I finally got Poker Stove to work on my computer and found an interesting first hand from last night to try it out. I'm interested in feedback of all types: the specific hand, PS use, splash pots in general, whatever.

$1/2
There's one aggressive V. The rest of the table is loose, passive

V1 40 y/o white guy. He is a short stack that has been shoving ai pf and then rebuying when he doesn't win. Hasn't played much post flop poker. ($43)

V2 40 y/o Mexican-American. He's pretty bad. The first hand I sat down, he busted some guy by calling $50 into a $40 pot on a gutshot and stacking his opponent for another $120. He's a gambler. ($38)

$50 splash pot, so there's an extra $50 in pot to start hand.

Pre-flop
UTG limps
Hero limps with J8o
3 limps to V1 in the cutoff who goes all-in for $43
Folds to V2 who puts in his remaining $38
Everyone folds


Here are my thoughts. Obviously, limping J8o in a normal pot is terrabad, but I was going to try to see a flop for $2 getting more than 25-1 on a call. I'm hoping to flop gin and scoop a monster pot. If not, I lose $2. I'm not going to even call a decent flop bet if I flop top pair. My intention pre-flop was to fold to any reasonable raise. Maybe I call an $8 raise if all 10 players are in, but likely I'm folding to a correct raise.

I didn't think long before folding my garbage J8o after two all-ins. Then, I started thinking folding may have been a mistake. V1 has a pretty wide range. V2 likely has complete garbage. Maybe the fold was incorrect.

The chances that any of the remaining Vs were going to call the all-ins was almost zero. So, I would have likely been in a 3-way all-in with two desperate donks with super wide ranges. Obviously, I'm behind V1 (maybe not V2), but my equity might have warranted sticking in $41 pf with J8o as crazy as it sounds.

So, in pokerstove, I gave V1 a range of all pairs, all aces, all broadway cards, and a lot of decent suited cards (like K9s+, Q9s+). I gave V2 a range of all pairs, broadway cards, and all suited cards. I don't think giving the results now will effect feedback and I do want to make sure I'm using PS correctly. V1 had A3o. V2 had 23s. Do the PS ranges I put in sound about right?


Anyways, after completing 30% of the evaluation (do you have to do it to 100%?), PS said I had around 25.7% equity.

So, there's about $138 in the pot when it comes back to me and I have to call $41.....around 23%.

So, should I have called as played?

Uh... I only skimmed like the first half of your post, but no... you shouldn't limp pre or call the all-in IMO. If you've got a big bank roll, won't be tilted if you lose, and really think that calling will be +EV and have ranges to prove it, then go ahead and call.

If you are not willing to go to the felt when you flop 2 pair then fold pre. If you know the short stackers are going to shove (because that's what they do) and you don't want to call, then fold pre. Pretty simple.

2 pair would be in the "gin" category. Obviously, I'm continuing with that. That was the plan.

I didn't know the short stackers were going to shove. V1 wasn't going to shove most starting hands. V2 was passive. He wasn't going to shove himself unless he had something good. He was a station.

Splash pots are gonna get shoved by short stackers/Squeezers >50% so you should expect it. I'd call this all day long if I'm closing the action, with 3 players still to act its going in the muck.

a tip for pokerstove: There are two types of evaluations, Enumerate All and Monte Carlo.

Enumerate All goes through all possible combinations and will be perfectly accurate if you let it run fully. The drawback is that for multiway pots where all players have ranges, this is going to include a ton of permutations such that going through all of them will take extremely long. Monte Carlo deals random hands for as long as you want to let it run and will become more and more accurate over time, but should only take a few seconds to get within 1% with extremely high confidence. So generally you want to use Monte Carlo for multiway simulations with wide ranges (especially preflop when there are so many more possible boards to deal)

Anyway, I think with your position it's a fold preflop. It's very likely somebody behind us has something worth raising (and their raising range is going to be a lot wider than usual because of the splash pot -- even if villains don't understand SPR they do get the idea that dead money in the middle makes it correct to put more money in lighter). I think limping utg+1 is just lighting $2 on fire every time, though there probably is some point where it's ok (better position + more passive players behind)

After limping I would still fold in that spot, even knowing the results of the simulation. You don't want to be in a position where you are not sure about opponents' range and if you're correct you have a 2% equity edge and if you're wrong you're crushed.

But it's great to plug situations you've encountered into poker stove. One of the best ways to improve at poker.

This thread really should have ended here with J8o from UTG+!.
Where it's a fold in almost all possible situations.

Having said that, it's good to run various simulations through stove.
The next step would be to take other ahnds (such as JTo, A8o, JTs, A8s, K8s, K8o) and see how these all fair against the same range. It will start to give you an idea what hands you want to be playing in situations like this.

They are not common scenarios, but it's still good information to have in your back pocket.

Your logic is fine, but the assumptions are off. A splash pot attracts a lot of people are who looking to collect dead money. It was never going to remain $2 going to the flop. You got extremely fortunate that someone with a big stack didn't decide to raise again.

Fold it pf.