Last 60 Tribeca $15k

[matt674]

Matt, you are playing heads up for $1000 winner takes all. Blinds 15K/30k you are on the button and raise to 90k with J9 suited. You both have 300k and the other guy goes all in. Do you call?

What if he flips his cards over and shows AK off and goes all in, Do you call?

My answer would be no in both instances.

If i was playing against Phil Ivey then most people would say my best chance of winning would be to get him to go all in on a coin flip or similar and take my chances therefore eliminating as much of his superior skill level as possible. This may be true (though i would like to think that i could give him a run for his money  ) but on both occassions i would like to get my chips in with a hand better than J9 suited whether i knew my opponents cards or not.

If i was playing against a novice player then i would like to believe that my superior skill level meant that if i minimized luck as much as possible and outplayed him then in the long run i would again be better off passing and waiting for a better opportunity.

[Highstack]

Matt, you are playing heads up for $1000 winner takes all. Blinds 15K/30k you are on the button and raise to 90k with J9 suited. You both have 300k and the other guy goes all in. Do you call?

What if he flips his cards over and shows AK off and goes all in, Do you call?

My answer would be no in both instances.

If i was playing against Phil Ivey then most people would say my best chance of winning would be to get him to go all in on a coin flip or similar and take my chances therefore eliminating as much of his superior skill level as possible. This may be true (though i would like to think that i could give him a run for his money  ) but on both occassions i would like to get my chips in with a hand better than J9 suited whether i knew my opponents cards or not.

If i was playing against a novice player then i would like to believe that my superior skill level meant that if i minimized luck as much as possible and outplayed him then in the long run i would again be better off passing and waiting for a better opportunity.

Not the best example really. This instance is a no brainer call imo.

How can you pass when the blinds are 30k a pop? How long are you going to wait?

Imagine next hand you are on the bb with 72 and he pops it up to 90k this time. You have no moves left as 120k more will be an automatic call with atc.

If blinds were 5k/10k its a pass.

[Highstack]

I also didn't like your 3 flips = 10% analogy Matt (sorry).

Not that you are incorrect, but it is the reason that you are taking on the flips which becomes thye diciding factor and that is the point thta has been missed. To get to a 10% success 90% out, you are assuming equal stacks each time.

I don't mind taking on a race if i) I can get them in first by raising not calling and ii) by racing against stacks shorter than mine.

[seamus]

Flush

In another post you said you couldn’t begin to understand how someone could call your pre-flop all-in raise with AKs. Others agreed – one was even ‘staggered’ at this action.

I thought it was a reasonable call for a 99 on a 5 handed final table.

Next day you call an all-in raise with AQos on a full table mid tournament, which really is an easy fold.

Explain

[byronkincaid]

OK good. I used to think the same. That hand was from last years Poker Million. The commentator Donnacha O'Dea said it was the easiest call in the world. I didn't understand why so I posted the hand on Blonde and 2+2 and everyone said to call. My friend prayingmantis explained it best in an email to me. I hope he won't mind if I copy it here.

In the problem you have 2 players with 300K. Now for the sake of any
discussion we must assume that they are basically equally skilled, and that
their chances of winning the thing is in proportion to their share of chips
from the total chips in play. So now it's 50-50. If one has 100K and other
has 500K it's 5:1, pretty simple. Now player A raises to 90K with J9 and the
other goes all-in. Let's even assume that Player 2 SHOWS player 1 he has AK.
Clearly player 1 is very much behind. But the pot now lays him about  
1.85:1. AK is only 1.77:1 favorite. Judging from a pot-odds along
perspective, it's a  call, maybe close, but still. OK, let's see the big
picture, not only pot-odds, and let's assume the play for $1k.

If he calls, he's going to win $1000 0.36 of the time, the rest of the time
he wins zero. This gives EV of $360.

If he folds, he finds himself in a situation in which he has 210K chips
against 390K chips, which means having a 210/600 chance to win 1K, which is
equivalent to EV of $350. So if he raises to 90K and folds to an all-in,
EVEN IF PLAYER 2 SHOWS HIM AK, he's making a -$10 mistake. Of course, if the
prize is much higher, it's much more costly mistake (if they play for like
3M, like in the end of the WSOP or so, player 1 by folding has made a
mistake that costs him $30,000!!)  . Now if you take in consideration that
Player 2 might actually have hands that while ahead are  worse than AK,
plyaer1 can find himslef in a better than 1:1.77 situation,  which means
that folding is becoming a bigger and bigger mistake. Of course if he puts
player 2 on a very tight (and  unrealistic)  range, it's a fold. But when
stacks are so short, HU, you can't really put villain on such a tight range,
and there's a good enough chance he actually has a hand like A7 or 66, and
folding J9 in such a spot is a very  large mistake.

Another thing to note is that player 1 will find himself as the BB the next
hand, so he'll actually be in  a positional disadvantage PF (other player
can push into him), which makes calling now even better.

Well I hope my math is correct, there could be mistakes of course. Anyway, I
know how you feel about folding and pushing any hand the next, but still
this doesn't mean that folding in this spot is correct. Consistently
builiding such a big pot HU with big blinds and then folding is a very
exploitable mistake, that's why it's gernerally better to simply move in
with many hands, instead of raising less with such big blinds

Now with regards to the original hand, the hand in this thread has similarities. It is generally regarded even by sheets who I'm sure you agree plays good, that calling is correct.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5810702&an=&page=&vc=1

perhaps you can begin to see why I think any post that contains the words "I wouldn't put my tournament life on the line with..." should be deleted by the Mods.  

It was reading stuff like this that changed the way I played MTTs. I'm not saying you should, you are obv very successful. Good luck however you play.

Justin

[matt674]

I also didn't like your 3 flips = 10% analogy Matt (sorry).

Not that you are incorrect, but it is the reason that you are taking on the flips which becomes thye diciding factor and that is the point thta has been missed. To get to a 10% success 90% out, you are assuming equal stacks each time.

I don't mind taking on a race if i) I can get them in first by raising not calling and ii) by racing against stacks shorter than mine.

that is why in my explanation i said...

If you make 3 calls like this during a tournament where you are putting your tournament life on the line

If you are the one making the all in calls then you are just letting your tournament life be decided by lady luck. If you believe that you are one of the better players in the tournament then why take that chance? By using your skill and ability you should be minimizing the luck factor as much as possible

You say you dont mind taking on the race if you are the aggressor or you are up against a short stack - but in those instances you are trying to outplay your opponents by forcing them to pass without going all in which is the point i've being trying to make.........

You cant be the aggressor and try and outplay your opponents if you've been eliminated from the tournament!!

[matt674]

OK good. I used to think the same. That hand was from last years Poker Million. The commentator Donnacha O'Dea said it was the easiest call in the world. I didn't understand why so I posted the hand on Blonde and 2+2 and everyone said to call. My friend prayingmantis explained it best in an email to me. I hope he won't mind if I copy it here.

Yes, and thats the good thing about poker - who is to say which way is right and which way is wrong. Thats why we have public forums so we can debate these issues. I still believe that by passing the J9 i could still outplay my opponent even though he had a near 2-1 chip lead over me, i'd rather attempt to outplay someone in a winner takes all match than just lump it in and cross my fingers hoping for the best. (though to be honest being an MTT monkey i have no experience in playing winner takes all heads up matches - by the time i get heads up i will have already secured a decent payout compared with my initial buy in.)

Taking a heads up example at the end of a tournament is completely different though from talking about a hand from midway through a tournament which was the example from this thread.

[Highstack]

Ok fair enough.

Singing from the same hymn sheet then, only with different words

[matt674]

Ok fair enough.

Singing from the same hymn sheet then, only with different words

sometimes the language barrier between us primates and you humans is a struggle - i try my best to put what i'm thinking into your lingo as best as possible but its difficult at times

[matt674]

I hope he won't mind if I copy it here.

In the problem you have 2 players with 300K. Now for the sake of any
discussion we must assume that they are basically equally skilled, and that
their chances of winning the thing is in proportion to their share of chips
from the total chips in play.

Notice though that in my analogy i never said that we were of equal skill level - in poker its very rare that you end up with a match that involves two people of exactly same skill levels...............

[byronkincaid]

Taking a heads up example at the end of a tournament is completely different though from talking about a hand from midway through a tournament which was the example from this thread

I was trying to show you why I think some of your posts are fundamentally flawed by stripping away all the fluff and getting down to basics.

[Dubai]

The most overrated thing in poker is tournament survival.

[matt674]

The most overrated thing in poker is tournament survival.

The longer i survive in a tournament the more money i win

The key is accruing as many chips as possible with as little risk to allow this survival to take place.

[Dubai]

That is a very classis, old school, approach to tournaments. I personally completely disagree with it but horses for courses and all that.

[matt674]

I double up on the very first hand of a tournament and become chip leader, i then stay as chip leader for the remainder of the tournament ending in my victory then i have managed to survive the entire tournament. If my victory was achieved by being chip leader then at no point during the tournament was my survival in any doubt.

How i survive a tournament though is a different question, i can survive by being very aggressive and bullying your way to victory or i can play a solid game by being patient and picking and choosing your spots.

Each player will have a different view on how to "survive" a tournament but if you want to be the victor then you have to "survive" longer than every single one of your opponents.

<post edit comments: when i use the term "survival" i always use it to mean that i outlast my opponents rather than playing passivly hoping that all my opponents knock each other out first>