Crazy Call?

I’m in a live deep stack tourney with about 80K in chips while blinds are 1K 500 with no ante.

This is the 6th 30 minute level and I have been playing with a guy three seats to my left the entire time. I’ve played with him before, but he’s certainly not a regular and I don’t know his name.

He hasn’t been playing poorly, just running his mouth constantly. Every time he folded and someone showed like J9 for a pair of Jacks he would say “I folded a better Jack than you had” or something similar.

Other things he said were:

“All my friends are online pros and live in canada”
“I’ve won the Sunday million on PS twice”
“I hate live poker because I can only play one game at a time”

The list goes on and on and I wanted so bad to say “shut the **** up!” but I didn’t. Anyway the point to all this is that I’ve seen it before – he’s a show player and I think I’ve got a good bead on him and what he will do.

He has about 15K left (and keeps folding the best hand, LOL) and limps in from UTG for 1K on a full 10 hand table. It’s folded to me on the button I have an and I don’t remember the suits, but I decided to raise here and make it $2500.

The SB folds the BB calls (his stack was 14K total) and my buddy from UTG moves all in for about 15K more.

My thinking:

First I have to consider the BB. If he had more chips there’s nothing to consider, but I could tell by his body language he was not going to call and would not be a factor in this hand –dead money as far as I’m concerned.

Second, I know what UTG is representing, but I don’t think he has it – remember he is a show player, that would love it if I actually believed him. Yet I’m nearly certain that he wouldn’t mind a call even knowing he’s probably behind – what hand would that be? I began to think about suited connectors, maybe as high a KQ, and it just fit the scenario. I even said so out loud at the table “You’ve got suited connectors 78, 98 something like that”.

I call and he shows

I don’t remember what came out on the board but I know I won. He said “I can’t believe you called” and left it at that as he walked away. Then another player started in ridiculing me for my idiotic play; “15K with A 5 off?” among many, many other things. Whatever, I made the call “suck it” is my attitude but after the game was over I did go back to that hand several times and think it over again and again.

Was it the wrong call? I mean obviously I was right here. But that’s not what I’m after – would I be right enough times to make this +EV? Or did I deserve to be ridiculed?

If you have a gut feeling that you are way ahead & comfy risking your tounry life, then it was the right call.

Not too long ago, I played with a guy that kept shoving junk. He does it again. I hold A6s. My gut says I am way ahead. I call & he turns over 34s. Unfortunately, another guy calls with AKc & wins & I bubble out.

In this case i would say was a good call, but normaly i would not do it. But there is the difference between life and internet poker ^^.
You always have this show players who are representing good hands all day long, but sometimes then you just have to get into the pot with an ace and win...

In the long run this is not a good call. It would not have been hard for him to have you completely dominated with a hand like A 10 which I thinks fits your scenario. When ur gut says do it then you should do it. But most of the time I think this is not a positive call

That's a tough analysis. I think SamWeis3 and Jblocher1 kinda nailed your answer if you put them both together. Although you had this man pegged and new your BB was not going to call all-in, my experience tells me in such an advanced state of the tournament going all in with A-6 is not the best move but also not horrible. Obviously you turned out on the right side of this one, but you opened yourself up to possible elimination with odds against you, but then again this guy had been representing great hands all night and we all know these super aggressive guys get called on their bluff eventually.; The bottom line is SSBN743 this guy made himself PREDICTABLE, which is a poker SIN, so in this case I would have to say based on your analysis of him during the tourney, great call. The people who were ridiculing you obviously had not picked up on the same Q's as you had, I would say sscrap this one up to good observation and a little luck, cause how many times do those flop double 5's come up and these *(&^holes get some fuel for their ego. lol

I was simply saying that it would not be hard to be dominated with A 6. We need to remember that guys who are representing great stuff and who play aggressive also pick up hands. What I'm saying is that if you had a read that solid on this guy then I say go ahead make the call. But if your up against a relatively unknown player who you think might be tight. This is a call I can not possibly advise you to make. A 6 is not a hand worth putting your tourney life on USUALLY.

How did you finish in the tournament?

In my opinion this isn't a very good call. You won the hand and it is always easier to say that you had a great read on the player after you saw his cards and saw your read was right, but i think more often than not you will be losing the tournament on plays like this. Just cuz you read him to not be super strong it doesn't mean he will have 56 most of the time.....A7-AJ are all not the strongest hands to be shoving with and he could've easily held one of them and been uncomfortable about a 3way all-in with them.

I think it was a excellent read and a great call. I see a couple of people criticizing him for risking his tourney life with A-6. But if I read the OP correctly, he started the hand with 80k in chips. The villain started it with 15k. So even if he had lost the pot, ssbn743 would have had 65k left. There's a big difference between him making that call for all of his chips and making it for all of the other guys chips.

people talkin

some people just type stuff to get under ur skin. people r brave when u cant c them lol

Yeah look I’m just trying to wrap my mind around this one. I didn’t have any problem with this until I was ridiculed by another player. I could have been absolutely dominated here, but I’m not risking a large portion of my stack and believe I am ahead. That belief is not arbitrary either and has been thought out – I may be wrong (and that happens frequently) but it would not have been without thought.

However, from a +EV point of view, am I ahead enough to make this call?

If you consider that in the worst case scenario, I lose 17.5K, win 18.5K in the most probable scenario, or win 30K (with the BB moving all-in as well) in the best case scenario (of course then I must beat 2 hands – and I must also consider that a 4K side pot would be involved as well – that’s getting a little deep though).

If I take the winning chip amounts and divide by 2 to obtain an average I’m left with an average win of 24.25K assuming 50/50 on the BB’s action (and he really should have called anyway after already calling the 2.5K OOP). Some quick math results in the fact that +EV means 2.6:1.

It’s close against two hands – but I think Ace anything has a reasonable chance with those numbers and my read on this opponent. Obviously this would never be +EV against ATC from two random players, but here, it is close – I think anyway!

Am I thinking about this right?