Help settle this argument...

[jwvdcw]

Other people have already hit on the issue at hand:

It depends on how good you think you are compared to the rest of the field. If you're at a final table, for example, with Hellmuth, Chan, Ivey, and a few others who are way better than you...then you'd even call all in being a slight underdog because that is better than the odds you have of outplaying them.

So, unless you or your friend is a great player, then you probably shouldn't pass up an opportunity like that late in the most prestegious tourney in the world.

[Neuge]

If you're short stacked enough to be in danger of being blinded out in a couple rounds, this is an easy call. If you're not, and confident enough in your ability to out play the rest of the field, it's an easy lay down.

That may be too simplistic, but it's how I play.

[DoctorJ]

No offense, but this question (60-40) comes up about once every three months. If I'm not mistaken, Fossilman, along with Paul Philips and most others, agree that you should take 60-40 opportunities when you can find them even early in a tourney. In this situation, where it's late, and you're a short-to-average stack, it is an absolute no-brainer. Your chances of finishing in the top 9 or top 3 where all the money is go up exponentially when you make this place (ok, maybe not exponentially, but you get the point). Possibly the only counterargument to this would be if the additional money from moving slightly up the payscale would mean a lot to you (e.g. Sklansky in TPFAP)...

I would guess that Hellmuth would be one of the few on the flip side...

BTW, I have had this situation in B&M tourneys where the 90-year-old geezer to my left repeatedly lifted his cards up so I had no choice but to see them. Made for some interesting mathematical decisions.

DoctorJ

[Lurshy]

The answer probably isn't a call, but a RAISE. If you are going to call off nearly all of your chips, you should raise to dissuade someone else from going in behind you. You would need to call a raise anyway being pot committed.

Whether you play or not, may also depend on what you think is behind you. A2os dominates K2os, but is a dog to many hands, even if you have the big advantage over the person in front of you, who is left behind you to act?

[Go Blue]

Ok, thanks everyone who responded. I basically see that for the most part, people are either saying that the decision to play or not depends on how well you think you fare against the field or that you should call because such 60-40 chances don't come up quite often. I guess we can say that there is not one completely correct answer, even though I'd say that from the responces here, more people would call than fold.

I would still stand by my original instinct to fold for these reasons: For those who say that the decision should come down to your perception of competition, I say fold, because I KNOW for a fact that I am better than most players out there. Even if it's the WSOP, it's a fact that people had to get lucky to make money and I'd be confident that I am better than most of the competition. The one exception would be if my table consisted of many pros and experts, in which case I'd call. Otherwise, since I'm not too shortstacked, there will be better opportunities to have higher edges over opponents. In addition, if the call is not for ALL my chips, meaning that the person with K8 just raised, I'd definitely call because I could outplay him after the flop in all likelihood.

As for the people who say that it's an obvious call given the 60-40 edge, I would say that it is a good edge, and if I would be desperate, I would take it. In addition, as I said, I would definitely play here to a raise, but not an all in. As for an all in, as long as I have a decent stack, there WILL be better opportunities ahead, most likely. Of course, it's no guarantee, but better opportunities do come up time to time, and I'm much rather risk all my chips on a hand like AK against AQ or a lower Ace. In MTTs, I tighten up a good amount around and after the money line (when it comes to committing a lot of chips, not when it comes to just raising or calling a raise), and it seems to work well because I wind up playing against many inferior hands. One thing that I noticed is that when I get eliminated out of an MTT all in preflop, I am almost always ahead in the hand - it's usually a bad beat. And the one MTT that I have won in my life, the deciding hand was my AT against A4. So in my opinion, this just goes to show that waiting for a good opportunity to commit all your chips on works well.

Anyway, that's why I think that I'd still make this laydown given the circumstances.

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]
I say fold, because I KNOW for a fact that I am better than most players out there. Even if it's the WSOP, it's a fact that people had to get lucky to make money and I'd be confident that I am better than most of the competition............ And the one MTT that I have won in my life,

[/ QUOTE ]

No offense, but I found this pretty humorous.

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, thanks everyone who responded. I basically see that for the most part, people are either saying that the decision to play or not depends on how well you think you fare against the field or that you should call because such 60-40 chances don't come up quite often. I guess we can say that there is not one completely correct answer, even though I'd say that from the responces here, more people would call than fold.

I would still stand by my original instinct to fold for these reasons: For those who say that the decision should come down to your perception of competition, I say fold, because I KNOW for a fact that I am better than most players out there. Even if it's the WSOP, it's a fact that people had to get lucky to make money and I'd be confident that I am better than most of the competition. The one exception would be if my table consisted of many pros and experts, in which case I'd call. Otherwise, since I'm not too shortstacked, there will be better opportunities to have higher edges over opponents. In addition, if the call is not for ALL my chips, meaning that the person with K8 just raised, I'd definitely call because I could outplay him after the flop in all likelihood.

As for the people who say that it's an obvious call given the 60-40 edge, I would say that it is a good edge, and if I would be desperate, I would take it. In addition, as I said, I would definitely play here to a raise, but not an all in. As for an all in, as long as I have a decent stack, there WILL be better opportunities ahead, most likely. Of course, it's no guarantee, but better opportunities do come up time to time, and I'm much rather risk all my chips on a hand like AK against AQ or a lower Ace. In MTTs, I tighten up a good amount around and after the money line (when it comes to committing a lot of chips, not when it comes to just raising or calling a raise), and it seems to work well because I wind up playing against many inferior hands. One thing that I noticed is that when I get eliminated out of an MTT all in preflop, I am almost always ahead in the hand - it's usually a bad beat. And the one MTT that I have won in my life, the deciding hand was my AT against A4. So in my opinion, this just goes to show that waiting for a good opportunity to commit all your chips on works well.

Anyway, that's why I think that I'd still make this laydown given the circumstances.

[/ QUOTE ]

It doesn' matter if you feel like you're slightly better than the competition or not. What matters is this: Do you feel like you have better than a 60% chance to double up against the competition? At the WSOP, I seriously doubt that you, or most players, have that good of odds to double up late in the tourney. Don't think that because you've seen a few bad plays on tv that the play there isn't top notch.

Most players overrated themselves when it comes to this. I'm not saying you're doing it necessarily, but I think its a possibility. Take notes and see your results over a period of time: Do you double up at least once more than 60% of the time in a tourney? What about once you've reached the mid stage- Do you double up again more than 60% of the time? And then the same question with later stage of tourney, and then with final stage of tourney.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, thanks everyone who responded. I basically see that for the most part, people are either saying that the decision to play or not depends on how well you think you fare against the field or that you should call because such 60-40 chances don't come up quite often. I guess we can say that there is not one completely correct answer...

[/ QUOTE ]
You can say anything you want, but in this case, you'd be wrong. There is one correct answer, it's just that it's an answer that many people apparently don't agree with.

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For those who say that the decision should come down to your perception of competition, I say fold, because I KNOW for a fact that I am better than most players out there.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know how good you are, but I know from this post alone that you have a long way to go. And that you have a LOT of ego to overcome.

[ QUOTE ]
Even if it's the WSOP, it's a fact that people had to get lucky to make money and I'd be confident that I am better than most of the competition.

[/ QUOTE ]
On what basis could you make this statement? How often have you played in the WSOP? I could be completely mistaken, but for whatever reason my read says you've never played in it at all.

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Otherwise, since I'm not too shortstacked, there will be better opportunities to have higher edges over opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a logical fallacy. Yes, better opportunities may arise later, even before you've blinded yourself off, but that doesn't mean you should fold here. In fact, the two issues are not even that strongly related to one another.

[ QUOTE ]
In addition, if the call is not for ALL my chips, meaning that the person with K8 just raised, I'd definitely call because I could outplay him after the flop in all likelihood.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is just silly. The entire question presumes that you've seen his hand. Of course you can outplay him postflop. And even if we're going to make it just a regular raise situation where you don't KNOW his hand, how is it you think you're going to outplay anyone with A7? You'll either have the best hand postflop, or you won't, and rarely will you bluff him off a better hand, and rarely will you get him to call when you're still ahead.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm much rather risk all my chips on a hand like AK against AQ or a lower Ace.

[/ QUOTE ]
And how do you expect to make this happen? You get AK, and get somebody else to go all-in with you. Sure, they might have AQ, but how are you going to know they don't have 66 instead, making them the slight favorite? That is part of your fuzzy logic here.

[ QUOTE ]
And the one MTT that I have won in my life, the deciding hand was my AT against A4.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry if this is harsh, but you clearly don't have enough experience in this area to know that you're "better than most of the competition". And, since you've reached the wrong conclusion, you clearly still have a lot to learn. Hopefully, your ego isn't so big that you will close yourself off from learning.

One thing I know is that I do have enough experience to honestly think that "I am better than most of the competition", yet more importantly I also know that I have a lot to learn still. That being said, I am about as confident as I can be that I am correct to say that calling with A7 vs. K8 in the original hypothetical is clearly correct, and anybody that chooses to pass up this opportunity is making a mistake.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Ezcheeze]

I think both of these strategies are bad ideas. You'll get the best EV by playing your normal game and making slight adjustments for the tournament, some of which are mentioned in Sklanksy's tournament book.

-Ezcheeze

[Go Blue]

Greg, first of all, thanks for taking the time to respond to this. I don't know if this is really you or not, as I am relatively new to this forum, but it looks like it is you. So, since we're speaking of the WSOP, I'd say one of the best people to talk to is someone who actually won it.

To begin with, yes, you are correct that I have not played in the WSOP. As a matter of fact, I have not played in very many (if any at all) expensive MTTs. The most I have bought in for was $150+EF. Yes, I have a big constraint on time and money, which is why I have not played in any "expensive" MTTs so far. My experience is limited in this sense, but I do not believe that my knowledge is. So when it comes down to it all, you talk of me having a big ego to overcome. I clearly disagree with you on this as you do not know how I play. I base my ego on the fact that I KNOW that I am a winning player, at least when it comes to low and medium stakes poker. I know that it's a fact that over 90% of players are long term losers and that I'm not one of them. And while most (well, almost all) of this has been based on playing low and medium stakes poker, I am confident that it would carry over to high stakes poker. A big part of what gives me the edge over many other players in my opinion, is the fact that I think that I am better than they are. This makes me not afraid to play back, and yes, take chances (even though that may seem contradictory to my whole post here). And to whoever it was that found it humorous that I have won only ONE MTT, the reason that I wrote that is because as far as I know, winning one big MTT is more than many people out there have done and this one had about 700 players. As for smaller ones, I have won those too, even though the biggest one of those had around 30 players or so. Playing online tourneys with EFs around $30+/-, I cash in over 50% of them, which as far as I know, is good.

But anyway, I would like to address the 2004 WSOP really quickly. If you have time to respond to this, Greg, that would be great. How much of a factor DO you think luck played in you winning this? As far as I saw, most of your big pots were won on coin flips, regardless which side of the "coin flip" you were on. You played well, but then it seems to me that you also played nearly the same way in the TOC and it didn't quite work out for you, mainly because you lost the coin flips. With what I saw on TV, you were very quick to jump in and throw your chips in the middle with any seemingly good hand: 44, AT, KQs, etc. It worked out for you, in that your opponents did not have you dominated most of the time, and when they did, you got very lucky. And of course, I know that one really can't expect to win such a big tourney without luck, but it seems to me like you had too much of it which, again, was absent in the TOC. You said that you try to learn each time you play (and yes, in responce to your reply, I try to do the same thing, despite the fact that I might not give off that impression based on my previous post). So, would you defend the way you played or are you going to make any major changes in your tournament play in the future?

In any event, thanks again for taking the time, and I hope to eventually meet you sometime, hopefully in the WSOP.