in the money decision

[sluttysteve]

Relatively new to SNGs, so bear with me... this is on Party 10+1.

Three players left, my stack is around 2500, big stack has 4800 and little stack has 700 left. I'm in BB, big stack raises all in, little stack in SB folds, I hold AQo.

Fold/Call?

[Phill S]

its a toughy to do, but id fold.

your basicly garanteed 2nd. if the stacks were reversed id call for sure. and im sure he has nothing, but its too likely to make you a loser for my liking.

if your say 75% fave, its still a 1 in 4 chance your walking in 3rd.

dont do shortstack a favor here, fold it up. heads up is where you need to take this guy on. no reason to run for it at the moment.

Phill

[krille]

[ QUOTE ]
Relatively new to SNGs, so bear with me... this is on Party 10+1.

Three players left, my stack is around 2500, big stack has 4800 and little stack has 700 left. I'm in BB, big stack raises all in, little stack in SB folds, I hold AQo.

Fold/Call?

[/ QUOTE ]

Since he moves in he has almost definately got a low/medium pocket pair. An instant fold for ýou.

[chill888]

Easy fold... if he flashes 72o i'd still probably fold as you are only a 70% favourite. No biggie. NEXT HAND

gl

[poboy]

I'm going to take the opposite stance, just for arguments sake. Though I myself would rarely make this call, here are some reasons why I think it's not a terrible thing to do so:

1> Chances are good that he is just stealing and has a mediocre hand. Even if he's not there aren't many hands that AQ is a huge dog against.
2> If you win you will have the large stack and will have an easier time heads-up and certainly have 2cd locked up.
3> If you lose there really isn't that big of a difference between 2cd and 3rd payouts
4> The short stack could double or triple up at any time, making your guaranteed 2cd not so guaranteed.
5> If you do win, the other players will be less likely to bluff at you, because you've already shown a willingness to bust em.

With all that said I'd probably still fold.

[willperkins]

I fold. I do not want to do battle with the big stack unless I have to. If I have to do battle with him, I want to be the aggressor. I would fold and fight another day.

[ilya]

What are the blinds? If they are somehow still level 1-5, it's an easy fold.

Otherwise, I think it's pretty damn close, tilting slightly towards fold if the blinds are 150/300 and towards call as the blinds rise further to 300/600.
Let's imagine you have 2200 left after posting the big blind and you fold. Then, let's pretend that you magically have 0% chance of finishing 3rd, and that you thus have a 70% chance of finishing 2nd and a 30% chance of finishing 1st.
Your EV then would be 100*0.275 + 60*0.725 = 71

Now let's imagine that you call and win 50% of the time. Now you're out in 3rd 50% of the time and the other half the time you have 5150. Again, let's assume that if you call and win your chances of finishing 3rd are 0% (this would now be much closer to being accurate). Your 1st/2nd breakdown would be 64%/36%. So your EV for those times you win against the big stack is 85.75
Thus, if you call and win half the time (and magically can't finish 3rd) your EV is 40*0.5 + 85.75*0.5 = 62.875

71 is a lot more than 62.875 so it looks like an easy fold. But remember, we assumed that you had 0% chance of placing 3rd in both cases. This is very close to being correct in the 2nd case (you call and win), but appreciably off in the 1st case (you fold and now have 2350 to the small stack's 550). Also remember that we assumed you were only 50/50 to win the hand if you called. In reality, I suspect you're no worse than a 55/45 favorite against the big stack's probable range of hands. So in reality, I think it's quite close. You might even want to consider that calling is likely to speed the game up.

Now let's imagine the blinds are 300/600. At first glance, it looks like an easier fold because it's so extremely unlikely that you will get 3rd if you fold. But...the blinds have made the pot much sweeter. Let's repeat the calculations with the same assumptions (0% chance of placing 3rd if you fold/call&win, linear EV for heads-up, 50% win chance if you call).

Case 1, you fold --
(1900/8000)*100 + (6100/8000)*60 = 23.75 + 45.75 = 69.5.
A touch worse than the first case since the big blind has taken a bigger chunk out of your stack.

Case 2, you call --
50% 40
50% (5300/8000)100 + (3700/8000)60 = 66.25 + 27.75 = 94

0.5*40 + 0.5*94 = 67!


69.5 vs. 67...it still looks like you should fold, especially since in this scenario the chance of finishing 3rd in case 1 is much closer to the 0% assumption than when the blinds are 150/300...
but...with the blinds this high, you're even more likely to have the best hand when you call (since even the big stack is <10xbb). You're probably better than 55/45 against his range of hands here.

Let's say you are exactly 55/45

Then, the 2nd case calculation becomes

40*0.45 + 94*0.55 = 69.7. That means you should call!


To sum up, with blinds at 150/300 and higher this seems to be an extremely close decision. Personally, I would call at 150/300 and above.

[SmileyEH]

call and its not even close.

-SmileyEH

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Relatively new to SNGs, so bear with me... this is on Party 10+1.

Three players left, my stack is around 2500, big stack has 4800 and little stack has 700 left. I'm in BB, big stack raises all in, little stack in SB folds, I hold AQo.

Fold/Call?

[/ QUOTE ]

You left out a critical piece of information. What's the blinds?

eastbay

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Relatively new to SNGs, so bear with me... this is on Party 10+1.

Three players left, my stack is around 2500, big stack has 4800 and little stack has 700 left. I'm in BB, big stack raises all in, little stack in SB folds, I hold AQo.

Fold/Call?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say you fold. I'll assume for the sake of argument that big stack picks up 300 in blinds to make it:

2500
5100
700

in which case your equity is about 34% of the prize pool by the independent chip model.

Let's say you call, and for the sake of argument let's say he's on one of: any pair, any ace, KQs-KTs. You're about 58% to win the hand. If you win, you double through and have 41% equity (by ICM), if you lose, you go out in 3rd with 20% equity.

(.58)(.41) +(1-.58)(.20) = .238 +.084 = .322

With these assumptions, you lose equity by calling.

If you can put him on any two cards, your edge is .64, in which case you get:

(.64)(.41) +(.36)(.2) = .262 +.072 = .334

Wow. You still lose equity by calling. Can someone check my math here? It's late, and this latter result surprises me.

In the absolute best case scenario, if he's on any ace, your edge is 67%:

(.67)(.41) +(.33)(.2) = .34

In which case you break even by calling! Ok, I admit I am very surprised by this result, and would appreciate a critical eye on it.

eastbay