playing 1/2 with a stack around $120. Villain barely has me covered. He looks too young to be allowed in the casino, is drinking heavily, and has two friends watching him from the bar screaming "go all in!" almost every hand. Villain has followed many lines of play which make no sense at all: min raising min bets on the river with nothing, calling gutters for his whole stack, calling all ins pre with 93o. Still, he's gotten very very lucky and stacked up a couple times before losing it back quickly. I believe he's now on his third BI. The previous 3 hands he's gonna all in pre, into dry pots, and been called twice by decent hands. He's shown absolute garbage and won both times.
The Hand:
Villain is UGT and shoves, no look. Table folds around to the Hero on the button with A9clubs. I pause and see that the blinds are just waiting to toss their cards in.
I know I'm ahead of his range here (2 totally random cards), but wonder if taking a probable 60/40% with him here is the correct decision. I know I can get a better spot with him given enough time, but the way he's playing I might not get that chance before someone else rails him (he's already on his 3rd BI).
Unfortunately, I only had 1 BI to play on this day.
What to do?

Hard to pass up a profitable spot ever, IMO. If this is all you money, though, and you really feel you'll make more money by folding here and staying around, I guess it'd be ok. I think I call tho.

One, don't go to the table with only 1 BI.

Two, always make sure you have more chips in front of you than a drunken spew monkey who is shoving blind.

Three, insta-shove.

I think you should sort out your bankroll issues if you're having trouble deciding whether to get a mere 60 BBs into the middle of the table as a clear favourite.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Call, you are most likely ahead (unless he woke up to a great hand with out looking)
and why not get your stack in while ahead

if he catches up then so be it; you should have more than one BI in the future
that way if he does win the hand then you just reload and wait on a better spot to
call him

snap call ainec

Insta shove with A9 or even lighter. if you lose RUN to cashier and take advance against your ATM card, get back and do it again until this guy leaves!!! (better to just have the extra BI's to begin with though, so no juice is applied to your cash flow, i.e. bank charges)

If you have to think about this, you're playing too high.

Yup, I am. But there's nothing smaller to play locally. Just taking a shot I guess.
Since this seems to be pretty clear I'll go ahead and tell you that I called, he showed QJo, and I lost to a river straight.

good shove good move better luck next time

Tourists like that are the reason for the season. Rebuy and wait for your next opportunity. Don't be results oriented because you lost... you should make that call all day every day.

Also, in case you're interested - A9s is 62.7% all-in vs a random hand.

I call A2o

First, don't let your backer or your BR buddy know that you don't have pokerstove. This is a Phil Helmuth "shove the chips in the middle as fast as possible" moment, which you would see if you did the work with pokerstove.

See the FAQs stickied at the top of this forum for more information.

Hellmuth: "I got aces." Huck: "No, you don't."

It happens. If you play live long enough, especially at 1/2 or 2/5, you'll lose a number of hands to absolute maniacs like the guy you faced. I'm not talking about players who shove with an inside straight draw either. Not too long ago I shoved pre-flop with AA over a min-raising maniac who was 50bb deep. After calling, which I fully expected, he turned over 46 and won on a turned straight. Meh.

Appropriate reading material: Sklansky Dollars.

I would snap with KTs/KJ or better if there was no one left to act behind me who looked interested.
KD would prolly call w/ J7+, but you would have to ask him.

if you look at one card and it's a A or a K, it's a no brainer, you don't have to even look at your other card.

I call about w/ the top 25% of hands (108suited, K6 suited, A2 suited). Those hands have about 60% equity against a random hand. You should be willing to put $100000 into a $3 pot if you have 60% equity in the hand. Plus the dead money from the blinds, $3, makes it even more profitable.

From a practical point of view, this post is silly. I wouldnt put $100,000 into a pot it i were an 80% favorite because quite frankly i cant afford to lose 100k. Its just not worth the risk. I know the post was exaggerated for effect - but OP had stated that he plays 1/2 because there is no game smaller.


OP - we all have thresholds financially. If you are not comfortable putting $120 in on a 60/40 then wait for a better spot. Personally for me i would call the allin if i saw an ace or a king. No hesitation.

Without being condescending - if you cant make this call - then the stakes are too high for you. However, like you said - there is no game smaller and you were taking a shot.

However, if you are going to be successful at poker, you are going to have to totally disassociate yourself from the value of one buy-in. In other words - be prepared to lose it without batting an eye when variance rears its ugly head.

fold river obv

I was in this exact same spot last week in Vegas. Guy for the third time in a row re-bought and went all in blind pre-flop. I insta-called with A6s when I saw the players behind me going to throw their cards in. Guy flips over (without looking) AKs. Sucks to be me . . . Ultimately it contributed to me losing for the entire trip when I ran across three guys doing this and I lost every single time. Sigh. In the end I did the right thing, but it's friggin' hard to take at the time when it happens.