Whats your move here and why?

BigDragon

You are in a MTT and you are down to ten left and the final table will consist of nine players. At this point there are five players sitting at two tables. Let's use the extreme example - you are 6th in chips in regards to all ten players but you are the chip leader at your table. Of course at your table no one wants to bust out before the final table and presently you are basically destroying the table. Every time you are raising they are folding. The worst thing that could happen to you is to give this position up because now is when you are going to pick up chips. You don't want to be merging with those big stacks on the other table yet.

Now, a situation arises where you're in the big blind and the small blind has 2bbs. He goes all-in costing you one bb. You are sitting with a great hand, QQ.

gerry87

If the table's that good you should probably fold. You'll get more than 2BB's from the table the way it is and you'll be in a better position for the final table.

5starpool

I try and take him out as per normal. It is not guaranteed that you will continue to keep stealing hand after hand, and to get a chance of winning you have to atngle with the big boys. Allowing Mr 2BB to get through here would smack of something ridiculous and/or collusion as there is no way that ANYONE would fold here under normal circumstances. Justifying by saying that you want to keep bullying is a bit facile imho.

Play the game. Knock him out. And the rest of them. Win.

brianmc

BigDragon wrote:

You are in a MTT and you are down to ten left and the final table will consist of nine players. At this point there are five players sitting at two tables. Let's use the extreme example - you are 6th in chips in regards to all ten players but you are the chip leader at your table. Of course at your table no one wants to bust out before the final table and presently you are basically destroying the table. Every time you are raising they are folding. The worst thing that could happen to you is to give this position up because now is when you are going to pick up chips. You don't want to be merging with those big stacks on the other table yet.

Now, a situation arises where you're in the big blind and the small blind has 2bbs. He goes all-in costing you one bb. You are sitting with a great hand, QQ.

Hmmm... I can see your justification but... I think as 5starpool said - you can't guarantee that the situation will stay so nice. Inevitably two of the short stacks will tangle and you're down to one table.

That said. You're only losing an opportunity to win 2 X BB and not lose your own BB. You only need two more steals to work (2 X 1.5BBs) to compensate for passing this up.

I guess if you're confident that you can get at least two more steals in before you're down to one table - then fold.


I remember an STT where we got down to three players. Both of the other players had 3 X BB each and I had the rest so I pushed every hand.

One of the shorties folded KK to try and stay in to get second place.

Edit: The footnote above is not relevant to anything. It is an anecdote about an idiot.

bubbleking

yeah i agree you have to knock him out. im assuming the blinds dont have you under any pressure any id rather take on the big stakes where i can take my time. dont forget if you knock this player out theres still going to be 3/4 players than you on the final table with a smaller chip stack that will be under pressure to make a move. not calling with QQ is what will lose a tourney not win it.

Culchie

Of course you knock him, someone has to get get knocked out, probably the shortstack, so you might as well get his chips rather than helping someone else.

Dave, I'm worried

The C Kid

This is a standard pass.

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot. You are losing chips by calling.

PS - Sheets makes some nice articles

ecksor

Agree with The C Kid. Isn't this the exact scenario described in TPFAP?

BigDragon

The C Kid wrote:

This is a standard pass.

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot. You are losing chips by calling.

PS - Sheets makes some nice articles

Shhhhhhh. Spoil sport

Culchie

hmmm, must read sheets stuff, sounds interesting.

So shortstack of 2BB's has increased his stack by 150% to 5BB's by letting him pass.
You are 6th in chips, so you can't be too healthy with 10 left.

There also can't be too many chips left on your table, if you are table chip leader, yet 6th of 10 in the MTT.

I'm completely open to education on this matter, but I'm struggling with this concept right now.

5starpool

The C Kid wrote:

This is a standard pass.

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot. You are losing chips by calling.

PS - Sheets makes some nice articles

so what if this guy goes all in the next 3 hands in a row and you try and knock him out on the third one but double him up. I don't see the 'standardness' of this. You are not guaranteed to dominiate. If you are dominating by playing the big stack, then inevitably you are doing it with crap most of the time. Doubling a couple of shorties up when they inevitably call you with a likely better hand cannot be standard surely.

I don't care who wrote a nice little clever article on this. It just cannot be true enough times for this to be standard.

The C Kid

It doesn't matter who wrote it. At this table your stack is allowing you to accumulate, why would you want to end this for the gain of 2BBs and be moved to another table where you would be back among the mid-stack mediocrity?

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot.

5starpool

The C Kid wrote:

It doesn't matter who wrote it. At this table your stack is allowing you to accumulate, why would you want to end this for the gain of 2BBs and be moved to another table where you would be back among the mid-stack mediocrity?

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot.

Is this a guarantee? Can you be sure that 2 of the shorties will not go all in the very next hand? Or that when you are dominating you won't happen to double someone up? 'Black and white this is not' as Yoda might say.

Culchie

Domination of what though?

If you are 6th out of 10, and all the other stacks on the table are lower than yours, then surely there can't be much more than 3 or 4 BB's in each stack?
The table isn't worth dominating.

You'd be better doubling up on the final table and try and win the MTT.

The C Kid

Culchie wrote:

You'd be better doubling up on the final table and try and win the MTT.

The chips that you are accumulating now are adding the strength to your stack to allow you to move to the FT in a stronger position and win the MTT.

The hypothetical situation states "Of course at your table no one wants to bust out before the final table and presently you are basically destroying the table. Every time you are raising they are folding".

In my opinion its very unlikely that the shorties will suddenly start to play back at you until the FT bubble bursts.

5starpool

This is all very well in a hypothetical situation where shortstacks never play back at you unless they are 2BB or less. Even if the above unlikely scenario of 5 big stacks at one and 5 short at the other then 4 totally passive players at the shortstack table is highly unlikely.

This is an unrealistic question and making unrealistic assumptions make this a pointless question almost of the ilk of 'If you had AA and 9400 players went all in ahead of you in the first hand of the Universal Poker Championships for 8 squillion quid, what would you do' questions.

If all the above unlikelyness was in place then by all means fold.

Signed: CrankyDom.

Culchie

You've just thrown (if you called and your QQ held up) 4 BB's

So next hand you're in the SB .... you gonna fold and make that 5BB's just incase you knock someone out?

If you raise then the hand after on the button, say 4BB (running total -9BB now) and get re-raised, or lose the pot (-10BB plus whatever other bets are involved).... you're making a bloody mess out of this situation.

This sort of stuff is nonsense talk. Play your QQ.

Get rid of the shortstack, double up on the FT if you need to.








*edited as villain is SB, doesn't make a jot of difference to analysis though.

JustMac

I get the general idea behind wanting to be able to dominate the table and hence:

The C Kid wrote:

Domination of table for another couple of orbits > present pot.

BUT, in the example given we are talking about letting the SB take your BB bringing him up to 3.5BB.

There are only 5 at the table. The SB is going to be on the button next time. Surely he will push with his shortstack, especially if the pot has not been opened already. Do you fold because you want to keep him at the table? If you fold the BB might well call the shortstacks all-in and end up knocking him out and you end up at the final table with 3.5 BB's less than you probably would have had you just called the all-in with QQ.

I think you would have to see all the stack sizes to figure out if it would be worthwhile passing.

Given that you are chip leader then it is likely that all of the other players would be happy to take on the shortstack just for the 3.5 BB.

BigDragon

Ok some reading..... The situation is brought up in the second part.

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5536406
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5549666

Gholimoli

this to me is deffo a fold. i have folded in situation like this before and will always do if the situation is right.
but it depends on how much my stack size increaces by taking the person out.
here you will gain 3BB by calling and winning the hand.
if your stack is anything above 25BB then i think this is a pass as ur only increasing your stack by about 12%.situation being as it is i think you can increase your stack by more than that if you keep stealing away and picking up the blinds.
if you get to increase your stack by more than say 20% then i think its worth it .

Norwich Fan Rob

its not black and white, it depends on your stack reletive to the blinds and the other 4 stacks at the table.
For it to be correct, u would need to have a much bigger stack than the other 4, and x25+ bbs.
Also, the other 4 would need to be all under pressure, and finally, the difference between 10th and 9th in the tourney would have to be significant.
Then it would be a good play.

In most tourneys where 9th is only money back, and u wont have more than 15BBs being in 6th out of 10 players left, id prefer to take the 3.5BBs and move onto the final table.