All-in as favorite, when do you call?

[Phil Van Sexton]

First hand of typical SNG, you are BB. All fold to SB who pushes allin.

Based on your pattern map or Helmuth-like reading skills, you know exactly what cards he holds.

What % favorite do you need to be to call?

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
First hand of typical SNG, you are BB. All fold to SB who pushes allin.

Based on your pattern map or Helmuth-like reading skills, you know exactly what cards he holds.

What % favorite do you need to be to call?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the first hand. There's no reason to try to risk it all on a coin flip type hand, especially since you have position throughout the SnG and are a better player.

Of course, if you're NOT a better player than this guy, then I'd say call with anything above 50%.

[sprmario]

This will depend on how good a player you are and what your EV is on tournaments. Lets say you have a long history and you have an ROI of 40%.

If you lose the hand you are out of the tournament and you lose your buyin (lets say $11 for the purposes of this analysis).

If you win your chances of being ITM and your expected ROI should go up... but how much is hard to tell. Lets say you know w/ certainty that your new ROI for this tournament is 90% after doubling up. I suppose you should be able to calculate what % favorite is correct for you.

YOu have (1-x)% chance of -$11 and x% chance of $9.90 vs. folding and having an expected return of $4.40. solving for x...
(1-x)*(-9.90)+11x = 4.40
x = .737
So given these numbers you'd call if you had a better than 73.7% chance of winning.

That's my quick and dirty guess at the answer... am I right? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

EDIT: Assuming those calculations are right it all depends on how much of an improvement you are making to your ROI by doubling on the fist hand vs. busting out. Assuming a true base ROI of 40%:

New ROI Breakeven
50% 93%
60% 88%
70% 82%
80% 78%
90% 74%
100% 70%
110% 67%
120% 64%
130% 61%
140% 58%

[BradleyT]

Winning one hand doesn't win the tournament.

KK or AA scenario.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets say you have a long history and you have an ROI of 40%. ...
Lets say you know w/ certainty that your new ROI for this tournament is 90% after doubling up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like the idea of your calculation, but a 90% ROI when you have twice the stack of everyone else suggests that you have no skill advantage. If you have a positive ROI initially, surely you would still have a skill advantage after you double up.

One reasonable goal is to maximize your EV per tournament, but another reasonable goal is to maximize EV per hour. The latter appeals to me more since it looks like the supply of tournaments is unlimited, but my time is not. I believe maximizing EV/hour will tend to recommend calling with less of an advantage, since I think it decreases the average time you spend on that tournament.

Hypothetical numbers: Suppose you know that folding gives you an average return of $4 in 1 hour, but calling gives you and average return of $3 in 40 minutes. If you can do this in every tournament, you will win $4/hour by folding and $4.50/hour by calling.

[carpola]

I'm with Pzhon. If I know I have the edge here I'm calling. Most of the time you double up and the other times you start a new sit-n-go right away.

I don't do this much because its hard to read people on the first hand but a favorite is a favorite it doesn't matter if its the first level or the fifth.