Call or Fold? Whats your move?

BigCityBanker

Final Table, 5 handed, 245k chips in play, Blinds 1500/3000, Payout 5th 165, 4th 210, 3rd 360, 2nd 535, 1st 850

Table has been playing pretty tight with 2 players having most of the chips in play, nobody appears to have been pulling moves and when ppl have pushed and called they have had pocket pairs and AQ and AK.

Villian is on button with 18.5k, Im on SB with 40k, BB covers both.

Folded to Button who moves all in.

I look down at As7s

Am I ahead of his range now? Or ever ahead of his range? Is this a standard button move and is he doing this with any two?

Am I correct to call?

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

The Istanbul

Not sure about LL's reasoning here: 1st level thinking methinks. The fact is that Button has pushed his 6BB stack and the question is whether the SB(with his a7s hand) should call with BB who covers both still to act. My view is that whatever buttons hand is SB is racing with him. A7 is very marginal A-good for a push but not a call in my view. Fold and wait for a better spot to push.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Bandana boy

A7 is never crushing any range not even blind pushing

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

bops

fold and wait for a better spot - A7 is muck

sikes

depends on how the game has been playing and your view of the villain.

in most semi aggro games, with this table makeup and our stack size, i would prefer to pick off players push botting than stealing myself.

Gholimoli

i could name the amount of player i would fold this hand against :
Vira
Harold
some other tight dude i dont know his name.
my self(this is becuase i know my own pushing range on the button is very narrow)
Mick Mcoulosly (after reading his advice on the other thread)
thats it.

then again thats only me...

PiperT

BigCityBanker wrote:

Table has been playing pretty tight with 2 players having most of the chips in play, nobody appears to have been pulling moves and when ppl have pushed and called they have had pocket pairs and AQ and AK.

On the basis of this info alone Noel, I'm waiting for a better spot. I don't mind making a move with this hand when first to act 5-handed, but wouldn't be calling with it.

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

depends on how the game has been playing and your view of the villain.

in most semi aggro games, with this table makeup and our stack size, i would prefer to pick off players push botting than stealing myself.

this is wrong .
stealing is always better.

sikes

Gholimoli wrote:

this is wrong .
stealing is always better.

That kind of thinking is just crazy.

It very much depends on how the game is playing. With our stack size we are setting ourselves up for a resteal. We have a big stack to our left which sucks balls, and if we take this spot and lose we still have FE.

To say stealing is always better than picking off pushbotters, clearly shows your lack of fundamental understanding of the dynamics of end game play.

bops

Gholimoli wrote:

this is wrong .
stealing is always better.

100000000000000000000000000% correct

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

That kind of thinking is just crazy.

It very much depends on how the game is playing. With our stack size we are setting ourselves up for a resteal. We have a big stack to our left which sucks balls, and if we take this spot and lose we still have FE.

To say stealing is always better than picking off pushbotters, clearly shows your lack of fundamental understanding of the dynamics of end game play.

this is halarious man.
i love the bit at the end .
This really poker 101.

To make things easy we just take this example that you have A7s.

If im correct you are suggesting that its better to call here with A7s than push with it ?
If im correct in the above assumption then you are so wrong man and I don’t think I have to explain why but I love to here how the “fundamentals of the dynamics of the end game “ would suggest other wise.

sikes

Gholimoli wrote:

this is halarious man.
i love the bit at the end .
This really poker 101.

Yes this is fairly basic stuff.

Gholimoli wrote:

To make things easy we just take this example that you have A7s.

If im correct you are suggesting that its better to call here with A7s than push with it ?
If im correct in the above assumption then you are so wrong man and I don’t think I have to explain why but I love to here how the “fundamentals of the dynamics of the end game “ would suggest other wise.

If the game is aggro, I would expect the big stack to resteal with a wide range of hands that we cant call with A7. Furthermore we are risking 8-9k to win 4.5k. Here we are risking 18.5k to win 22k.

If you want I will work out an ev calculation for you. But you have to understand stuff like resteal fold equity, which we dont need due to the small stack on our right, and folding equity which we retain if we lose. We are about 65% against a pushbotters range, how you think its better to be stealing with hands than picking off pushbotters in this situation in your standard aggroish game is beyond me.

BigCityBanker

Alright so - I was the button and by my own standards I had been unbelieveably quiet - Slim Tony in the BB had more chips than God and this stopped me from button raising as I was effectively comitted to a reraise (my stack fluctuated between 20k-30k). I had raised from the button twice since we went 5 handed (45mins play i reckon) and I showed AA and 1010 - these are the only 2 button raises I have made, they both went uncalled but I chose to show them to the table as I wanted respect later in the game if required.

On this occasion i pushed with KcQc, SB went into the tank for a long time before finally calling with Ac7c - his reasoning was that he needed chips if he was gonna win it and had hoped I pushed with any two rather than a better ace of pocket pair.

If im being honest here I thought it was a poor call and one I would never make - I insta fold here every single time.

I suppose thats why I posted the hand - I was wondering if I was wrong to think it was a poor call and if I was wrong to be pretty much instafolding this everytime?

NB- Sikes the game has been playing tight

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

Yes this is fairly basic stuff.



If the game is aggro, I would expect the big stack to resteal with a wide range of hands that we cant call with A7. Furthermore we are risking 8-9k to win 4.5k. Here we are risking 18.5k to win 22k.

If you want I will work out an ev calculation for you. But you have to understand stuff like resteal fold equity, which we dont need due to the small stack on our right, and folding equity which we retain if we lose. We are about 65% against a pushbotters range, how you think its better to be stealing with hands than picking off pushbotters in this situation in your standard aggroish game is beyond me.

i was going to call this post an utter rubbish but i just wanted to make sure i understood it first fully.

can you explian what it is that this post actually talks about?
my question was simple .
in the case that the OP has described in this hand ,i said its much better to be on one who pushes with A7 rather than the one calling with the A7.
then you go on talking 65% and restealing etc and other stuff which i have to be honest i dont understand .
can you please explian ?

Hitman Actual

A7s is a very tight call here, either against a loose(ish) or tight range. Marginally $EV profitable I think, but not by a hell of a lot. Folding definitely won't cost you a lot of money.

sikes

My original point is that its a more profitable play to pick off people pushing with a wide range of hands than to steal in this sitaution for the reasons i have outlined above which are pretty critical in your decison making at this stage of the tournament.

It comes down to hand ranges that you put your oppoent on. In this case, he should be pushing a pretty wide range. And so we should be calling with these types of hands because, in the context of this game, the table makeup may not allow us to gain a greater edge without a bigger stack.

If the table is tight and the range of the button is tight, then its a fold.

To say its better to be the one pushing A7 than to be calling A7 is pretty irrelevant. We are talking about hand ranges, if A7 is at the bottom of the pushers range than obvioulsy its bad to be calling. If he is pushing with a lot worse than obvioulsy its correct to call.

Resteal fold equity is pretty self explanitory, we 3bet a raiser allin and he folds.

cardshark202

wtf is going on here?
call.

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

My original point is that its a more profitable play to pick off people pushing with a wide range of hands than to steal in this sitaution for the reasons i have outlined above which are pretty critical in your decison making at this stage of the tournament.

It comes down to hand ranges that you put your oppoent on. In this case, he should be pushing a pretty wide range. And so we should be calling with these types of hands because, in the context of this game, the table makeup may not allow us to gain a greater edge without a bigger stack.

If the table is tight and the range of the button is tight, then its a fold.

To say its better to be the one pushing A7 than to be calling A7 is pretty irrelevant. We are talking about hand ranges, if A7 is at the bottom of the pushers range than obvioulsy its bad to be calling. If he is pushing with a lot worse than obvioulsy its correct to call.

Resteal fold equity is pretty self explanitory, we 3bet a raiser allin and he folds.

Ok now I get your post and can safely say its utter rubbish.


The question was between shoving and calling a shove and not anything else.
You then talk about things like restealing etc.

How can you resteal a shove?
The funny thing is that what you are trying to say (which is completely irrelevant here anyway) does not contradict but proves my point but you just don’t know it.

The reason why its better to shove than to pick off steals (in this case picking off steals =calling a shove is a very simple and its called the GAP concept.
You need a stronger hand to call a raise /call a shove than you would originally raise/shove with.
The GAP is different thought the game and goes from none existent to its MAX limit towards end game.
So in this example its much profitable to be pushing with A7s than to call a push with it and to say this is not irrelevant.

What I think you are talking about when you are talking about resteals is in deeper stack situations where an initial raise does not commit the raiser to the hand and where the stacks allow enough room to get a a second raise in with out being committed to the hand.
The funny thing is even in that case you are essentially using the same GAP concept.
You are putting in a second raise and it would take the original raiser a much stronger hand to call your reraise with than a it would take for him to raise in the first place.

I still love your “fundamentals of the dynamics of the end game” though

sikes

Are you saying it is more profitable to open push A7s with a 40k stack than to call a puishbotters push with A7 for 18k?

Who said i could resteal a shove. FFS gholi, your post is so retarded its not funny, You are completley missing the concepts i am discussing and the reasoning to it.

Ill get back to this later

BTW the gap concept is one of the most flawed concepts in poker.

BigCityBanker

Has this ever happened before?

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

BTW the gap concept is one of the most flawed concepts in poker.

You are talking none sense IMO and this is so basic that i either get or don’t get so explaining does not achieve anything.
i would however like to here why you think GAP is flawed?

sikes

This concept means that you will need a better hand to play against someone who has opened the betting than what you need to open with yourself.

Im not going to point it out.

However, before I completely go insane with your posts, please read back over the thread and see what I am talking about. You have definatley missed it, I can assure you.

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

Im not going to point it out.

However, before I completely go insane with your posts, please read back over the thread and see what I am talking about. You have definatley missed it, I can assure you.

well while im reading over last posts to see what ive missed,would you mind explianing what is so flawed about the GAP concept?

sikes

Are you serious gholi, I highlighted the words. They keep reffering to your range for that position. You cant think like that becuase everyone plays differently.

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

Are you serious gholi, I highlighted the words. They keep reffering to your range for that position. You cant think like that becuase everyone plays differently.

People do play differently but you are either poker literate or illiterate.
You either have some clue or you don’t have any clue.

For those who have a clue then the GAP very much applies ,as when you open the pot your self you count on your FE a lot and you are opening a pot that has not been contested ,and you can do this with pretty much any two cards.

How ever when you are trying to play in a pot that has already been opened/raised that pot has already been contested so you cant just play with any two so your range narrows and the difference between the two ranges is the GAP.
Now im sure there are players that play the game for the first time and ay no attention to this and would have the same range here in both cases and you are right that would make them “different” but does that suggest that the concept is flawed?
TBH im very surprised at your comments as I thought you were better than this.

BigCityBanker

sikes

Gholimoli wrote:

TBH im very surprised at your comments as I thought you were better than this.

Gholi this is getting pathetic. You tone is pretty sad. Honeslty, your coming out with this when you dont understand what I am saying. Your replies are filled with fuzzy thinking, coming across as someone who is trying to steer a conversation in a certain direction.

This is not about the validity of the gap concept and if you want start a new thread and we can talk about it there. It comes down to one simple thing.

I say its more profitable to call a pushbotters push with A7s here than to open push steal with it, which you seem to be advocating.

My reasoning is

We Call (assuming we are ahead of his range)

and lose
1) We still have fold equity.
2) The resteal fold equity we had wasnt much use due to the shortstack being on our immediate right.

and win
1) We are up with the chip lead.
2) A bigger stack gets moved to our immediate right.
3) We have elminated a player.

We Fold
1) We need to raise to steal blinds.
2) Pushing allin with this size stack is bad.
3) The big stack is to our left and can 3-bet us all in light.
4) There is a small stack still on our right.

sikes

we can also just look at the simple EV calculation for both plays if you wish, ignoring the dynamics of each decision. I will do that when I get home.

Bandana boy

LuckyLloyd wrote:

It's a favourite over any two cards.

True
but it is not crushing any range not even two random cards and it is crushed by lots of raising hands

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

Bandana boy

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Ok, "crush" was a bad word to use. I think though given the blinds, payout and stack sizes - the original raiser should be pushing a range of cards that is soundly beaten by A7o. I would be literally pushing 32o in his position.

I probably call 2 as I expect him to push with pretty much anything but Q8 is like the average hand here I think which is about 55-45 but we can afford a slight gamble I am expecting to lose half the time though

with regards the Sikes/Gholi handbags
I am afraid i am with Gholi here
This is a tournament and while to win it we need every chip in play right NOW it is about staying alive so taking that into account I rather take the FE and accumulate chips with out a showdown than constantly taking chances where at best we are 55-45 ahead and some times crushed
By the By if i am ever on same FT as Sikes i am so open pushing AK

bops

Bandana boy wrote:

I probably call 2 as I expect him to push with pretty much anything but Q8 is like the average hand here I think which is about 55-45 but we can afford a slight gamble I am expecting to lose half the time though

with regards the Sikes/Gholi handbags
I am afraid i am with Gholi here
This is a tournament and while to win it we need every chip in play right NOW it is about staying alive so taking that into account I rather take the FE and accumulate chips with out a showdown than constantly taking chances where at best we are 55-45 ahead and some times crushed
By the By if i am ever on same FT as Sikes i am so open pushing AK

all the above makes perfect sense (and therefore correct!!)

Sikes - you are just WRONG - your poker theory is that of a hamster :eek:

The C Kid

cardshark202 wrote:

wtf is going on here?
call.

QFT

sikes

Bandana boy wrote:

with regards the Sikes/Gholi handbags
I am afraid i am with Gholi here
This is a tournament and while to win it we need every chip in play right NOW it is about staying alive so taking that into account I rather take the FE and accumulate chips with out a showdown than constantly taking chances where at best we are 55-45 ahead and some times crushed
By the By if i am ever on same FT as Sikes i am so open pushing AK

Do we lose our folding equity by calling the all in? Also do you realise that the table makeup is the as bad as it can ever get for us? Having a shortie on our right and the big stack on our left is the pits. My argument is based on the fact we are ahead of his range, which i have stated throughout.

Gholimoli

sikes wrote:

Do we lose our folding equity by calling the all in? QUOTE]
either this is a joke or you are on drugs.

sikes

Gholimoli wrote:

either this is a joke or you are on drugs.

when we push in hands after we lose this hand then we do have folding equity. Obv. we dont have it in this hand.

do i have to spell everything out for you?

Hectorjelly

sikes wrote:

Resteal fold equity is pretty self explanitory, we 3bet a raiser allin and he folds.

with 6 blinds?

sikes

Hectorjelly wrote:

with 6 blinds?

Atm, with a 40k stack we do have resteal fold equity against someone with a slighlty bigger stack. Say a 60k stack raises from the button for 8k. Our resteal push will have plenty of FE. But we cant make maximum use of it atm becuase the button is a shortie

What do you think? Which is more profitable.

Open pushing A7s to steal the blinds with a 40k stack or to call a shorties all in button raise who is push botting for 18.5k.

Also look at the situation we are in atm, its really bad.

Goodluck2me

Bandana boy wrote:

I probably call 2 as I expect him to push with pretty much anything but Q8 is like the average hand here I think which is about 55-45 but we can afford a slight gamble I am expecting to lose half the time though

with regards the Sikes/Gholi handbags
I am afraid i am with Gholi here
This is a tournament and while to win it we need every chip in play right NOW it is about staying alive so taking that into account I rather take the FE and accumulate chips with out a showdown than constantly taking chances where at best we are 55-45 ahead and some times crushed
By the By if i am ever on same FT as Sikes i am so open pushing AK

yeay but if you only push AK he wont call, if you push 3 hands in a row and the last in AK he will call. which makes sense

sikes

Assumption: Villain(button) is pushbotting. 18.5k -> M = 4

His range is: 22+, A2o+, K4o+, K2s+, Q2s+, Q5o+, J7o+, J2s+, T7o+, T3s+, 93s+, 96o, 86o, 84s+

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 42.746% 40.68% 02.06% 1802827948 91431540.00 { 22+, K2s+, Q2s+, J2s+, T3s+, 93s+, 84s+, A2o+, K4o+, Q5o+, J7o+, T7o+, 96o, 86o }
Hand 1: 57.254% 55.19% 02.06% 2445751724 91431540.00 { A7s }

Thats the pushbotters range with 2 players left with an m of 4.

So, to those who advocate a fold, where are people planning on picking up chips? By pushbotting themselves with an M of 10? Or by raising to ~8k leaving ourselves open to a resteal

You cannot pass up edges like this in late game, especially given the situation we are in. If anyone comes back with a logical argument against what I am saying I will be all ears.

hatedajacks

It was me who called with a7(clubs) I would also like to point out that I had 33000 chips. The payout for 3rd/4th/5th wasnt much and the 2 chip leaders Stephen 105000 and Slim tony circa 80000 are players who call with v marginal hands so I felt getting up to abot 55000 chips would give me a great chance of winning. I felt Noel who was short stacked had a huge variance of hands to push with as some above had agreed with and after a good deal of thought i called. I won the pot and ended up knocking Tony and some other fella out and split 1st and 2nd. To be honest I think Noel was more surprised that I called as I would be known as a fairly tight player. My gut said I was ahead and I went with it. Simple as that. Noel,Stick up your Chelt fancies,I am flying out in 3 hrs.Kev

PiperT

hatedajacks wrote:

Noel,Stick up your Chelt fancies,I am flying out in 3 hrs.Kev

Yeah Noel, c'mon with the Chelt preview - some serious gambling to do

sikes

OK no one has responded, so meh. This is basically what the argument boils down to:

We have a 40k stack. there is 4.5k in the pot. Button pushes for 18.5k.

So we have two ways to accumulate chips. Either call this raise or steal raising/pushing.

So we call the allin and this is the ev.
.57(63000) + .43(21500) = 45155

Now we push to steal.
1(45000) = 44500

Clearly the call is ahead in cEV terms.

Oh but wait we aren't going to win every time when we push all in to steal. Also when we do lose, we are out of the tournament, so from a $EV point of view its terrible.

Now consider the effect of a better table makeup, the effect of knocking a player out and the greater chip count on our $EV.

When we lose, its ok because we still have FE and the effect on our $EV is in no way close to the effect of being knocked out.

Hitman Actual

sikes wrote:

OK no one has responded, so meh. This is basically what the argument boils down to:

We have a 40k stack. there is 4.5k in the pot. Button pushes for 18.5k.

So we have two ways to accumulate chips. Either call this raise or steal raising/pushing.

So we call the allin and this is the ev.
.57(63000) + .43(21500) = 45155

Now we push to steal.
1(45000) = 44500

Clearly the call is ahead in cEV terms.

Oh but wait we aren't going to win every time when we push all in to steal. Also when we do lose, we are out of the tournament, so from a $EV point of view its terrible.

Now consider the effect of a better table makeup, the effect of knocking a player out and the greater chip count on our $EV.

When we lose, its ok because we still have FE and the effect on our $EV is in no way close to the effect of being knocked out.

Those equity calculations don't look right, sikes. For stealing, sometimes we pick up the 4.5K in blinds (say 90% of the time as an example), but when we get called, we're usually an underdog, say 60/40.

cEV_steal = 0.9(4500) + 0.1(0.4(21500) + 0.6(-18500)) = T1550

When we call the AI:

cEV_call = 0.57(21500) + 0.43(-18500) = T4300

I might have gotten the figures slightly wrong there, but this is close to what you're getting at, I think?

sikes

yeah thats essentially what I am getting at. yeah mine are wrong. For the purpose of this example I assumed that our steal attempts always got trough. Which obv they wont

EDIT:
Hang on lenny those are wrong, when we are stealing we are pushing all in and will presumably get call by a stack similar to ours.

cEV_steal = .9(4500) + .1(.4(80000) + .6(-40000)) = T43000

its just another way of writing the equation that i had. i think my ones are ok.

RoundTower

you're both wrong, you should call now against most opponents but it would be even better if we had A7s and were in the small blind and everyone folded to us and we could go all in.

sikes

RoundTower wrote:

you're both wrong, you should call now against most opponents but it would be even better if we had A7s and were in the small blind and everyone folded to us and we could go all in.

As can be seen from the calculations above, its not as profitable to be pushing A7s from the SB from both a cEV point of view and more importantly a $EV point of view, which is the main point im trying to make.

I am finished with this thread now. People can't really take much from it. It does have the potential to be an interesting topic, however, when it starts getting personal, its just a complete waste of my time and sidetracks the topic.

I really want to try and find an article about poker evolving and how to exploit the new trends becuase this is the exact type of situation it talks about. I think it was Rizen, but I aint sure.

Sorry BCB for hijacking your thread!

BigCityBanker

hatedajacks wrote:

To be honest I think Noel was more surprised that I called as I would be known as a fairly tight player

yeah, as I said i fold it but i was wondering what the general feeling was - basically am i wrong to be folding in this spot - thought it was an interesting hand tbh.

Glad to hear it was beneficial to you.

Relax lads - Cheltenham preview will be up by 11.30am......