Sick private game, $1-1nl that often gets very deep and w/straddles can play more like 2-5+. It's 5am and we're down to 4-handed action; the whale host is on hyper tilt(he just 3-bet someone blind, got jammed on, woke up with QQ vs A5s and lost – then proceeded to punch the table and throw half-full energy drinks across the room). Like I said, sick game.

After whale gets felted and yells for five minutes, he says “F*ck it, give me a thousand.” Then he slams a stack of greens on the table and says, “Five-hundred blind!” I can't speak for the other two players at the table, but my heart began to race with excitement at this golden opportunity.

Whale is bb in this hand; I'm on the btn with not much more than his jam(maybe $600ish). CO folds and it's on me. The sb only has ~$100 and is a massive nit, so I think he's somewhat irrelevant here.

So what do we choose to go with here? What is our bare minimum rip n' pray holding in this crazy spot?

Things to consider: The game usually ends at 6am(so one hour left). We are well rolled for the game with plenty of fodder in pocket. If we double up here the whale will surely have a brain aneurysm and rip his remaining stack in again. With 40-50 more hands to come, other juicy spots will present themselves, many with far less variance. Thoughts?

Poker,

I go with an ace or king in my hand, any pair, QJ. Aces or Kings are especially good because you can call after looking at just one card, which is always good in this kind of dynamic.

Maybe go with QT/JT. Maybe with Q9/Q8 but I prob chicken out and fold. Maybe go with some suited connectors like 78/9T.

The "playability" of the hand is irrelevant. You want raw equity. Any pair, any ace, any king.

This x 10. Don't outlevel yourself OP and call with T8s or something.

If you want a specific range - I'm snap calling with the following:

55+,KT+,A5+

I'm pretty nitty in these spots so my range is like 77+, KJ+, A8+

This isn't bad if if you are (1) properly rolled and (2) can emotionally handle swings, but is probably still a hair conservative of pure +EV thinking.

This if either 1 or 2 above don't hold. Any tighter than this and you really are starting to lose some significant EV.

Closing action you can go with something like any pair, any ace, any king, any broadways, any two suited where lowest card is a 9.

I’m a huge nit though so my range is more like spyutastic’s above.

All Hands Sorted On Equity:
AA,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 84.9%
KK,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 81.6%
QQ,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 79.8%
JJ,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 77.3%
TT,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 75.8%
99,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 72.0%
88,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 69.0%
AKs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 67.1%
AQs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 66.6%
AJs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 65.6%
77,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 65.6%
AQo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 64.8%
AKo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 64.3%
66,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 63.9%
ATs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 63.7%
A9s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 63.6%
AJo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 63.5%
KTs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 63.2%
KQs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 63.1%
KJs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 63.0%
ATo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 62.8%
A8s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 61.8%
KQo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 61.4%
KJo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 60.9%
A9o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 60.8%
55,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 60.4%
K9s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 60.2%
A7s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 60.1%
QJs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 60.0%
A5s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 59.8%
A7o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 59.6%
KTo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 59.6%
A6s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 59.5%
A8o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 59.4%
A4s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 58.9%
K8s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 58.6%
A5o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 58.2%
A2s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 58.2%
A6o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 58.1%
QTs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 57.8%
K9o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 57.8%
QJo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 57.7%
A3s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 57.7%
K7s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 57.6%
Q9s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 57.5%
Q8s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 57.2%
44,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 56.7%
QTo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 56.5%
K6s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 56.5%
A4o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 56.3%
JTs,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 56.3%
J9s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 55.8%
K5s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 55.6%
A3o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 55.6%
K8o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 55.5%
Q9o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 55.0%
JTo,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 54.9%
A2o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 54.8%
K6o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 54.8%
K4s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 54.6%
K7o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 54.5%
Q6s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 54.4%
Q8o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 54.2%
33,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 54.2%
J8s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 53.7%
K5o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 53.4%
Q7s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 53.3%
T9s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 53.1%
J9o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 53.1%
K3s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 53.0%
Q5s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 52.7%
K2s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 52.7%
K4o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 52.5%
J8o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 52.2%
Q4s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 52.0%
T8s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 51.8%
T9o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 51.7%
Q7o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 51.6%
J7s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 51.6%
J6s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 51.4%
K3o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 51.3%
Q3s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 51.1%
Q6o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 51.0%
T7s,** 0.30%, 4 comb,** 50.7%
K2o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 50.3%
22,** 0.45%, 6 comb,** 50.2%
J7o,** 0.90%, 12 comb,** 50.0%

I probably pick the hands with 55%+ equity to account for rake. If we think he reloads if loses call any of these. Maybe even wider if the nit is dead money.

I think going with a hand that has 55-60% equity or better against two random cards makes sense. The SB will wake up with a hand 88+ AJ+ about 7% of the time so we can’t just shove hands with over 50% equity.

It also depends on if the whale is going to hit and run or stay if he wins. If he’s going to stay we don’t need as much equity.

My cutoff is anything close to 60-40 or better against any two cards.

Having faced this situation a number of times, after the first time I referred to someone's version of the tabulation posted by Shai Halud.

That's 55+ (but not sure I could fold 44 LOL), KTo+, and A5+ (not sure I could fold A4o either, because how many times have I seen a naked A hold up in tournament short stack play, but I digress).

Anything worse and we are flipping, which isn't a bad thing even at 55-45 but why would we do this against a whale who will offer us far better odds many more times?

He might not keep doing this... or if he does others may catch on and start calling light.

But I'm fine taking a 55/45 here because either

a) we stack the whale and are deep stacked for the rest of the night--the whale probably rebuys, and if so is even more spewy, but even if he leaves, better we make him leave than someone else

b) we lose, rebuy, and are now playing with a spewy deep stacked whale who believes his luck has changed and possibly becomes even more gambly, also a good outcome because now the other players can't stack the whale as easily and we're likely to get much of our money back

There's also tangential benefits to calling and winning or losing with a hand like Q9o--we look like we're willing to gamble which should improve our EV the rest of the session at minimum.

Just curious what the rules are for this home game.

Do we change the action by doing anything other than calling on the button?

It doesn’t sound like it will matter with this guy to be honest but I’m curious.


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Yeah you cant profitibly ship it with 51%+ because of SB. I think 60/40 hands is probably the place to be assuming that you arent too worried about variance.

Ive also found that shipping it with something like QJs or KTo makes the V feel better about doing it more than if you just nit it up and fold till you get a monster (plus if the table folds around 4-5 times guaranteed he stops out of boredom.

Tom,

QJs and KTo are still in “these guys are all nits” category.

+1

I can almost guarantee you SB telegraphs whether he intends to call or not. If he looks interested yeah we tighten up but he's a huge nit not looking for confrontation and is going to telegraph a fold a huge % especially if we start slowly gathering chips for a call. So I don't think we necessarily need 60%...the thing is it's pretty hard to be ahead 60% vs ATC. If we drop that to 55% we about double our continuing range.

SB almost doesn’t matter. He has $100, is likely to fold a lot of +EV hands and we are $1000 effective with the whale.

We should be shipping only slightly narrower than hands which have 50% against atc. I don’t care to do the grunt work because this is very easy to figure out with equilab, which is free software every poker player should own.

Some of the other ranges suggested in this thread are very conservative.
In game I’d probably choose to ship something like 22+, Ax, Kx, Qxs, Q7o+, J8o+, J7s+, T8s+, T9o, 98s.