8 handed at 200/400. Defend?

[Hawkeye27]

At this late stage of the tourney and the rare occurence of 8 people left should I be defending against this all-in raise with any pair? What non-pair hands would you defend with in this situation and how does that vary from 4-5 handed?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t200 (8 handed) converter

MP1 (t1260)
MP2 (t1140)
CO (t700)
Button (t835)
SB (t470)
Hero (t1250)
UTG (t580)
UTG+1 (t1765)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 6[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img].
<font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, <font color="#CC3333">MP2 raises to t1140 (All-In)</font>, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, Hero calls t940.

Flop: (t2380) Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 7[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Turn: (t2380) J[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

River: (t2380) 9[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] <font color="#0000FF">(2 players, 1 all-in)</font>

Final Pot: t2380

[willie24]

you can be somewhat tighter 8 handed than 4 handed-because other players will be looser shorthanded. in a 4 handed game there is no MP1. there are the blinds, the CO and the button. obviously, it is correct for the CO and button to open raise more loosely than an MP1 or an UTG- because there are less people they have to "beat" to take the blinds.

your situation though- it depends on a few variables. How tight is MP2? How tight-passive is the rest of the table (more directly- how confident are you that you will be able to steal a lot of blinds in future hands if you survive this one.)

Now, if you are ahead, you are probably not ahead by much. if you're behind you are way behind. if you are very confident in your game and you know MP2 to be somewhat passive, i would fold and give myself a chance to do my own stealing later.

if you know MP2 to be aggressive, and you do not consider yourself to be an expert stealer, then it's an easy call. A call is +EV against all but the most passive MP2s. it's just that sometimes, depending on the game, a fold can be even more +EV (in terms of betting on your future if you survive.)

[willie24]

on second thought,

the more i think about this hand, the more i realize that I would probably never fold it. the odds you are getting are just way too good to pass up. plus if you fold, your short stack will slightly hinder your stealing ability. if the call (and your stack) was 1600 i would stick with my first post, but at 950, I think you have to call every time.