[stevepa]

[ QUOTE ]

But what happens if we are half way or two thirds of the way
through a big event. Let's for arguments sake say I have
AA and I'm headsup against another player who we'll say
is reasonable who calls my raise BTF. Let's say the flop
comes Q Q T with a flush draw. We both have average chip stacks and I make a pot sized bet and he moves all in. What am I supposed to do? If we analyze this mathematically and put him on a range of hands which he
will call BTF then it's probably an easy call. He may
have a smaller pocket pair, a flush draw, a straight draw,
or an outright bluff. I guess you can now figure where I'm heading with this. We call and of course he has triplicate
Queens and we're busted from the tournament and as we're walking away our friend says, "you idiot, why did you call,
it was very obvious he had three queens" and I feebly try
to explain to him that mathematically my call was correct.

Comments appreciated.

Bruce

[/ QUOTE ]

This displays a basic lack of understanding about "the math". When he calls before the flop, you give him a range. When he pushes over your pot-sized bet, he doesn't still have the SAME RANGE. If he'll only make that play with a Q, then his new range has you crushed. Therefore, the math says to fold. It's usually more complicated then this, maybe he'll do this with other hands. Give him a NEW range based on ALL the information available and then choose the right play. Giving a guy a range preflop and then blindly following through regardless of later action is not using math. If it was "obvious the guy had a queen" then your call is not mathematically correct, it's awful.

Hope this helps,

Steve

P.S. The kings hand is similar in that you've been given new information - the guy pushed all-in. His new range is basically AA/KK, so the mathematically correct play is probably a fold.