A5 hand shortstacked, late in tourney

[johnnydingles]

Was discussing a hand today with a friend that happened to me in a tourney. Theres 14 people left of 700, with 7 people at our table. Average is 175k or so, chip leader has 700k, and 5 others have over 300k. I have 140k.

Blinds are 10k/20k, antes 1k, so i have enough for just over 3 orbits but folding another round of blinds will leave me pretty shortstacked. So I get A5 utg + 2 with the blinds and 2 more to act. I decided to push with my A5 as I wasn't concerned with limping into final table, i wanted enough chips to win the whole tourney. What do you guys think of this? I thought it was fine, and friend thought it was terrible. I see his point as I had enough chips where I could have limped into final table, but the $200 difference wasn't a big deal and i wanted to win it. If it makes a difference, i was with most of table for a long time and worst hand i showed in 3 hours was AQ.

Comments?

[Exitonly]

pretty easy push i think

[pfkaok]

if you want to have any chance of winning this thing, you HAVE to push here, and this spot isn't even close. sure you look dumb sometimes when somebody wakes up behind you with AK, or some big pair. and people might make smirks, or give you looks and laugh to each other about what a fish you are, and that is always one of the most enjoyable things to me about live tourneys. bottom line is most of those people always worry "what if one of the blinds wake up with a big hand?" and other such nonsense, when the only real piece of info you have is that there's 4 random hands behind you.

looking strictly at the numbers however, this is a VERY clear +EV push. most likely people at this point are thinking like your friend, and are quite content to maintain their chip stacks, and get to the final table... and likely will only call with VERY good hands. so most of the times you'll take it down with a push here, and with 37k in there, that is certainly a very good thing.

my guess is that you'll take it down close to 80% here, and some simple math will show that if you add 37k to your stack 80% of the time, then this would still be a slightly +EV spot even if you lose 100% when called, which is clearly NEVER the case. thats another, somewhat humorous thing about these players who play overly cautios in these spots... they assume that they'll be in horrible shape if they're called, so they mistake that to mean that they lose 140k when called. winning 25-30% of the time in a 300kish pot is FAR, FAR from nothing. also, its likley the reason why these types of players assume that when they're allin with KK vs. A5 they "deserve" to win the 300k pot, and they don't really appreciate the concept of equity.

and on the other side of the coin, if the game is looser, and/or you've been pushing a lot, then you won't take it down quite as often, but you'll get called by a lot more Khigh, and weaker hands, so you'll start to be more in the 35-40% vs. the calling ranges.

[johnnydingles]

Thats exactly how I looked at it. If I wanted ANY chance to win the thing, i had to push. I happened to be at the bad table also where out of the 7 at my table, I had the 5 top players at my table, and one guy a little lower than me. The other table had all players at my stack roughly or lower. So all these big stacks were raising EVERY hand to steal the blinds, so when my blinds came, it was almost guaranteed to be raised so I needed a good hand. The last 5 hands I showed in the 20 minutes or so before this were AA, AA, QQ, QQ, and AK. I didn't even try to bluff up to here cause i was getting good cards, but one of my big hands got cracked to leave me a little low.

My friend said he'd rather have 2 low connectors here and my push was horrible, and on and on how bad it was. I see where he is coming from, but I think if I was getting called by anything it would be a big pair, in which case i'd rather have the A5 than a 45. The blinds were playing decent and most people were laying them down so i thought it was a no brainer. I ended up getting called by A9 in BB which I didn't believe because he was roughly double me and saw that I was only playing huge hands. Not that his call was terrible, just unexpected. I made the straight, and he made a flush and I was done. I was just surprised at how adamant my friend was saying how horrible my play was. Good to see i'm not the only one thinking my push was fine, and not just fine I thought, but the play i have to make if I want a chance to win this thing. Thanks for the comments.

[ QUOTE ]
if you want to have any chance of winning this thing, you HAVE to push here, and this spot isn't even close. sure you look dumb sometimes when somebody wakes up behind you with AK, or some big pair. and people might make smirks, or give you looks and laugh to each other about what a fish you are, and that is always one of the most enjoyable things to me about live tourneys. bottom line is most of those people always worry "what if one of the blinds wake up with a big hand?" and other such nonsense, when the only real piece of info you have is that there's 4 random hands behind you.

looking strictly at the numbers however, this is a VERY clear +EV push. most likely people at this point are thinking like your friend, and are quite content to maintain their chip stacks, and get to the final table... and likely will only call with VERY good hands. so most of the times you'll take it down with a push here, and with 37k in there, that is certainly a very good thing.

my guess is that you'll take it down close to 80% here, and some simple math will show that if you add 37k to your stack 80% of the time, then this would still be a slightly +EV spot even if you lose 100% when called, which is clearly NEVER the case. thats another, somewhat humorous thing about these players who play overly cautios in these spots... they assume that they'll be in horrible shape if they're called, so they mistake that to mean that they lose 140k when called. winning 25-30% of the time in a 300kish pot is FAR, FAR from nothing. also, its likley the reason why these types of players assume that when they're allin with KK vs. A5 they "deserve" to win the 300k pot, and they don't really appreciate the concept of equity.

and on the other side of the coin, if the game is looser, and/or you've been pushing a lot, then you won't take it down quite as often, but you'll get called by a lot more Khigh, and weaker hands, so you'll start to be more in the 35-40% vs. the calling ranges.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Exitonly]

well if you had to choose from the medium strength hands to push.. 89s or 9Ts would probably be best... low likely of domination and fairs well vs big pairs and small pairs.

[schwah]

push and its not even close

blinds are about 1/4 your stack

im going to be pushing every time i have an "ok" hand (JT, K9, small pair, really any non rag hand) and i'm first in until i get back up to 10 BB or so.

[diebitter]

Easy - take soooo long to make each decision, 4 other players bust out on the other table.

[ansky451]

Your friend is wrong. I would rather have a suited connector too, but you didn't have one, so why would he say that? I personally would like AA there, but you don't decide your cards. EASY push.