All in with the nuts?

The specific situation I'm referring to is when you have the nuts after the river and you are trying to decide how much you can extract from your opponent wihtout scaring him off.

In the past, I've thrown out a smallish 1/3 to 2/3 pot bet depending on the opponent...I get some calls and some folds, but it always made me wonder how much extra money I was missing out on when someone would snap call my bet.

So recently I've started pushing all-in in these situations. At first it was just an experiment, but I was amazed at how many calls I was getting...maybe 30-40% of the time.

My thought is that the all-in can actually be misleading to my opponent because it is an overbet for the situation. That is, my big bet tells them I'm weak and want to take the pot down without a showdown...so they call me down with a marginal hand thinking I'm on a bluff.


I'm playing micros on PS ($5 and $10 max no limit) where you tend to get alot of loose calls anyway. My table image is tightish (vp$ip about 18%) but at these limits I think table image is overlooked by alot of players.

Should I stick with this strategy or is it costing me in the long run? Will this strategy hold up as I move to higher limits?


Thanks.

There are always going to be times where you could've gotten more value on a river bet with the nuts, and always times where you could've bet less and gotten a call but instead forced the other player to fold. The best thing to do is look at the texture of the board, look at how you bet the flop and turn, and then decide how to bet the river (based on what you think your opponent thinks you are holding). If the flop had two of a suit and you were check calling all the way down with a monster, if the three flush doesn't come on the river, now would be a good time to overbet the pot, trying to make it look like you missed your flush. I've had good success getting calls here from people with as little as a pair.

On the other side of the coin, there are times when there is a very uncoordinated board and you are sure that your opponent has hit little to nothing. In this case, you are much better off keeping your bets small and extracting any value you can from your hand.

That's just it though...

I'm getting calls from people who are obviously weak (top pair-low kicker, missed their but straight-hit a mid pair, etc.) on all types of boards.

I've gone all in a few times thinking 'There's absolutely NO WAY this guy will call me" ....and then sure enough he does and I take down a huge pot.

Since I've got my bankroll up enough to start thinking about jumping to the next level I'm wondering if there is a point where I'll stop getting these calls.

As it is now, the number of people that pay me off on an all in is more than making up for the few that might have called my small bet but were scared off by the overbet.

thats true... it all depends on how the board looks on the river... sometimes the board looks so scary.. the villian won't call a value bet either... i guess if you have the nuts on the river... value you bet is the best if there's a scary board.. and hope the villian caught the second best hand... =) otherwise if the board looks like there are missed draws doesn't hurt to push all in.. hoping the villian thinks your bluffing your missed draw. so i guess.. it always depends on the situtation.

Probably your best course of action is to mix it up. Depending on reads. If it's the nuts it will always be profitable.

What would be bad would be for you to get a table image saying every time you shove you've got the nuts. While that might be good for stealing, it won't do a bunch for your stack.

In general, if you sense any looseness at the table, and in the active players in that hand, leading out big will be the better move. Seems the all-in shove is often taken as a bluff, thus unexpected callers.