Value of pocket 2s and difference between pushing and calling.

Yesterday, I was at casino playing 5/10. I started with 50 blinds and moved up more than 90 blinds. One of players from middle position right before cut-off pushed all in with Q9s. Everyone folded and I was in the big blind. My hole cards were 22. I had to put up 8 blinds more to call his raise. I was thinking for a second. I was guessing if he can have overpair or overcards. I called because I guessed that since he's short-stacked, his range of hole cards can be very wide and have cards like KQs, TJs. Before I made the call, I even said, "*sigh* let's play some blackjack" since I figured it was going to be a coin-flip if my instincts were right. I put him on AKs. But he had Q9s, which slightly makes me underdog by like 2% or so. I instantly won because I hit a set on the turn. Two morons in the table kept telling me that I made a horrible call. I told them that I had a pair from big blind, everyone folded, I just had to put up 8 blinds more. They keep telling me that they wouldn't have put more than 80 dollars on pocket 2s. I told them that instead of criticizing me for calling with 2s, why not criticize the guy who pushed all-in with Q9s. My roommate told me to step up and take a break. I had a long discussion with my roommate about this.

My roommate's view:
There was no need to give that guy an action and gamble only to be coin-flip at best. Just fold and wait for better spot. People are just talking shit because you need better hand to call raise with than to make raise with. Calling with deuces is a very weak hand.

My view:
I was big stack with 90 blinds and only spending 8 blinds to be at coin-flip. And if there should be any criticism, then the guy with Q9s should be criticized as well. Whether I called with deuces or not, I got the right result without having to suck out or get lucky. I told my roommate that he has no right to tell me that I made horrible call when he made call with pocket 5s against short-stack on Daily Dollar tournament we played before.

If my play was horrible, then player with Q9s play was horrible as well. But why do I get criticized for calling instead of him getting criticized for pushing with Q9s? Whether I push with 22s and he calls, or he pushes with Q9s and I call, I don't see any difference. If i called while being behind and sucked out to hit a set on the turn, then yes, I would say it was a bad call and sorry for bad beat. But all-in push with Q9s while being short-stack is considering bluffing to steal my blind. I think I made right decision since I read the guy as short-stacked who can have about any two cards that are not pair and if I'm coin-flip away from winning 9 blinds or only losing 10% of my chipstack, I think it's worth it.

I want to ask this forum what's correct play, what's not, etc. I'm confused and honestly don't know what the ideal play was in this situation. I'm having debate over this play with my roommate who disagrees with my play.

I think you made the right call..if he was short stack and you put him on two big cards so there is no difference between pocket 2 or pocket 7.
but , and its big but , it depending on the player you play against , it depending on how much time did he wait to do this move , if he did wait a while he might have a pair as well and then you are a big dog.

and for conclusion if it was a 10% of your stack so i guess you made the right call

If you want to gamble on a coin flip then that is your right - it can come down to ho9w lucky you are feeling! With stack sizes etc I think you prob made an OK call.

Not a bad call . short stack.. you are the big blind with big stack.. no reason to not call this hand. but not good call. you could easily lost with this hand...
and don't pay atention to these idiots who talk about others play.

are we really thinking this though? you called off 8BBs because you "figured" you might of been slightly ahead? I dont know about the shove but calling with 22 i tend to agree with the others. bad play. can you honestly think of one hand he would shove that you have a good lead on? the only hand you beat here is 23 and you already got 22. 34s is ahead of 2's here. i would try to put someone on a range of hands and see how 22 does against that range and not say he got AK i beat that i'l call and see if i'm right. obv AK wuld be in his range as well as many other hands that got you crushed. this seems to me its 1 of 3 things 1 your slightly ahead 2 slightly behind or 3 way behind. your never way ahead here.

On any online poker room I am often scared to play 22 due to the fact that it seems players always pair up eventually. I often call small bets but large raises I usually fold.

It was a coinflip and you are there to gamble. You made the right move in making that call with you having a huge chip advantage. I can only guess the guy had been playing tight so if he was a good player he would push with a wide range of cards with the blinds he had left.

I'll have to say that you made the right move since its only %10 of your stack. I'm pretty sure I would of done the same thing because he's a short stack and i'm on the BB w/ a pocket pair. Its not like you played with your room mates money, so just say you made a good call and a good read. GL and TC.

The size of OP's stack is not relevant when figuring out what to do. Let's say OP had a ten times his actual stack size meaning it's now only 1% of his stack. Does this make the call more appealing? The relevant factor is effective stack size which in this case is villain's stack.

In regards to OPs question, it really comes down to how wide you think the short stack was pushing. You're paying 8BB to win a pot of 10.5BB so you need 43% equity to break even. This amounts to about a 20% range (66+,A4s+,K8s+,Q9s+,J9s+,T9s,A9o+,KTo+,QTo+,JTo). In general, that's a pretty wide range to be shoving so unless you had a read, it's a fold.

If you wanted to gamble then go for it and people shouldn't criticize your play. Tell the table they can play how they want to play and your going to play how you want to play.

However as far as good call I agree with the majority here. Your probably going against over cards 60% of the time and an over pair 40% of the time. So you have to figure your going to win something like 50% to over cards and 22% to an over pair. So I would estimate your calling here a 35% chance to win, which Isn't profitable play in a cash game.

Its been my experience that pocket 2s never end well, and like you said it was pretty much a coin-toss but even still it was slightly in his favor. That being said... (as one of the Chris Fergurson's commercials says...)
"The book says, when faced with an aggressive raise from early position, only strong starting hands should be played, lesser hands such as draws and small pairs should be folded...
sometimes you have got to go with your gut."
As for the criticism, sometimes you need to be open to advice but at the end of the day its your money so make your own decisions.
Glad it worked out for you though.

I don't know if I would have called but you seemed to have a read on this player and it worked out so.........

Congrats!!!
As for the rest of the table, tell them you like gambling and any two cards can win, next time you have a really big pair or flop the nuts you should get some good action.

Not a bad call.
2's = ace king suited basically.

They probably just don't know much about poker.

Your call has been good!
Do the math and you will see that your call has been right!
It all depends on the cards you gave him....
Against any overcards you are a little favorit about 50:50. And you need to put in less than 50% to win the pot.....

So your logic is take any coinflip as long as half your stack doesnt have to go in???

I don't think it was a great call, but it wasn't completely horrible...not enough for people to be criticizing your play. You just got lucky, which is a part of poker for sure, but you could have just as easily doubled him up calling with that hand. I didnt pay attention to how much of your stack you had to put in, but I would definately not waste alot. Calling 8xbb more with ducks is the same to me as someone calling a reraise with KJ off OOP, which is a bad play but i see it everyday.

They are entirely different. Against a 10% range:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.101% 39.74% 00.36% 530831496 4757730.00 { 22 }
Hand 1: 59.899% 59.54% 00.36% 795250164 4757730.00 { 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 59.771% 54.94% 04.83% 380076640 33400274.00 { AKs }
Hand 1: 40.229% 35.40% 04.83% 244893628 33400274.00 { 88+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, AJo+, KQo }

I did have a read. My read was, this guy has been raising with any random hands, such as TJs, 78s, etc. He slowly lost chips through folding. He raises with just about anything, which got him short-stacked and broke. So I figured, he can be pushing with anything just to steal my blind. So I put him on overcards instead of an overpair. And also, he recently had a pocket pair. So I figured, it's rare chance that he has pocket pair. You get pocket pair once every 17 hands or so. His chance of getting a pocket pair can be very slim. I categorized him under loose-aggressive player who raises with just about anything. So I figured, if my instincts/read are correct, then I'm playing blackjack. I even said "*sigh*, let's play some blackjack" before he rolled over his suited Q9.

If I was wrong and he had overpair, then I would apologize since I would've won anyways with a set. But since my instincts were correct, I don't think I should get criticized over my call.

I sometimes have very hard time with what to do with low pocket pairs.

Yes, it was a coin flip......after he turned over his cards. Personally, I would have folded, thinking it was a coin flip at best. Obviously, any pocket pair puts him ahead. Not criticizing your play, just my opinion. You had the right read and won the pot! Congrats.

the ducks are a gambling hand. you felt you wanted to gamble, then you did the right thing. you would be in a coin-flip at best, but since that was your read, awesome.

anyone who criticizes the play should be told that they do not want to play against the best in the world, but rather against fishes like yourself (with a wink). if they still want to "teach" you after that, i would start playing hands with higher implied odds (suited connectors, small pairs) more aggressively against those particular people...

Its not all that good a call with 22

22vsidiot.JPG (http://www.cardschat.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22579&d=1249252889)

Here I have put him on 95.5% of hands (I am sure his shoving range was much smaller than that)

It is stacked 50.068% to 49.932% in his favor (I wanted to show how wide his range could be to still have a slight edge).

Now had you held 44 the 'coin flip' becomes 56.1% to 43.87% in your favor.

88 becomes 68.2% in your favor.

Obviously we need to assign him some sort of range but even, any ace, any broadway and any pair beats 22 55% of the time.

The same range against 66 wins only 46% of the time, putting you slightly ahead of the coinflip.

Well, first off, cash games and tournaments are very different.

Calling this shove in a tournament is often standard. Calling it in a cash game is different.

by the way, and sorry i missed this in my previous post, this part i quoted above is a fallacy. what he got in one hand, or a recent hand, does not affect what he could get in the next one at all. just today i had a run of 4 hands in a row, in all of which i got pocket pairs. yes, it is a slim chance, but it will happen, and basing "a read" on that is definitely wrong. (your read was more in line with what he had done earlier, so that was better)

i still say that it was a gambler's decision, and since it worked for you, nice

as you said you felt the villians range was much wider than this it turns out to be a good call. but the fact you discount an over pair on instinct is a very bad practice and will lose you lots of money in the long run. as for as he had a pair before well thats just silly. what are the odds of flipping heads if you flip a coin? 1:1. But suppose i flipped that coin already and it was heads before? now what are the odds of flipping heads? still 1:1. anyways this pokerstove is a great tool. what you really should be doing IMO is putting the villian on a rnge of hands. and when you get questions write the range you had him on down. then if he shows down see if that hand was the range you gave him or not. then goahead and plug it into pokerstove and see what type of calling range is profitable vs his range.

I would of folded it, it was not a good play, as the rest have pointed out.
You got lucky, and on a call you did not need to make.
Nice that it worked out, for you, but now they got some info on your hands.

I honestly do not understand the reason why people criticize me more than the guy who pushed with Q9s. Since when is Q9s a good or premium hand to push all-in with? Pushing all-in with Q9s is considered a bluff to steal my blind.

Thank you for the info and I'll keep that in mind next time because I will agree with this and fix that thought. People can get pocket pairs multiple times within few hands. But I consider frequency of hands too sometimes because it gives better prediction and better read when I'm focusing on reads. Because this guy has been raising with hands like 78 clubs, TJ diamonds, all sorts of hands.

Because there is no comparison between shoving and calling an all in. DUCY? If you don't, load up sng wizard and play some shove ranges against a TAG.

Anywhoo, ya the call was meh, but who the heck cares. You gambled a little against a shortstacker and won.

Next time this happens, just say 'I felt like gambling' instead of trying to debate +/- EV and pot odds and hand ranges etc etc.

I'm not a fan of calling with 22, as per Sklansky's gap method it takes a bigger hand to call with than to shove with, 22 is dominated by all pockets pairs and a coin flip with pretty much any other unmade hand, so you have put yourself in a situation where your best case scenario is a coinflip, this doesn't sound like a positive EV position to me.

+1

There's also an image opportunity here that you shouldn't ignore, even (or especially) if you lose the race. "OMG, what else will he call down with???" will be a question everyone at the table will ask themselves when they have to play against you.

Be cocky about this play, not defensive, as Effexor implies above.