preflop pot odds?

[eastbay]

$55 buy-in...

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t50 (8 handed)

Hero (t970)
UTG (t1075)
UTG+1 (t2685)
MP1 (t640)
MP2 (t930)
CO (t920)
Button (t1920)
SB (t860)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Q/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 7/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, <font color="CC3333">MP1 raises to t100</font>, MP2 folds, CO calls t100, Button calls t100, SB folds, Hero ???

I don't really have a feel for this or a good way to analyze it. I'm getting 7:1 on a call. Am I foolish not to call here? Or are there too many hands in the cookie jar here, and I'm flirting with kicker trouble?

eastbay

[Aceten1]

Hello.

I did some work on this concept for limit games and while we all recognize the differences between that and no-limit games, perhaps some of it applies.

Your hand, Q-7o, is one of the "computer" hands (the other being J-5s), which basically means it's the "average" (median?) hand one will get in the blinds. In your situation, if you were to play it 7 times, your total investment would be $350 and if you won it once, you'd get $375, which is basically a break-even situation. Converting 1 in 7 to a percentage, we get ~14%, which is, once again, the break-even point. From a strictly dollars and cents point of view there's no reason to play break-even situations because they only increase your variance. Of course, there may be other reasons to play them, such as table image and other psychological stuff like that, but I think a 20% probability is pretty much the minimum you should expect for a situation like this.

My study, which was done for a blind-stealing strategy, differs from your situation in that you have 3 opponents, whereas mine involved only two opponents - the SB and BB versus the raiser who's on the button. But to make a long story short, I wanted to see just what types of hands one should raise with from the button to achieve a 40% probability of success (or expected value, if you prefer). The spreadsheet I did listed the probabilities for three hands: the raiser's, the SB's and the BB's. In each case, I gave the SB a hand of J-5s and the BB a hand of Q-7o. I then varied the button's hand and caculated the % for each. The hands I chose for the button were those that are "outside" the normal raising hands. In other words, we know the button should be raising with A-A, etc., so those hands weren't included. What I did choose were hands like A-2s, A-9o, K-4s, Q-5o and so forth; hands one would not normally raise with, except when everyone's folded to you and only the Blinds remain.

The calculations for the probability of Q-7 in this situation ranged from a low of 20% (vs. Q-9s and A-7s) to a high of 47% (vs. Q-5o). In your situation, I doubt very much if you were up against hands like that. Certainly they were much stronger, but there were more of them, so the power of some were diluted by the others. As a quick test, I gave the MP in your hand J-J, the CO, A-10s and the button K-Qo, which are probably on the lower end of the raising and limping hands you might see in a tournament like this. If those were the hands you were up against, the probability for Q-7o is a dismal 7.6%, which implies you'd need nearly 14-1 odds to make the call, if preflop equity is your only criterion.

BTW, thanks for your posts. I've found them to be helpful and interesting.

GM

[DemonDeac Holding Rockets]

I'd call hoping for a monster flop and then possibly slowplay, depending on your reads. If the flop isn't a monster, like say a pair of 7s or Qs, I'd be careful.

[Jason Strasser]

Fold. I just ask myself why bother? I'm sure there is a mathematical answer, but my gut instinct says that this hand does not have enough value. If, on the other hand, the raiser was extremely extremely tight, I'd call, because my implied odds would be tremendous.

I'd say I fold this 99.7% of the time.

[Sam T.]

I agree with Jason (way to go out on a limb!) on the fold.

Other than flopping a boat or quads, the only cards that would make you really happy are Q7x (where x is ideally less than 7). (Granted I'm being pessimistic here, but QQx could cost you your stack if the fourth Q is active.)

More likely is flopping nothing, or a single Q or 7, neither of which you can bet with any confidence, especially given your position.

[Lori]

Personally, because of the difficulty of playing post flop, I would only play this hand a) if the blinds were 15-30 or smaller or b) if the cards were suited.

Edit: In a ring game where I can add to my stack, I still only call this about half the time.

Lori

[KJ o]

As others have said or implied: call if your post flop play is significantly better than theirs. If it is, you'd probably make more $/hr moving up, so assuming you play on a correct level, this is a fold.

If this was level one and you think advertising pays off, it would perhaps be different. This wasn't level one and I think advertising plays are way overrated in the average SnG, so neither of these apply.

[thomastem]

.....or you could go all in and steal the chips! /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[TheDrone]

Calculating the odds of flopping two pair or better is one way to approach the decision. If I made a wild guess it would be at least 25 to 1, which backs up my gut feeling that it's a poor call. Of course I'm not including implied odds here, but you get the point.

Anyone know what the odds are?

[Tosh]

My stack needs to be twice as deep before I play this hand.

[durron597]

I would fold simply because you are the BB, and you could get yourself into trouble playing that hand out of position.

[stupidsucker]

I agree that this is a fold. That 100 chips just means too much to you at this time, and losing 100 more is too painful(which is going to happen most often). What flop are you looking for? 2 pair? trips? If you flop top pair Q you are still in a mound of trouble.

I tend to ignore preflop odds when I am short stacked because I always feel I can use my stack more wisely as steals. If I have a large stack then I come in for that min raise.

[tallstack]

Someone may want to check my calcs here, but I think they are right. If you have 6 cards (3 Q's and 3 7's) and need two or more to come up on the flop then the probability would be 6C2 * 48 /50C3 or 720/19600 = .036. This is about 26.2 to 1. Also, you may want to continue with the hand if 3 diamonds come out, which should be 12C3/50C3 or 220/19600 = .011. This is about 88 to 1. Adding them together, it should be about 20 to 1.

Dave S

[ddubois]

QTo, Q9s, easy. Q9o, maybe. Q7o, not a chance.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that this is a fold. That 100 chips just means too much to you at this time

[/ QUOTE ]

It's 50 chips, not 100.

eastbay