blonde poker forum

Despite our best intentions to avoid ever having a stack with no fold equity, we will occasionally find ourselves under the gun with a crippled stack (maybe we just lost a race or suffered a bad beat).

I found myself in such a situation at a final table recently and was criticised by another player for having folded my hand under the gun when I was going to be pot committed on the next hand as BB.

His argument was that I was going to need to be lucky anyway so I may as well try to win a pot with a larger amount of dead money in it.  My thinking is that you'll often see pot committed BBs getting a walk as everyone else knows any raise is going to be called. 

I can see pros and cons to both sides of this argument, so I was wondering whether the blonde poker community had a definitive view on this situation?

Your logic about getting a walk is bad.

Would be helpful to know how many big blinds you're talking about.

Presuming you're talking about say 3 bbs with antes, you should shove any two suited, and anything vaguely connected or something like that...

Yeah, sorry, 3BBs is about the stack size I'm referring to.  Interested to know what you think is flawed logic about getting a walk.  Right or wrong, you do see it happening quite often don't you?  I agree that I wouldn't be giving the BB a walk if in late position myself, but you're not always up against yourself are you?  ;o)

Allow me to refine the question further by saying that you look down at junk UTG with a high probability of your next hand being much better.

If you wait till next hand 8 people might fold before action is on you. If you shove utg 8 people might fold after you.

There's absolutely no way I'm getting 8 folds after me with a 3BB shove, especially when running antes are factored in...

Whereas, I can think of a couple of reasons players might be wary of attacking my pot-committed BB.  Namely, that they fear others will perceive any raise to be a steal and be tempted to re-raise with a likely stronger hand or re-steal with a weaker one, or maybe, they don't want to risk damaging a solid image.  So what can happen is that better hands than mine fold in early position, potentially leaving only marginal hands in late position to take a stab at my blind...

If people are playing correctly you should pretty much never get a walk the next hand...

yeah fold air, you have a much better chance of taking on a lighter hand, and possibly being in a 3b pot in the later scenario, obv if you have suited or something then jam.

Thanks RF, I was beginning to think I was in a minority of one to believe that folding might be best...

this

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jamming with a 'kinda hand' (suited connected anything) could get you extra value by being called in say 2-3 spots and then iso'd by someone behind. Obv this isnt something you can control, but you could make a fair assessment given playing styles on the table

Agreed.  I'd have no qualms whatsoever about jamming with a suited connector, even a 1 or 2 gapper.  Obviously it's a no brainer with any pair, any ace or big king or queen... 

I probs jam any A/K any suited Q/J obv all pairs and then any 3 gap suited except 26, any 1 gap regardless of suit except 24 & 35

I am shoving about top 65% here, fold the real rubbish as you are simply likely to get a better hand to go to war with next hand. Also reads on the current bb, can affect ranges here, how likely is he to make a correct mathematical call in hand one and how likely is he to walk you in hand 2.

Feels like a mathematically provable scenario to me, so if any of you probability geeks fancy putting some numbers on it, I'd be most appreciative ;)

Its more about yr cards than anything else - its really unlikely everyone will fold, this hand or next hand. Fold yr worse hands shove anything half-decent. If you know anything about the calling or re-raising ranges of the other players, and particularly whether the blinds are inclined to call with shit hands for pot odds, what were blinds, antes and stacks, then yeh you could crunch the numbers.

This looks about right to me.

You're definitely getting called so you need a hand that has a bit of a chance.

Might as well wait one more.