super satellite situation - please answer Fossilman

[curtains]

Ok important argument I am having with my friend, and I am basically about 100% sure i know what the correct move is, but I want him to realize it too (no one trusts me these days).

12 players left, top 5 goto aruba. I am 11th out of 12, with 10300 in chips at a 6-handed table (most people have 20k+, with leader around 40-50k) . The blinds are 1000/2000 and I have A5o in the cutoff seat. What to do.....fold or allin?

Second question....how bad a mistake is it to make the wrong play?

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Is there any prize $$, or only the five trips? If so, where does it start? That would make quite a difference.

Assuming it's just the five trips, it's a close decision. However, if you get nothing for 6th and below, you might as well play to get more chips and a shot at the trip. You're not going to gain anything by trying to survive here. Obviously, if you're going to raise, you might as well go all in since it's only 5x the BB anyway.

al

[curtains]

There are extremely small prizes for 6th-8th of $400, $300 and $200. 1st - 5th have a value of $6000, so they are not very relevant.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[youtalkfunny]

Have you been stealing a lot? How deep are the stacks behind you? How tight have they been playing?

There is no way I could pretend to answer the question, without having seen the previous play at this table.

[Wake up CALL]

With the following assumptions:

1) It was folded you
2) You did not just suffer a bad beat ( At this table)
3) You have not been stealing blinds the previous two rounds
4) You were not just moved to this table
5) The BB either considers you tight or does not know you at all
6) The BB is not the chip leader.

I would raise to 7200 and save 1 round of blinds + 100. They will either call 7200 or 10300 anyway or fold to either bet.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Without knowing the whole situation (as others have noted), this is almost always going to be an all-in here. If they're respecting your raises, you win the blinds too often here to pass up this opportunity. If they're not respecting your raises, then they're calling with hands you're ahead of too often to pass this up.

While it's high risk, it's a no-lose situation, no matter how tight or loose they play.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[curtains]

Thank you Greg and all for all those who responded. In response to the person who suggested that it was impossible to answer the question without more details, I think the details of how the players play are basically irrelevant in this situation and that its an automatic all-in.
The main argument I had with my friend was not whether or not it was the correct play (as he agreed that it was probably correct but that folding was ok also), but was whether or not it is a close call. My opinion is that folding is simply terrible when the blinds increase your stack by 33% and you are in the cutoff with a decent hand.
Meanwhile if you fold in 4 hands you will go from 10k to 7k if you dont play a hand (which most often you won't get a hand as good as A5), and now have a much smaller chance of making the blinds fold to a raise. Also in the BB with 20% of your stack in you will have to defend with a large number of hands but will unfortunately also have no chance of winning without a fight.

[Gotmilk]

Though going all-in is probably right, I still believe that it is not a disaster to fold here. For starters even if you win, the blinds are still coming in 4 hands. Its not like if you fold and end up at $7k your stack is twice as big by winning the blinds and being at $13k. So assuming that the blinds are coming through you, if you win this hand you will have $10k after the blinds come through, if you fold you will only have $7k. It's a little flawed to look at is winning $3k, or losing the blinds, because you are losing the blinds anyways.

The problem I have with moving all in with A5 here is the types of hands that you get called with you will always be dominated. A5o is simply not that good of a hand, and raising to 5x the blind with 3 people left to act seems to me to *possibly* be a mistake. There are a lot of hands that have the A5 beaten very badly (pair higher than 5's and better aces) and you are very likely to be called if one of the three hands behind you is one of these. This is one of those situations where if I am all in I'd rather be all-in on a trash steal like some crappy suited jack because you aren't beaten as badly when you get called as often.

It seems to me folding here and waiting one round to get desperate seems to be a reasonable play for a few reasons. For starters, with 12 people left there is a chance that two people go broke and you end up in a one table less desperate situation. Two, there are many good things that can still happen. It's not your goal to be playing flops and getting called, but when you only have 7k you are more likely to be called and be a favorite if you do get called, or maybe even get really lucky and get a big hand and get two callers and triple up.

Remember if you fold here, you still have 6 or 7 hands and there is a reasonable chance to get a hand that is as good or significantly better than A5o. There are lots of nice things that can happen that you lose the chance if you go all in and lose with A5. Maybe you get a chance to steal from a limper in the big blind, maybe you get a hand in the blinds, maybe you see a flop for free and win a pot, maybe you get blinded off two more rounds and get lucky and double up twice later or something, there are a lot of good things that can happen still and A5o is a bad desperation hand and 10000 is too many chips too have left to make a stand.

Remember, moving all in with A5 is not a bluff, its a value bet in my opinion. It's a bad bluff because it doesnt have a great chance of winning when its called. If you want to bluff here, do it with trash.

But hey, the blinds are big and probably A5o is good enough to go after them. I just think a pretty reasonabe case can be made for folding also.