Bubble Analysis

[No home]

I read a hand in this months poker player magazine stratagy section and really disagree with the play and would like other peoples opinion on the hand.

"You're in the bubble of a ten-player sit and go with 4 players left, payed 50%/30%20%. The blinds are 100/200 and you're second in chips with 3k, the other stacks are 7.5k, 2.5k and 500. The Cut off and button fold but the big stack pushes all in for 7.5k from the SB. Your holding   in the big blind, What do you do?

The magazine says "Fold, even if your opponent is pushing 100% of hands you cannot call here as you will only win around 33%. This would be a disaster on this payout structure since the short stack is likely to bust soon, guaranteeing at least 20% of the prize pool.

I disagree with this play because the Big stack is going to be pushin nearly 100% of the time in this situation and your way ahead of his range so I think its +EV to call in the long run......... Opinions please!!!!!!

[AndrewT]

The magazine says "Fold, even if your opponent is pushing 100% of hands you cannot call here as you will only win around 33%.

This is wrong -  is actually 33% to lose the hand - it's 67% to win.

[No home]

The magazine says "Fold, even if your opponent is pushing 100% of hands you cannot call here as you will only win around 33%.

This is wrong -  is actually 33% to lose the hand - it's 67% to win.

I'm just writing what it says in the magazine here, i know  is better than 33% against any two here

[GreekStein]

never folding  .

Not sure about  though

[Meister]

go home

[the rage]

 As in most poker decisions, it's very much situational. You may well be correct in your assertion that villiain is pushing with any two cards. Obviously, in this scenario, none of us can be certain of what range villian is pushing with.
 If you fold, and keep folding for another few hands, you virtually guarantee yourself a 20% slice of the cake. You would appear to be about 2 /1 favourite against a random hand.
 My cautious side says fold into the money. My aggressive instinct says that poker is about taking risks, so shove them in..FTW and all that.
 I'm really not sure what the mathematically correct option is though. Hopefully someone on here with a better understanding of ICM will be able to explain.

[outragous76]

from an ICM perspective its a fold

whether i find a fold is a totally different matter

[Cf]

Yeah, I probably fold and see what happens to the guy with 500. Sucks a bit that you have a good chipped up player to your left. The ladder from 0%->20% is big though. That said, there's only 1 short stack, and you're not exactly massively chipped up. Think it's quite close.

[Longy]

Its a fold and it is not really close.

If sb exposed 25o here it is still a fold.

[DMorgan]

Very standard fold....QQ is an interesting spot there

[pleno1]

what does the guy need to show to make it a profitable call?

[pleno1]

a6o?

[Longy]

what does the guy need to show to make it a profitable call?

I think if he shows ax or kx it might be a call. Probs close though.

[DMorgan]

Doesn't really matter what he shows when we have AK. We need >80% equity here to make this a call.