AJs, two pushers in front of me

[PoBoy321]

This was in one of those $3 rebuy satellites to the $200K guaranteed tourney on UBet. The rebuy period is over, so people have started to tighten up.

I've got about 2X the average chip stack and am the table leader with around T13,000, and find myself on the button with A /images/graemlins/club.gifJ /images/graemlins/club.gif. The blinds are T300/600 with a 25 ante (I think, I'm doing this from memory so I could be off on some of the details, but most of them aren't too important). A few folds to a guy in MP with about T5,500 who makes it 900. I've been pretty aggressive and using my chip stack to bull people around, so it folds to me and I bump it up to T1500. Folds to the BB (T3,000) who pushes. The MP player comes over the top for an additional T2500. So the pot is about T9,000 and it's T2500 more for me to call. If I call and win, I'll have about 25,000 and should be able to coast pretty easily from there on in. If I lose, I'll have around 6,000 in chips and still have an average chip stack and need to work a little more.

I call.

NOTE: I'm not much of a MTT player, and I realize that satellite play is different from regular MTT play, but I'm just wondering how this looks to everyone.

[deepsquat]

Fold. And if u are going to RR, id prob make it a bit more but thats just me.

[Kristian]

Unless you are up against really bad players (which is not unlikely in a 3$ tournament), I would certainly fold. Both players are all in against multiple aggressors and should have great hands.

[PoBoy321]

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Fold.

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But c'mon, they're soooooooted! /images/graemlins/cool.gif

Actually, my thinking in the hand was just that If I won, I'd have a dominant chip position (around 5th in chips overall), and if I lost, I'd still be around the tourney average, and since this is a satellite, it's not like top 50 are in the money, only the top 9 or 10 are getting in, so I'll have to take a few more chances.

Stupid?

[PoBoy321]

Understood, and I figured that I was almost definitely dominated (possibly double dominated against hands like QQ and AK), but getting about 4:1 on my call, I had trouble laying it down.

[Kristian]

Well, an ace on the board most likely wont be enough for you, so you need a miracle or a flush, and that is a long long way from 4-1.

[M.B.E.]

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The blinds are T300/600 with a 25 ante (I think, I'm doing this from memory so I could be off on some of the details, but most of them aren't too important). A few folds to a guy in MP with about T5,500 who makes it 900.

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If blinds are really 300/600, he could not have raised to 900.

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I've been pretty aggressive and using my chip stack to bull people around, so it folds to me and I bump it up to T1500.

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What are you trying to accomplish here? Do you really think he will put 900 in the pot, but then fold preflop for 600 more? You should have smoothcalled.

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Folds to the BB (T3,000) who pushes. The MP player comes over the top for an additional T2500. So the pot is about T9,000 and it's T2500 more for me to call.

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I have a hard time following your math. It should be 4000 more for you to call, not 2500.

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If I call and win, I'll have about 25,000 and should be able to coast pretty easily from there on in. If I lose, I'll have around 6,000 in chips and still have an average chip stack and need to work a little more.

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I'm not sure where you get those figures from. Won't you have about 22,000 if you win and 7,500 if you lose? These details are important. Maybe you could check the hand history and clarify.

[cferejohn]

The re-raise was a mistake unless you knew MP was either pretty aggressive (raising with a lot of hands that you beat) or fairly weak (would lay down AQ and a fair number of pairs to this raise).

Back to the problem at hand: you are getting nearly 4-1 to call here, but most hands I put these two on have you in a fair amount of trouble (i.e. a PP JJ or and/or a bigger ace) and there's a pretty reasonable chance that you are up against both (ie something like one has QQ and one has AK).

If you feel reasonably certain that you are up against 2 hands that have you killed, I think you can make this fold, seeing as you are going to win only about 14% of the time. That does, of course, leave out the times you are going to beat the bigger stack but lose to the smaller, but it really looks like both hands have you killed here.

Now, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a regualr $150 and up tournament/sit-n-go player, and while you get the occasional doofus in there, it would be hard for me to imagine that this action, post rebuy, means anything other than JJ-AA or AK for both players.

So, you could conceivably fold here if you were sure about the other hands. It will look pretty weak, I admit, but both players are telling you that they are way way ahead. Even if 1 player has TT or worse, you are about even money on the call. You need both players to have underpairs (or, the mind boggles, a worse ace) to really have a +EV call here, and I don't see how you can put them on those sorts of hands often enough to make the call +EV in general.

Boy, it's on a short list of times I'm advocating a fold getting almost 4-1 though.

[cferejohn]

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Folds to the BB (T3,000) who pushes. The MP player comes over the top for an additional T2500. So the pot is about T9,000 and it's T2500 more for me to call.

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I have a hard time following your math. It should be 4000 more for you to call, not 2500.


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If that's true, this becomes a easier fold. I should have checked your math, and I'm interested to know the details of the actual raise amounts. In any case, given the action, it looks pretty likely that you are about a 7-1 dog, so I'd want at least 6-1 (if I think that lower pairs are possible) to call. Even at the 2500 amount, you're only getting 4-1.

This hand is a good example of when you should stop and think rather than just thinking "pot committed" and auto-clicking call. One of the strengths of the Harrington book, imho, is how he stresses the importance of stopping and really thinking before making a decision like this.

[PoBoy321]

Wow, looking back at my post, I can't believe how wrong I was with the details. I mean, they're just nonsensical, which I guess is what I get for posting at 3am.

I still can't find the hand history, so I'm sorry about not being able to get the specifics, but just assume that the basic action is the same (raise, reraise, push, push, I'm getting 4:1 on the call and still have an average stack if I lose and a huge stack if I win).

Anyway, I think that ultimately my question was, facing the two all-ins, can I make the call with my pretty modest hand, given that I'm getting about 4:1 on the call, as well as an opportunity to knock out two players and gain a dominant chip position? I felt that given my dominant stack size, it was a borderline call at best, but that the reward of getting so many chips was worth it.

[locutus2002]

I fold with that ace in my hand. If the Ace was a Q, T, or 9 I'd be much more excited.

In general, if I have more than twice the average stack, I will risk up to 15% of my stack to get involved in a big pot where I have the worst of it. These are typically nut flush river draws when I am sure that I need to make the flush to win. (7 outs with the pot laying around 4 to 1 or better)