Chip leader w/ AKs vs. all-ins

[Troy92]

Here’s a decision that I am curious as to how some of the 2+2ers would have played it. It’s from a $200 tournament with about 225 players left. Top 130 get paid, but obviously the real money is further up the line.


Blinds 200/400
Average stack: 6000
UTG +1: 2700
Button: 20000 (Overall tourney leader is at 22000)
BB: 10000

UTG+1 raises to 1000
MP calls
Button calls
BB raises to 10000 (all-in)
UTG +1 calls 1700 (all-in)
MP folds
Button ??????????

What would you do if you were on the button with A/images/graemlins/spade.gif K/images/graemlins/spade.gif? Based upon the range of hands that I could come up with for UTG+1 and BB, I calculate a call by the button at around EV +1500. Win the hand and you have a huge chip lead. Lose the hand and you drop down to 10000 chips, which is still above average. Fold and you still have the table lead and plenty of chips to push other players around. 2nd highest on the table was around 14000.

Is this the type of push it takes to win tournaments? Or are you better off avoiding this risk and just utilizing your current stack to push people around on your terms?

[sdplayerb]

It is a tough one, but I fold. Two reasons:
1. Even with your AK taking away two of the cards, with the action there is a strong strong chance one of them has AA or KK.
2. The Button clearly has some pocket pair (or AK). You are not going to be 50/50 here, since with all the players one or two of your outs are dead.

[SossMan]

We just had a thread like this. Player A raises, player B flat calls with AK and players behind him yet to act, player C recognizes the "weakness" of the flat call and pushes all in for a significant amount of player B's stack.

The problem with this is that by not reraising originally, you allowed player C to make you make the hard decision. He could easily be doing this with a small pair figuring that it would be tough for you to call without a monster and he would have the overlay to take a coin flip with the all in. You have to make the guy behind you make the tough decision. Go ahead and make it T3500 to go. Let the players behind you know that you are PC'd and they wont make these moves on you with coin flip type hands. Hell, he may be doing it with AQ, but you cannot know because you will have a hard time calling two all in's with just AK. I wouldn't be surprised if you are beating on of them pretty good, and the other has a pair. Best case scenario for you would be that they both have a pair.

You are going to have to lay this down and preserve your chip lead, IMO.

I think your EV calculation is way off, and I would like to see what you put these guys on to say that you have EV of +1500.

If I really did have EV of +1500 here, I would call in a heartbeat since you are still far from the money, and they don't give you points for being in the top 5 in chips for the longest time in the tourny. +EV is +EV, and you shouldn't be giving it up this far away from the money (where chipEV and $EV start to diverge).
I think we just disagree on whether or not this is +EV.

[Troy92]

It seemed to me that the BB had a pair 88 - JJ, or possibly AK or AQ. If the BB had AQ, then button would be in great position to win the larger side pot of 14600. Don't think the BB would make this large a raise w/ AA or KK. Why try to shut everyone out with the top cards? As long as neither player had AA or KK, then the button would win both pots about 35 - 38% of the time and is a small dog for the side pot if BB has a pair.

In my calculations, I did fail to consider MP possibly having one or two of the outs. Also, I had been thinking that UTG was short stacked and would have raised with a large variety of hands, so figured the possibility of having a hand button dominates would offset the odds of AA or KK. However, short stack did not go all-in as maybe they should have if they were going to get aggressive with a hand AK dominates. Hmmmm.

So maybe I miscalculated a bit, but I still think it is on the +EV side. But I am not sure it's that valuable to be worth the risk. The 33000 can just about ensure getting in the money, but does it really add that much more opportunity to win the whole tournament with so much time to go. 19000 will still go a long ways to pushing people off of pots, particularly as you get closer to the bubble.

By the way, I was UTG+1 w/ QQ. Maybe should have gone all-in, but I was willing to take my chances--this far from the money--of getting someone to play with me to get more than just the blinds. The BB's raise w/ 99 almost gave me my opportunity, but the button called and caught the K on the river--just as I was started to breath a sigh of relief. /images/graemlins/frown.gif I would probably have been out even if I would have gone all-in as button probably calls there. Got the pot I was looking for, and was just one card away from being back in the game with an above average stack.