2 Questions about a standard microstakes spot

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, €0.10 BB (4 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com
BB (€10.10)
Hero (UTG) (€12.96)
Button (€19.47)
SB (€8.06)
Preflop: Hero is UTG with a pretty decent hand,
Hero bets €0.30, 1 fold, SB raises to €8.06 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero ??? (last to act)

What is your calling range? Assume you have seen enough of villains play to know that he takes very strange lines (e.g. 40%+ VPIP, extremely aggro in bad spots, extreme slowplaying of very strong hands on very drawy boards etc.)



I have been doing some thinking about this situation. If we assume he has a mixture of goodish hands (say 88+, AK) and random suited fishbluffs like J7s.

In this particular hand we hold :ac::qc:.

Vs his 88+, AK we have 37% equity. Vs a random fishbluff of J7s we have only 65% equity. So he needs to have 38 possible combos of J7s (type stuff) for us to be able to call. There are roughly ~300 combos of possible random fishbluff hands, so he needs a 10% chance to random shove any given suited crap hand.

He could of course have more high Ax or Axs hands in his range, but even so it seems he needs a pretty high random shove % before we can start calling these hands, even when his value range is fairly wide?

I think the possibility of Axs shoves probably makes AQs a call, but are we calling any wider? AJs looks to be in much worse shape.

I haven't spent a ton of time mulling over the math on spots like this at the micros and really think it's a feel situation. Aggro and bluffs post flop is not the same as shoving pre. It's possible he's found that just shoving monsters pre after being an agro fish pays off when people call with small PP's and hands like AQs to snap off bluffs. Have you seen him do this pre with J7s in the past? If he is, then I'm sure we will get other chances no? Maybe playing by feel is what's failing me at such low stakes.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why do you assume he has a polarized range? I've seen people do this (albeit at lower stakes) with all sorts of hands.

If this is the first time I see him do this I fold AQ. Would take me seeing him do this a few times before I was willing to call with AQ.

It's not that I think he is deliberately polarised here. It's more that I feel he will do this more often with better hands than with worse hands, but that there are a lot more worse hands he can decide to randomshove.

I am using J7s as my example of a random shove hand because most random shove hands will have ~35% equity (but yes, I have seen people at this level show up with that hand in this spot).

The only huge exceptions are offsuit Ax and Kx.

Even Axs has 30% equity vs AcQc when you consider that he can never have AcXc.

It's kinda similar to situations where villain bets on the river when a lot of draws just missed. His range is very wide right before the bet, and his legitimate value range is a very narrow fraction of his total. e.g. Say he has 100 possible hands in his range before the bet and 10 possible value hands to bet with. If his 90 missed draws bluff only 11% of the time then his total betting range is 50% value 50% bluffs.

I am twisting that concept, perhaps inappropriately, by saying that his total range just before the shove is any 2 cards. His value shove range is maybe 30-40 combos, and there are ~300 combos of random suited crap that he might decide to shove. So if he randomly decides to shove his crap 10% of the time then we are good.

Now, does he? I don't know. 10% sounds like a lot to me.

Getting it in for sure and expecting to be good often enough (villains tend to do this with Ax in my experience). I'm happy to take a bit of a gamble too and wipe the villain out before somebody else does, as they normally don't hang around that long.

Chances are villain is just tilted and jamming almost anything, especially if you've had some aggro interactions already.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

Getting it in for sure and expecting to be good often enough

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with what range?

Just did that yesterday: called 100bb all in vs an aggro-donk with TT. He showed A2o.

(I could also say that the first card that popped on the flop was an A, but nobody would give a shit).

To estimate a rough range, you should look at what frequency they do that and note what they show up with. Some do it every hand, some every other hand, some with all their Ax, some only with AK and/or PP because they have no idea how to play them post flop, etc

If you have seen your villain play for a while but it is the first time he does that, I wouldn't call as it will often be AK or a PP, and you're a dog against that range. Besides even terrible villains are aware that if you raise UTG you have a hand you don't want to fold.

edit: OK you're really in the CO so ignore the UTG comment

I think the problem is that you're crediting villain with doing this with mostly strong value hands. This is rarely the case in my experience and you've also noted that villain slow plays post-flop, which will almost always extend to pre-flop. Therefore I should think his range isn't particularly strong, but table dynamic will be most important here if you've not seen villain do this before.

My best guess against this guy and randoms would be {JJ-22, AJ-A7} and we can get it in pretty wide versus this range profitably with {22+,A9s+,ATo+}, which isn't far off our range for getting it in versus a short-stacker.

That said, against a random doing this after just joining a session, I'll only get it in with {99+, AQ+} the first time and widen to {22+, A9s+, ATo+} if he does it 2+ times quickly.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Bean Counter

I think the problem is that you're crediting villain with doing this with mostly strong value hands.

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When thinking about ranges, I often like to take a worst case scenario. If worst case is still a call then it makes a call in real life really really obvious. Conversely, if best case is still a fold then it makes a fold really really obvious.

If worst case is not a call, then we have to look in more detail.

I think your ranges look realistic, but we definitely need to have some % of random crap in there too.

The biggest problem with your assumption is that he has every combo of 88+, he never has every combo of 88+ here as he`ll take a different line especially with his QQ+ stuff so you can discount most combos of QQ+

I think without reads this has to be a fold.

The average villain is not just rampant shoving your utg open with some bs hand. Your pot odds suck here, so you need to be good almost 48%.

You'll need a whole lot of Axs type hands for that to be the case. Again you need reads to think he's shoving any A5s+ here.


equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 48.059% 42.18% 05.88% 60673791 8451340.50 { AcQc }
Hand 1: 51.941% 46.07% 05.88% 66257064 8451340.50 { 77+, A5s+, AQo+ }

We actually need 51% here if rake is 5%. Just something to think about.

I had a spot yesterday playing live that reminded me of this thread (I know this isn't the live forum but hey poker is poker), except I'm on the BU and villain in the CO limped behind 2-3 limpers. I have ATs, raise to 9bb, everybody folds, villain says "I'm sick of playing with you" and shoves making it about 85BB.

Villain is pretty donkish, mainly just there to gambool it up and have a good time. There would have been no reason for him to expect a raise behind him, so being able to discount AA-QQ and AK weakens his range significantly, which is the main difference to OP in this thread. I also have history with him where he limp/called me a few hands ago with a ~30bb stack, and stacked off when I flopped TPTK and he flopped a FD with 98s. He won the hand, if that matters. He also initially sat down at the table with the 40bb minimum.

The one thing that makes me discount the crazy bluff type hands is that he lifted his cards to show his side of the table while I was thinking about calling. Thoughts on a reasonable range to put him on? First thoughts that came to mind were small to medium pocket pairs that he decided to just "go with". Mediocre aces and broadways might also be possible-

22-JJ, A9-AJ, A2s-ATs, KQ

Is this overly optimistic?

"I'm sick of playing with you" comment, kind of makes me want to fold.

I think his range has lots of low/mid pairs. Was he being aggressive? If not, then I can see someone surprising with a strong hand.

I would meh just fold.