[swolfe]

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I can't imagine that he only raises those hands when you are 4 handed.

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he seriously sucked and didn't really know what he was doing. he got to the final table by folding pretty much everything, then he got his stack when he went all-in for 7K (at the 1K/2K level) and got called in 3 spots...his AA held up by rivering a board pair for a higher two pair.

anyway, thinking about this hand later, i could have folded and pretty much guaranteed at least 2nd or pushed which would guarantee 1st if i win and 3rd if i lose. if heads up, i feel confident that i could win, so does it make sense to "gamble"?

everybody so far has been focusing on the fact that i have queens and that i don't "know" that the old guy has a good hand. that's all well and good, but the play if this were a cash game with the same stacks and players would be a push. what i'm interested in is thinking about the hand from the perspective of the tournament as a whole.

let's say i fold and get the following:
1st 45% * 1200 = 540
2nd 45% * 800 = 360
3rd 10% * 500 = 50
value of folding = 950

say i push and win
1st 90% * 1200 = 1080
2nd 8% * 800 = 64
3rd 2% * 500 = 10
value of pushing and winning = 1154

pushing and losing
1st 0% = 0
2nd 2% * 800 = 40
3rd 98% * 500 = 490
value of pushing and losing = 530

how much of a favorite do i have to be to push to make that more profitable than folding? X = win %

1154X + (1-X)530 = 950
1154X - 530X = 950 - 530
624X = 420
X = .67

So I should be confident that I'll win 2/3rds of the time that I push to make pushing correct.