Really Basic Mathematical/ICM Questions

[KennyBanya]

Party 22 or 33. You posted the BB for 200 with 6 players left. Cutoff pushes 1100 chips. All other players have folded.

What size total stack do you call with any 2 cards and no reads? What size stack do you need to start weighing in other factors, such as your hand strength, read on your opponent, size of other stacks, etc.?

If I have 400 to start, I am getting 3.5 to 1 and clearly should call. If I have 600 I am getting 2.25 to 1 and would be tempted to fold a hand like deuce five.

I guess I am looking for a magic number where I should automatically call out of the BB, as it pertains to the size of my stack.

Thanks,

KennyBanya

[11t]

I would never call with any 2 in the situation you described. You are not getting pot odds.

Here is a good rule of thumb,

If you are in the bb versus a push and you are the last to act than you should call when you are getting 2:1 pot odds for less than 1/3rd of your stack with a random hand.

Of course folding 72os in the situation I described above isn't an awful move but it is all about pot odds in relation to your stack.

[KennyBanya]

Really?

If I started with 400 I am risking 200 to get 700 more chips. That has to be darn close to a call with any 2.

KennyBanya

[Ixnert]

With only a few extreme exceptions (AA vs. Axo, for example), no hand is more than about a 4.5:1 preflop favorite over any other. So absolutely whatever read you had on the original raiser, with about 133 additional chips or less you'd want to call with anything.

Practically speaking, certainly if you have less than another BB you want to call with anything, since you can't reasonably put him on a range that you have less than 25% equity against, no matter what hand you have. (You would have to know that raiser wouldn't have pushed without a big pocket pair to have less equity than this; no AK, AQ, etc., and never, ever bluffed. Put simply, you never actually know this.)

Much more than that and there are reads that could make this a fold.