[lork]

I'm a limit Omaha/8 player recently taking the plunge into the game that seems to be taking over: no limit hold'em. I've never played it before.

Played at Taj Mahal the other night and I'm going to describe a hand I played and my thinking on it and want input from more experienced players. Don't worry about educating me. I play mostly in home games in Kentucky.

Here's the hand: It's the little $1 and $2 blind game with $300 max buyin. Someone makes it $20 (which I call)and the button reraises to $50. There are five callers of the $50 before it gets to me, with no one to act behind me. I have 8-8. Obviously the five players in the pot (with me to make six)is unusual. I had the big stack at the table, with about $1500.

Again I'm very inexperienced at the game. Actually, I'm just pure raw green at it. It occurred to me that no one except the button could have aces or kings, since no one re-raised him. I re-raised it $700, which covered everyone at the table.

My thinking, which may be a very dangerous tack, was "How in the hell can they call?" I have to have aces or kings to be doing this, right? To make things better, I had just had a 90 minute run of garbage and had scarcely put a chip in the pot in that 90 minutes other than the blinds, which made me look like a nut player.

I got one call and the flop came 8-5-2, and I won a big pot. Had I not re-raised everyone out, I would have flopped set-over-set. A-K suited folded, two nines folded, two deuces folded, etc.

Anyway, my thinking on the hand had almost nothing to do with how powerful two eights were and everything to do with what I thought I could get away with. I was critiqued later by a player I respect who said I way overplayed the two eights. Did I or didn't I?

[pritz]

The very reason who pushed all in was to thin down the field, you had to of known that at best you were in a race sitution and at worst a 80-20 loser. Your table image definitly helped. I dont fault your play at all, and when you were called you must of believed you were beat, what did the player call you with. As far as overplaying your hand, remember you need a bigger hand to "call" an all-in then push all-in.

[lork]

I realize that the race situation is often what it comes down to, but I didn't think so here.

More of my thinking when I moved in was this: By just calling a six handed pot with 8-8 I estimated maybe a 15 or 20 % chance of winning the pot. By raising all-in right there, because of the circumstances, I estimated a 75% chance or better that the raise would take the pot down uncontested. If I did get a call by two overcards, I now had a 54% chance to win it as opposed to the original 15% chance. Strong arguments for the play.

It was one of those situations where several people were just dying to see a multi-way flop, but I trumped it with the benefit of having the big stack and what I was pretty sure was the best hand.

The caller was a good player on tilt who called all-in $400 with A-9 suited. It was odd, but I had no doubt that I had him beat. I thought 9-9, 10-10, and maybe even J-J would fold, and I was just so sure no one but the button could have aces, kings, or queens.

What I really want comment on is "Is the all-in bet just because you figure no one can call" strategy effective? Is such a play advanced or just reckless?

[chris]

I also play in KY (louisville). It depends, what was the pot size when you made the raise (sorry i'm too lazy to add it up). Once you have that you just multiply the percentage that each situation will occur, by the resulting money won/lost... .75*pot size (since you think they'll fold roughly 75 percent of the time)+.54*.4*.25*(pot+1400)+.2*.6*.25*(pot+1400)

Kinda confusing so let me reexplain...

.75 since they fold that often and you take the pot right away.

.54*.4*.25*(pot+1400) because 25 percent of the time you'll get a call, and about 40 percent of those calls (.4) will be 2 overcards and your two 8's will win 54 percent of the time.

The 40 percent comes because im assuming if you get a call it will be AK AQ AA KK or QQ 2 out of the 5 are overcard hands, this is just a crude way of estimating to come out with expected value of the play.

.2*.6*.25*(pot+1400) because 25 percent of the time you'll get a call, and about 60 percent of those calls (.6) will be an overpair and your two 8's will win about 20 percent of the time.

.75*pot size +.54*.4*.25*(pot+1400)+.2*.6*.25*(pot+1400)

When you simplify this and combine terms you get your expected value to be .834*pot size+117.6. You risked 700 dollars for this so if .834*pot+117.6>=700 it was a good play. So if the pot was larger than $698.32 then it was a good move.

The pot obviously wasnt that large, but your raise covered everyone at the table so if the button, the only person who could call, had less than 700 it mightve been a good play. Now i have to add up the pot to see if it was...ok pot was roughly $312 so if the button had less than $500, it would be a good play. I probably screwed up the math somewhere so someone step in and correct it if its messed up. In most situations EV is easier to figure out.

[johnf]

here's a more simple way to think of it...

you don't want to make a large bet where the only way they'll call is if you're beat...

now... it's true that you can drive out a lot of better hands with your big bet... (pair of 9s up to to pair of Queens) and you might very well get called with a hand that you have an advantage over... (A-K)

BUT... with that much strength at the table... you almost had to assume that SOMEBODY had kings or aces...

the only percentages I would worry about in that situation is how sure I was that someone had Aces or Kings... (I would have to assume 60-80 percent sure they were there somewhere...) and the percentage of time they would call my bet... (nearly 100 percent... the only chance that kings would lay down is if they assumed you had aces... and even then....)

and then I would worry about someone with a higher pair than me (but not kings or aces) making a loose call... I'm still screwed if that happens...

it worked out... and the play you made served it's purpose... but I'm not sure I would have done that...

[DeepBlue]

You played it aggressively and you got a lot of people out the hand with the big raise that had everyone covered.

You did perhaps overestimate your hand, especially betting that early, but you flopped a tripple so in retrospect it was a brave call on your account having had very little. Perhaps you played it so hard out of frustration, but at the end of the day you won a big pot so you got away with it - well played.