Call or Fold

Iago

Full Tilt Poker Game #330162007: $50 + $5 Sit & Go (2143819), Table 1 - 120/240 - No Limit Hold'em - 20:17:47 ET - 2005/12/10
Seat 2: golly (3,670)
Seat 4: villian (6,360)
Seat 8: SB (2,620)
Seat 9: BB (850)
livinitup posts the small blind of 120
surfergod posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to golly [Kc Ad]
golly raises to 840
ronniehood raises to 6,360, and is all in
livinitup folds
surfergod folds


On the bubble here, been raising a lot preflop over the last 30 hands or so and this happened, villian has been folding constantly to my raises and this is only the 2nd time he's played back at me. Do you call or fold here?

valor

Long detailed reply coming up

Call.

Amaru

I think fold. If he's only pushed back at you twice, it looks like he's playing tight, so I assume he has JJ, QQ, KK or AA. Any of these hands you can't afford to race with, especially when there's somebody with 3BB left. Also, why raise so much? Wouldn't a smaller raise entice the short stacked BB into a push?

Ste05

I think it would depend on if you mind being the bubble boy, but if you look at this hand, and look at what he could be playing back at you with. This guy knows that it's the bubble and you've been raising alot, therefore he doesn't have to put you on as big a hand as AK. So to do this I'd say he could have any Pair over 7's, any half decent A or even any two face cards.

Text results appended to pokerstove.txt
equity (%) win (%) tie (%)
Hand 1: 59.8160 % 55.85% 03.96% { AdKc }
Hand 2: 40.1840 % 36.22% 03.96% { 66+, ATs+, KJs+, QJs, A9o+, KJo+, QJo }

Based on the above, I think it's up to how risk adverse you are and how good the other players at the table are. If you call and win then you'll have a commanding chip lead and would be favourite to take down first place, however if you think you can outplay the other players later in the tournament anyway, then a fold would be OK too, you'll still have enough chips left to play with, but it'll be more difficult to take first place.....

An interesting hand and one that I'm sure will spark some good debate.

EDIT: I don't think he'd do this with 22 - 66, so I took those out of the Pokerstove calcs...

DapperGent

This is a tough one. I would make an instinctual decision based on the entirety of the SNG so far. You need to ask yourself a simple question: Would he move in with AJ or AQ here?

If the answer is (all in your opinion) yes, it's a call. If the answer is probably it's a call. If the answer probably not it's a call. If the answer is almost certainly not it's a fold.

RoundTower

Easy call for me. Just because he hasn't played back at you before doesn't mean he has to have AA now.

Daithio

I agree with roundtower. call here every time.

ArmaniJeanss

Fold pdq !.

You fold here and you have 2830 left out of 13500.
You should expect to win 20% of the time from here, 2nd roughly 35%, 3rd roughly 35%, bubble roughly 10%.
If this is a 9seater with prizes of 225,130,90 then from this position your expected return is (225*.20% + 130*.35% + 90*.35%) = 122.
If you call and lose you, then obviously you lose this 122.

If you call and win you have 57% of the chip in play and can reasonably expect to win the game 60% of the time, 2nd 25%, 3rd 10%, bubble 5%.
Your expected return then is (225*.60% + 130*.25% + 90*.10%) = 176.5.

So calling here risks $122 to win $54.5, so would need to be about 68-70% fav to justify a call. But you are effectively 50/50 against a pair, and still only 65% against something horrid like 23o. Only against a dominated A or K is it a reaonable call,

AJ (My first attempt at hand analysis, apols if its rubbish).

Bozzer

Assuming a payout structure of 0.5,0.3 and 0.2 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd then it's a fold and it's not even close.
If you had told us your opponent had a completely random hand then it becomes a little interesting .
You could use a mathematical model which would actually advocate a fold against a random hand, but that model assumes equal skill amongst your opponents and ignores the likely advantage you would gain by having a large stack on the bubble with a v.short stack still around and a tight opponent to your immediate left to steal from.

I could show you my math analysis of calling in your situation vs an opponent's range of {77+,A8s+,ATo+,KJs+,KQo} if you want to see it?

kpnuts

impossible to pass for me!

Ste05

Bozzer wrote:

I could show you my math analysis of calling in your situation vs an opponent's range of {77+,A8s+,ATo+,KJs+,KQo} if you want to see it?

Give us a look.....

Iago

Bozzer wrote:

Assuming a payout structure of 0.5,0.3 and 0.2 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd then it's a fold and it's not even close.
If you had told us your opponent had a completely random hand then it becomes a little interesting .
You could use a mathematical model which would actually advocate a fold against a random hand, but that model assumes equal skill amongst your opponents and ignores the likely advantage you would gain by having a large stack on the bubble with a v.short stack still around and a tight opponent to your immediate left to steal from.

I could show you my math analysis of calling in your situation vs an opponent's range of {77+,A8s+,ATo+,KJs+,KQo} if you want to see it?

I'd be very interested to see it Bozzer thanks.

I won't post the outcome just yet, but interesting to see that there are strong advocates for both sides of the decision.

Bozzer

OK, first you need to break down the stack sizes for the different outcomes of the hand:

1) you fold
2) you call & lose
3) you call & win
4) you call & split

1) utg(you) 2830 (.2718)
button 7560 (.3947)
sb 2500 (.2564)
bb 610 (.0771)

2) utg(you) 0 (0)
button 10390 (.452)
sb 2500 (.3183)
bb 610 (.2297)

3) utg(you) 7700 (.3976)
button 2690 (.2666)
sb 2500 (.2575)
bb 610 (.0782)

4) utg(you) 3850 (.3049)
button 6540 (.3724)
sb 2500 (.2506)
bb 850 (.0721)

The value in brackets is the $ value for each individual stack size (given as a % of the prize pool).
You can find this $ equity using this link http://sharnett.bol.ucla.edu/ICM/ICM.html

You can see from (1) that folding leaves you with 27.18 % of the prize pool.

How about calling?

You now need to look at how often (2),(3) and (4) will occur against a range of hands you put your opponent on.
Against the range {77+,A8s+,ATo+,KJs+,KQo+} AKo will

win: .532
lose: .368
tie: .1

just realized I used .01 for tie in my last calc's,so the answers gonna be closer .

Anyway...calling is worth

(.532)(.3976) + (.368)(0) + (.1)(.3049) = 24.2% of the prize pool.

So according to this model, folding will leave you 3% of the prize pool better off.

But like I said in my last post, the calculations don't take into account any advantage you may gain by becoming the big stack.
In this particular situation there will be a stack of < 3bb left.
Nobody will want to bubble before him so you will have the opportunity to steal like a mofo as long as he stays short because you can break everyone. You also have a tight player to your left who's gonna be more than willing to give up his blinds. The longer the shorty remains, the better it is for you.

But I'm not so sure that this will make up for the difference between folding and calling. The blinds aren't incredibly high so maybe there isn't enough value in stealing them at this stage. I'll leave that to any stt experts to decide.

You'll probably be able to put the button on a better range than myself to give you a better answer.

Hope this helps

Corben Dallas

fold ...so close to the bubble, top 3 =money.

depends how much u like AKos? but if u have leaned on him and got a lot of folds, suggests tight cautious player? he is CL, has u covered can take the loss and still be at the table, potentially yur last action.

if hes coming back at you strong then chances are its a pair, poss a low pair considering the all in? <doesnt want any action? If are happy to race then call......if u think its a half decent hnd yur up agaisnt then fold

imo fold.

fixer

If golly wasn't ready to call a re-raise, why bet it? I say he has to go for it and call, playing for all the chips not to squeek into 3rd.

Iago

fixer wrote:

If golly wasn't ready to call a re-raise, why bet it? I say he has to go for it and call, playing for all the chips not to squeek into 3rd.

The reason I bet it is simple, the shortstack was going to have to make a stand with any reasonable range and raising gave him that decison to make. The reason I raised to the amount I did was to cover the shortstack and try to isolate him on this hand.

When the CL reraised all-in I tried to figure out what he was holding. Since my initial raise already covered the shortstack it seemed a strange move, given his history and lack of rash moves it stuck out a bit. If he was holding a strong hand, why not make a min raise and entice a drawing hand to call hoping for a good flop? Raising all-in with the stacks on the table gave me a far easier choice, so what to put him on. I decided that his range was probably AA-TT (any lower PPs I think he would have flat called and seen the flop) possibly AK-AQ s/o

Against that range I'm just on the positive side of 50% to win the pot and with the option to fold and still be ahead of two of the three players or push on what might well be a race or where I could be in real trouble...

I decided that on the balance of the number of times I'm in that position the better move in terms of $EV would be to fold. I believe that was the right decision. Had it been either of the other two stacks I would have called I think, but with the circumstances as they were the fold was the right option.

Villian turned over AQs and I went out in 4th about 5 hands later. Shortstack trebled up when his QJs came up against my KQs and CL's 99, when a J hit on the flop and another on the river. Two hands after that I pushed with TT against 77 and a 7 spiked on the flop to knock me out.

That individual result notwithstanding, I still believe that folding is the optimal play there...