Should the raiser call?

[ohkanada]

Playing the Mirage NL tourney last week ( see B & M tourney report) an interesting hand occurred.

We are down to 14 players. 7 on each table. 9 gets paid. I have been short stacked for a while and winning enough to keep me alive. Blinds are 200-400. Mid-position with 4400 player makes it 1800 to go. I look down from the blinds and find AK. I only have about 3600 and I raise all-in. Now this player has been taking every steal opportunity possible but this time he has been caught.

He says "Well I likely have live cards" and calls and tables T7s.

I win a nice pot when neither of us hit and of course there is some discussion by others if he should have even called.

What do you guys think? He likely has pot odds unless I have an overpair. Do you put almost all your remaining chips on this hand?

Ken Poklitar

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Tough spot he got himself into.

He's getting better than 3:1 on the call. Against your AK he's about 2:1 to win. If you happen to have a dominating hand (e.g., A7, KT, and the like), he's about a 3:1 dog. If you have an underpair, he's almost even money. Against 77-99, he's about 3:1 against. Finally, against TT-AA he's a significant dog (4:1 to 5:1 or so). Putting you on the entire range of hands you might hold in this situation, I probably call even though I hate it. I suspect, without doing the math in detail, that I'm about a 2.7:1 dog against your range of hands, and I'm getting slightly better than 3:1, so that's an edge of over 10%. Also, folding here will leave me with T2600, and T2000 if I end up having to fold through the blinds in a few hands. That total is going to make it harder for me to steal successfully.

However, if I thought I would still likely get away with a couple of all-in steal raises with my reduced stack size, then I would probably fold to your reraise and try to do just that.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[DaNoob]

I'm still learning the fundamentals of comparing pot odds to win odds, and I understand the basic concept. But like Fossilman refers to in his last paragraph, if I'm a 2.7:1 dog or worse to be knocked out of the tournament and I would still be left with a decent enough stack to ride out and hope for better pocket cards to work with, I think I would fold. This, of course, assumes that I would raise with a T7s, which I would definitely not do at this point in the tournament.

U should write that dude a thank you note...

[iblucky4u2]

Greg - I am still learning NL and have found your posts very valuable.

I have to question the logic here. First, it is obvious that T7s is not a raising hand at this point in the tourney. Once that mistake is made, your "logic" of pot odds etc. means that you are almost forced to go all in against almost any re-raise from any position. Is this a case of two wrongs making a right?

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I wouldn't say it's two wrongs. It's one wrong raise, followed by a correct but painful call.

And the original raise is only wrong if there isn't a high enough chance that it will take down the pot preflop. If there is enough chance that you will win uncontested, then it doesn't matter what hand you're holding. Of course, part of figuring out how often you have to win preflop is knowing that you might have to follow up with an all-in call if reraised, and thus you're risking more than just the initial raise.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Be careful you aren't falling into the fallacy of "survival at any cost." There are many tourney regulars, including some who are really very good, who take this concept WAY too far.

It isn't just how often you lose, even coupled with the fact that you'll be eliminated, but also how much you win when do win.

Here's a silly hypothetical for you. First hand of a tourney, you're the big blind. 100 players, 10 at your table. First player to act goes all-in, and everybody calls up to you. Now, it's a rule at this casino that once everybody is all-in, all hands must be immediately shown before the remaining cards are dealt. Not noticing that you didn't act yet, the first player exposes his hand, and everybody else follows suit. Being the computer-brain that you are, you quickly realize that your hand has a 25% chance of winning against this field if you call. This means you are a 3:1 favorite to be eliminated if you call, but if you win you'll have a stack of 10x the rest of the field. Do you call?

No matter how good you are, the answer should be yes. Nobody is so good that they should pass on a situation where they have an edge of 150%. The fact that you get eliminated when it goes wrong is really irrelevant. Your odds of reaching the money go up if you make this call, even though your odds of losing early go up even more.

The same thing with the original hand in this post. By making the last call, the player improves their overall chances, even though they are now facing likely elimination this very hand.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[iblucky4u2]

Thanks for the info. OUt of curiosity, is there a % of stack or raise size that you generally follow that makes the pot odds an automatic call if re-raised or does it just depend on the many factors faced at the time of the action?

[ohkanada]

I agree Greg. As I said in my original post he was doing a lot of button/cutoff steals. The players after him with big stacks were not calling. In this case the original raise was wrong because of both the size of the raise and his position. Based on his stack he almost just need to go all-in rather than bet 40% of his stack. Against this player I re-raise all-in with a wider variety of hands but if he instead goes all-in, I certainly would call with AK but hands like AQ/AJ/AT/KQ would likely be in the muck.

Ken Poklitar

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Preflop, over half my stack is an automatic all-in if required. More than 1/3 of my stack is pretty damn close to automatic, but I will still fold if the evidence I'm against an overpair is clear-cut. Less than 1/5 and I'll typically fold if I don't think there's a decent chance I'm ahead.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[DaNoob]

I understand the hypothetical situation and it makes perfect sense to me, assuming you have 25% chance of taking the large pot. My confusion comes from what seems to be "likely suicide" in hopes of getting a bigger pot with a mediocre hand. Let's assume that he folds and his next hand is an AQo. Doesn't he have a much better EV with this hand than he does with the original (due to the cards, and size of blinds relative to his new stack?). Maybe I'm confusing too many issues at the same time, but I think I'd rather wait for a better fight to fight... of course, the risk being that the opp doesn't come and the blinds bleed you to death. Am I so wrong in this?

Please make the voices go away mommy...

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Here's a key fact you may be overlooking. Even if you have enough chips to wait a while, when you do find that big hand, even if you win you'll only be back where you were. However, if you win this hand now, you'll be at double or triple that number.

Imagine a stack of 10,000, and blinds of 25,50. I manage to put 8,000 in the pot, and now realize that I only have 1 chance in 6 of winning. Do I call with my last 2,000 into a pot of 18,000? Since that is a payoff of 9:1, I should. Even though 2,000 is still a very reasonable stack compared to the size of the blinds, and even though I'll be able to wait quite a while before getting blinded off. Because when I find AA and double up 30 hands from now, I'll only have a stack of slightly under 4,000; whereas if I win this hand now, I'll have a stack of 20,000.

Another way to look at it is which choice gives me the greater chance of eventually reaching a stack size of 20,000? The 1 in 6 chance I have now, or continued play from a stack of 2,000? An average player only has 1 chance in 10 of growing their stack from 2K to 20K, and that's a lot worse than 1 in 6.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[DaNoob]

Thanks for the additional explanation. It's all becoming clear to me. I used to kick myself for kickikng all-in when I felt like my stack size would be relatively small if I just folded, even if I felt like my hand was OK. I think the point that you make is, regardless of whether or not the decision might put you out of the tournament this time, over the long run, it will pay off since it's +EV. This is a facet of the game that I defintely need to work on.

Many thanks Greg.

[DaNoob]

I do have one more question for you...

You mention that he has 2.7:1 odds, approximately, against the wide variety of hands that the raiser is probably holding. With the flop already down, and only two cards to go, it's much easier to determine how many outs you have and what the odds of getting those outs vs. the pot are. How do you perform a quick analysis of this pre-flop?

[Bozeman]

One point to mention is that the reason he has to call is that he is getting 3:1 against Ken's reraise. However, if someone with a larger stack reraised him, he'd need to put in 2600 to win 6800 or odds of 2.6:1. Here he can fold to a reraise if he's sure to be beat. Thus the mistake is making this size raise when a smaller stack is likely to reraise.

Craig

[iblucky4u2]

Greg - your perspective is much appreciated - I'll let you know how it works out next time I play a NL tourney