blonde poker forum

£300 6 runner stt on Hills.


4 runners left, Blinds 150-300

All three opponents very loose(moving all in pre flop on the third level for 20+ times the BB with small pairs ect)

Chip stacks are:(roughly)

Seat1(2900)
Seat2(900)
Seat3(4700)me
Seat4(500)

This hand comes up....

UTG moves all in for 2800(standard for him)

Seat2 passes

I wake up with   Th Ts do you call?

I called factoring in my opponents hand range and the disproportionate payout structure of Hills sngs.

Seat4s committed with 60% of his stack and will(should)call with any two cards, ive got what i think is a +EV oppoutunity to knock out two opponents and take a huge chip lead heads up in a tourney thats only value if you win.

He turns over AQ, outdraws me and knocks out seat4 in the process

I went on to bubble and after speaking to a pal who's convinced that from an equity perspective it was a fold i wondered what you guys thought?

insta call

quite.

i agree

Its a tough call, given the nature of the situation - STT, most getting short stacked and it being just 6 handed and the raise is from early/middle position with 4 players yet to act I would pass.

In most cases I would put him on lower pr or high ace. Then again he is 2nd and doesnt need to force the action just yet, so there is every reason to respect his raise.  If he had a higher pair id expect him to play slower in the hope of being paid off. If he had AK/Q your a favourite but only just at 57%, yes its an edge but when you dont need to risk your chips with such a chip lead and particularly against the only player who may damage your stack I think passing is no bad move.

AK/Q your a marginal favourite, lower pair your 80% ahead and higher pair has you behind 20%.  If he had just raised typical 3/4 blinds I would have called and seen a flop.  If it was from a smaller stack it would make it a definate call.  This is a STT the objective is to win/cash.  If you fold, someone behind may call, by you calling you almost eliminate that possibility as the short stacks see a chance to survive.

maybe see if dale or someone could give you the icm stats im pretty sure theyd say fold. this is an insta pass for me .let him take out the short stack and ur still chipleader with better situations to come , in this scenario the best you can hope for is a race and you dont want to be racing for ur chips with the stacks as they are imo

The worst you can expect is a race imo

Tell him his caluclations are pissed. Call all day long. The idea is to place 1st in these right.......................

Glad someone else thinks that!

He has a smaller pair or 2 overs, massive edge for you.

The 75/25 payout (rather than say 65/35 on stars) does make a difference but it's still not winner takes all, it's still terrible for someone in 2nd place chips to bubble so you'd have to give the guy some credit for a tightish pushing range here.

If I was playing and my only read was that this guy sorta knew when he should be pushing i'd guess his range is any pair > 88 and AQ and AK
Then calling with TT is -$ev, you'd need JJ or better or AK against that range. (easy to see why jj is much better equity than tt against that range, just work out how many pairs in his likely push range are above and bellow your pair)
That would bring you up to 50% equity against his range, and because you have all the chips it's +$ev for a you for a straight coinflip here so even if he types in "hey, i have AQ here" it's still +ev to call there as you are the chip leader and can only be demoted to second in chips when you lose the hand... if he has your stack and you have his stack at the start of the hand and you had him on that same range then its verrrry different, you'd have to call with KK/AA (not taking into account your future pwnage if u win the hand, but u certainly can't take anywhere near as low as 50% equity in the hand against his range), but then he'd probably be pushing looser so you could call looser too !!!!!!!


Anyway this hand you think that you know his range so you're calling him with JJ+ and AK+.
However if he knows that you're calling that tight he can make a +$ev shove with any 2 cards there.
So if you know that hes shoving any 2 cards you can call with top 46% (22+,A2+,K2+,Q6o+,Q2s+,J9o+,J7s+,T8s+,98s)
But then if he knows that you're calling with top 46% he can only shove with top 7% (88+,AJo+,ATs+)
So if you know that his range is 88+,AJo+,ATs+ you can only call with JJ+,AK
However if he knows that you're calling that tight he can make a $ev shove with any 2 cards there.

Basically what I'm saying is it all depends on what you think that he thinks you will call with and what his likely push range is as a result.

Buy an ICM calculator like SNGPT (or just use pokerstove and manual ICM calcs... but that takes ages.... but good to get a grip of WHY the calc says what it does) and use it to review your end games every day until it's totally intuitive to what you should do... for example the way I was playing around with your hand above, if I was to load up a 6pak right now and be in that same spot I'd take a good stab at his push range then I'd know exactly what to do.
If you play around with the equity calculations for all your tough push/fold endgame situations after every session then the same situations will come up again and again and you can pwn and pwn.

I think in this situation it is a fold.

there are an other two players who are clinging on for dear life and you and the other guy going all in against each other is the stuff of their dreams. When he moves all in they are praying that you will call.

You are the only guy who can take him out of the tournament so the chances of him having a decent hand here are very high because he does not want to tangle with you for the reason I gave above. AK or AQ is about the worst hand he could have in this spot he's more likely to have a massive pocket pair. So you will either be a huge underdog or a slight favorite against the only player who can hurt you.

Poker is all about situations and this is not a good situation IMHO

p.s. It's certainly not an "instant call"

Dunno about real life.

But Mr Harrington is saying instant fold.

In any sng hitting the cash is the only important consideration at this point.  The risk to your stack is too great, given that you're stuffed against AA-JJ.  In a 50 / 50 against AK - QJ . A reasonable favourite if he has one overcard.  But only really happy if he shows a smaller pair.

You have the initiative with the chip lead.  Don't concede that advantage with a tentative call.  Use your chips when you can be aggressive with them.

These are not the views of a decent player, and I cannot be held responsible for anything, ever.  But I read a lot of books, & this sounds like Action Dan knows what he's talking about.  So there !!

I fold

I would move all in with TT or AQ but fold both of them to an allin raise in that situation given your position. You have plenty of chips, I would not put them in the middle in a spot like this.

not true, the only consideration is maximizing your $ev.

I wouldnt rely on harry books for STTs, there's a lot of flawed (bad) information in there as far as STTs go.

I'm obviously missing something here, but surely to maximise your $ev you have to cash ? 

And even if you're not bothered about hitting the cash, how can calling an all in for 2/3 your stack be a maximising play, given that there are so many hands that will beat you by the river ?

Even if Harry is poor, doesn't the 'first in vigourish' idea hold good in this case?

no

 ;D

Lol

Ok.

But what about the 2nd part of the question ?

Well calling can be +$ev if you have the required equity in the hand against his pushing range. In this case even 53% equity would be fine due to the stack sizes... I already explained why.
The only tough part of the problem is trying to figure out what hands he's pushing with, then the decission to call or fold is easy.

I'd have said it was a fold just because he SHOULD be pushing v tight there, especially as the BB cant really be folding for 200 more. But if you have a read that he's pushing stupidly loose then you can call.

Harry is poor for STTs because he does a lot of stupid minraising and stuff in situations where he would be better push/folding. In the time since he wrote his books STT knowledge has advanced a lot.