borderline decision

luckylucky

I was playing in the wsop final step on party earlier today (playing for the cash - have already qualified via this route). For those unfamiliar with these, if you win the step you get entrance to the WSOP plus $1k - or in my case I was playing for $11K. 2nd place you get to play the final step again (monetary value $1.4k) and the next 3 positions you drop back further steps. Finish outside of top 5 and you're out of the loop.

So bear in mind the thing is heavily weighted for players to try to get 1st more than a normal sng.

Anyway it was down to last 7, my stack was just over $2K which is about 70% of the average stack, blinds are 100/200, when I look down on 99, I always think under the gun is perhaps the most difficult place to make the right decision as you are immediately faced with the first decision and don't have the time to make up your mind like the others do.

What to do here?

I don't really want to make a less than all-in raise as I'm commiting too many of my chips.

So it comes down to a fold or all-in.

I think it's my stacksize that makes it tricky, a little less an all-in becomes fine, a little more and a 3 -3.5 x bb raise is ok.

I do have my overly cautious moments but in general I probably err too much on the side of aggression, so on this occasion I just pushed.

I got called by AK and lost when Ace hit the turn.

Since the game I've swung back and forth between thinking I made a mistake, that if I get called I'm at best a coin-toss on the one hand to thinking nah the way the game is structured taking a gamble wan't so bad and still haven't made up my mind.

Any thoughts?

insafehands

If you knew AK, and only AK would call you here, would you still have pushed?

luckylucky

insafehands wrote:

If you knew AK, and only AK would call you here, would you still have pushed?

very good question.

hmm that has me stumped just like that hand did .

On a weak table I probably say no, but the remaining other 6 players were all able to play as far as I could see, at least they weren't bad. So the equity I had of being in with a shout of picking up the 2 blinds and being a tiny favourite over AK I might be tempted to say yes. But like the original play it's borderline.
Nice question though.

DEmeant0r

The way I see it, if you're playing to win, then you're going to have to take chances from time to time.

But in saying that you can pick a better position to push, you have 5 players left to act behind you who could easily have AQ/AK/TT+. So maybe if you wanted to play this hand, a limp to see what the others did would have been more preferable.

Goodluck2me

I doubt a push here is profitable to be honest. Maybe a fold and wait for a better position, really only 88/77 could call from behind.TT,JJ,QQ,KK,AA are all ahead and AK/AQ are racing. so its pretty - ev. thats just a random guess of a range of hands decent players will call the UTG shove with.

Mellor

insafehands wrote:

If you knew AK, and only AK would call you here, would you still have pushed?

With the given structure, Yeah im pushing if i know that AK and only AK is callingits +ev and it could easily leave that player crippled

But unfortunately, we will never know this info, and TT+ are out there as is the possibility that more than one hand is calling

Mellor

goodluck2me wrote:

I doubt a push here is profitable to be honest. Maybe a fold and wait for a better position, really only 88/77 could call from behind.TT,JJ,QQ,KK,AA are all ahead and AK/AQ are racing. so its pretty - ev. thats just a random guess of a range of hands decent players will call the UTG shove with.

That range seams ok, and if we are getting a caller its -EV,
but the timer when we pick up the blinds increase the EV

Hectorjelly

goodluck2me wrote:

I doubt a push here is profitable to be honest. Maybe a fold and wait for a better position, really only 88/77 could call from behind.TT,JJ,QQ,KK,AA are all ahead and AK/AQ are racing. so its pretty - ev. thats just a random guess of a range of hands decent players will call the UTG shove with.

I doubt this is right, op has less than 10 blinds left and its 7 handed. I would definitely push.

Captain Tom

seems like a pretty standard push.

Mellor

Going with those ranges, there are 11 hands that can call us.
The chances of an opponent having one of these hands is roughly 11/169
About 7%, 6 opponents = 42%, so we should get through the rest of the time
This is very rough, but we should get through alot of the time. Now it players calling ranges increase, we get through alot less, but any increases here will probably be good hands for us

edit: as long as you get through and pick up the blinds here alot of the time then its +EV, if you increase the calling range you get through less, but are racing more

Goodluck2me

Hectorjelly wrote:

I doubt this is right, op has less than 10 blinds left and its 7 handed. I would definitely push.

everyone else had about 2800 av stack anyway,so they are calling for everything. ppl tend to call a lot less light when its for TL.
oops advocates a call, ship it so!`
guess it means when called hes far behind but isnt called much.

BuChan

i just saw on that full tilt tv show on setanta that there is an 80% chance that you have the best starting hand at a full ring table if you hold 88. i'm not sure how accurate that is but i think that passing 99 utg 7 handed with less than 15 blinds is pretty ultra conservative. i think many times you take down the blinds and increase your stack by more than 10%, others you double up through the AK/AQ (or lose) and rarely you run into an overpair (one of which, 1010, might fold if in certain player's hands).... basicaly i'd push too seems pretty safe.

White Knight

With the blinds about to pass through you and being 7 handed will not be far away again, I think this has to be a push (even though I would not like it).

Out of interest, what levels do you start the steps at?

(congrats on getting a seat)

luckylucky

White Knight wrote:

With the blinds about to pass through you and being 7 handed will not be far away again, I think this has to be a push (even though I would not like it).

Out of interest, what levels do you start the steps at?

(congrats on getting a seat)

Cheers.

Well I'm glad the majority seem to think the push was right. I think too it had to be a push but obviously one with a lot of trepidation.

I start at step 3 or higher. I know steps 1 and 2 are easier to get through but I don't want to spend time playing at those levels. For this one I had started at step 3. The time I won my seat I actually bought in direct to the final step, bit of an extravgant move, but was keen to get to the wsop and I prefer this step route as I can't always commit to playing for several hours of an MTT. As the final step only seems to get to a game about once a week, when I saw one was about to kick off, I took a leap of faith or had a brainstorm if you like :rolleyes: and sat in. Thankfully the daft move paid off.

LuckyLloyd

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