The flip side of dominating the bubble

[adanthar]

This is from today's 20K Guaranteed rebuy. With 1K/2K blinds, I have 14K in MP1, but the table is short and only the blinds and UTG+1 (who's got 60K but has been playing far too tight) have me covered.

55 people are left; the tournament pays 50, but it's $180 for 50'th, 328 for 10'th (!) and 8K for first.

UTG+1 now opens for 6K. He has been playing tight enough so that this is probably something like AA-99, AK-AQ. What is the minimum hand you need to push over him in order to be +$EV?

What if he is opening AA-22, any ace, any two Broadway, and suited connectors down to 76s?

[Lloyd]

With no folding equity you're risking 14k to win 17k so you're getting 1.2 to 1 odds. If nobody entered the pot you'd need AA-TT, AK and even TT is just barely a +EV play. Factor in others left to act and I'd probably push AA-JJ, AK. But that's because of you're read that he's really tight.

Open it up to AA-22, any ace, any two broadway and suited connectors down to 76s: you can definitely open it up quite a bit. If I were last to act calling with any pair, any suited Ace, AK-A7o, KQ, KJs, QJs would be neutral or better. With others left to act I'd probably push with AA-88, AK-AT, KQ. The biggest problem with this hand is position.

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
+EV play

[/ QUOTE ]

Let me clarify what I mean: pushing TT is barely +cEV but it is unquestionably and not at all closely -$EV.

Similarly, if you call his top 50% or whatever raise with Axs given the very flat payout, you are playing bad. I think I know how to prove it, it's just pretty difficult since my math education kinda blows.

[adanthar]

Followup: You have 5 BB UTG in a Super, which pays 1.5 buyins for the last paying spot but has a fairly steep payout increase from there. There are 2-3 people left to go until the money, so you won't make it if you bust this hand. What is the minimum hand that it is +$EV to push? What if you had 8 BB?

(BTW there is definitely a math-based solution for all of these, I just can't do it although I can approximately guess what it is)

[ekky]

[ QUOTE ]
What if he is opening AA-22, any ace, any two Broadway, and suited connectors down to 76s?

[/ QUOTE ]

You also need to include what hands of this range he calls with if you jam... which again is read dependant. Once you have all the conditions, its an EV calculation (although I am a little fuzzy how to make it so it includes $EV as well as simply cEV)

[adanthar]

He'll be getting 3:1 with no overcalls, so assume he's calling all of it.

[durron597]

[ QUOTE ]
He'll be getting 3:1 with no overcalls, so assume he's calling all of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would imagine that you should push any hand that's +cEV against the range (which you can figure out with pokerstove).

If you double up+blinds here you should be able to dominate this table for the rest of the bubble. Plus this tournament's payout is SO steep that there really is no real difference between cEV and $EV, even on the bubble.

[ekky]

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Plus this tournament's payout is SO steep that there really is no real difference between cEV and $EV, even on the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. The flatter the payout structure, the more inclination there is to survive and *move up a notch*.. therefore there will be a noticable chipEV--->$EV differential.

The steeper a payout structure gets, the lesser the difference between chip/$ev decisions.. until you get to the pathological case of winner-take-all.. where the chip values are linear.

[Lloyd]

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Plus this tournament's payout is SO steep that there really is no real difference between cEV and $EV, even on the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. The flatter the payout structure, the more inclination there is to survive and *move up a notch*.. therefore there will be a noticable chipEV--->$EV differential.

The steeper a payout structure gets, the lesser the difference between chip/$ev decisions.. until you get to the pathological case of winner-take-all.. where the chip values are linear.

[/ QUOTE ]
I believe you and Durron are making the exact opposite point. Durron, I believe, is saying that because you make so little money by just squeaking into the money that you can almost ignore the fact you are getting paid anything. Therefore, if a decision is +CEV you should go ahead and make it.

I tend to agree with this thinking. At the very least, doubling up probably more than doubles your chances of going deeper into the tournament IF you know what to do with the extra chips (which a lot of players simply don't).

[adanthar]

[ QUOTE ]
If you double up+blinds here you should be able to dominate this table for the rest of the bubble. Plus this tournament's payout is SO steep that there really is no real difference between cEV and $EV, even on the bubble.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, first things first: on these bubbles, you can dominate the table whenever you cover everyone behind you. The number of your chips is kinda irrelevant as long as they can't call, so you don't *need* a double up to do this.

Second, the math is fairly simple to figure out: what you want, I believe, is to take your *current* $EV and examine what happens to it after you purposefully put yourself all in.

Looking back at today's tourney, I find that there are around 1,200,000 chips in play, so the average at the time was around 22,000. The prize pool was $33,000, which, divided by 55, is $600. Therefore, since a 22K stack is worth $600, a 14K stack now has an $EV of ~$380. (It's more or less linear up to this point, but if you go any lower the EV will precipitously drop unless your goal is to fold in.)

*However*, the minute the bubble bursts, all 50 remaining players will be guaranteed at least $180. Thus, a few hands from now, with $9,000 removed from the pool, an average stack of a little under 25,000 will be worth $480 and a 14K stack will be worth ~$270.

This is where my math skills give out and I can't figure out how to proceed. But what I am intuitively guessing is that you need $110 worth of cEV overlay - the gap between the two numbers - in order to push with no folding equity, not including the times when somebody else pushes behind you (so the actual number is higher.) Also note that when the lowest rung of the ladder is very low in relation to the overall payouts - such as in the Super - far less money is removed from the pool and the gap is much lower, meaning you should push more hands.

Somebody else can finish it from here, but I believe, *given the original read*, my gut instinct is correct and you should be giving serious thought to folding jacks in that spot. I can't do the altered read example on the fly, but I believe Axs/QJ are both much too loose and calling with 22 is really *really* terrible.