A hypothetical $11R situation, last hand before the break

[JustPlayingSmart]

You are playing in the $45K guaranteed $11 rebuy on Stars. For those that aren't familiar with it, it usually gets around 1200 players, and 1st place is around $12k. You are at the table with 7 unknowns, and 1 player who you recognize as a very successful Stars tournament player. This player pushed every hand at the beginning of the tournament to pump up the table and his stack. You made a call with AK and JJ early on against him to get your stack to 12k quickly. You have since won another pot against a short stack all-in, and won and lost a couple small pots, and are at 15k.

You post your BB and see that this is the last hand before the break. Meanwhile, the good player has built his stack up to 42k, good for 3rd in the tournament currently. You are in for $21, and will take the addon when it's available. Since the good player got his stack to 20k after about 15 minutes, he has tightened up considerably, yet he still pushes once in a while, and shows a good or even premium hand, and someone usually calls, and he gets more chips. He also has won several pots after flopping good hands against shorter stacks who overplay their top pairs and flush draws.

2 players fold to him, and he pushes in his 42k. There is a 20k stack to act after him, and an 18k stack, and you have 15k, so you think it's very unlikely he puts in half his stack with air here to get 150 in blinds. You estimate his range at 66+, A9+, KJ+.

You find TT in the big blind after everyone else folds. Your equity against the range you think he is on here is around 56.35%. If you call and win, you have 32k after the add on and are in for $31. If you call and lose, you will double rebuy and take the addon, so you will have 5k and be in for $51. If you fold you will have 17k and be in for $31.

The average stack after the break will be around 10k. For the first 45 minutes after the break, this tournament plays very deep stacked, and a lot of the players cannot adjust to the post rebuy strategy, so your edge against them is higher (maybe even significantly higher) than it would be in a normal tournament. For example, 17k would be 113 big blinds the first level after the break (75/150), and 85 big blinds (100/200 and 100/200/25a) for the following 2 levels.

99 players are paid, and the average stack when you hit the money is usually around 80k. The bottom payout rung is $70 or so. So, the question is, do you gamble here. If you do, what is the minimum edge you need to gamble here. 88 doesn't seem like it's that much worse than TT, but it's only 48.52% against his range. Would you be willing to take a -cEV gamble because you can buy 5000 chips if you lose? If you wouldn't gamble here, what edge would you need to call.

Obviously, this boils down to playing styles. Some people feel comfortable playing a small stack in this tournament, and some people would rather have 25k+ or not even play in it. If I have 15k at the end of the rebuy period, I feel good about my chances to make it far in this tournament, and if I have 5k, I don't feel very good at all. I rarely have more than 20k or so because once I get to that point, I gamble much less. But, the one time I had 40k at the break, I doubled up once, and played terribly after that, and still had a good stack when we reached the money.

So I guess my question is, how much more valuable is the 30k stack than the 15k stack? At least for me, having 15k is a ton easier than having 5k, so much so that I am reluctant to gamble here, even though in a normal freezeout tourney I would almost never pass up this kind of edge (56% with TT).

This question can also be extended further. Normally, at the end of the rebuy period I have between 8k and 10k, and add on 2k more. I probably average a literally higher than $50 put into this tourney. Having 10k after the break has not done very well for me. I don't play this tourney every day, so I don't have a huge sample, but I'm thinking I should probably be willing to gamble more than I do to try to hit that 15k-20k mark where I really feel comfortable.

I hope this can generate some good discussion. The weirdest part for me is that I am typically an accumulator, and so it seems crazy to me that I would even consider passing up a 56% edge.