Final Table MTT

[A_PLUS]

I posted this in the MTT forum as well, but I would like to here your opinions. No one knows more about short handed play with high blinds that the Party Poker SNG pros.

Pokerroom 10$ rebuy-addon.

5 players remain, Payout structure (1500, 850, 550, 380, 300). The blinds are 5K-10K.

I am in the BB with 135K in chips.
UG apx 90K
MP apx 200K
Button 120K
SB ax 140K.

Set up. With 7 players remaining, I picked up JJ on the button. MP (now) raised to 12K (normal raise at time). I reraised to 40K. He calls, flop A 3 7 rainbow. He instapushes for 40K. I call, and he shows A6. He plays his new stack aggressively, then losing a big pot with a questionable play and slows down.

We have been 5 handed for 5-6 orbitz, and MP has more than doubled his stack within the last two when he became ultra aggressive again. Mostly by raising all-in before the flop. I would estimate he has been all in preflop 4 times in the last 10-12 hands.

Hand in Question.

BB: Hero (125K after posting) Ac 9c
UG folds, MP pushes for 200K. folded to me.

Do you think this hand is strong enough to go to the felt with? My thinking was, make the call, and win and I have a very good chance to take home 1500. If I am going to fold hands like this, I am really going to need to hav the best cards from here on out if I am going to win. Within a round or two, the aggressive MP player will have 2X the next biggest stack. But, I am not impressed by the play as a whole, and may be able to wait for a better spot

[gumpzilla]

Nobody else is crushingly shortstacked, which is one indicator that probably points toward calling, since you're not giving up as much equity as you would be in that case. It sounds like he's been pushing often enough that you're very likely to have the best hand. Unfortunately, I don't have access to an ICM calculator that can take the payout chart that far down, so let's make some estimates.

Let's say you fold. The stack distribution is (you're marked with an *): 215, 140, 125*, 120, 90. Let's say you're 12.5% to win, 25% to come in each of 2,3,4, 12.5% to come in 5. In this case, your $ expected value is
.125 * 1500 + .25 *850 + .25 * 550 + .25 * 380 + .125 * 300 = 188 + 213 + 138 + 95 + 38 = 672.

Stack distribution if you call and win: 275*, 140, 120, 90, 65. Let's say this gives you a 35% chance of finishing first or second, 20% chance of finishing third, 10% chance of finishing fourth. Expected $ value: = .35 * 1500 + .35 * 850 + .2 * 550 + .1 * 380 = 525 + 298 + 110 + 38 = 971.

Calling and losing gets you 300.

So, how often do you need to win if you call to break even with folding? The answer is x, your chance of winning, must be at least (672 - 300) / (971 - 300) = 372 / 671, or about 55% of the time. I stress that I made up all of these percentages about where you're going to place, but they seem kind of reasonable to me.

So let's say you want to be at least a 55% favorite, then. This is certainly the case if he's pushing with any two. If he's pushing with a somewhat tighter range - any pair, any two broadway, any ace - then PokerStove's Monte Carlo option suggests based on running for about 30 seconds that you're going to have in the neighborhood of 52.5% equity, which isn't good enough.

So this is pretty read dependent. How sure are you that he's horsing around with just about any hand here? If you think that's very likely, call; otherwise, fold.

EDIT: Looking at my distributions a little closer, they seem incongruous; I should either give you more chance of winning in the first one or less in the second one, or just more in the second one. I suspect it's the former, since I doubt you're going to be much more than a 35% favorite to win in the second case, and that actually pushes the decision even more to a fold, which surprises me, because I was kind of expecting this to be a call. Of course, I can't take any of it too seriously.

[EverettKings]

Given your read and the payout structure, this is a definite call. You need to advance a good bit for real money, and like you said, if you fold hands like this vs a super aggro like him, you're going to need the deck to slap you in the face to win.

If you double here, then YOU can run over the table. And that's fun.


-Kings

[A_PLUS]

That was my thought Kings. The more chips this guy gets, the more he is going to push. Could I hang out and hopefully get 2nd? Yeah. But what are the odds of getting dealt a hand better than A9s, against his push while I still have enough chips to make my double matter. I thought my odds of winning were better with the call, so I did. I was completely indifferent between 4th and 5th.

[RedRum]

I would have liked this better if you could put the pressure on him, rather than having to call from the BB.

That being said, this looks like a call to me, regardless of the aformentioned math. I don't like to call off chips any more than the next guy, but with 4 all ins in 12 hands I have to put him on a push with any ace, or any 2 broadways.

This seems to be at least a race, likely you're ahead.

Drink more,
RedRum

[A_PLUS]

I think a leak in my game, is to ignore the unlikely event when I play shorthanded.

A guy raises 4 out of 12 at a full ring, I think "lucky run". a guy does it short handed, and I think "God D@^#$ Theif!!!"

Another example would be Raising with KJ from late position, getting a call, and continue to call off all of my chips refusing to give him credit for AK.

That being said, I was going to make a stand against this guy. There is just no way I am going to let someone walk into a heads up 4-1 chip lead without a fight. I just made a stand earlier than I planned. (I set 5XBB as the min, before I would start pushing without much).

As far as pushin vs. Calling with this hand. Id actually rather be calling here. Let me explain.

If I push this. It is a pretty safe assumption, I am not getting called by a hand that I dominate. So the most likely event 15K chips. Most aggressive players will have a much broader set of raising hands than calling hands. So as long as you are above a sufficient number of their raising hands, the call is actually better. Does that make sense, or am I babblign b/c the game ended at 4 am and I was in work this morning?

[EverettKings]

[ QUOTE ]
As far as pushin vs. Calling with this hand. Id actually rather be calling here. Let me explain.

If I push this. It is a pretty safe assumption, I am not getting called by a hand that I dominate. So the most likely event 15K chips. Most aggressive players will have a much broader set of raising hands than calling hands. So as long as you are above a sufficient number of their raising hands, the call is actually better. Does that make sense, or am I babblign b/c the game ended at 4 am and I was in work this morning?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you're missing the value of taking down the blinds uncontested. But even so, it's silly to argue that it's better to call a hand than push with it at this stage, because you'll only be given one of those options. Either someone has opened the pot ahead of you and your choices are call and fold, or it folds to you and you can push or fold. Obviously if you push with A9s and get called you're in worse shape than if someone pushes into you and you call with A9s, but the former case has a much higher chance of winning 15k in blinds without a fight. In any case, good call here, hope it worked out for you.

-Kings

[Scuba Chuck]

[ QUOTE ]
I was going to make a stand against this guy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good luck with these thoughts...