How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

2nd hour into a $11 rebuy, hero is within top 15 chip leaders among 170ish remaining players. Joined the new table about one and half orbit ago, so no specific read on the villain. Hero bet/raised and took two pots so far, show down once where hero had a strong hand.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (9 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: 2+2 Forums)

UTG+1 (t8940)
MP1 (t6020)
MP2 (t21020)
MP3 (t29750)
Hero (t29215)
Button (t23530)
SB (t14540)
BB (t7475)
UTG (t21470)

Preflop: Hero is CO with Q[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">5 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to t800</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Button raises to t23505</font>, <font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, Hero ???

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

Giant reraises usually means 'I have a pretty big hand but got no idea how to play it postflop (and my postflop skills suck, lol)', typically TT-QQ, AQ+. I would call without much hesitation here.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

reads are important - if this guy is tricky and plays his big hands in a way to disguise them then i'd be wary, but without reads and without a long history w this guy i'd call.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

It's usually AK or a pair slightly lower than yours. You have to call.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

Anyone would like to vote to 'hey, you may be ahead here plenty of time, but why bother? You have a nice stack, just move on and you will find a better chancee to put your money in later.'

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone would like to vote to 'hey, you may be ahead here plenty of time, but why bother? You have a nice stack, just move on and you will find a better chancee to put your money in later.'

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, it crosses your mind, but even if we say his range is 66-AA, AK (and in reality, KK and AA should be severely discounted), you simply have too much of an equity edge to fold. Good players are usually good because they takes edges like this when they arise, not because they pass on them to outplay their opponents later.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

AK

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

This is soooo rarely AA/KK....you have to call.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

Agree that this by far AK the most often.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone would like to vote to 'hey, you may be ahead here plenty of time, but why bother? You have a nice stack, just move on and you will find a better chancee to put your money in later.'

[/ QUOTE ]

Not me and particularly not if this is a 1000+ field.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

Actually I agree with all of you. I am happy that I did the right thing when I instacalled this. Only as a second thought the 'why did I even bother?' argument crossed my mind so wanted to see if it is something anyone would advocate here.

To my surprise he showed AA. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] I hit the miracle nut flush on the river except the flop was A [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

I didn't really think anyone would play AA this way. but the problem was, this guy sucked.

I checked him up on pokerdb, found he never won any significant money playing MTTs although he made into small money here and there (more than 20 times and usually the minimum prize) over the last 8 month or so. I don't know how many tournies he played, but it definately looks like he is losing money playing them.

All of his small wins were in the lower buy-in tournies, mostly $3 rebuys and $11 freezes. So he was also out of his comfort zone here.

I wonder if this information would have changed my decision if I had it at that time.

Anyway, just for fun, obviously he became the chip leader after this. He went all-in again two hands later to a limper. I gave him an lol and he proudly said 'QQ'. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Two hands later, I raised 3x BB with A9s and he shoved again! Had to call due to pot odds this time and he showed 88 finishing my tourney there. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

owned! lol

JK, this is an easy call. Really surprises me he had AA here.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

Maybe he thought it was still the rebuy period [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't really think anyone would play AA this way. but the problem was, this guy sucked.

[/ QUOTE ]I'll admit to playing AA this way once before, but the original raiser was a total donk and I thought he'd call (he did with A2o).

As for your hand, I think this is AK about 80% of the time, and the thought of folding wouldn't even enter my mind. However, you need to learn to suck out better [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

I play AA like this frequently in &lt; $10's, during the first half hour. It's amazing how often I get called by AJ or 55.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?

[/ QUOTE ]

why is it stupid?

i would fold.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?

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why is it stupid?

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Because you can get more action when you have KK/AA and are only getting called by a better hand when you have TT/JJ/QQ/AK.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Giant reraises usually means 'I have a pretty big hand but got no idea how to play it postflop (and my postflop skills suck, lol)', typically TT-QQ, AQ+. I would call without much hesitation here.

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the fact that many players agree with you is part of the reason why pushing KK and sometimes AA and AK can be a decent play for the villain here.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

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Because you can get more action when you have KK/AA and are only getting called by a better hand when you have TT/JJ/QQ/AK.

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it's hard to get more action than all-in preflop with a dominating hand.

KK is a great hand to push here. if you think he might call, by all means, push AA too. pushing AK sometimes is fine (definitely can't do it every time though).

if you get no callers on your push you should definitely show AA or KK. when it gets down to the end and youre pushing every 6th hand you want it in the back of your opponents' minds that you play this "crazy" with your monsters too.

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

FWIW, if I would have checked pokerdb and seen he was mostly a losing MTT player I probably would have instacalled this even faster

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

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[ QUOTE ]
Because you can get more action when you have KK/AA and are only getting called by a better hand when you have TT/JJ/QQ/AK.

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it's hard to get more action than all-in preflop with a dominating hand.

KK is a great hand to push here. if you think he might call, by all means, push AA too. pushing AK sometimes is fine (definitely can't do it every time though).

if you get no callers on your push you should definitely show AA or KK. when it gets down to the end and youre pushing every 6th hand you want it in the back of your opponents' minds that you play this "crazy" with your monsters too.

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This is a terrible analysis. You're completely ignoring calling frequency. We need to max our expected gain here, not our max gain when he does call. Just because he "occasionally" calls with a dominated hand when we have AA doesn't make pushing the right move. Based on your thinking, why don't we push AA everytime we are dealt it in a 1000BB deep cash game?

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Based on your thinking, why don't we push AA everytime we are dealt it in a 1000BB deep cash game?

[/ QUOTE ]
zomg, new trick in my bag for cash games!

Re: How do you interpret a stupidly big reraise allin?
 

[ QUOTE ]
This is a terrible analysis. You're completely ignoring calling frequency. We need to max our expected gain here, not our max gain when he does call. Just because he "occasionally" calls with a dominated hand when we have AA doesn't make pushing the right move. Based on your thinking, why don't we push AA everytime we are dealt it in a 1000BB deep cash game?

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i'm not ignoring calling frequency. i'm not saying that pushing AA is always right, or usually right, or anything like that. I'm saying that pushing KK or AA/AK (less often) is reasonable sometimes. that is, in the right situation it can be +cEV or only slightly -cEV compared to reraising a normal amount. metagame issues and lowered variance (which is +EV in a tournament) can turn it into a play worth doing some % of the time.

a main point was that a push gets called by hands like QQ, and more importantly AK and JJ and even worse (which you can stack postflop less often) ... often enough that your likelihood of being called is not as low as you think. for evidence that this is true, look at this thread. everyone puts you on TT or AK (because you supposedly dont know how to play postflop.)

also, when you reraise a normal amount you give away your hand anyway. your opponents are almost as likely to fold to a regular RR as they are to a push.