On the Bubble...Big Mistake?

[nicky g]

This is a crazy fold unless you are really desperate to sneak into 5th place money. 5 handed with huge blinds AJs is a monster.

[ohkanada]

Because you have position on UTG, UTG realizes you can fold the next 3 hands and take 5th place unless he wins one. So therefore UTG does not need an above average hand.

Call.

AJs is a better than average hand compared to his hand. The only problem is you will certainly be up against UTG, the BB and maybe the SB.

Ken Poklitar

[ohkanada]

"The interesting thing here is that even though this is a good hand to open-raise and make your final stand with, if UTG folded here, you would have to fold too, as he gets blinded off before you."

I don't agree with this. Sure if you are going for 5th place you can fold. I think even with UTG folding, you should go all-in and take your chances vs the BB and anyone after you who might have a hand.

Without stack sizes of the top 4 or the payouts it is hard to truely decide this one. If the top 4 stacks are huge then I agree with folding if UTG folds.

Ken Poklitar

[Lefty]

Thanks for the comments. It's been a couple of weeks now since the tourney...but if I remember correctly, the 3 biggest stacks had approximately 75% of the chips on the table, close to 40K each. The tourney payout (again, I'm guestimating), 30% 1st place, 25% second, 20% third, 15% fourth, 10% fifth. Maybe even a little higher percentages at the top 2 spots.

[Lefty]

Thanks for your comments and calculations. Very insightful. Wish I could do that at the table in the heat of battle. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] The initial raiser had Q6s. I had sat next to him (on his right) earlier in the tourney befor our table got broken up, and had seen him lay down Ax to my BTF raise. He had not been playing junk at that time. Looking back on the play now, I'm assuming it was a desperation all-in move on his part and perhaps I should have recognized it as such what with the blinds coming around to him next. The big stack on the button that called him had 8,9 suited and didn't hit his cards. After seeing the flop, I got trapped into hind-site second guessing my fold. I am glad to see from many of the posts that I probably did make the right move in this situation. But after all is said and done, I think it is a close call either way.

[Mackie]

I think this is an easy fold. If you had 1k more than the UTG, it's a call becuase you then only have to beat the UTG. The way the stacks are here, if one of the other players beats you both - and you can be sure there will be other players with the BB of 4k - you finish 6th. If you play the hand you MUST win it. IMHO you did the right thing.

[Lefty]

You make a very good point about what UTG is possibly thinking. I know that one of my weaknesses in the game of poker is the ability to get inside the head of my opponents. I'm working on improving, but the ability doesn't come naturally to me as it does to some others. The fact that you mentioned it makes me think that this is perhaps one of your strong suits.

[sdplayerb]

you did the right thing then.

[schroedinger]

Given what others have said about UTGs possible holdings (any K, any Q), AJs may be the favorite as much as 80% of the time and only a small dog around half of the remainder.

What are the odds that some one of 4 remaining players holds better than AJs (remember, someone has to beat UTG for this to be a good fold)? 12 AK's, 12 AQ's, 8 other AJ's (forgetting for the moment the advantage of suited cards), same 72 PPs = 104 hands that are better (or only very slightly worse) than AJs. Missing those 124 hands in all 4 hands will happen 69.06% of the time (pretty close to a thumbnail 30%).

80% that you are better than the raiser, and 70% that you are better than everyone else, together with the chance to triple which might mean 2nd or 3rd. Starting to look like a call to me. However, while I am not even going to attempt to calculate the chances of two hands of two random against the revised array of raising hands, I would thumbnail this at over 40%.

Of course, it all depends on what kind of hands you think UTG will raise with. Remember that I started with the hypothesis that Axo was a little thin because I failed to factor in UTG's understanding of the positional nature of the situation into my analysis. So as always, its more about judgment than math. Which is (slightly) unfortunate for me.

[Daithi]

CALL!!!

AJ is a monster in this situation, and you could scarecly ask for better.

If I were short stacked UTG I would have to decide to either take my shot now or wait for the hand I get in the blind. So I would go all-in with any A, any K, lots of Queen combinations, and many suited connector cards.

Guess what. You're in the same situation he is. If you fold now you are going to have to catch a hand in the next two deals to have a chance. So you might as well go all-in now, and hope the blinds call as well. If you win the hand you now have a shot at first which is much better than squeeking into the last money spot.