What would you put the all-in player (let's call him player A) on, under the following circumstances in a not particularly competitive $2/$5 game?

1) Player A limps UTG, two callers, hijack raises to $30, Player A reraises to $95, Hijack calls, other two limpers fold. Player A has Hijack covered - roughly $350 effective. Player A pushes all-in "blind" before flop is dealt.

2) MP raise to $20, Button and SB call, Player A in the BB raises to $55. MP reraises to $125. Button and SB fold. Player A calls, then pushes all-in "blind" before the flop is dealt. Player A has MP covered - they both had just under $500 before the hand began.

Both of these happened in separate games I was playing, where Player A was not the same person in each. I'll give the answers once I hear a few thoughts. I'd also be curious on what folks think in general about pushing blind like this - not whether it's smart, but what you might think it signifies. Note that in case it's not clear, when I say "blind" I don't mean that Player A hasn't looked at his cards; the reference to "blind" signifies he pushes all in after the pre-flop action has closed but before the flop is dealt.

My first thought is AA.

Nope - in example 1 the guy had AK and in example 2 he had 8h9h. In example 1 the guy said he figured he wasn't again AA since he figured the guy would've raised again, while in the second example he said at worst he'd be in as good a shape as possible against an AA or KK hand while he could also either connect or just win outright.

I think it's an interesting approach, and one where I'd be left scratching my head a bit on how to respond.

Well played.

Yeah - little did I realize this thread is tumbleweeds, so I figured I'd just let folks know after 24 hours.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

I was going to say there was a good chance it was AK. In my experience, it's not often people do this with AA or KK. With real hands they're usually more focused and thoughtful, and also don't like to potentially scare away action (they'd especially not want to do that because they might flop a dominating set and decide to slowly). So in my experience it's often AK or something else. Obviously it will sometimes be AA/KK, but I don't think it's as common as people think.

#2 is the interesting situation. Player A has the option to raise preflop, but instead closes the action.

If a player decides (for whatever reason) that he has an all-in-blind hand, then he's needlessly giving his opponents a HUGE advantage letting them see the flop before having to decide their reply.

The message is "I'm not scared to let you see a flop because I'm probably still ahead on every possible flop which must mean I have have AA, and i'm hoping you catch a piece and will call me"

Using the strong is weak theorem, him holding 89s makes a lot of sense.

I can’t recall ever seeing anyone do this with anything other than a tiny stack in relation to the pot, where I’m from at least this would be a very rare situation

In general (if I was new to the table/had zero reads on the guy) I’d assume this was indicative of extreme strenth (10/10+ AK). If we had a few hands on the guy that range may look very different, game flow is a huge consideration here............

As a side note I would be looking for signs of spazz from this guy in future hands

The all-in blind is always a fun bet ... Typically AK but certainly other hands are possible. The stack sizes in the example are a little big but I think these are just 'plays' where a V has just decided he is going to either take it down or see the River without any more pressure on themselves.

I've seen this done with AJs and a "Let's just gamble here." comment when doing so.

What's interesting is that I've seen this from more tight players than aggro ones in the past, trying to use their tight image to take down a pot on the Flop.

I like the analogy that V doesn't have AA/KK here since those hands might be fearful of a QQx or 789s type of Board that could have them drawing extremely thin. GL