Call or fold?

[Royal Flush]

Here is an intresting question i have been thinking about....

Its hand 1 of a tournament 10,000 chips 25-50 and a slow clock, you get dealt 88 in the bb, everyone folds to the SB who makes a raise, you re-raise and he flat calls. Now the flop comes K92 and for some mad reason when he checks to you, you move all in, but wait you have a 25 chips on your cards, he pushes his chips in and exposes his 99 for a set, now you have the option to call the 25 or pass. You are getting 799-1 on a 989-1 shot. Pass or call?

Please explain your answers.

[Ironside]

pass you aint getting the pot odds you require and hey you have a 25 chip a couple of pots and your back in it and if you can get back to a couple of hundred you can steal a few blinds again


in luton after an all in flip with tikay in which the old man won i was left with 125 chips with blinds at 200/400 dispite tikays effot to know me out next hand i trebled up too 375 and then the next hand went up to 1500 the next hand which now left me with enough chips to make a full pot raise and anyone apart from the chipp daddy would have to think twice before commiting (fact was chipp daddy was bb and didnt even look at his 22 before calling my 3rd all in in a row but if i won that coin flip i was looking danergous) the odds of winning the 3 pots in a row are alot less that 989-1 and gives you a chance to get back into the match wheas calling with the 88s would mean going and sitting at the bar all night

[tikay]

Big starting stack? Slow clock?

I cant imagine any situation where I would get all my chip in the middle so early, against a possible set..........

[Royal Flush]

Big starting stack? Slow clock?

I cant imagine any situation where I would get all my chip in the middle so early, against a possible set..........

Your supposed to be the sportingodds pro who answers these questions, so seriously what do you do?

[tikay]

And you were supoposed to remind me of my Helsinki debacle, but you missed your cue. No wionder it was hard to work out what you were holding in that tag team poker.

What do I do? Call of course. I have a forced blind soon anyway, where I'm more than likely to get busted, whereas even though I don't have the odds to call, if my 2 miracle cards DO come, I'm in great shape.

Alternatively, some folks would call for a ruling & request that Matey Boys hand is dead, as he exposed it. But I would not do that, not no how, not never.

[Royal Flush]

And you were supoposed to remind me of my Helsinki debacle, but you missed your cue. No wionder it was hard to work out what you were holding in that tag team poker.

What do I do? Call of course. I have a forced blind soon anyway, where I'm more than likely to get busted, whereas even though I don't have the odds to call, if my 2 miracle cards DO come, I'm in great shape.

Alternatively, some folks would call for a ruling & request that Matey Boys hand is dead, as he exposed it. But I would not do that, not no how, not never.

1 i was letting you off, it was obvious JP had a set, infact i recall when you told me the hand 5 mins after it happend i said "so jp had set of 5's then" i feel you make enough silly mistakes we need not go over them that often! 

I assumed no-one would suggest that the hand was dead, as its clearly the low life option.

[tikay]

Well as I was on the Rail when I told you the sorry tale, it was reasonably obvious I was out, so he could ONLY have had a set, or A5......

Low Lifes? I'm afraid, as you well know, there are a few folks who WOULD have claimed Matey Boys hand was dead.

[snoopy1239]

I'd call. A double up that early in the comp would be a massive advantage.

[thetank]

I'd pass. Even if I were getting 300 to 1 let alone 989 to 1. My last chip is too important.

Getting a quadruple up, triple up and 3*double ups is less than 100 to 1. If you manage this you'll have about 2.5k which is a playable stack with a slow clock.

If you were to go to get involved in 3 races from there, getting a 20,000 stack from your 25 remaining chips would be around 800 to 1. It's an easy pass. Sometimes you'll be getting your money in with the best of it though, so the odds wouldn't be that high in reality.

Suppose there's even some implied value from the possibility that the player who held the set might tilt a bit for exposing his cards early if you get back in the game and win a decent pot off him.

[lvlarc_uk]

No point on calling, nobody gets that lucky, do they? 

[Highstack]

Has someone been reading about Stu ungar ? He won from a 25 chip when he thought he was out. The dealer called him back

[Royal Flush]

Tikay and Snoopy opt for the call, Iron and Tank for the pass (is it a tight scottish thing?)

I think i would have to call, i mean you know its a long shot and the odds are not there and as tank points out it gets even worse when u consider the non-linear value of tournament chips, but what real chance do you stand with 1/2 a bb on hand 2 of a tournament? And think of the value in terms of a story you would have if you sucked out!


The question was a poker example of cases where taking a -ev decision is acceptable to even an intelligent gambler. I often hear people talk about the lottry and how its stupid "you pay £1 and only get £8m if you hit the 49m-1 shot" well yes thats true, BUT, for 1 there are other prizes you can win and secondly going from not a lot of money to £50m and going from not a lot of money to £8m is not very diffrent at all! However i dont play the lottery, its stupid.

[ACE2M]

the odds of winning the lottery are 13983816/1 so it's not such a bad bet at all. I won a tenner this week...   wooooo hooooo (only cost me about £250 but i got there in the end)