Final Table Med Pair question

[sqdncall]

Playing in PP $100 Buy-in No-limit Vegas trip. $6,000 trip for every 60 players. Balance paid out to next 3. 157 players. Down to final 6. I have chip lead at 36K Blinds are 750-1500. I am UTG with 7 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. Make it 5250 to go. UTG+1 thinks....goes all in with 11,000. Everyone folds to me I call. I put him on 2 high cards no pair. He shows ATos Ace flops and he doubles up. I take one more bad beat and finish 4th $1,070. Anyone else do something different here?

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Raise less to begin with. That late in the tourney, a raise to T4000 is probably going to steal the blinds almost as often as T5250. So, why risk more?

As for the call, you're getting about 3:1 on the call, and you apparently don't give him much credit for an overpair, so it's a must call. Note if you had raised to T4000 instead, you'd only be getting a little over 2:1 on the call, and might've folded (for good and for bad).

Once you're nearing the finish, it is a tough balancing act as chipleader. You want to continue pressuring them, stealing blinds, and building your lead, but you also don't want to give them a 50:50 or better chance at doubling through you.

It matters a lot, and is not in your post, how far ahead of the other two players you are, and exactly what each position pays.

later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[curmudgeon]

Please tell us the size of the other stacks and what you know about the players, if you can.

In general, even though you are chip leader you need more chips to take home one of the top 2 prizes. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] So, I can't fault your play to go for more chips and take out another player. You did get your chips in with the best hand and just got outdrawn.

Some very tight players strategy would be chip conservation, which would mean you bring in your 7s for a smaller raise and see what develops. The question here is: are you willing to put your pocket pair down to a big raise?

[wizard]

With this type of payout structure and the chip lead, I don't know why you aren't in the bedroom packing your bag or in the Jacuzzi celebrating One chip or almost all the chips is all the same once the six are gone. If your lead was very small and the short stacks were large, it would change my thinking but there is nothing to suggest that is the case. Just click the fold to all bet button and come back in an hour or so. Patience.

[sqdncall]

Total chips in play 157,000 utg+1 was 11,000 all the rest were range of 25K-27K.