When can't you fold pre-flop?

[MonkeeMan]

First hand, you're in the SB with 72o. What do the pot odds need to be offering to auto-call? 9:1?

What if its later in the tourney where the BB is 5% to 10% of your stack?

I ask this because in HoH there are many, many example hands where Dan sez the pot odds are such and such so it justifies a call.

[Potowame]

with 4-1 or 5-1 , odds are pretty good. I fold my SB way to often, and have missed some real monsters that would be good chip accumulators.

[Pulplife]

I'm glad you brought this up. I have been reflecting on this issue as well after reading HOH.

If I am in a blind position, I tend to call if I'm offered somewhere greater than 3:1 with any two cards (as long as it is less then 10% of my stack). Most of the time (if I have rags) this results in check/folding the flop, but when I do hit the payoff is huge.

Now the question is, is calling with rags in this situation a leak in my game??? I don't know, but it definately creates some interesting dynamics.

One, it puts me in tougher post flop situations/decisions when I get a piece of it.

Two, if I do showdown my hand it is awesome advertisement (I naturally tend to play tight when not in this situation, so the loose advertisement does wonders).

Three, as already stated, the payoff is huge when I hit a big flop.

Until I see a good reason not to, I will continue to take the high pot odds with rags. I have no idea if anyone would agree with this. If not, I would like to hear some reasoning.

Pulp [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[skoal2k4]

I don't play based off of odds, but only because my post-flop skill hasn't been developed. when you play say, Q4o from SB and the flop is a Q high board, how do you play that? For me, I want to work on my reads and be in a few more situations before i'm comfortable auto-calling from SB when I have the odds. That's just me though

[mshalen]

I think you need to consider both pot odds and what will your next move be if you hit part of the flop.
If you are in the SB with 45s then the decision after the flop is easy but what if you have A3o and the flop comes AQT? You have top pair crap for a kicker with possible big hands and draws out there (especially with enough limpers to give good pot odds). Or what if the flop comes K93 rainbow, now you have botom pair top kicker. You need to ask yourself what kind of flop you want as well as what the pot odds are.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

If you *knew* the raiser had an overpair, you'd only need about 7.5:1 to justify a call.

If you're in the BB and get raised from LP, anything over 5:2 is worth calling. Against Axo, where x>7, you're a 2.05:1 dog with 72o.

[MonkeeMan]

Thanks for everyone's responses. I'm starting to refine this in my mind by not just looking at the odds but also the consequences of hitting. Part of the problem is that with some of these longshot hands you can pretty much only figure on seeing the flop to connect.

But it looks like 7.5:1 might be the magic number, so with 3 limpers it'a a SB auto-call.

[Roman]

calling all ins to end the action and calling raises/completing are very different.

[CurryLover]

This post caught my eye because I've just got busted out of a Turbo Satellite due to 'playing the odds' a la Harrington. I was 2nd chip leader with 57 players left, and 42 players won places so I should have just kept it snug and tried to sneak my way in I guess. But since I've read HOH I've been looking out for these good odds opportunities and unfortunately 2 came in a row and I went from being in excellent shape to being busted out. Have a look at what happened and tell me what you think:

Hand 1:
Blinds 2000/4000 + running ante 200
Me: Big Blind with 38242 in chips
Opponent: UTG+1 with 9180 in chips
UTG passes. Opponent raises UTG+1 to 8980 and is all-in
Everyone passes round to me in the BB. I have already put 4000 in the pot and it's only another 4980 to call. I have 9s 6c, but I'm getting better than 3/1 pot odds so I started to think:
1. If I knew my opponent had overcards I am 2/1 and I'm getting 3/1 pot odds so I should call.
2. If I knew he had a pair lower than 99 I am around 2.5/1 so I should call.
3. If I knew he had a pair 99 or above I'm in bad shape with only around 6/1 odds so I should pass.
I wasn't able to do the maths to work out the relative chances of each holding, but since I was only in terrible shape against 6 hands (99 through AA) I decided I 'had the odds' to call. Added to this was the fact that he was short stacked and in the BB the hand after next so he could be pushing with pretty much any two cards...

I called. He had AJo. It stood up and my opponent won a nice 21560 pot.

Hand 2:
Very next hand. Antes went up to 3000/6000 with 300 ante
Me: SB with 29062 in chips
Opponent 1: BB with 5154 in chips (i.e. all in for less than the BB - 4854 after he has posted the ante)
Opponent 2: CO with 19122 in chips

Everyone passes to CO who flat called the 6000. The button passed so it was 3000 to me. I had 85o. I briefly considered raising since I thought the CO limping in this situation was a very weak play and that he'd probably fold allowing me a freeroll against the all-in BB. Then I had a word with myself and forgot about that idea. But I still decided that I 'had the odds' to call the bet and that it wasn't even close. I had to call 3000 into a pot of around 15000 so I was getting 5/1 pot odds. I decided that Action Dan would tell me to call for the pot odds so I did.

Flop came Ts 6s 8d, giving me middle pair. Then I went all perculiar and decided I would win the tiny side pot with an all-in raise on the strength of middle pair. I pushed in all 22762 of my chips and the CO went into his time bank. Finally he chose to call all-in for 12822 with 7h Ah (a gutshot + overcard). The turn brought an Ace of course and suddenly I'd gone from 2nd chip leader to a short stack.

Just to finish off, next hand I was on button with less than 10000 chips. Folded round to me and I pushed with QJo. The SB called with T4o and busted me when he hit a 4 on the flop.

Okay, so I played the 85o hand terribly after the flop. But pre-HOH I would have folded both hands pre-flop, especially considering the fact that I was 2nd chip leader and I only needed to scrape into 42nd place to qualify. So I guess Harrington's advice can cause a lot of trouble for two reasons:
1. It creates big opportunities to go wrong post-flop. More importantly:

2. It can cause a big drain on your chips. I lost more than 1/8 of my stack in the first hand by following Harrington's advice - and I think my play there was 'correct'. If I had played the second hand correctly I would not have lost any more post flop of course (that's my own fault) but I would still have lost 10% of my stack through playing the odds. So, forgetting about the poor post flop play on the second hand, these two 'value calls' would have cost me around 20% of my stack.

What are people's thoughts on this? Should you ignore Harrington's advice in the situation I was in (i.e. big stack in a tournament that I was not aiming to win, just to reach 42nd place)?

Please don't criticise my post flop play ... I know.

[MonkeeMan]

Hand 1: 4980 is 13% of your stack. (Forget that you have put 4000 in the pot, that is not part of the decision process at this point)

Hand 2: 3000 is 11.6% of your stack.

And that is the problem. You are putting a lot of your chips in play with 96o and 85o, non-suited two-gappers. With that much going in, I think you need something more substantial, like AXs or suited connectors. I need to check some examples in HoH and see what the stack %'s are.