Was hansen's call wrong?

[DanTheCardMan]

I'm a relative newbie, but I think I have a handle on Gus' decision. Feel free to tell me I'm full of it.

You can't think in terms of pot odds at that point in the tourney. You have to look at it in terms of possible winnings. I'm gonna try to do the math here, but forgive me if I get it messed up.

With Gus holding 10's, there are 24 possible hands he's a huge dog to (6 each of A, K, Q, J). There are 96 hands that he's a slight favorite to (16 each of AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, and QJ) and very few hands that Phillips would play in that situation that TT would dominate.

By making this call, essentially Hansen is betting at least 1.5:1 and probably 3.5:1 in prize money on what's a 1:1 shot at making his hand. That means that in 100 similar situations, Gus would average about 50 wins and 50 losses.

Prize money for 3rd place was $250,000, while prize for 2nd place was $500,000 and 1st place was $1,100,000. Fifty times, Gus goes away with 250,000, and 50 times, Gus comes away with the chance to make $1,100,000. Let's say that of those 50 times, he wins 5/6 of them(with a 5-1 chip lead), or 43. That means 7 times he ends up with the 2nd place $$.

50(250,000) + 7(500,000) + 43(1,100,000) = 12,500,000 + 3,500,000 + 47,300,000 = 63,300,000. So by making that call, Gus would average 633,000 in winnings.

However, if Gus folds, and hangs around until the short stack is taken out (not sure how to figure a percentage for this possibility), his chance at winning goes up. Say the short stack goes out every time. That means that Gus and Phillips would be about even in heads-up. So 50 times Gus would win 1,1000,000 and 50 times he'd win 500,000.

50(1,100,000) + 50(500,000) = 55,000,000 + 25,000,000 = 80,000,000 for an average win of 800,000.

So by making that call in that spot, Hansen effectively cost himself 800,000 - 633,000 = 167,000 in prize money.

Bad call.