Hand Discussion #9: My Thoughts
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A couple of days ago, I posted a hand I “observed” where our hero had 55 after a small preflop push in a big pot. I was the player with the 55, and first I’ll tell you what happened.
I called the $69 raise ($84 total). The small blind hemmed and hawed for a while, and then folded, saying she had jack-ten. The BB turned over A
4
, and my fives held up.
First I’ll tell you why I didn’t fold. Pot odds. When the action got back to me, I had to call $69 more, and there was already $90 from the original raiser and 5 callers plus $69 from the push in the pot. So I was getting $159-to-$69 or about 2.3-to-1. Considering that I felt the big blind’s range could be fairly wide, if I were heads-up with him I would consider the call an absolute no-brainer. When your odds are better than 2-to-1, you can call a loose raise with literally most of your hands (see page 209 of No Limit Hold ‘em: Theory and Practice for detailed calling charts). Any pocket pair becomes an easy, easy call.
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Tags: all-in, david-sklansky, nlhtap, no-limit-holdem, no-limit-holdem-theory-and-practice, poker, preflop-play, preflop-push, rem-process

Ed,
Out of curiosity, at what stack sizes are you putting in a raise that isn’t all in to find out if the BB has JJ or TT?
Given the action in the hand, if I’m in the BB and someone in the middle shoves on me I’m putting him on some gambling hand, like 9T or TJ, or a PP from 33-JJ. If I have JJ or TT, I think I’m calling a shove from the middle a lot. In my heart of hearts, I don’t think I need QQ+ to find a call.
I think if I’m in the middle with 55 and I don’t think that the BB is capable of outplaying me (he/she will only shove with a hand that beats me) it seems that it would be worth sticking in a raise if I had 200-250BB or so. That does put me in the awkward spot of putting 100BB in the pot and being willing to give it up. Is there value there or am I over thinking the problem?
Thanks,
Todd