pot odds call?

[schwza]

paradise 30 rebuy last night. 55 left, top 70 pay. pay jumps are minimal ($26) for the next several jumps (which happen every 10 people). for reference, 50-59 pays $130, 8th pays 1k, and 1st pays 13k.

blinds are 3k/6k with ante 300. i have 20k after posting the SB. BB has 5.9k after posting the BB. folded to CO who pushes for 18k. there is 30k in the pot and it's 15k to me.

i have q3s.

i don't have much of a read on CO. he's open-raised a few times in the ~20 hands he's been at the table, but i don't know anything else. the BB has not done anything so stupid as to make me think he's going to fold.

if i call and BB does, there will be 12k in the side and 39k in the main.

[U235]

This is a complicated math problem that could probably be easily solved by something like pokerstove, as I think it would be pretty easy to put your opponents on ranges of hands. I, however, will make a bold decision to attempt to solve this without the use of modern technology:

CO: I'd push with any above average hand (top 50%). BB should call with any two, which means you'll be up against a bad hand a lot. Some players might be a bit more conservative, so I'd lower my expected range for a normal player to the top 40%.

BB: Any two.

I think its pretty obvious you are behind the CO, certainly the times he flips over Q9 or 55 will more than make up for the times you are slightly ahead of JT or T9. You are even likely behind the BB, as your hand is worse than average. Since I'm assuming that BB will definitely call, the only true dead money is the 3K you put in as the small blind. I can't think that this would be enough in a 36K pot for you to call this.

I wouldn't make this call, but I don't think it would be very wrong to do so. I could see an argument to try to chip up here, or bust and go do something else.

[gumpzilla]

I don't have PokerStove available, so I'll make up some bogus but reasonable sounding numbers and you can tell me if you think I'm way off. BB has a random hand, CO is almost certainly ahead of you. Let's say the range of hands he's pushing with is any pair, any ace, some kings, and maybe a JT or so; we'll be charitable and neglect Qx hands which are probably somewhat unrealistic anyway. Feel free to adjust here. Eyeballing this, your 3 makes this a horrendous range to go against, and I'd be surprised if you had much more than 35-40% equity in the side. Throw in the random hand and I think you're going to drop to 20-25% equity in the main. I stress these numbers are just estimates, but I think they're probably realistic.

Pessimistic numbers suggest: .2 * 39k + .35 * 12 = somewhere near 12k, which is unappealing.

Optimistic numbers suggest: .25 * 39k + .4 * 12 = somewhere near 14.5k, which is marginally unappealing.

So if you put CO on a range of hands more restrictive than any two, I don't see this being a good move, even though you're kind of short. Particularly since you're going to be on the button next hand, you're going to have a couple of hands in pretty good stealing position and, if you're lucky, maybe enough folding equity to fold out the BB. So I'm not sure that I like this call given that range.

If you think CO is pushing with any two here, then my suspicion is that Q3 will do just well enough against one and two random hands to make this marginally +chip EV. But I kind of doubt CO is pushing with any two, so I hold off on calling this and try to get my chips in first sometime in the next four or five hands.

[schwza]

at first i thought "30k in the pot and i only have to call 15k? sounds great!" but then i realized that BB was going to come in to and only add 6k (but the side pot would still be very small), and so the odds weren't nearly as good as i originally thought. also the CO should know that he's getting called, so he should be playing hands that play well against random hands. so i folded.

CO, as it turned out, was an idiot. he had 78. but it was sooooooted.

[gumpzilla]

I'm generally terrible about working out the ramifications of side pots in situations like this at the table; it's something I should work on.

My guess is that CO neglected to consider that he'd get called by the BB, because otherwise 87s seems like a fairly nice hand to try a push with - at least better than something like A2 - just because you're likely to have live cards if called by somebody who isn't already pot committed.

[schwza]

yeah, i also am not very good at doing side pot things in my head. here how i thought about it later: 12k in side, i'm probably ~38%, 39k in main, i've got to be around ~23% (i figure i'm well under 33%, but then the number is made up). then i'd punch it into a calculator and find it's abotu 13.5k. so it's barely not worth it. wow, i'm surprised it's that close. i'll run some pokerstove numbers tonight to get a better sense of the %'s.

[ QUOTE ]
My guess is that CO neglected to consider that he'd get called by the BB, because otherwise 87s seems like a fairly nice hand to try a push with - at least better than something like A2 - just because you're likely to have live cards if called by somebody who isn't already pot committed.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, i'm calling him an idiot for not realizing the BB would auto-call. (or for not then figuring out that 78s is bad).