Baffling Card Player hand analysis: Hansen vs. Phillips

[burningyen]

Can anyone explain this to me?

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_odds/?PHPSESSID=7f7f4ecbffd00f87ff1d40759f7889ec

Did Gus go all-in pre-flop? Or do they mean that he went all-in post-flop, but it was still a bad idea? And how does the pay-out structure they mention affect what odds you would look for in order to commit all your chips?

[Tosh]

I agree with their analysis, on the hand Gus called all in preflop, if I was as good as Gus in that situation I would fold it too.

[SoBeDude]

I disagree. I think if Gus puts Paul on overcards Gus's win % is so high that a fold would be a huge EV mistake. Yes, he's putting his tourney life on the line, but hey, so did Paul with a much inferior hand. I think you can't pass up chances like this to double up when you're a BIG favorite.

Gus wins here almost 8 out of 10 times.

-Scott

[hansarnic]

[ QUOTE ]
Can anyone explain this to me?

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_odds/?PHPSESSID=7f7f4ecbffd00f87ff1d40759f7889ec

Did Gus go all-in pre-flop? Or do they mean that he went all-in post-flop, but it was still a bad idea? And how does the pay-out structure they mention affect what odds you would look for in order to commit all your chips?

[/ QUOTE ]

FWIW, this is what Paul Phillips thought of the hand, from his blog: http://extempore.livejournal.com/

"I received an email from one kevin sanchez that I'm replying to publicly with his permission.

> you write that you thought gus' call holding pocket tens over your ace-queen
> was a good one - but if the chances that you were holding AA/KK or 88/99
> were slim, then gus was either way behind to an over-pair or even-money
> against two over-cards. if he was probably no better than 60% and quite
> possibly as little as 20% to win the pot, why not fold and wait for a better
> opportunity?

The fallacy I see people constantly subscribing to here is the belief that a better opportunity will necessarily come along, and that it will come along before it's too late. If the range of hands gus puts me on in this case is AK/AQ/99-QQ then he is a true coin flip across the distributed weight of hands (50.18%, I just checked.) From a money standpoint he should fold because he still has Dewey well outchipped, but if his primary goal is to win the tournament he has to call because 50/50 is as good as he can expect to see. He knew that.

In a situation where a good player has position on you plus a material chip lead, you will be forced to take a stand at some point. Can he really expect to see a better hand than TT before he is crippled? If we start seeing flops together he's in even deeper trouble because I will have position 2/3 of the time. If he calls with TT on that hand he thinks he can expect to win about half the time, and position is out of the equation for that hand (though of course gus is the one who actually had the button that time; and I erased position by moving in.)

Let's say he somehow knew he was exactly 50/50. If he folds, he leaves himself with 1.8M, Dewey with about 1.1M, and me with about 3.2M plus a major psychological & momentum edge. If he calls, half the time he's out in 3rd and half the time he has 4.3M, I have 700K, and Dewey has 1.1M. I believe he'd win the tourney about 75% of the time under the latter scenario, so by calling he's .5 * 75% = 38% to win. If he folds the TT he has only 29% of the chips in play and, I believe, even less chance than that of winning.

But if he somehow knew he was 57/43 like he was -- if he could reliably put me on overcards -- then he REALLY has to call. There is no way he can pass a 1.3-1 edge against the chip leader who has been wielding position at him effectively for two days. He would be surrendering, just hoping an improbably good situation came along very soon. It simply wasn't a "wait for a better spot" situation. It WAS the better spot.

> you also write that it was not a tilt call. i've replayed gus making that
> call many times over; he asks himself out loud three times, 'how can i make
> this call?', trying to talk himself into the hand.

In my opinion he was trying to talk himself into ignoring the difference between second and third place money and going for the win. He knew that was what a call represented.

> i really think that gus
> would've let it go had he not been getting outplayed on previous pots,

Absolutely! But that's precisely my point. That doesn't make it a "tilt call", it means that gus correctly assessed that the situation was the best he could expect to get, and that I wasn't going to let him get back into the game easily. He had to gamble because he was taking the worst of it when we tangled.

> i just don't understand why he'd flip a coin for all his chips when he'd
> still have a ton of chips to play with after folding, and i was interested
> to hear that you'd probably make the same call if you were in his place.

I would make the same call were I playing to win, and were someone to my left constantly handcuffing me. At the bike I was still largely playing for the money, and that's why I folded the QQ to TJ in a situation with two short stacks. After booking the bike money I switched more into "just win baby" mode, though I find I still can't be entirely indifferent to six figure jumps in prize money."