Borderline push? Straddled pot and a in the dark raise

[B5k]

Hello

I already posted this in the poker theory section, but it didn't really get any attention so I thought I'd post it here too. The post:

Playing 2/2 (200€ max buy in) live at a local casino. The player on my left has been very wild and opening raising all in bilnd at times and calling all-ins with marginal hands.

The hand:

I have 200BB and the player to my rights put in the straddle, and i put in the second straddle for 8€, then the player to my left (who covers me) puts a in the dark raise of 40€. Everyone folds to me and I look down at A8s, is it +ev to push here? I expect him to call with just about any ace, big kings and probably any pocket pair. He knows I've been playing pretty solid.

I did some pokerstoving but couldn't quite decide wether it's profitable or not.

[Ranger_Trivette]

Any A is ahead of a random hand?

[Dire]

It will be very profitable.

You win 40+8+4+2+2 = 56 when you take it preflop.
Lose about 392 when called and lose.
Win about 392+56 = 448 when called and win.

A8s is literally a coinflip to K9-KQ, Ax, 22-AA. As he tightens his calling range, the $40 in the pot becomes a bigger and bigger factor. As he loosens his calling range, your hand's equity increases more and more.

[Kairos]

Why do you want to push? A raise/call to 140 seems more profitable because there is a good chance he will bluff shove.
But both should be +ev.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt

1,787,645,376 games 0.005 secs 357,529,075,200 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 50.971% 45.62% 05.35% 815594532 95590164.00 { 22+, A2s+, KJs+, QJs, A2o+, KJo+, QJo }
Hand 1: 49.029% 43.68% 05.35% 780870516 95590164.00 { A8s }

[Dire]

[ QUOTE ]
Why do you want to push? A raise/call to 140 seems more profitable because there is a good chance he will bluff shove.

[/ QUOTE ]

I also thought about this at first, but the problem is if villain just calls preflop. They still have 260 behind, but hero's ace high will be the best hand too often to ever avoid putting all the money in on any flop. On the other hand, villain will likely be able to play his hand near perfectly - shoving/calling a shove with any pair / draw, and folding K/Q high type hands.

The math there gets complex - it may actually be better than shoving, but I'm definitely not going to work it out. It seems intuitively that villain would be in a much better situation to play well in that spot though.

[B5k]

[ QUOTE ]
Any A is ahead of a random hand?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course, but at some point my stack will be too big compared to the pot to push with, since he will only call with hands that have mine crushed.


I did think about just calling or raising, but then I thought that the hand could get tricky and since the opp is so aggro, I might end up folding the best hand postflop.

What happened: I pushed and he called with AJo and won.