This is a hand I played at Party NL$25 last night. I went up against your typical "buy-in for 20%, push in" muppet. You know the type. After they buy-in for 20% of the max buy-in they either push or fold preflop. They push with AA-99, AK, and maybe AQs. The thought behind it, I guess, is that they should have the advantage with those hands plus they suck at post-flop play, so they remove any decision-making from themselves.

I usually give these guys a wide berth unless I have a hand that has reasonable odds against what they might be holding, as I think I did in this hand. But that's what I'm writing this post for - to evaluate those odds.

Here's how the hand went down:

I have 79 PT hands against this particular muppet. He's rated a Rock. VP$IP is 12.66. W$WSF is 36.36%. He's a losing player in my database. The only hands I show him as playing are AKo, AQo, KK, JTo (from BB), TT, 77. He has played each of those hands exactly once.

So on to the hand...

Phish in UTG+1 with 25.00
Muppet in MP1 with 4.40

Preflop: Phish has [Qd], UTG call, Phish call (yes, I should have raised), UTG+2 call, Muppet raises to 4.40, folds to Phish who calls.

Let's explore that a moment. The pot is 5.50. It costs me 4.15 to call. That's 1.32-1 pot odds. Additionally, UTG+2 is yet to act. He's got a big stack (53.xx) and is a calling station. There's a chance he'll come along for the ride if I do, sweetening things even further.

Now let's look at the odds I have of winning against his likely holdings. Against AA-QQ and AK, I'm a huge dog. Against JJ-99, I have the pot odds I need.

And that answers my question. I probably should not have called. Too many of his holdings dominate me. But it's so tempting to call those muppets when they push... and here's how the hand played out:

UTG+2 folded.

Flop / Turn / River (9.65) [7d][6d] / /

Muppet didn't show [Kc] and left the table immediately after this hand.

The morale, I guess: You need a big pair or maybe AK to play against these guys in an unraised pot. Otherwise, let 'em have the limped-in coin.

What if I'd have raised my normal raise? At that point there'd have been 7.00 in the pot when it got back to me (assuming the CS called), and it would have cost me 3.40 to call. That's over 2-1, probably worth a call. Just a thought.