Short Stack vs Short Stack

[Newt_Buggs]

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t300 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

BB (t560)
UTG (t4050)
Hero (t710)
SB (t4680)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 10/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font> hero?
$50
BB is competent
SB is a somewhat loose, kind of bad player but not terrible

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t300 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

BB (t560)
UTG (t4050)
Hero (t710)
SB (t4680)

Preflop: Hero is Button with K/images/graemlins/diamond.gif, 10/images/graemlins/spade.gif.
<font color="#666666">1 fold</font> hero?
$50
BB is competent
SB is a somewhat loose, kind of bad player but not terrible

[/ QUOTE ]

ehhh, I just move allin.

[Newt_Buggs]

lol, cmon curtains, you can do better than that.

You aren't worried that the SB calls, letting the BB fold? Also, if I fold and the SB loses to the BB, I still have a chance. If I push and lose to the BB then I'm basically out of the tourney.

oh well, i'm off to bed so I'll look this over again when i'm not tired.

[curtains]

I dunno, probably in theory it's correct for the SB to reraise with a large % of hands, due to the obvious dead chips in the BB. Meaning SB shuold reraise allin with J8o for example, getting about 2-1 pot odds. Your hand will be slightly better than average but okay you may move allin with a lot of hands that aren't great.

So probably in theory it's best to fold. However the SB will fold a lot more often than they should. So maybe I will fold after all!!!!!!

[Mr_J]

Aahhh. Is it better to let someone else take a coinflip, or race yourself. I think with KT you have to push.

Curtains, what do you think of calling? If you call, at least you have position. If you call and sb pushes, bb calls then you call. If sb pushes and bb folds then you fold.

On the flop you get to see how sb acts, how bb reacts. I think it's a good thing to get all of us in the pot since an sb win would give you your 3rd place. It might give you a better chance at 3rd than just trying to out survive bb, and if you win gives you a decent stack.

[benza13]

Hadn't even considered calling since I am generally in push/fold mode at this point, but you do make a good argument for it. My only fear would be that the SB pushes, BB folds and then you either fold and leave yourself with 400 chips and 450 in blinds coming, while the BB can fold his small blind and make you survive your blinds.

So, as I write this, I am back to the push or fold. I think pushing is slightly better since you have a pretty good hand 4 handed and if the BB is competent he is going with this hand or the next. The SB folds too often here and if he wants to call me with a lesser hand thats fine, I'll take the best of it and fire up another if its a bad beat. If you call and fold you are basically playing for third, not first.

[curtains]

[ QUOTE ]
Aahhh. Is it better to let someone else take a coinflip, or race yourself. I think with KT you have to push.

Curtains, what do you think of calling? If you call, at least you have position. If you call and sb pushes, bb calls then you call. If sb pushes and bb folds then you fold.

On the flop you get to see how sb acts, how bb reacts. I think it's a good thing to get all of us in the pot since an sb win would give you your 3rd place. It might give you a better chance at 3rd than just trying to out survive bb, and if you win gives you a decent stack.

[/ QUOTE ]


Not a huge calling fan....I've thought of it before in similar situations, but I just don't like it. It's like begging the SB to move allin (which I would do with a wide range of hands, although I can't speak for the random SB in this hand).

Also the other main problem is that if you call, the SB pushes and BB folds and then you fold (which is completely insane way to play this hand), you actually end up allin before the shortstack due to having to pay 450 in blinds but only having 410 chips.

btw I feel like I'd usually move allin here, although Im not sure it's correct. I honestly haven't been in a spot like this for a while, with two really short stacks and two giant stacks.

[Phil Van Sexton]

[ QUOTE ]

I dunno, probably in theory it's correct for the SB to reraise with a large % of hands, due to the obvious dead chips in the BB. Meaning SB shuold reraise allin with J8o for example, getting about 2-1 pot odds. Your hand will be slightly better than average but okay you may move allin with a lot of hands that aren't great.

So probably in theory it's best to fold. However the SB will fold a lot more often than they should. So maybe I will fold after all!!!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this spot sucks either way. Personally, I push here because I doubt the SB is savvy enough to compute any kind of pot odds.

Also, it seems whenever I fold in a spot like this, the SB will just fold to the BB. I don't have exact numbers on this, but this definately increases the % probability of me throwing my laptop through a wall.

[curtains]

Yeah I always push here, just curious if it's correct from a purely theoretical standpoint, because I really do believe the SB should play unbelievably loose once we move allin. I mean we know the BB will fold probably over 90% of the time if we push as the SB, and we are getting almost 2-1 odds against a hand that doesn't have to be a monster.

[Karak567]

eastbay's program says push

[curtains]

And do you have the SB playing over 50% of hands and the BB playing 100% of hands?

[curtains]

yea it does seem to like pushing even if the SB is calling with about 50% of hands....something seems odd about it though...but okay I guess that's good since I always push here and since almost no SB's will be that loose.

[Mr_J]

" btw I feel like I'd usually move allin here"

I think being so short, seeing KT and knowing we'll have to race sometime that pushing is the usual reaction. No matter what, we don't lose much EV from making an incorrect decision here.

[Newt_Buggs]

K10o wins against a random hand 59.74% of the time, which is better than I thought but still not very good. I still don't know if that extra 10% of the time that you win over the BB's random hand is worth the SB calling the push and the disadvantage of losing an all in.

if you fold, and the BB doubles up against the SB then the stacks look like this

BB (t4050)
Hero (t710)
Button (t4120)
SB (t1020)

pushing and losing:
BB (t4050)
Hero (t150)
Button (t4680)
SB (t1020)

if the other SS gets lucky and wins then you are still in decent shape. If you can survive your BB and double up then you're ahead of him again.

I find MR_J's suggestion of limping quite interesting. This would obviously be suicide againt any decent agressive player, but I think that against this guy the reverse gap concept might kick in. He might call a push with A9 since its obviously the right play, but only complete after if I limp in either because hes a passive donk or he wants to "team up" on the short stack.