Making stand on the Bubble with A9

[Pitcher]

Hi All,

I made a stand against a very aggressive big stack when the big stack could bust me. I could likely coast into 3rd in this situation or try to double up and go for 1st place.

I decided to take a big risk and call the all in. BTW this is a $215 PP SNG and some of the players left are 2+2.

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t400 (4 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

Hero (t1760)
UTG (t520)
Button (t1510)
SB (t6210)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8/images/graemlins/heart.gif, A/images/graemlins/heart.gif.
<font color="#666666">2 folds</font>, SB calls [t6210] t200, Hero calls [t1760] t400.

Flop: (t600) J/images/graemlins/club.gif, 3/images/graemlins/club.gif, 4/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Turn: (t600) Q/images/graemlins/heart.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

River: (t600) A/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>

Final Pot: t600

Thanks ahead for any comments.

Pitcher

[byronkincaid]

Hi Pitcher

Everyone seems to be on brave pills at the moment. Can I have some?

BK

[DasLeben]

No matter which way you look at it, this is still very -$EV. UTG loses his stack in the next couple hands. Even if he doubles you're in decent shape. The math says this is only profitable with 99+ against a biggie pushing any two (which I'll bet good money that he's doing exactly that).

[Myst]

You just made a horrible play. There are tons of post regarding optimal bubble play. Search for them and youll find the answer.

[byronkincaid]

[ QUOTE ]
You just made a horrible play. There are tons of post regarding optimal bubble play. Search for them and youll find the answer

[/ QUOTE ]

IIRC Pitcher has been playing the $215s since this forum began. I think he probably knows quite a lot about optimal bubble play.

[Myst]

Just because hes played the $215s for a long time doesnt mean hes a perfect player. If Johnny Chan, Daniel Negreanu, or Gigabet made this play, its still horrible.

[johnnybeef]

I dont like it. Even if you double up, you are still in 2nd place. Given that you figure to be at best a 2:1 fav, your risks outweigh the rewards. There may be a way that i could like calling here, but i dont feel like going into it now.

[Pitcher]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the replies. This call was clearly incorrect. A little analysis explains it. I don't know if I like the word [ QUOTE ]
horrible

[/ QUOTE ] but it isn't good.

Let's take a look at the hand. I believed that DasLeben was right in saying the villian would push with any two cards. A little analysis by PokerStove shows that Ah8h vs. a random hand is a 62% favorite or just over 3:2. So 38% of the time I lose and am out of the tournament. I believe I would make the $ over 90% of the time if I fold here, so clearly this isn't too good.

If I double up, I am still behind the chip leader and not in dominant position, although I do distance myself from the two smaller stacks.

Now what about the bigger picture. I play with a couple of these players fairly often. Is it correct to make a bad play to show them that you can't be pushed around? Frankly, I doubt it, because they are very likely to know it is simply a bad play and will not change their behavior (in fact, it will likely make them play more aggressively in those situations hoping I will make a -ev play)

Bottom line here is that I was tired of getting pushed around, lost discipline, and made a poor decision.

Winning is about having the discipline to make the best play all the time. These breakdowns differentiate the big winners from the losers. Don't forget this like I did.

Regards,

Pitcher

[Sabrazack]

Today i made a call with K4 against a big stack that was pushing ALOT. I figured King high would be ahead of his range. About 15 seconds after busting out i realized how utterly retarded my call was. This is ofcourse not THAT bad, but still too loose a call.