Can I push my snowmen over the top here?

[Maulik]

blinds 25/50 3 more til 50/100
Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 1: jmcclain1998 ( $825 )
Seat 2: davido30 ( $600 )
Seat 4: jayjmcgh ( $715 )
Seat 5: madmac23 ( $1480 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $545 )
Seat 9: steelman321 ( $1990 )
Seat 10: fswann ( $1845 )
Trny:14632435 Level:3
Blinds(25/50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 8s 8d ]
jayjmcgh raises [100].
madmac23 folds.
Hero ???

[tigerite]

You can, it depends if he's a donk, and min raises mean approximately nothing. With ~700 I'd let this go, 500 and it is definitely appealing..

[nate_king1]

[ QUOTE ]
Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 7
Seat 1: jmcclain1998 ( $825 )
Seat 2: davido30 ( $600 )
Seat 4: jayjmcgh ( $715 )
Seat 5: madmac23 ( $1480 )
Seat 6: Hero ( $545 )
Seat 9: steelman321 ( $1990 )
Seat 10: fswann ( $1845 )
Trny:14632435 Level:3
Blinds(25/50)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero [ 8s 8d ]
jayjmcgh raises [100].
madmac23 folds.
Hero ???

[/ QUOTE ]

Negative
[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[BadBatsuMaru]

You can't possibly justify any move except going all-in here.

You have an M of 7.26 and you are the short stack. You need to push. 88 is in the top 3% of hands. There is very little chance you'll see anything better in the next 3 hands. Don't fool yourself by saying, "Hey, I've got 11 big bets." You're in bad shape.

7-handed your effective M is actually 5.09. You also have less than half the average stack size. The blinds hit you in 3 hands, and then they will be 50/100 -- the biggest jump in the tournament (notice level 3-4 is the only time the blinds actually double). If you fold here, you will absolutely need to go all-in with any 2 cards next chance you get that you are first to act or else you'll be blinded away.

In 4 hands you post 100 to BB, and you're down to 445, then 50 SB and you're down to 395. If you haven't picked up a hand by then, your effective M will be 1.83 and you will be down to 1/3 the average stack. You will likely be put all-in against whichever one of the 3 big stacks happens to have the best hand.

The blinds are going to hurt you so much that even if you do get AA in four hands and double-up, your M will still be slightly lower than it is now.

Even if jayjmcgh is extremely conservative (which would mean he's stupid, since he's in almost as bad a shape as you are) and you think he's slowplaying something huge, you don't have much choice here.

88 isn't such a great hand that you can slowplay, though. You need to go all-in because you need all the leverage you have to try and fold the blinds and go heads-up.

I think there are a lot of coin-flip hands you might get called by here, and in this spot you should be happy to have a 55% shot against overcards. You might even get a call from A7 or a lower pair and be a huge favorite.

If the whole table's playing ridiculously tight, you still can't fold here, and what are you going to do if you call? If you just call, the BB has to call because he's getting such good odds, but let's just pretend he doesn't. You call and you're heads-up. The pot is $275. The flop is K93 and he checks to you. What do you do? Maybe he missed his hand. Maybe he has A3 and will call a decent bet. Maybe he has AJ. Maybe he has KK and can't contain himself. At that point your choices really suck -- you bet and he folds, you bet and get snapped off by a better hand (at which point you're almost pot committed if you bet $150, he raises all-in, now you have to call $295 for pot that's going to be $1165), or you check and give a free card that could beat you.

[tigerite]

It's a push or fold spot, but please, stop this M nonsense, it doesn't really apply to SNGs.

I think it's read dependent completely, this. I'm also pretty sure it is -EV to push, but probably not by much, and you may not get a less -EV spot in the future.

[nate_king1]

[ QUOTE ]
You can't possibly justify any move except going all-in here.

You have an M of 7.26 and you are the short stack. You need to push. 88 is in the top 3% of hands. There is very little chance you'll see anything better in the next 3 hands. Don't fool yourself by saying, "Hey, I've got 11 big bets." You're in bad shape.

7-handed your effective M is actually 5.09. You also have less than half the average stack size. The blinds hit you in 3 hands, and then they will be 50/100 -- the biggest jump in the tournament (notice level 3-4 is the only time the blinds actually double). If you fold here, you will absolutely need to go all-in with any 2 cards next chance you get that you are first to act or else you'll be blinded away.

In 4 hands you post 100 to BB, and you're down to 445, then 50 SB and you're down to 395. If you haven't picked up a hand by then, your effective M will be 1.83 and you will be down to 1/3 the average stack. You will likely be put all-in against whichever one of the 3 big stacks happens to have the best hand.

The blinds are going to hurt you so much that even if you do get AA in four hands and double-up, your M will still be slightly lower than it is now.

Even if jayjmcgh is extremely conservative (which would mean he's stupid, since he's in almost as bad a shape as you are) and you think he's slowplaying something huge, you don't have much choice here.

88 isn't such a great hand that you can slowplay, though. You need to go all-in because you need all the leverage you have to try and fold the blinds and go heads-up.

I think there are a lot of coin-flip hands you might get called by here, and in this spot you should be happy to have a 55% shot against overcards. You might even get a call from A7 or a lower pair and be a huge favorite.

If the whole table's playing ridiculously tight, you still can't fold here, and what are you going to do if you call? If you just call, the BB has to call because he's getting such good odds, but let's just pretend he doesn't. You call and you're heads-up. The pot is $275. The flop is K93 and he checks to you. What do you do? Maybe he missed his hand. Maybe he has A3 and will call a decent bet. Maybe he has AJ. Maybe he has KK and can't contain himself. At that point your choices really suck -- you bet and he folds, you bet and get snapped off by a better hand (at which point you're almost pot committed if you bet $150, he raises all-in, now you have to call $295 for pot that's going to be $1165), or you check and give a free card that could beat you.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL.. Write a book don't we........W [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[splashpot]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a push or fold spot, but please, stop this M nonsense, it doesn't really apply to SNGs.

[/ QUOTE ]
Perhaps not in the exact way that Harrington describes it, but the concept of M most definately applies to SNGs.

[ChoicestHops]

The general concept of M applies to SnG's, but you can not take it to literally. Everyone has a "Red Zone" M in the late stage of a SnG. This is obviously not a multi-table tournament where there a huge, middle, and small stacks.

ICM says I push here, and even if it didn't I would probably push unless there was a strong chance from a read I felt like I was being set in a trap by the mini-raise.

[BadBatsuMaru]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a push or fold spot, but please, stop this M nonsense, it doesn't really apply to SNGs.

I think it's read dependent completely, this. I'm also pretty sure it is -EV to push, but probably not by much, and you may not get a less -EV spot in the future.

[/ QUOTE ]

A good read always changes things, but the OP didn't mention one. I would need the most solid read ever if I was going to fold 88 on the short stack against a small raise.

It sounds pretty ridiculous to say M doesn't apply to SNGs. It also sounds pretty ridiculous to say pushing is -EV. You want to maximize your chances of going heads-up or perhaps even stealing the pot right now. You certainly don't want to make the odds attractive to the two big stacks behind you. If they see the flop there's a decent chance that both you and the raiser are going to be crippled this hand. If you make a big enough raise to give you a good chance of narrowing the field, you're pot-committing yourself, so it's absurd not to just push right now. If you put in a mid-sized raise you're not going to be able to fold to a re-raise with a hand as strong as 88 in your position.

The only way I would actually not push is if I wanted to encourage action on an extremely tight table. If the raiser was a really weak player and a couple overcards fell and he bet out, I could fold ... but if he was that weak he might have folded pre-flop to my all-in.

Maybe I'm completely retarded, but your statements seem really counter-intuitive, so I'd like to see an explanation.

[Newt_Buggs]

I haven't bothered to read everything else posted because its really simple:
-he's almost never folding if you push
-you're almost never ahead
-there's 4 random hands behind you that could be a monster

all of these makes this a -EV push

you're desperate, but you can probably find a better spot.

I actually think that this is rather close though because you are so short stacked.