a difficult decision

[peterbirks]

You are in a Betfair NL tournament. Four players are left (five prizes paid), but one of the players disappeared about half an hour previously when chip leader. He has been blinded away to the point that he will be all-in within a couple of hands. You are third in stack size with the chips something like:-

You: 19,000
Opponent 1 (small blind) 29,000
Sitting out guy (Big Blind) 1,200
Opponent 2 (UTG) 24,000


400 is in the pot in antes and 1200 is in there in blinds:

You are on the button and get AK offsuit. Opponent 1 is quite conservative but opponent 2 is capable of decent play.

Opponent 2 (UTG), raises 2400 to 3200.


Prize money is

1st 108 euro
2nd 65 euro
3rd 43 euro
4th 21 euro


To completely put yourself in my position, you have just done $600 in four hours on Party, so the money is not that important in the grand scheme of things.

You put opponent on a range of any pair, Ax down to A9, any Axs, KQ, KJ, KT, Kxs down to K8, QJ, QT, Q9s, JTs maybe J9s.

If you win the hand, you reckon you are 55% to win the tournament.

If you lose the hand, you are fourth.

What do you do?

How would the situation change if you had 9,000 rather than 19,000?

Comments

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

1) Call. Move in if you flop, try to check it down if you don't

2) As much as I hate to, fold. I mean if we don't care about the money at all then you move in, probably in 1) as well, but assuming we do, it just doesn't add up. Folding with 9000 gives you an equity of around E52. Losing is E21 obviously, but winning only moves you up to E65. Calling is less attractive for 1/3 of your stack while you surely can't make him pass with a reraise.

I know I talk about playing to win all the time but really the only reason to play in the second case would be if you didn't care about the money at all, in which case it would have been better not to play (big fault of mine at the moment is playing too small).

Andy.

Action

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

Without letting on what I actually did (for the moment), suppose I call. The flop comes K94 of Diamonds. I do not have a diamond. My opponent pushes all-in. Do I call or fold?

Re: Action

[andy-ward-uk.livejournal.com]

In the heat of the moment I'd probably call. Let's work it out though :

Fold : equity E62
Call and lose : equity E21
Call and win : equity E85

Means we need a 41/64 = 64% chance of winning. I think we probably have this. There's a fair chance he has a diamond, against which we are just about ok, and more chance that he has no diamonds and is drawing thin (probably 2 or 3 outs), than that he has a flush and we're drawing dead.

So probably call.

Andy.

Re: Action

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

In the actual tournament, I foolishly reraised all in. This was because I thought that there was a seriously good chance that he would fold. Unfortunately my opponent was more aware of the situation than I had given him credit for. He worked out that if he called and lost, he still had a guaranteed third place. So he called.

Assuming that I put the chance of my opponent folding to my reraise at 0%, then I should just call pre-flop and push if I hit.

As it happens, this WAS the flop. And my opponent had QJ of diamonds for the flush.

So, suppose I had played it correctly and flat called.

Most players with QJ of diamonds in this situation might be tempted to try to suck in the opponent, but it really isn't necessary. If your opponent as AK or a pair of Aces, he is going to call anyway.

But, most players (at this level) don't do that. Therefore if he had gone all-in, I would have placed him on a draw. If he had no diamond, I suspect he might have given up on the hand and not pushed. If he had two diamonds, he would (at this level) usually slow-play it.

As such, I have a 64% chance of winning, just about. So I should call his bet (and, in real life, I would have). If the player is good enough to work out the strength of an all-in when holding the flush, he will be good enough to work out that it is also good to go all-in when holding no diamonds at all (since I am more likely to be holding no diamonds than I am to be holding one or two of them). So the odds don't change, no matter how good he is.

[(Anonymous)]

RAISE - you might flat call agaisnt the weaker opponent, but not against the stronger one.