How do you handle an All-in all the time guy

[mutiger91]

Remember that psychology is a part of poker. Why is this guy doing what he's doing? (If you don't know, the answer is that he is an action junkie and his desire to get action is much greater than his desire to be a long-term winner - regardless of how he might rationalize it.)

This guy is my absolute favorite kind of player because:

1) He wants to get his money in and isn't worried about having an edge. You, however, can wait for an edge.

2) He makes other people at the table play differently than they would otherwise - more often than not, worse.

If you don't mind a long post, I'll share a couple of anecdotes

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1) I was playing live back in November and a similar drunk to your adversary showed up with 2 of his buddies. I was down $200 in $1/$2 and thinking about going home. My drunk wasn't an all-in bandit, but he was hyperagressive reraiser and not afraid to get it all-in regardless of his odds. I stuck around, because you don't come across an opportunity like this often.

Within 30 min drunk rebought 3 times. Then he stared to catch a couple breaks and doubled twice. (The second time against that guy everyone knows - the table boss - who is critical of everyone's play. "Boss" wouldn't shut up about that hand for the next 2 hours.)

Anyway, I never won a significant pot off of the drunk. However, I tightened up as I saw him working the table up. It was turning into a real wild west with $400+ pots not uncommon. I played 2 hands. AK flopped AKK for a full house and did a rope-a-dope on the second most agressive player on the table. Later I played AA vs. AQ and the case A flopped. He was pretty quick to give me all his money with only top pair.

My only regret is that the drunk was after a woman at the table. He was away from the table for both of my monsters (kept taking smoke breaks with her). I certainly would have taken a nice piece of him if he was around.

Moral(s):
- Be patient against these guys and you have a great opportunity to double
- Be aware of other players at the table and how they have adjusted to the drunk. Many of them may not notice how you have adjusted.
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2) Dude was playing about 80% of flops and always raised or reraised preflop. My gameplan was simple. Go set mining with any pair and see what happens. The problem was that I wasn't catching any flops. In the mean time, he had stacked a couple of people and had about $1500 in his stack.

After folding to this guy 5 times in a row on his flop bet, I decided to bluff him if I didn't make my hand. My timing was also helped by the fact that he just lost about $200 on a hand and might not want to make the same mistake. He showed that he could lay down a hand if you wanted to show strength. I noticed that if you played back at him more than once he slowed way down or mucked. It's risky, but I considered it similar to getting it all-in preflop, but with better fold equity.

I had pocket 99, raised preflop and he made his obligatory reraise. Flop had an A, but boy genius really didn't worry about stuff like that and could easily be playing 72. I check-raised him on the flop. I had folded every other time, so that got his attention, but he still called. At this point, the pot and my remaining stack were the same size. I knew if I didn't bet it, he would push, so I decided to beat him to the punch. I pushed the rest in. He mucked:

Moral:
- Watch the maniac and see if he ever backs down and under what circumstances. It doesn't always take cards to beat these guys. He's trying to be the alpha dog at the poker table. If you act like a bigger alpha, he may take a break from the alpha routine and pee down his leg in submission.

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It sounds like your maniac was less rational than either of mine, but the lessons are the same. The only other thing I can tell you about these guys is that if you flop a monster, let them do the betting. They will take 3 stabs at a pot (if they are patient enough to move their chips in that slowly). You can reraise at the end if there is anything left to get in.

[mo42nyy]

i love playing guys like this
most people dont
IMHO they are either severely underrolled or do not adjust to changing game conditions at all
What can be for fun than a guy who goes all in 6 times an orbit?

[gmcarroll33]

Yes, I would say this guy was a total action junky, but he is the type of guy who does not care how much he loses, just as long as he gets the thrill of gambling. I talked to my friend who plays at the place regularly, and the owner of the bar says it's not uncommon to see him walk away 2 grand down, or 3 grand up, but most of the time it's the 2 grand down.

He talked relentlessly about the "Hell I gamble" attitude in him. He definitely had the my balls are bigger than yours attitude, even though he was risking $600 for less than $100 every time he did it.

My problem was that I could never get a preflop read on him, because his hand range was so rediculous for all kinds of amounts, and I can honestly say I don't think it was part of any strategy that the man had, instead just his rekless gambling desire.

It definitely sounds like I was playing with way more of a maniac than you were. Like if I had the pocket nines like you were talking about and raised preflop and got called, if anything higher or even for that matter lower flopped on the flop he was still all in, so it's really hard to get the raises or reraises in on him. It was either an all-in to match him, or have the nuts and call, or be wrong like I was with top pair.

I appreciate everybody who's responded so far by the way. I've played with a lot of player types, but this was the most extreme case I've ever played against, and I know I will have to play against him again so I'll need to be able to adjust. My strategy is going to be just wait from now on against this guy. Let him buy all the $30 pots he wants and then catch him and hope my hand holds up. This is very conservative sounding to me, but doesn't it sound like the only approach I can take against a table with a maniac like this?

[winterGT]

You need some luck to get him in an allin when you have a legit hand. I mean if you let him buy ten $50 pots with this style, you're down $250 and one correct call can put you up a lot. That's why nobody does this stuff with deep stacks, it doesn't work.

Mind you though, if this guy is good at reading people, it's gonna be that much harder to catch him with his pants down.

But at the end of the day, fact remains that you need to catch some cards to punish his playstyle with. If this doesn't happen, tough luck. Long term though, it should happen often enough to be very +EV for you.

[mutiger91]

It all depends on your comfort level. I like to play guys like that (we're talking extreme all-in guys) with a lot of hands (but I have to be damned sure nobody else is going to jump into the hand). If you have position and it doesn't look like anyone else is a threat, take him on with good starting hands. With a maniac like the one you described, I like pairs 88 or better and AJ or better if not paired. More often than not, this leaves him drawing to 3 outs and I'll take that any day.

To tell you the truth, this guy sounds like he needs some serious GA.

[mutiger91]

One thing to add...if I have multiple buy-ins in front of me, I'm going to be a lot more careful, because if I lose, I want to be able to get it all back at once with a new buy-in.

[Cornell Fiji]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm playing 1/2 with a slightly drunk guy, who gets in a pattern of raising $30 preflop with rags like q4 spades and hits a q or hits absolutely nothing, and he goes all in for a $600 stack. Sometimes he actually has something like pocket queens and he smooth calls, but on the flop no matter what he's all in.

Or he hits second pair, and he's all in. Or he has a monster flush draw and he's all in. Or a scare flush draw card hits on the turn when somebody has been betting the whole way, and he's all in. The only time I stacked this guy was when I had a set of 9s against his pair of Jacks on the flop, he declared all in and I won, but he bought back in for like $250 more.

Now my stack is at like $950 and I've bought in for $500 and my $400 loss from Saturday has been covered. I get Kings and raise $10, he rereaises to $30, I say all in, he doesn't even hesitate to call with A7 offsuit for his whole stack. Flop comes 773, his trips beat my Kings.

Then later on at about 5 a.m. he's been doing his all in with top pair on like 3 shown flops. I get pocket 10s. Guy with AK hearts raises to $15, Mr. all-in raises all in, and gets insta called by the original raiser. Dealer kept saying here's your chance to get him. By then he had a $600 stack to match mine, and the other guy only had $174. Is it worth it here to risk losing $154 to the other guy, to have the possibility to get all-in's stack? Mr. All-in ended up only having 99, which held up to win the whole thing, but I couldn't force myself to get in there and do it with that insta call, and even if all-in only had 2 overs, my 10s were still very vunerable to being out flopped, turned, or rivered at any time during the hand, so I didn't feel it was right to gamble my whole stack on that possibility.

Later by about 6 a.m. he's been all in about 6 of every 10 hands, with top pair or a draw most time. Then he will cool down for 20 minutes and start it his all in routine all over again. Flop comes 7-8-10. He goes all in. I've got k-10. I think he's doing his usual top pair, or monster draw bs. I really debate and wonder what the odds are that he's got 2 pair, or that he has a 10 with a better kicker than mine. I finally decide he's might have j-10 at best or q-10 maybe and I call him. But sure enough he has j-9 for the nut straight and he takes my whole stack and acts like a drunk [censored] to me as he takes my chips. I took it like a man and didn't say anything back to him and walked away though.

Obviously these calls didn't turn out the way I hoped, but what am I supposed to do against this guy? Do I pretty much have to wait for the nuts, which is what I was doing the whole night with everybody, just because of the fear of his all in bet on every hand I had money involved in.

Also, was my call on the last hand that bad? When you see a guy pushing top pair left and right all night long (several times with J-10 with 10 high on the board by the way), how wrong is it to committ my whole stack on top pair to see if I've finally caught him with a slightly better hand? Right now I'm highly angry at myself for not leaving when I was up $450 just because I thought I could stack him when I picked up the nuts or something. It seemed like if I stuck around and waited long enough I could stack him on a bluff, but it never happened. Oh, I wish I had left at about 3 a.m.

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The thing that stuck out the most in your story is the dealers conduct. This is so horribly out of line. You should tell him to dummy up and deal and call the floor if he continues to comment on players tendencies, especially during the hand.

Call with TT, if you fear AK then that means that you don't want to get your money in as a 56/44 favorite. If that is the case you are playing over your head.

Call with KT. This guy could easily be pushing with a naked 9, or a worse ten.

Poker is a long run game. You should not concern yourself with the results of any one hand but rather you should try to make the best long run decission every time

[mutiger91]

Would you really call w/ KT? I'd hate to get all my money in as a 1.5:1 dog if he has a ragged ace or be dominated by a lousy KJ. I loosen up a little for a loose player, but try not to loosen up too much, because that's what they want...well, except maybe this guy who doesn't seem to care about anything but action. Maybe it's just because I want to control variance a little, but KT vs. two random cards isn't enough edge for me. Am I making a big math mistake?

[Cornell Fiji]

[ QUOTE ]
Would you really call w/ KT? I'd hate to get all my money in as a 1.5:1 dog if he has a ragged ace or be dominated by a lousy KJ. I loosen up a little for a loose player, but try not to loosen up too much, because that's what they want...well, except maybe this guy who doesn't seem to care about anything but action. Maybe it's just because I want to control variance a little, but KT vs. two random cards isn't enough edge for me. Am I making a big math mistake?

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[ QUOTE ]
Flop comes 7-8-10. He goes all in. I've got k-10.

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[mutiger91]

my bad, didn't realize you were talking about the situation in the original post.