggressive, but the tables here lose their mind for splash pots, there are honestly people pushing early position with $250-$350 stacks to win $100 with 33-AQ.

I don't just want to give up these pots out of MUBSy syndrome (I do play a little tight tbh) if I hold something with showdown value and the overlay.

Watch out for the black chip bandit!

I would suggest constructing some sort of a range for a typical pot and seeing what stacks up well against it. If you're saying you will get one person pushing any pockets + AQ+, how many callers do they get and with what range? Then Equilab a few typical pots and see.

Against that specific range HU, I'd probably call 99+ only because I'm a nit. Figure it goes multiway and some calling ranges will presumably be tighter, you might want better than that.

Uh, aren't you playing for $200 not $100 in the scenario you gave OP?

Bring buy ins. For the most part, you're going to be all in pf often. You're going to lose a majority of them. If you don't want to do this, play premium hands only.

Just push coinflip spots because of the overlay

venice nailed it

You're going to have to do some pokerstove study as well. Figure out what people are getting it in with and then figure out what hands give you enough equity with the overlay.

I'd never be raise-folding $350 effective fwiw. Just shove or fold. (Maybe flat AA)

The people jamming with small pairs are probably playing close to optimal actually (33 from EP is still kinda spewy but... if it folds say 77-... what are the odds at least 1 of 6-8 have 88+?)

First, my room used to do this promotion and it was a total ****show. You had people shoving huge stacks pre with K high type hands. Not fun for anyone unless you happened to get dealt aces. Realizing this, the room instituted a new rule that you need to see a flop in order to be eligible for splash the pot. This has made things much better as a big raise (20x or so) will still narrow the field to 3-4 players if you have a good hand and you don't have to worry about putting in 300+ BBs pre. Might consider floating that idea to your floor men.

To answer your specific question, if you are playing about 100 BBs, I would generally be shoving 99+ from cutoff through BB facing limpers and JJ+ from early position. When deep at a splash the pot table I'm gonna stay out of most pots because I really don't want to risk my stack pre with KK+.

What, that sounds awesome. Flop rule sounds like communicable disease.

Sounds like the best game ever - seriously, you can get it all in preflop vs. weak holdings in a pot bloated with the casino's money? I would play that game for a living.

Some poker players are quite risk adverse and don't like to 'gamble,' that's why they think they need AA or KK to enter into those pots, they don't seem to understand the insane overlay that exists and how that should make them want to get it in with a much wider range. Also I think some people want to feel they got a chance to 'play poker' they think if they get it in pre against a bunch of droolers doing the same thing it's become bingo not poker.

Most of these people don't really understand math either.

Agreed. Always makes me laugh when people complain about maniacs turning poker into bingo, uh yeah bro I hate super profitable games too. Give me a bunch of old nits to play with instead, nothing's more exciting than grinding out 2bb/hour by stealing blinds.

You can, if you happen to get dealt a big hand on the exact hand that is the splash the pot hand. You'll forgive me if I don't leap for joy at a coin flip for my stack, even with 2:1 overlay. Is it profitable? Yes. Does it require a one way trip on the variance train? It does.

Yeah... Not a big fan of playing the pot, but a big fan of pretty much any promotion that brings low quality players to the table.

Last time I played in NOLA was a Thursday Night Football Splash thing, 100 bucks in our pot... Dude pops it for 100 pre, guy calls with whatever, flop it gets all in.
KK wins it. But, the dude didn't have a players card. Everyone was pretty pissed about that.

This is a terrible mentality for a poker player to have. Meta considerations aside, if you can flip your stack with a large edge, you should jump at the chance.

It is all about choosing your spots. If I can play 4 hours and get in 90% of my stack with a 80% chance of victory, why should I risk 100% of it now with a 60% chance of victory. In a vacuum obviously you would take 1000 60/40 situations and print money. In reality, if I get stacked in this hand, that might prevent me from stacking someone else in 2 hours. So there is an opportunity cost to riding a small edge.

There's some truth to that but you're underestimating how large the edge in these "risky" spots is, and overestimating your edge in general. You are rarely going to get money in better.

You should have sufficient buy ins so you wouldn't have to miss that opportunity. Circumstances might dictate that losing a buy in could cripple you. So a sub-optimal solution would be to not go AI unless you have the nuts. However, that isn't the best solution.

+1

The home game I play in they do a HH every hour and man do the donkies love it. When it gets close to the hour they will be chasing every and anything to get that HH which obviously creates great action.