Super Thursday Bubble Decision

[AACardPlayer]

I agree that these two situations aren't similar. What i was getting at is that if you're playing to win, you shouldn't fold your way into the money when you're close to the bubble no matter what your chipstack is (low, average, above average, etc.) There's is Cardplayer article about this from a magazine published awhile ago. I'm gonna see if i can find and I'll post the link to it.

[TheDrone]

I never claimed to be a math genius - I'm far from it. But you don't need to be a math genius to know that time you've already spent has no place in the decision at hand. Sunk cost is a common concept that is easier to understand than EV, so I expected that you knew this and just blanked on your reply. Thus the Econ 101 jab. Poor read and poor execution on my part I guess.

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(2) Fine, you want to argue semantics...he has no "real" read on the button. You always have a "read" on someone's hand - 2/7 through AA.

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So you don't think an experienced MTT player like cferejohn is capable of having a decent read in this bubble situation with super short stacks at the table? You don't need a specific read on the button to know that most opponents would steal in this situation with a large range of hands. You actually need a specific read to put the raiser on a tight range of hands that make a AQ fold, not the other way around.

I won't attempt an EV calculation here because we don't have enough information to do so with any reasonable degree of accuracy. But my intuition tells me that a fold is clearly wrong with a standard payout structure.

[SossMan]

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You actually need a specific read to put the raiser on a tight range of hands that make a AQ fold, not the other way around.


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this is a point that should not be missed.

incidentally, if we say that the button's range of calling hands is AA-QQ and AK and maybe JJ, then do we need a hand here to do this? I might be pushing w/ any 2. In fact, it might even be one of the uncommon (much less common than is spewed on this board) times that it is better to do this with 89s.
If we were the BB, then I think that it is certainly better to be making this move w/ a middle suited connector than w/ AQ. Not that I'm not pushing with AQ. Just some food for thought.

[MrLob]

Good point about the suited connectors. Most people don't think about that, but it's right on the money.

[Che]

Both approaches below ignore the BB, whose presence is probably -EV, but not by much.

Shortcut:

If button will fold more than 77% of the time, the push is +CEV even if we lose 100% of the time when called. In the heat of battle, this calculation alone is enough to justify pushing in a situation this simple.

Long way:

What hands will he call your push with?

Assume AA-QQ, AK. That's 3+6+3+12=24

What hands will he open-raise/fold to push with?

JJ-22, any Ax (x not= K), KQ, KJ. Add them up 60 pairs + a bunch of Ax plus some more KQ/KJ. You can do all the math if you want, but this is an easy push if these are your ranges.

"But those aren't my ranges..."

Then count up the numbers on your ranges and figure the percentage.

What if FE alone isn't enough?

%fold*3300 + %call*pot(if called)*%win(if called)=x

If x is meaningfully* greater than zero, push.

Where do you get %win(if called)? If you want it exactly, PokerStove will give it to you in a second or two. Once you do this a while, you can estimate it within a few % instantly.

Later,
Che

*The party bubble is a prime example of the divergence of CEV and $EV so I wouldn't call if the CEV was +72 or something like that, but this situation isn't close.

[Che]

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FWIW I am surprised to see he called w/ the AK, considering many tournament players enormous and unfounded fear of the "almighty" bubble.


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If Chris had had the button covered by a few hundred chips or if there had been no short stacks, some might fold AK. In this case, I think almost every party player calls AK.

Later,
Che

[TheTimeIsUp]

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FWIW I am surprised to see he called w/ the AK, considering many tournament players enormous and unfounded fear of the "almighty" bubble.

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I hope this is a joke. Obviously AK is an extremely easy call, I don't get why in the world you would question it?

[cferejohn]

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FWIW I am surprised to see he called w/ the AK, considering many tournament players enormous and unfounded fear of the "almighty" bubble.

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I hope this is a joke. Obviously AK is an extremely easy call, I don't get why in the world you would question it?

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I don't think he was questioning it, per se, just saying that he wouldn't have been surprised to see AK fold here, given how survival-oriented players can get, especially near the bubble. Folding AK there would certainly be horrible.

In this situation, even if he lost, he was going to have a few hundred chips left, and there were two players at this table alone who were going to have to win in both the big and small blinds (since even if they doubled up they still couldn't cover the small blind) for him to miss the money.

Anyway, I stand by what most people said, and Che beat me to the punch on the math. Essentially, even if you assume that every time you are called you will lose (which obviously isn't true), this is a pretty obviously +EV push unless you put the button on an absurdly narrow range of hands he would raise with (like JJ-AA and AQ-AK only or something like that). Keep in mind that if he folds here, I'm increasing my stack by roughly 1/3. Also keep in mind that it's very worth it to miss out on a whole bunch of times eeking into the money to have just one place in the top 3.

Given the situation, the button could easily justify raising any 2, and certainly a range of hands which includes most aces, most pairs, and hands like KQ and KJ (in fact, raising any 2 makes more sense than a limited range, since you are not planning to call a push with anything other than the best hands anyway).

Interestingly, that very fact means that it is probably +EV for me to push any 2 here if you assume he's raising a reasonable number of hands and only calling with AK and JJ-AA. Of course, if he's going to call with more pairs, probably not so much. Of course, if he knows I know that and strongly suspects I might be doing that (for example if I had been coming over the top constantly since we made the bubble), he can loosen up his calling standards considerably (to whatever extent seems +EV to him), especially because he is nearly garanteed to at least cash even if he calls and loses.

In any case, in terms of chip EV, you have to make some pretty incredible assumptions for this push to be -EV (pretty much: the button will only be raising AA-QQ and AK). This was a pretty new player to the table (had been in for about an orbit. While he hadn't seemed inordinately aggressive (I think he stole the blinds once in that time), even if he had folded all 10 hands, that's not going to give me that specific of a read (really I'd have had to see this player a *lot* to have that specific of a read).

Against an essentially random player (who I usually think of as slightly too loose and slightly too passive), I think if you aren't making this push, you pretty much shouldn't be playing MTTs.

Do I do this in a similar situation in the WSOP, where I probably had to win a sattelite to get in and I've been playing for 4 days. Well, I honestly don't know. I know I *should*, but I'll just have to wait until I get there (knock knock).

The fact that it took me 3 hours to get this far, as has been pointed out by others, is really not important. If you are letting that kind of thing creep into your thinking it is probably costing you significant money.

[DonButtons]

This is a very very easy push, for you information, I think I would push any 2 cards here.

[woodguy]

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I don't think he was questioning it, per se, just saying that he wouldn't have been surprised to see AK fold here, given how survival-oriented players can get, especially near the bubble. Folding AK there would certainly be horrible.

In this situation, even if he lost, he was going to have a few hundred chips left, and there were two players at this table alone who were going to have to win in both the big and small blinds (since even if they doubled up they still couldn't cover the small blind) for him to miss the money.

Anyway, I stand by what most people said, and Che beat me to the punch on the math. Essentially, even if you assume that every time you are called you will lose (which obviously isn't true), this is a pretty obviously +EV push unless you put the button on an absurdly narrow range of hands he would raise with (like JJ-AA and AQ-AK only or something like that). Keep in mind that if he folds here, I'm increasing my stack by roughly 1/3. Also keep in mind that it's very worth it to miss out on a whole bunch of times eeking into the money to have just one place in the top 3.

Given the situation, the button could easily justify raising any 2, and certainly a range of hands which includes most aces, most pairs, and hands like KQ and KJ (in fact, raising any 2 makes more sense than a limited range, since you are not planning to call a push with anything other than the best hands anyway).

Interestingly, that very fact means that it is probably +EV for me to push any 2 here if you assume he's raising a reasonable number of hands and only calling with AK and JJ-AA. Of course, if he's going to call with more pairs, probably not so much. Of course, if he knows I know that and strongly suspects I might be doing that (for example if I had been coming over the top constantly since we made the bubble), he can loosen up his calling standards considerably (to whatever extent seems +EV to him), especially because he is nearly garanteed to at least cash even if he calls and loses.

In any case, in terms of chip EV, you have to make some pretty incredible assumptions for this push to be -EV (pretty much: the button will only be raising AA-QQ and AK). This was a pretty new player to the table (had been in for about an orbit. While he hadn't seemed inordinately aggressive (I think he stole the blinds once in that time), even if he had folded all 10 hands, that's not going to give me that specific of a read (really I'd have had to see this player a *lot* to have that specific of a read).

Against an essentially random player (who I usually think of as slightly too loose and slightly too passive), I think if you aren't making this push, you pretty much shouldn't be playing MTTs.

Do I do this in a similar situation in the WSOP, where I probably had to win a sattelite to get in and I've been playing for 4 days. Well, I honestly don't know. I know I *should*, but I'll just have to wait until I get there (knock knock).

The fact that it took me 3 hours to get this far, as has been pointed out by others, is really not important. If you are letting that kind of thing creep into your thinking it is probably costing you significant money.

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That is why I learned so bloody much from you fnurt, soss and others when I was new.

That is also why I keep learning from you.....suprised you posted this hand given that its kind of a no brainer, but it is very nice to see you post again Chris.

Regards,
Woodguy