blonde poker forum

Playing live on Friday night and we are down to 3 tables with 8 at my table.  Blinds are 600/1200 and I have around 6k in chips.  The big stack is sitting next to me on my right.  He has been playing loosely and limping into pots with rags (has shown K4o and 64s).  I have moved all in once before on the cutoff.  Overall the table has been playing tight and most pots have been taken down with a preflop raise.

My normal strategy when I get down to 5-7 BB is to move all in with any half decent hand in early/middle position and virtually any 2 in late position if the pot has not been opened (depending on the table).   Unfortunately the big stack is getting in my way and I am now down to 5 BB and the blinds are moving up to 800/1600 in 5 minutes and I will be on the BB in 2 hands. 

The big stack is UTG and limps in again.  I look down at QTo, have a bit of a ponder, look at my chips and move all in.

My thinking was that if I wait for the blinds I will be down to 3.5 BB at an 8 handed table with the blinds soon to be 800/1600, leaving me with around 2.5 BB.  The big stack had been limping into a lot of pots with rags so probably did not have great strength.  I wasn't sure he would fold but if I had 2 live cards against an underpair or even if he had A rag it wouldn't be a bad position to be in.  If I waited for the blinds and managed to double up later I would still be in bad shape with around 5 BB again at 800/1600.

Any opinions ?

If he has been habitually limping in then i can't blame you for pulling a move however the big stack is almost certainly going to call (he has to put 4BB's into a pot of 7.5BB's). Personally i would have pulled this move a lot earlier so that i had more FE. Barry Greeenstein suggests going all in with any ace in late position and a hand like K-J in MP when you have less than 10 BB's.

Your gambling but given your stack size you don't have much of a choice. Might as well make a stand and hope for the best now rather than lose a 3rd of your stack within the next 3 hands, although I would have preferred to make a stand earlier despite the constant limper.

I have no problems with this push as your situation is desperate. I would have made the move a lot earleir, 8-10BB's to force some1 to pick up a good hand to call you. Pushing at this stage is almost always going to yield a call with you only having 11-12 BB's if you win and essentially still short-stacked.

As I was walking away from the table there were a few snide comments about the weakness of my hand which is what promped this post.  I would normally push when I get to around the 7 BB point.  What I have noticed where I play live is how few people push at this point.  Usually they wait until they are almost blinded out.  An experienced and successful live player who was at my table a few weeks ago made a comment to the effect that it was not worth going all in just to win the blinds.  I didn't get into a discussion with him about the reason I was pushing but I did find a "chip and a chair" attitude among most of the live players I play against.  Given that I am nomally one of the tightest players at the table it a bit of a novelty to be labelled as the maniac.

Yeah i see that a lot with the live players, they dont understand that sometimes you have to gamble!

it's not worth nickingnthe blinds when they are really low. When they get to the level your at (and the one before) they are definetly worth nicking :)
you made a good move...or fair move anyways. It would have been wiser (if you'd had a similar hand earlier in the same situation when you had more chips) to do it earlier but it definetly isn't a bad play.

The worst thing you can do is let yourself get blinded away.

I sincerely believe the low blinds aren't worth stealing (as you ussually get caught and then lose your table image) but anyone who claims blinds are never worth stealing is a muppet....once the blinds get interesting..it's worth nicking them.

So what was you called by anyway?? I guess you lost?!

I think of it as changing your image not losing it.

fair enough...I like people to think I'm the rock of all rocks from rocktown United states of Rock.