Tournament Question (Stolen from 2+2 again)

Hectorjelly

Its midway through a tourney and you have an average stack, 20k, blinds are 500, 1000 and its Very far from the money.

Somebody in Mp raises makes it 4500 to go, and you double that with AQs on the button. Everybody folds to MP who has you covered, and he puts you all in.

You put him on KK, allthough QQ JJ AK AA are all possibilities.

Call or fold?

DaBreno

Ive lost count of the amount of times Ive gone out of Tourneys with a hand like that. I start to shake if I see it now! Im no expert but 4500 says QQ or less, probably Jacks or less. If you went all in, I believe its almost a 50/50 shot with him in the lead(correct me if Im wrong).
The best I can do is win a 5 buck Sit n go so maybe I havent a clue...

Lafortezza

Fold

I voted to call. Although it would be a very tough and close decision, in reality it would depend on what I knew about the player, how he played and whether I had a read on him.
My reasons for calling?

1) Your reraise to 9000 is just about half your stack, if you thought he might fold then you should have pushed all-in, so I think you're just about pot committed at this stage. If you fold you'll have about 11 times the big blind left, alot less than the average stack.

2) If you want to have a good chance at making the money you need to make chips. This isn't the best opportunity to do it (with AQs) but after raising to 9000 and then being put all in its hard to back off, fold and try to battle your way back.

BUT

3) When you factor in the hands your opponent is likely to have...
KK: You're in big trouble, just the Ace overcard
QQ: Again in big trouble.
JJ: At least you have the cointoss...
AK: Not a good situation at all either.
So when you look at the hands you might be up against (assuming your reads of the opponent can put him on that range of hands) then folding might be the best option.

Although your AQ *is* zooted...

DapperGent

Fold

From what I can see the pot odds of about 2.4:1 would justify calling against any of his possible holdings. Especially seeing as you could be in as good a situation as a coin toss vs the JJ and the worst is against AK which is still roughly in line with the pot odds. The reraise with AQ looks to have been pot committing, never a good idea with AQ but there you go.

Having said all that a fold would leave you with 11x BB which is manageable enough and you could live to fight another day but from a pure odds point of view it looks like a call to me. If I thought I was at a table with terrible terrible players in a generally weak tournament I'd fold, if I was in a tournament where I thought I was behind or of comparable standard to the field I'd call.

Or at least that's what I think I should do, I don't know if I'd think it through so clearly in the heat of battle.

Waylander

If I am putting him on one of those hands I think I would fold. Pot odds may state you should call, but that is no consolation if you get busted out of the tournament. I would rather live to fight another day. Still it would have to be a good player who made the raise for me to fold, I am not saying I would never make the call, but if I was up against a player who had been playing reasonably conservatively I would lay it down.

dirkey_wynne

If I look down and I see AQ, suited or otherwise, I shriek like a girl and burn it, muck it, throw it away as fast as possible.

Hectorjelly

1st of all I agree with anyone who critisised the original raise. I think the sensible options with those stacks are all in, call or fold, and my preference is for fold.

But looking at the actual question:

Against KK he is only a 2.125:1 dog
Against QQ 1.9:1 dog
Against 22-JJ 1.2:1 dog
Against AKs 2.5:1 dog

And against AA he is 7:1 dog


You have to call 11k for a 41.5k pot, so thats roughly 3:1 odds, so unless you are up against AA you are making a significent mistake by folding. If he has KK then 30% of the time you will win 41.5k, and 70% of the time you lose everything. This gives an EV of 12.5k

Now I hear what your saying, why put all your chips into the pot now when your almost certainly behind; well lets look at the alternative.

You fold leaving yourself with 11k chips. You are now in shortstack mode, and your going to wait for a big hand. Now lets say that you pay the blinds twice, before finding KK; and you somehow manage to get all in with AQ. So your stack is 8k, So your in a 16k pot with a 70% chance of winning 16k, and a 30% chance of geting 0. This gives an estimated EV of 11.2k. You would of been better off calling with AQ, and note that this is a "quite good "case scenario, most times you'll be forced into making a stand with 88 or Aj or something.

Quite often in tournaments you have the option of gambling now when you have the worst of it, or gambling later when you might have an even worse time of it.

zonemelt

Fold

Hectorjelly wrote:

Its midway through a tourney and you have an average stack, 20k, blinds are 500, 1000 and its Very far from the money.

Somebody in Mp raises makes it 4500 to go, and you double that with AQs on the button. Everybody folds to MP who has you covered, and he puts you all in.

You put him on KK, allthough QQ JJ AK AA are all possibilities.

Call or fold?

I voted call.

It's around 3:1 to hit an ace by the river if I remember correctly and that's about what it costs to call. A fold is out of the question IMO since a 10k stack is too small for any pot without going all in, and a 40k stack could be used for bullying and working into the chip leaders, while getting closer to the money.

As regards other the other hands, AK and QQ are about the same to beat, around 3:1 (rough guess), JJ is an easy call against but the possibilty of AA probably cancels out any rise in equity, even if there are less ways to make it since you hold one ace.

Yeah, call, but whoever it was was a silly bastard for min reraising preflop, forcing the odds on themselves, when it was an all in (to stop a steal) or fold situation (but i'm sure that's been said already!)


Jono

Imposter

I voted to fold for the reasons lafortezza stated (even though he said call)! Also what Waylander said.

Lafortezza

Fold

Imposter wrote:

I voted to fold for the reasons lafortezza stated (even though he said call)!

Speculate to accumulate!

DeVore

Why am I in this position again?

Figuring out what to do when you have been stupid is not as helpful as learning how not to be stupid in the first place.

Personally, I'd probably call hoping to see JJ but I'd slap my alternate self for getting us into that fix. doubling a raise is asking to be called or for your opponent to go over the top and leave you buggered.

DeV.

JuliusFranco

Fold

it's a familiar feeling

sticking my head in something and getting it stuck there (eg bucket of oats, the railing of a convent gate etc)

Hectorjelly

DeVore wrote:

Why am I in this position again?

Figuring out what to do when you have been stupid is not as helpful as learning how not to be stupid in the first place.

Personally, I'd probably call hoping to see JJ but I'd slap my alternate self for getting us into that fix. doubling a raise is asking to be called or for your opponent to go over the top and leave you buggered.

DeV.

The hand is immaterial, I just used it as it from a came from a real hand. The important part of the situation is not how you got there, but what are you going to do. There are any number of ways to become pot commited preflop without doing anything paticularly stupid.

Imposter

DeVore wrote:

Figuring out what to do when you have been stupid is not as helpful as learning how not to be stupid in the first place.

Philosophical as ever!