[ethan]

I'm taking a break from ring games and getting back to SNGs, but my game's a little rusty. I wasn't entirely sure what line to take preflop, and I'd appreciate comments. This hand is in a party 20+2. CO big stack is a big stack because he got his JJ all-in preflop against KK, QQ, and A5s on the first hand and sucked out. (He raised to 50, A5s cold-called, QQ made it 200, KK made it 800, and he called all-in with JJ. Then A5s called. Then QQ said "I shouldn't call" and called.) Through 40 hands his VPIP is about 75%, and he's passive postflop. He'll bet small if checked to heads-up, but a flop checkraise and a turn bet have regularly gotten him to fold. He's not good. I'm nearly certain A6o is the best hand here...my guess is I'm around 60% pot equity. I'm not sure what his standards are for calling big preflop raises, since there haven't been many of those. The other smaller stacks have been largely tight-passive.

I've been playing fairly tight, but I don't think people have noticed that. The only hand of mine they've seen was a K7s steal a few hands ago that beat the big stack's ATs. That, they noticed, so my guess is his calling standards for my push may be low.

Blinds go up to 100/200 on my button, 2 hands after this one.

What line has the most value? I'm not too fond of a medium-sized raise, since that leaves me out of position with a hand (and stack) that make postflop tricky unless I get a good flop. I can check and hope for an ace on the flop. If after checking I make two bets postflop I'm pot-committed (or more likely all-in), and CO hasn't shown much willingness to fold to the first bet.

Some math on pushing:

If I have 60% equity when called then I make 250 Sklansky chips with a push regardless of what he does. This may be a generous estimate of my equity.

50% equity makes me 250 * (percentage he folds).

40% equity when called then I make (1-x)250 + x(.40 * 2530 - 1240) = (1-x)250 + x(-250) where "x" is his calling frequency. It's +EV if he calls less than half the time, and he's not going to have 60% equity more often than that.

If I only have 25% equity then my EV is (1-x)250 + x(.25 * 2530 - 1240) = (1-x)250 + x(-600) meaning I need his calling frequency to be below 30%. Again, I don't think he's a 75% favorite 30% of the time here.

So, pushing is +EV, but with this sort of opponent I'm wondering if I can do better. Does the fact that the other stacks are very tight make a difference?

***** Hand History for Game 1190491984 *****
100/200 TourneyTexasHTGameTable (NL) (Tournament 7257428) - Wed Nov 17 19:55:55 EST 2004
Table Table 14106 (Real Money) -- Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 5
Seat 3: UTG (871)
Seat 4: CO (4164)
Seat 6: button (1160)
Seat 9: SB (565)
Seat 10: Hero (1240)
SB posts small blind (50)
Hero posts big blind (100)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 6s, Ac ]
UTG folds.
CO calls (100)
button folds.
SB calls (50)
Hero...

If Hero does something other than push, what's my line when the flop comes K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]? (Assume that if I'd raised to 350 or so it was flat-called by CO.)