[vincent]

... I somehow ended up at a table with two players who were, how do I describe it, ummmm.... acting like idiots. Let's call them Abbott and Costello.

They were playing a game where they would alternate going all-in with their huge stacks but they were being very good natured, just kinda having fun throwing their whole stacks in there pre-flop with shit cards or pushing their whole stacks with draws etc.

They were laughing about it too. Abbott would say, "OK, now its your turn. On the next hand, just go all-in." And sure enough Costello would do it. Now sometimes they didn't go all-in when it seemed that they had a agreement, so they had some standards, but sometimes they would push with nothing and show it afterwards. It was crazy but they were having a ball.

They each had ~$250 when I sat down. I had the full buyin of $100. The biggest problem is that there were three other players there too. So, I couldn't just always call when I had an above average hand. I needed to find some standards to how to play this. My tactic was to just sit back and wait for a monster, always limp my big hands and to hope I caught a big hand when either Abbott or Costello decided it was time to push all-in for fun.

It took a while, and I actually folded some good opportunities because I was worried about people to act behind me. I folded AQ once pre-flop because there were players to act behind me. Plus, the all-in goofs were only going all-in about half the time with bad hands. The other half, they had big hands. I needed to wait this out and find my big pockets.

My first chance to really take them on came when Costello limped pre-flop and I limped with AK. Abbott folded and it flopped K87 with a flush draw. Costello and I were heads up. Needless to say, he pushed all-in. What to do? Jeez. I have about $120 right now and he just pushed his whole stack at a $2 pot. I thought a long time on this one and just let it go. I folded. Probably a big wimpy thing to do, but I really felt I would have a better opportunity. One chance passed.

It was a few minutes later that I was dealt kings on the button. This time it was Abbott who fired his stack at the pot... pre-flop with no raises ahead of him. This time I called. "Uh oh" he said in chat. The board came off 23235 and his pocket 7's didn't win out. I had doubled up to nearly $260... nice.

They kept it up, and actually were winning huge pots. Costello won three all-in's against other players, once facing off directly with Abbott and quadrupled his stack up to over $430. You see, they were not really that nuts. They would often push pre-flop and show nothing, but they knew that this bet had very little chance of being called. They had switched to pushing all-in post flop more often and were only doing it when they flopped something weird, like two pair on a seemingly disconnected board, and Abbott was doing this very well. He managed to get two suckers to play his game, once when he flopped bottom two pair and the sucker had TPTK and once when he flopped a straight. Within 15 minutes he had taken the $120 stack that I left him with and quadrupled it to almost $500.

... this was fun. I was just laying low, watching these guys play their game and just waiting to catch at the same time they happened to decide to push. It was a little while later that I took a flop with 4's and flopped a set. Abbott pushed this time, firing in his remaining stack, which was only about $100. I called and bang I was up to $350 or so. Abbott did this with a flush draw.

I watched them play like this for another half hour, catching some small hands in between their all-ins and chiping up a bit more. I never got another chance to take a whole stack and eventually had to go to bed. Costello and I ended with equal stacks and I would have liked to have doubled up through him one more time, but alas, the opportunity never arose. When I left, they were still playing their game. They were both up overall and probably about 10 players had come in and out of the game in that hour or so that I played it. Half of those players lost their whole stacks to this madness. I was proud to have survived and to have nearly quadrupled up. I could have easily have lost several buyins buying into this crazy game of chicken.

[ThomasR]

That's a good game you played then, up on what you went in with even with 2 players who were either not that bright, or far smarter than most had bargained on.

It's a good way to catch the weaker players, who are uncertain or doubt their (probably good) hands. Then again, if they bluff too often, players can then become susceptable to assuming they are normally bluffing, call an all-in and watch their pot disappear.

I agree though, game of cat and mouse you did well to survive - I may have taken a chance, I may have left the table early on, but that's a definite case of a big win or a big loss - I wouldn't have managed what you did.

[DeepBlue]

Yeah that was good play, I, like Thomas, wouldn't have fancied staying at the table for fear of a bit loss. There seemed to be a lot of bluffs and chips flying around that table and you did really well to stay in, keep your head and you were rightly rewarded.

Nicely done.

[Shotsie]

Wow, great job vincent. I would never have been brave enough to stay in when all that bluffing was going on. Almost had a very tight game there for a moment, but looks like it all payed off in the end. Way to go!

[DeepBlue]

Things get a little hairy with big raises on nothing, as I implied, I would have been ready to get out and leave them to battle things out on their own.

Just goes to show what keeping your head can do for you in these kind of situations though.