This call took me almost the entire allotted time to make, but I’m not mad that I did.

The game is $0.10/$0.25 NLHE. My opponent seems to be a tight player who's neither too aggressive nor too passive--down the middle basically, but we haven’t played many hands together so my read isn’t as good as I'd like. He’s UTG+2 with $25.10; I’m in the seat before the cut-off (two off the button) with & $48.95.

The action folds to my opponent who open-raises all-in for $25.10. Amazingly, it folds to me. My comp is beeping at me. It continues to do so as I try to figure out what he’d do that with and whether I’ve got the cajones to call. More angry beeping. No guts, no glory. I call; everyone else folds.

Flop:

Turn:

River:

Showdown:

Opponent shows . Opponent has : two pair, kings and queens.

I show . I have : flush, ace high.

Final Pot: $50.55 (less $2.50 rake).

Whew!

Now before you congratulate me on my spectacular running spades (or accuse me of getting luckier than hell), ask yourself if you would have made that call for more than half your stack / all your winnings plus a little. Do you think I should have? To be honest, I don’t know for sure that I would make that call again, but I’m damned sure glad I did this time.

Also, imagine how happy my opponent was to see that K on the flop, and then how, um, unhappy he was when he learned the ugly truth. Brutal.

Anyway, thought some of you might enjoy the carnage. It’s hands like these that are why I’ll never stop playing this crazy game. I’ve driven fast and done a lot of other things that’ll get your blood going, but none of them are quite the same as poker.

I'd fold there, too. I think he had the only possible hand that you were a favourite over and that he would push all in with. Any pocket pair and it's a -EV play. Kings and you're dominated. Aces and you're ****ed. I think you got lucky but in a cash game there's no reason to get all in preflop with AK, suited or not. It's a different story in tournament play but this is cash and this is NL25 where a LOT of people will push all in preflop with AA, KK or AK only, sometimes QQ/JJ but you're still and underdog there.

The play is fine...........if u like flipping coins for money. I think u have to fold this one. Don't ever think you can take a loss just cause ur having a good day. If you are up $500 you should not play any different than if ur down $500. Its all money!

This play that you made is a loser in the long run if the original raiser has a pair. You did luck out this time, but overall you will be in the gole going ALL-IN w/AK.

Yeah, Godlike, based on your assumptions, I think you're spot on.

But, as I said above, I didn't think he was pushing with a big pair because I saw him limp earlier w/QQ from EP. If he's not pushing with a big pair, would he push with a medium/small pair? I decided probably not, so I’m assuming he does not have any pair in the hole.

If I'm right, then I'm up against big unpaired cards, and is a favorite over any of those except AK, which will usually split the pot.

If the only non-pair hand he will push with is AK, is expected to win 7.2%, tie 89%, and lose 3.8% of the time, a push with virtually no downside. If he will also push with AQs, it changes to 22.6% win, 67.8% tie, and 9.5% lose. Add AQo and it changes to 44.3% win, 40.7% tie, and 15% lose. The wider his range, the better ’s chances become.

On the other hand, if I’m wrong about him not having a pocket pair, then ’s chances are 45.3% to win, 0.5% to tie, and 54.2% to lose (against 22+).

Clearly, if he does not have a pair, ‘s chances of losing decline dramatically while its chances of winning stay about the same. The chances of a tie against a non-pair basically become chances of a loss against a pair.

So, the correctness/incorrectness of the call depends on the probability one assigns to (a) whether he has a pair in the hole and (b) the likely range of unpaired hands he will push with.

Assuming he will push with AQ+ (not too unreasonable since many poker authors recommend re-raising with these hands and many players use that recommendation as a proxy for which hands to push with), then the over-all chance for to win is the chance that he has a pair * ’s win % against 22+ PLUS (100 – the chance that he has a pair) * ’s win % against AQ+. The numbers for ties and losses calculate similarly.

For this particular situation, I had to call $25.10 to win $25.45, so I was getting 1.014 : 1 from the pot, even money. In order for to be indifferent to calling, its (over-all chances of winning * $25.45) + (over-all chances of tying * $0 [I’m neglecting the affect of rake as it’s messy enough already and will not materially change the nature of the results]) – (over-all chances of losing * $25.10) must = $0. In this case, my calculations (if anyone is interested, I can email you a spreadsheet) indicate that the indifference point is at a 78.5% chance that he has a pair, so should call when there is less than a 78.5% chance he has a pair when his likely non-paired pushing hands are AQ+.

While I obviously did not know all of the percentages while I was in the hand, I understood what the removal of pairs from his range of pushing hands did for my ‘s chances and felt that a call would be worth it. To be honest, I felt that the chances of him having a pocket pair were lower than 78.5%—if I’d known that the indifference point was that high, I wouldn’t have sweated the decision so much.

Having said all of this, it is certainly legitimate to question my assessment of his chances of having a pair in the hole and his likely range of non-paired pushing hands. Maybe there was really only a 1% chance he didn’t have a pocket pair and I was really just trying my damnedest to give my money away and just couldn’t pull it off. Maybe that 1% chance that he would push with a non-pair was only for AK and nothing lower. I admit, I could have been WAY off, but at the time, I just didn’t think so, so I called him. Believe me, it wasn’t easy.

I happened to put a low value on the chance he had a pocket pair and felt that the potential gain was worth the risk that I was wrong. Turned out I was right and in the situation against AKo, we will split the pot 89% of the time...I just got lucky that my flush filled up to put it in the 7.2% of occurrences in which beats AK.

Did I take a larger than normal risk for a big pot? Undoubtedly, as I indicated at the end of my previous response to drogga. That's why I took so long to call because I had to figure out how sure I felt that he didn't have a big (or by extension, small) pair in the hole.

Am I going to start making this call on a daily basis? Only if my roll is 100,000x the buy-in I'm playing at...or if the right situation presents itself and I think I can rule out the hands I'm a dog to.

I think in the end we're both right. In the vast majority of cases, I side with you...ditch the AKs. On this one, I differed. But I'm probably just nuts anyway...I do play poker after all.

The real reason I posted the hand was more because (a) I had just won the hand an hour before and was still pretty happy about it (b) I thought others might enjoy the exploits of a semi-decent player beating someone in a very lucky and ugly way...everyone likes to rubber-neck at a big pile up. I suppose going through and analyzing it like this is good exercise, but like I said above, this is a call that I almost never make, so it's more academic than anything else.

Anyway, I thought it was a fun hand to post, so I put it up.

(All hand percentages calculated with PokerStove v. 1.2)

PS Re: Zuccala’s comment about making different decisions based on whether you are up or down is correct, but I’d been making good decisions and plenty of money all day and felt I’d follow the rush. True, this bias toward calling is not mathematically sound, but I doubt it skews the results of the math in any meaningful way and I stand by my analysis.

Hey man, I am happy you won the pot. I am also glad to see that you knew what u were doing. There are so many people that play different based on results!

no way I coin flip for half my stack unless i have an amazing read on my opponent.
sorry I know you went through a lot to defend your call but I don't see that being a good decision in the long run.

besides all math aside normally when someone pushes all in pre-flop like that you can expect to see a huge hand. The majority of the time you will see QQ, KK, AA, or AK.

so you coin flip one of those, tie one, are behind on one, and are dominated on the last.

I think you're thinking too much. This is NL25 after all. They are fish. Also, which authors recommend re-raising with AQ? In early position, you shouldn't even raise first in with AQ, it's a call, sometimes even a fold, and never, ever a re-raise or push. AK is a hand 13864124 times better than AQ for the mere fact that there is only hand that has it mortally ****ed and one other that has it dominated, it is at worst a cointflip against all other hands. I'm glad you won the hand and if you're style of play is wokring for you then good for you, stick with it, i'm just saying I think it's a major -EV call in the long run as i've played over 20k hands at NL25 and most people have a mentality that they pushing all-in preflop with AA, KK or AK is +EV when really it's only pushing with AA and KK that's +EV. Also, calling these all-ins requires you to have AA or KK. If you saw him limp QQ in EP, then why would he push all-in with a hand weaker than that? That piece of information leads me to believe he only has one of those three hands.

Sounds like you have really good reading skills which is something a lot of poker players at the NL25 stakes lack. Question though, why are you still playing NL25? You said you've playd 125k hands @ 7.1ptbb/100, that means you've won well over $4,000 playing NL25. You actually have the bankroll to play NL200 comfortably and easily NL100, so if you did move up you could easily double or triple your winrate (i advise playing 10k hands at NL50 before moving to 100, just to get used to the bigger bet sizes etc..) but yeah, you could be making a lot more money playing higher stakes and your reads will be even more valuable there.

Thanks for saying so, but I wish they were much better...I still blow it from time to time.

As for why not higher, I used to play $1/$2 and $2/$4 NL (had a crazy rush a year ago where I was all the way up to $25/$50, but I had NO business being up there...it was freaking exciting tho!), but I took a big chunk out to buy my condo, so I've been sent back to the mines to rebuild my roll. I started a new account with $500 back in June and began grinding at $0.05/$0.10, and since then have moved up, but also took out my $500 seed money. I've been playing $0.10/$0.25 & some $0.25/$0.50. I know my roll's big enough to play higher than this, but I like to have AT LEAST 50 buy-ins for the highest level I play, so it takes a loooooonnnnnnngggggggggg time to move up...the price I choose to pay, but it allows me to make calls without fear because at the absolute worst, I'm only risking 2% of my roll, often much less, when I jam all my chips in the pot. Don't worry, I'm close to moving up again, so I'll see you up there eventually.

Phaed