How would you play against someone with a seemingly unlimited bankroll, going all in preflop with every single hand and rebuying max limit every time he lost?
Seems like a dream scenario, yet I ended up losing my whole stack 3 times over while playing a fairly tight range (25 VPIP) over the course of 45 minutes. Several people come to the table and went bust a lot faster.
My run of starting hands seemed pretty normal, I was playing a tight range against only 2 other players (for a bit, there were a few more players but for the most part, just the 3 of us).
I don't care about the "bad beat", it was play money, but I do wonder about the fact I couldn't win against a 100% random all-in strategy.
Full details below for those interested.
I ran into an odd situation at a play money table (50k max buyin) and it got me wondering:
One of the players was going all in every single hand. Whenever he went bust, he would rebuy and continue playing all in.
This is no exaggeration. No matter what his hand was, he would move it all in, except for a few rare hands he didn't play, for whatever reason. He moved all in with 63o and similar, so there was definitely no hand selection taking place.
The perfect donkey, Donkey Supreme, or "DS" for short.
Also at the table, another gentleman with a very deep stack (around 800k). Let's call him "the reg".
All in all, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to increase my play chips bankroll and practice my range.
My first hand was KK. I moved my chips in and doubled up. Seeing how my opponent was playing, I decided to use a fairly tight range, around 25 VPIP. Solid playable hands and monsters only.
I increased my stack to about 150k, then lost the whole thing to "the reg" who was also in the hand, in somewhat of a bad beat (my AQo losing to his A5o).
Still, with such a donkey at the table, I could not pass up the opportunity. I rebuy, and this time, I am extra careful not to run into the reg's crosshairs, even though he was playing a wider range than myself. I figured that as long as I could be heads up with the DS, my tight range would earn me a nice bit of play money.
I managed to avoid playing with "the reg" and went all in with the DS every time I had decent cards.
Even though I doubled up several times, I found myself busting and having to rebuy 3 times, losing my entire play money "bankroll" in 21 hands (11 wins, 7 losses, 3 draws).
The conditions seemed as perfect as could be: a crazy donkey with endless supplies of cash, going all-in preflop with every hand. What more could one ask?
And yet, I went bust. This got me curious and I had a closer look at the statistics: I ran the math on Equilab afterwards, and found out I had been a bit unlucky, as my range should have won 62% of the time against a fully random range, and I only won 50% of the time (the remainder being a larger than usual number of split pots - should have been 1% and ended up around 15%).
My share of the rake was a staggering 55k, which accounts for one of the rebuys.
I wondered about the impact of tightening my range, but as it turns out, going from tight to ultra tight wouldn't have improved my odds all that much: playing a 10% VPIP instead of 25% would have meant a theoretical 68% win rate instead of 62%, while playing half as many hands. I'd still have gone bust.
Can this situation be won? Is it just a case of my bankroll being too small to handle the variance, or is it just a case of a smaller stack being doomed to lose against the seemingly endless stack of the DS?
I have to admit I am quite stumped. I would have thought that having a fully lose opponent moving all in all the time would be a boon, but it turned out a guaranteed bust.