Deciding What to Push WIth When Short Stack

[ddubois]

There are several charts you can find that show you the percentage chance that another player has an Ace if you have one

I'd like to see a link if you get a chance.

Clearly having an ace reduces the chance of someone else having an ace, and thusly reduces the chance of someone having a hand within their calling standards. That's a good point I hadn't properly considered when looking at the matchups involved when you are called, and a good argument for the strength of Ax. But how large is this effect? Also consider, even if the odds of someone left to call having an ace is reduced by 25% (invented this number for purposes of example) by virtue of you having an ace, the impact on the likelihood of them having a hand within their calling standards is not going to be that 25%; it's going to be much less. Let's be generous and say the impact is 15%.

So, let's say by default 30% of your pushes are called if you have no ace, and 25% are called when you have an ace (15% of 30 is 4.5). Again, these are numbers pulled out of thin air, but seem like a reasonable estimate for the $10 SNGs. I don't know about $200 SNGs, but I get called alot. Now look at how A2o (1:2.2 against top15%) performs when you are called, versus QJs (1:1.5 against top15%) when you are called. Is picking up the blinds 20% more often (relatively, 5% in absolute terms) worse or better than winning the showdown 30% more often (relatively, 10% in absolute terms)?

This is all somewhat moot anyway. I don't get to choose whether I get QJs or A2o when I'm short and it's finally folded to me on the button. I probably have to push either hand regardless, and often worse.

[NegativeEV]

Good thoughts. I think the FE value increase of 20% (number you made up) may be understated at the $11-$33 tables since any schmuck with an ace will gladly take a 50/50 and show down at these tables. The knowledge that an ace is out of play is very valuable and would probably increase FE more than 20% IMO. Regardless I'm just making up numbers too, but I take the added FE over the increased chance of winning if given the choice as my goal is to avoid showing my cards for many reasons (i.e. no chance of losing when they fold plus they don't need to know my pushing standards on the bubble).

As for the table for probability of an ace being in the field, I think Brunson's Super System has the table in the appendix section. If not, I think I've seen it online as well, but I can't recall where.